GMKtec NucBox M2

What owners say

Four reviewers had the NucBox M2 with the Core i7-11390H, a 2021 laptop chip in a small metal box, and they agree it is quiet in ordinary use and not for gaming. At idle it is mostly inaudible; under load the fan spins up quickly and noticeably, with an odd whoosh close up that is barely noticeable from a normal distance. The processor sits around 60 °C in everyday use. Identical-looking ports run at different speeds: the two front USB-A ports are 10 Gbps, while at the back one is 5 Gbps and one only USB 2.0, and the single USB-C port is 5 Gbps. Four small screws under the feet, easy to lose, open it to the memory slots, the M.2 2280 drive and a free 2242 slot; the base looks built for a 2.5-inch drive, but there is no SATA connector. The factory SSD varies from unit to unit. Emulation is its strength: almost every system up to the Wii U ran at full speed in Batocera, and PS3 reached about 90% with glitches. DaVinci Resolve struggled with 1440p footage. GMKtec distributes its drivers through a Google Drive link, which one reviewer calls untrustworthy, and first-boot updates took over twenty minutes. There is only one network port.

For whom

A quiet desktop, conference-room PC or emulation box, bought as a barebone.

Not for

Gaming, video editing above 1080p, and firewall builds — it has a single network port.

Our own summary of 5 published sources, reviewed Sep 23, 2026. We have not tested this Mini PC ourselves; the sources are listed under About this data.