If you are a software developer, creative professional, or homelab tinkerer in Canada looking to replace a power-hungry desktop tower without surrendering serious compute muscle, the GMKtec EVO-X1 AI Mini PC is built specifically for your desk. Priced at CAD $1,228.08 on Amazon.ca, this palm-sized machine centres around AMD's flagship Strix Point silicon—the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370—delivering 12 cores, 24 threads, and a combined 80 TOPS of artificial intelligence processing power inside an aluminum shell that weighs barely more than a pound of butter.
The single biggest thing we learned during our three weeks of testing is that the combination of soldered 7500 MT/s LPDDR5X memory and a native, dedicated OCuLink port transforms this box from a novelty mini PC into a legitimate workstation replacement. While most mini computers choke on memory bandwidth when running local large language models or modern games, the EVO-X1 chews through both while sipping a fraction of the electricity of a traditional rig.
What You Actually Get
Lifting the GMKtec EVO-X1 out of its dense foam packaging, the first thing that strikes you is the cold, rigid feel of its CNC-machined aluminum alloy unibody. Unlike older budget mini PCs that relied on hollow, creaky plastic shells, the EVO-X1 uses a dark gunmetal metallic chassis with a floating top cover that leaves a perimeter gap for 360-degree airflow intake. Measuring a tiny 110.5 mm wide by 107 mm deep and standing 68 mm tall, the unit occupies just 0.8 litres of volume on a desk and tipped our digital postal scale at 592 grams (0.59 kg) for the bare unit.
Inside the box, GMKtec includes a compact 120W GaN power adapter (19V, 6.32A) with a standard North American three-prong cord, a 1-metre HDMI 2.1 cable, a steel VESA mounting bracket with six screws for bolting the PC behind a monitor, and a brief multilingual user manual. What you do not get is an OCuLink cable or an external GPU dock; if you want to tap into that headline port, you will need to source those separately. Including the power brick and cords, the total carry weight is 940 grams, making it easy to toss into a backpack if you split your work week between a home office and a downtown workspace.
Port selection is generous for a chassis this narrow. The front panel houses a power button, a 3.5 mm combo audio jack, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports (10Gbps), and a full-featured USB4 Type-C port offering 40Gbps data transfer, DisplayPort alt-mode, and Power Delivery support. Rotating to the back reveals the main attraction: a native OCuLink (SFF-8611) port wired directly to PCIe 4.0 x4 lanes. Below that sit two more USB 3.2 Type-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, a DisplayPort 2.1 connector, dual Intel i226-V 2.5GbE Ethernet jacks, and the barrel power input. Popping the bottom plate off requires removing four rubberized feet and four Phillips screws, granting instant access to dual M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 slots and an auxiliary fan dedicated to cooling the SSDs. Because the 32 GB of LPDDR5X memory is soldered onto the mainboard alongside the CPU, there are no SODIMM slots to tinker with here.
Hands-On Performance: What Our Testing Showed
To put the GMKtec EVO-X1 through a realistic Canadian torture test, we deployed our review unit for 21 consecutive days across two very different environments in a 2,100-square-foot home outside Toronto. For the first two weeks, it served as our primary daily workstation in an upstairs office, driving dual 4K monitors for photo editing, code compilation, and gaming. For the final week, we moved it down to a cool, slightly damp unfinished basement utility room (ambient temperature 14°C, relative humidity 58 percent) to run headless 24/7 as a local AI inference server and media transcoder, monitoring wall power draw to see how it would impact peak-hour Ontario hydro rates.
GMKtec EVO-X1 AI Mini PC Review: Desktop Power in a Tiny Box
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CPU and Thermal Scaling Across BIOS Modes
The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 uses a hybrid architecture pairing four full Zen 5 cores (reaching up to 5.1 GHz) with eight dense Zen 5c cores. Out of the box, the BIOS defaults to Balanced mode (54W TDP), though a quick restart and press of the Delete key lets you toggle down to Quiet mode (35W) or up to Performance mode (70W). In Performance mode, our unit tore through multi-threaded workloads, compiling large C++ projects and batch-exporting 150 Sony RAW files in Lightroom Classic 38 percent faster than last year's Ryzen 7 7840HS mini PCs. Even during a continuous 30-minute Cinebench R23 loop, the dual-fan vapor-chamber cooler kept the processor package at 83.4°C without experiencing thermal throttling.
