It’s been a long time since I’ve had a Mini PC to play with, with Minisforum’s X35G being the last one I looked at all the way back in 2020. Sporting a 10th generation i3 under the hood, it stood as a capable low-powered device suitable for light tasks and a surprising amount of emulation. Now turning things up with a now slightly-aged 12th generation i7, how how far can we push this tiny form factor?

What’s in the Box?

Opening the box up you get a relatively standard assortment of cables and extras for a Mini PC. Naturally you have the PC itself and a power cable, but you also get a HDMI cable, VESA mounting kit, and a surprisingly useful fold-out manual. If you’ve never seen a Mini PC before, the VESA mounting kit might be something that sounds a little odd, but thanks to the compact size a lot of people do choose to pop them onto the back of their monitor for a cleaner desk space. A little unfortunately for me, all of my monitors are already mounted to arms or stands of some kind, occupying that spot. With the PC being as small as it is though, its desktop footprint is still relatively compact. The power cable that was sent to me was unfortunately a US plug due to the review sample coming from China and not a local distributor, but with the plug being in two parts, I could just swap out the standard three-circle-bit part (if somebody can tell me what this is called it will really put my mind at ease) with one I had on hand.

Looking at the PC itself, it’s actually a good bit bigger than what I was expecting; not necessarily in length and width, but in height. It still very much falls into the size category of a Mini PC, but I assume they just needed that extra space for cooling to keep the system running at its best. In terms of IO I doubt you’ll be wanting for much. On the front you get two USB 3.2 gen 2 type A ports, with one of them capable of power delivery, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. Following it around to the left side we see a full-sized SD card reader, and on the other side you have an anti-theft keyhole. The back is where you’ll find most of your ports, with another two USB type As, with one being 2.0 and the other being 3.2 gen 2. After that you get a 2.5G ethernet port, two HDMI 2.0 ports, two USB4 ports, and finally a DC barrel connector for power. Each port is marked with a symbol for you to easily differentiate between things like the power delivery-enabled USB A on the front of the system, but I really am grateful that there’s a full two page spread dedicated to saying what each of these symbols actually mean in the manual. It’s a great selection of IO all things considered, with the only notable omission being a DisplayPort connection. It’s not that big of a deal though with HDMI likely being the preferred connector for most, and the USB4s being capable of outputting to DisplayPort if that is a requirement.

With a spare 2.5 inch drive lying around, I figured I’d get the PC opened before I did anything else to install it into the relevant vacant slot. It was a really easy experience. Each of the four rubber feet house an attached screw, and removing those is enough to make prying the bottom of the case easy. Beneath here you get instant access to not just the aforementioned connector, but also the board that houses the two M.2 slots (one 2280 PCIe Gen 4 x4 and one 2242 SATA), and the two SODIMM DDR4 RAM slots. The variant I’m looking at comes with a 1TB 2280 SSD installed, as well as 32GB of RAM via two 16GB sticks. I love how easy it is to open and upgrade these, especially if you’re opting to grab a model that comes with less RAM and storage to make use of what you have lying around. I feel like there was a missed opportunity to sell a barebones model that lets users save a bit more by providing everything, but it’s not the end of the world. It’s also a bit of a shame for me personally that it’s running with DDR4 RAM. If it did support the faster DDR5, I’d have been able to have a bit of fun and load it up with two 32GB sticks I have on hand and see how many Chrome tabs I could have open.

If you’re interested in the full spec sheet for the device, I’ve included it below. Note where there are spec variations I've bolded the one being featured in the review.

