Beelink GTi 12 and EX Dock Review

Being a mini-computer connoisseur certainly has its moments, and the combination of the Beelink GTi 12 mini-computer and the EX docking station was a lot of fun for me. I mean, look at this! Who is this crazy, half-naked PC aimed at? I’m pretty sure I’ve found the answer, but before we start planting flags, let’s take a look at this.

I look at it from different angles, trying to understand its form. It presents a mass of shapes; something like a gray, brutalist building made of stairs, blocks and shelves. If you threw it in the center of East Berlin around 1955 and hung the words “STASI HQ” on the front, passersby wouldn’t blink an eye.

The eastern wing of this compact military-industrial complicated is the Beelink GTi 12 itself, a minicomputer powered by an Intel i9-12900H processor. This is the Alder Lake APU; it’s a few generations elderly now, but it’s still rock solid, delivering 5GHz turbo speeds with a maximum power draw of 65W across six performance cores and eight efficiency cores. Compared to Intel 13^vol and 14^vol-gen ride-or-die Watt-gobblers, are a reasonable and reliable choice of mini-PC chips.

It comes with an Iris Xe iGPU (oh, gross, I know, but don’t worry about not using it), 32GB of DDR5 4800MHz memory (the top RAM speed for the 12900H), and a demonstrably brisk 1TB .2 SSD.

Its casing is larger for now, but the internal space has been well utilized, especially in the cooling department. Utilizing all cores to the max with Prime95, it remains incredibly silent, drawing a reasonable 65W and maintaining a cozy 76°C. Open the lid and you’ll also find a pair of compact speakers; barely hi-fi, but they’re capable and clear enough to play system sounds, video calls, and the odd YouTube video deleting tutorial. An internal power supply is also available, which increases the circuitry but eliminates the need for a regular external power supply.

What really sets the GTi 12 apart from other mini PCs is hidden under a compact silicone flap on the bottom: a full-size, eight-lane PCI Express 4.0 slot. Physically identical to what you see on any desktop computer, but with eight PCIe lanes instead of 16.

This slot allows the GTi 12 to be parked neatly on the side x8 PCIe terminal of the EX Dock, providing a direct connection to the dock’s full-size GPU slot. This interface supports any single-slot or dual-slot graphics card, providing twice the PCIe 4.0 bandwidth of a Thunderbolt or OCuLink dock. The GPU is powered by a silent, super-compact 600W power supply located in the dock via the included dual 8-pin power cables. The GTi 12 still uses its own internal power supply when docked, so both devices need to be plugged into a wall outlet.

Opening the dock reveals an M.2 SSD holder for storage expansion, which can be replaced with an optional M.2 wireless card holder available in the kit accessories. There are two screw-in Wi-Fi antenna ports on the outer edge of the dock for better signal reception, so if you feel the GTi 12’s internal antenna can’t handle the Wi-Fi network, you can remove its wireless card and insert it into the dock and screw down several antennas for better reception. They are not included, but they cost two cents on the Internet.

Then 600 watts of dedicated GPU power. That’s large enough for a fat boombatty, although the dock physically limits you to a two-slot card. Of course, I felt compelled to tinker, and the Beelink website clearly states that the 4090 is compatible, so I unscrewed the three-slot backplate from our Founder’s Edition RTX 4090 and connected it. NVIDIA encourages customers to employ a three-in-one 12vHPWR converter for this GPU, but with only two PCIe power slots available on the power supply, I tried the two-in-one 12vHPWR converter. Unfortunately, there’s no dice: it wouldn’t turn on the power, although I understand others have had better luck using an OEM RTX 4090 in the EX dock. It’s all academic anyway; without the backplate securing the GPU to the vertical dock bracket, the only thing holding the FIVE FUCKING KILOGRAMS of the RTX 4090 in place is the PCIe interface circuit board. Clench the panic and hasty removal signal.

I upgraded to a dual-slot RTX 4070 Ti and it ran smoothly, all guns blazing. Comparing the GTi 12 to this GPU with a Ryzen 9 7900 desktop system with the same card, it’s immediately obvious that the eight-lane PCIe 4.0 interface provides enough data bandwidth for the RTX 4070 Ti to operate at full tilt. It achieves near-parity performance on our 16-lane PCIe desktop, lagging by just a few frames per second, and this is likely due to the performance difference between the i9-12900H and the faster, newer, higher TDP and more core-loaded Ryzen 9.

It’s impossible to confirm whether the EX Dock’s x8 slot has enough bandwidth for, say, a dual-slot RTX 4080 Super to reach its full potential – I didn’t have one on hand – but I suspect it’ll be fine. I saw a 4090 benchmark in a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot – same overall bandwidth as a PCIe 4.0 X8 slot – and the performance penalty compared to a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot was only about 3%. So I suspect the 4080 will thrive on eight PCIe 4.0 lanes. I can say with certainty that the 4070 Ti transforms the humble GTi 12 into a powerful 1440p gaming console.

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At this price, you’d be very challenging pressed to find a pre-built machine with anything better than a mid-range Core i5 and RTX 4060 Ti, and certainly not one this compact and silent. When it comes to its place in the pantheon of mini PC performance, the GTi 12’s 4070 Ti processor delivers significantly better 1440p gaming performance than the Asus ROG NUC – one of the most costly and powerful mini PCs we’ve tested – has had in a long time. much less tax on your personal treasury.

And suddenly the answer to my original question – who is this hardware package really aimed at? — becomes crystal clear: anyone who wants a brisk 1440p gaming PC on a budget. It really is that plain. We can talk about the portability of mini computers for work or study purposes, but this seems to me to be a narrow employ case where laptops offer much greater convenience. This is certainly an option, but in reality this device works perfectly as a gaming desktop.

So what are the disadvantages? Probably aesthetics; while I rather marvel at the damn Bauhaus blockiness – function following function and all that – but your mileage may vary. As far as eGPU-style setups go, this is definitely the nicest setup on the market, but there’s still some wiring involved. I contacted a custom cable manufacturer who cut me a low dual PCIe to 12vHPWR cable in gray and opted for a color-matched Founders Edition card; it would look incredibly neat. Plus, while the GTi 12 and the dock’s power supply are blissfully silent, a graphics card without a case might not sound so nice. It’s an effortless fix with the MSI booster, to be candid – undervolting and custom fan curves for the win – but it’s worth keeping in mind.

Apart from additional storage, expanding the mini-PC is out of the question. The package can instead be configured with one of Beelink’s GTi 14 Ultra units, which support the newer Intel Core Ultra 7 155H or Core Ultra 9 185H processors and DDR5-5600 memory, but these will boost the cost by up to several hundred dollars. I’m not convinced that either of them will provide a truly significant FPS boost over the Core i9 12900H GTi 12 when paired with the same GPU.

Will Beelink continue to release GTi units with PCIe slots, allowing the GTi 12 to be replaced with something much more powerful in the future? Who can say. Certainly not me. But for now, I can say that £551/$738 is an incredible value based on a great 1440p gaming machine. This makes it extremely effortless to recommend the GTi 12 and EX Dock combo.