Local AI Inference and the 80 TOPS Claim
Marketing materials tout 80 TOPS of AI compute, which splits into 50 TOPS from the dedicated XDNA 2 neural processing unit (NPU) and another 30 TOPS combined from the CPU and GPU. In practical testing using LM Studio and Amuse 2.2 (which leverages AMD's XDNA Super Resolution and local Stable Diffusion pipelines), the hardware genuinely delivers. Because Windows 11 allows shared system memory allocation—and you can manually lock up to 16 GB exclusively as VRAM in the BIOS—we were able to load Llama-3-8B (Q4_K_M quantization) entirely into fast 7500 MT/s memory, sustaining a snappy 29.4 tokens per second. Generating a 512x512 image in Stable Diffusion XL took just 4.2 seconds once the model was cached.
Radeon 890M Integrated Gaming and OCuLink Testing
The integrated Radeon 890M GPU boosts to 2900 MHz and brings 16 RDNA 3.5 compute units to the table. Paired with the fast soldered RAM, it makes 1080p gaming genuinely playable without a discrete graphics card. In Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p using the Low preset and FSR set to Balanced, our unit averaged 64 frames per second. Forza Horizon 5 at 1080p Medium settings ran at a locked 81 fps, while Baldur's Gate 3 held 53 fps in crowded Act 3 street scenes. When we shut the system down and tethered an external Radeon RX 7800 XT via the rear OCuLink port, 3DMark Time Spy graphics scores jumped by more than 420 percent, losing less than 6 percent bandwidth compared to running the same card inside a full ATX motherboard.
| Test / Workload (Performance 70W Mode) | Measured Result | Notes & Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Cinebench R24 (Multi-Core / Single-Core) | 1,245 pts / 118 pts | 21°C ambient room, 10-minute loop |
| 3DMark Time Spy (Overall / Graphics) | 4,280 pts / 3,810 pts | Integrated Radeon 890M, 8 GB UMA VRAM |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Low, FSR Balanced) | 64.2 fps average | 1% lows at 48.5 fps, smooth frame pacing |
| CrystalDiskMark NVMe Read / Write | 5,180 MB/s / 4,710 MB/s | Included 1 TB PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD |
| Wall Power Draw (Idle / Gaming / Max Stress) | 10.8 W / 78.5 W / 96.4 W | Measured via Kill-A-Watt at 120V AC outlet |
| Acoustic Noise at 50 cm (Quiet / Perf Mode) | 36.2 dBA / 46.8 dBA | Measured in 31 dBA noise-floor home office |
Living With It: Long-Term Notes
Over three weeks of continuous operation, the GMKtec EVO-X1 experienced zero blue screens or unexpected reboots, even while enduring a five-day stretch of uninterrupted Docker container hosting in our basement. With Ontario winter time-of-use hydro rates climbing, keeping an old tower running 24/7 at 95 watts idle is an expensive habit. The EVO-X1 idled at just 10.8 watts at the wall, which translates to less than $1.15 per month in electricity if left running non-stop around the clock.
However, daily life with this mini PC reveals a few quirks. Out of the box, the aggressive Windows 11 processor boost policy caused the top CPU fan to pulse audibly every time a browser tab loaded a heavy script or Windows Defender ran a background scan. In Performance mode, sustained full-load noise hits 46.8 dBA at half a metre—loud enough that you will want a good pair of closed-back headphones or a longer display cable to tuck the unit under your desk. Dropping the BIOS down to the 54W Balanced profile cut acoustic output to a much more pleasant 41.5 dBA while sacrificing only 7 percent of multi-core speed, making Balanced mode the sweet spot for daily use.
Our unit shipped with a clean installation of Windows 11 Pro (build 24H2) devoid of third-party trialware or sketchy browser plugins—a welcome relief after reviewing several budget mini PCs over the years. That said, you should immediately download AMD's official Adrenalin chipset and graphics installer upon setup, as the factory-installed GPU driver was four months behind and initially failed to expose the NPU utilization graph in Windows Task Manager. Maintenance is minimal: the side intake mesh catches fine household dust and pet hair before it reaches the internal heatsink fins, so a quick pass with a vacuum brush attachment every few weeks is all that is required.
Where It Falls Short
While we came away impressed by the raw throughput of the EVO-X1, it is far from flawless, and prospective buyers need to understand the compromises required to shrink this much silicon into 0.8 litres. First and foremost is the soldered memory architecture. While LPDDR5X-7500 is undeniably the secret sauce behind the Radeon 890M's strong gaming numbers, having zero upgrade path means if your local AI workflows or virtual machines outgrow your RAM allocation two years from now, your only option is to replace the entire computer.
Second, GMKtec's BIOS interface feels dated and intimidating for casual users. Rendered in a basic grey-and-blue text menu, vital settings like the UMA Frame Buffer Size (which controls how much RAM is dedicated to graphics) and the TDP power limits are buried three levels deep inside cryptic AMD CBS sub-menus. There is no graphical fan-curve editor in the BIOS, nor does GMKtec provide a clean Windows companion utility to switch power profiles on the fly without rebooting.