Size: 117 x 112 x 45.6 mm
Weight:  652 g
CPU:

• 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-12650H (10 Cores, 16 Threads, 24 MB cache, up to 4.70 GHz)
• 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-12450H (8 Cores, 12 Threads, 12MB Cache, up to 4.40 GHz)

Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics for 12th Gen Intel Processors
Memory: Dual-channel DDR4-3200 SODIMM, 16GB/32GB, expandable up to 64GB
Storage:

• 1 x M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD, 512GB or 1TB onboard, expandable up to 2TB
• 1 x M.2 2242 SATA SSD slot, expandable up to 1TB
• 1 x 2.5" SATA HDD (7mm) slot, expandable up to 2TB

Operating System: Windows 11 Pro
Bluetooth® Wireless Technology: Bluetooth® v5.2
Ethernet: Intel® 10/100/1000/2500 Mbps RJ45
Wireless LAN: Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX211
Kensington Lock: Yes
Adapter: 19V power adapter, 90W, with geo-specific AC cord (IEC C5)
I/O Ports :

• 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports
• 1 x USB 2.0 port
• 2 x USB4 ports
• 1 x SD card reader
• 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack
• 1 x 2.5GbE LAN port
• 2 x HDMI 2.0 ports
• 1 x DC jack
• 1 x Power button

What’s In The Box

• 1 x Mini IT12 Mini PC
• 1 x VESA Mount
• 1 x Power Adapter
• 1 x HDMI Cable
• 1 x User Guide
• 1 x Thank You Card

Starting Out and Opening Up

With no spare DDR4 sticks and no 2242 M.2 SSDs on hand, I closed the system back up after throwing in a 2.5 inch drive. After that I got it turned on and set it up as you would any other Windows 11 PC. A fun workaround for people not fond of setting up an online account is to use the email address “[email protected]” with any password. Apparently people have failed to log into the account enough times that Microsoft just gave up, and the system moves you onto making a local profile. I personally don’t have an issue signing in though, so went with that option instead. With all the checkboxes unticked and a short wait, Windows was ready.

I was pretty happy to see that it was a stock experience waiting for me. With Windows 11 you do unfortunately get some pre-installed bloat regardless, but that was all gone within ten minutes. The IT12 booted fast and was responsive out of the gate; you probably would expect that for a fresh setup though. After using it for a few weeks, the only real oddity I picked up on was the fact that some standard Microsoft apps like Notepad and Paint uses the Japanese locale when saving. The rest of the UI is all in English which makes it all the more strange. In all likelihood this is less something this PC is doing as much as something I’ve done myself without realising, but it’s worth pointing out all the same. I was also pretty aware of the fan noise coming from the small box. It’s definitely audible, even on the “Balanced” power plan. If it keeps things cool it’s not so much of an issue to me, but I do understand some people struggle to tune it out.

Power in a Small Profile

In terms of performance, the i7 12650H is definitely a solid CPU. Running it through Geekbench 6 it averaged 2370 on single-core and 9818 on multi-core performance, with scores of 1742 and 9218 on average for Cinebench R23’s single and multi-core tests respectively. The single core performance is pretty close to the i9 12900H in my ROG Flow Z13, with it testing slightly better in Geekbench and slightly worse in Cinebench. It is around 20% worse when comparing multi-core scores though. Test numbers are one thing, but the reality of it is that this is basically that kind of CPU you would be seeing in a 2022 ultrabook. At this point it is slightly older, but it definitely does hold up to your day to day tasks. I hear you though, what about gaming?

Now my tests aren’t exactly scientific, but I downloaded a few favourites of mine on Steam that demand a varying amount of power: Monster Hunter Rise, Monster Hunter World, Armored Core 6, and Elden Ring. Of these, it probably won’t be a surprise to find out that Rise runs pretty well. It’s a game developed for the Switch after all. Running around on the DLC Citadel map I saw framerates hovering between 40 and 50fps on medium settings, and going between 80 and 100 when on low. It’s worth noting all the games here were played at 1080p. Low settings on PC are around what you would expect the Switch version to look like; personally I’d be really happy playing this on medium settings with a 30fps cap on to keep things stable.

Moving onto Monster Hunter World, things are understandably a bit less consistent. The title screen booted to a blistering 10fps as it loaded my regular PC’s settings. Getting past that though and sticking it onto low, it surprised me to see a very respectable 35 to 45fps on the Coral Highlands. If you’re happy to turn down the resolution a touch, you could definitely push it higher too. Again this is something I’d have no issues slapping a 30fps cap onto and just playing normally. I did play this game for 50 or so hours at 360p on the integrated graphics of an i7 8565U laptop, so this kind of performance is something that does make me happy.