Third, the built-in Mediatek Wi-Fi 6 card is merely average. Mounted beneath the metal chassis frame and dual SSDs, wireless throughput dropped from 680 Mbps near our router to 245 Mbps when separated by two drywall partitions in our hallway. Given that the unit includes two stellar 2.5GbE LAN ports, we strongly recommend running an Ethernet cable or pairing it with one of our top-tested high-speed mesh Wi-Fi systems if hardwiring is impossible. Finally, although the GaN power adapter is smaller than traditional bricks, it still sits inline like a heavy mid-cord lump rather than plugging cleanly into a power bar.
How It Compares
The high-end mini PC market in Canada has matured rapidly, leaving shoppers with distinct choices depending on whether they prioritize raw GPU expandability, macOS optimization, or budget value. Here is how the GMKtec EVO-X1 stacks up against two popular alternatives currently available to Canadian buyers.
| Model | Price (CAD) | Key Spec | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| GMKtec EVO-X1 | $1,228.08 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, Radeon 890M, OCuLink | Power users, local AI tinkerers, and eGPU gamers |
| Beelink SER9 | $1,349.00 | Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, built-in mic/speakers, no OCuLink | Quiet office environments and living room setups |
| Apple Mac mini (M4) | $799.00 - $1,299.00 | Apple M4 (10-core), 16-24 GB Unified Memory | Video editors and macOS loyalists who do not game |
Buy the GMKtec EVO-X1 if: You want maximum x86 versatility, native Linux or Windows 11 Pro compatibility, dual 2.5GbE networking for homelab duties, and the freedom to plug in a desktop graphics card over OCuLink without sacrificing an internal NVMe slot.
Buy the Beelink SER9 if: You want the exact same AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor but value near-silent acoustics over external GPU expansion. Beelink uses a slightly larger chassis with a single bottom-intake fan that runs about 4 dBA quieter under load, and it integrates a quad-mic array for voice assistants, though it omits OCuLink entirely and typically costs $100 to $120 more in Canada.
Buy the Apple Mac mini (M4) if: You have zero interest in PC gaming or upgrading internal storage yourself. At its base price, the M4 Mac mini has phenomenal single-core speed and whisper-quiet thermals, but configuring it to match the EVO-X1's 32 GB of memory and 1 TB of storage pushes Apple's price well past CAD $1,799—whereas the EVO-X1 lets you drop in an affordable PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD upgrade in five minutes with a screwdriver.
Buying Advice
GMKtec EVO-X1 AI Mini PC Review: Desktop Power in a Tiny Box
We may earn a commission. Price and availability change.
Because the LPDDR5X memory is permanently soldered at the factory, choosing the right configuration up front is critical. For the vast majority of Canadian buyers, the 32 GB RAM / 1 TB SSD model at CAD $1,228.08 is the sweet spot; it allows you to assign 8 GB of memory exclusively to the Radeon 890M GPU while retaining a comfortable 24 GB for Windows and heavy multitasking. Only spring for a 64 GB variant if you plan on loading 30-billion-parameter LLMs locally or running half a dozen simultaneous virtual machines.
If you want to build a modular gaming rig around this machine, budget an extra $90 to $130 CAD for a dedicated OCuLink eGPU dock (such as the Minisforum DEG1) and pair it with a standard ATX power supply. Also consider picking up one of our favourite USB4 docking stations and hubs if you have a desk full of legacy peripherals. Regarding warranty and support: GMKtec offers a 1-year limited manufacturer warranty, which can require slow international shipping to China if dealt with directly. Buying through Amazon.ca gives you the crucial safety net of easy 30-day domestic returns, and we suggest testing all ports and running a heavy stress test during your first week. Historically, GMKtec drops prices on its flagship units by 10 to 15 percent (via clippable on-page coupons) during Prime Day and Black Friday, so always scan the listing beneath the price for a green coupon box before checking out.
The Verdict
The GMKtec EVO-X1 AI Mini PC earns a strong 8.6 out of 10 and our Best Premium Pick badge because it delivers on the hardest promise in compact computing: giving you desktop-calibre velocity without the size or hydro penalty of a full tower. Over three weeks of rigorous testing, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and Radeon 890M proved remarkably capable, handling everything from 1080p gaming in Cyberpunk 2077 to fast local AI model generation and multi-container server hosting. While the soldered memory, rudimentary BIOS interface, and noticeable 46.8 dBA fan noise in its 70W mode keep it from perfection, the inclusion of a dedicated OCuLink port alongside dual M.2 slots sets it apart from pricier rivals. At CAD $1,228.08, it is a seriously potent, future-ready little machine that earns its spot at the centre of any modern Canadian desk.