Armored Core 6 got a very respectable 30fps on low settings, and I was quite surprised at how nice it looked. Pushing it up to medium was a similar experience, but did introduce the occasional dip into the mid-20s. The biggest challenge of these was definitely Elden Ring, with it offering a slightly less stable picture when compared to Armored Core. It still hit that 30fps mark the majority of the time on low settings, but you do find hiccups happening at the worst time when it does choose to dip below. For this one I did see how it would run on a lower resolution, and found a more respectable 40 to 45fps at 720p. If you wanted to push it a little higher, you could probably get a locked 30fps at around 900p. For integrated graphics it definitely gets the job done.

Emulation is a similarly-positive story. For everything up to N64 it should go without saying that it runs flawlessly on a system like this, but I was also really happy to see GameCube running at full speed when upscaled to 1080p. Both Wind Waker and Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness ran entirely smoothly and I can really see this as a solid option for that generation of gaming. The Wii U games I tried also ran really well with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Wind Waker HD being seemingly-flawless experiences, though this shouldn't be much of a surprise with how good Wii U performance has been on handhelds for the past few years. I wasn't able to test much beyond this due to a few issues external to the PC itself, but I will note that we're currently looking into a more universal way of profiling emulation performance across different systems. Assuming we get something in place in the near-future, you can expect this PC to be revisited with a more thorough breakdown. As it stands though, I can certainly say it's capable.

To Go Further Beyond

You can of course push it further, and it’s thanks to the two USB4 ports that sit on the back of the IT12. With these ports you have the option to connect the PC not only to other monitors, but to an entire external GPU. Now I’m not out here saying you should be buying an eGPU with one of these Mini PCs; at that point you’re probably paying enough to warrant building something more powerful. For that very niche use case of people who use an eGPU as a dock and move between devices frequently though, I can see some merit. To be completely open I just have an eGPU sitting around and wanted an excuse to put it to use for once. Shucking the definitely-overkill 3070 Ti from my main PC and hooking it up, the results were… Not quite as good as I was hoping.

Running Monster Hunter Rise to start with, I saw my fps locked around 55. This was regardless of whether I’m playing on high, medium, or low (remember I was getting 80 to 100fps on integrated graphics prior on low settings). World saw vast improvements at least, jumping all the way past 100fps on low settings, and hovering around 60 on medium. Elden Ring unfortunately appeared to be bottlenecked by the CPU, with it running between 90 and 100% utilisation. Even on low settings it struggled to hit a solid 60fps even at low, with 45 to 55 on medium. You can at least get a prettier 30fps lock here, but I’m still disappointed. It’s not a setup I really expect anybody to be running who might pickup the IT12, but I really thought I’d see some better numbers.

Closing Words

Geekom’s Mini IT12 is getting on in age now with an IT13 also available and Intel's latest generation just coming to market, but manages to remain a perfectly viable package for anybody looking to pick up a performant Mini PC. Though the flavour featured in this review retails for £749, it’s currently on sale for £509 on both Geekom’s official site and Amazon via a voucher; given the age of the system I don’t expect this sale to be particularly limited. You can also knock a bit of money off if you’re happy with a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM, currently going for £479. Comparing it against similarly systems on the market, it's pretty much an even playing field. If you do want to save a bit of cash and still bag a Mini PC with the 12650H, Minisforum's UN1265 does come in at around £100 cheaper, albeit lacking the USB4 ports and coming with a two year warranty as opposed to Geekom's more generous three year offering.

If you are interested in checking out the IT12, you can find links to both the official store and Amazon pages below for the UK and US. They also sent over a code to save you £30/$30, though note this isn’t any kind of affiliate deal for us and that there’s no kickback regardless of whether you decide to use it.

UK -

• Official Store (code gbatemp30)
• Amazon (code GMIT1205)

US -

• Official Store (code gbatemp30)
• Amazon (code GMIT126OFF)