GMKtec EVO-T2S assessment: Panther Lake raises the bar for mini PCs
Christoph Hoffmann
For cooling, GMKtec depends on a vapor chamber resolution with two followers. The second, comparatively giant fan is located instantly beneath the metallic cowl on the highest and options switchable RGB lighting. The button subsequent to it, labelled ‘Fan Mode,’ subsequently doesn’t management the fan velocity, however solely the lighting. Such a dual-fan design is uncommon for a mini PC of this measurement.
Christoph Hoffmann
The port structure follows a transparent logic: The ports that customers incessantly plug gadgets into and out of are on the entrance, whereas the everlasting connections are on the rear. On the entrance panel, you’ll discover the illuminated energy button, a USB 2.0 port, two USB 3.2 Sort-A ports, a USB4 Sort-C port, and a headphone jack.
Christoph Hoffmann
The rear panel is considerably extra generously geared up: Alongside the spherical plug for the exterior energy provide, there may be an HDMI and a DisplayPort output, an OCuLink port for exterior graphics playing cards, two additional USB 2.0 ports, and two community sockets providing 2.5- and 10-gigabits per second, respectively.
Christoph Hoffmann
Each USB4 ports help knowledge charges of as much as 40Gbit/s, DisplayPort, and Energy Supply for charging suitable gadgets at as much as 100 watts, making them appropriate for quick exterior SSDs or docking stations.
As much as 4 screens could be operated concurrently through HDMI, DisplayPort, and the 2 USB4 ports — in keeping with the producer, even at resolutions of as much as 8K. A Kensington lock slot rounds off the well-designed port structure.
OCuLink is an exterior PCIe interface that enables, for instance, a desktop graphics card in a separate eGPU enclosure to be related with considerably decrease sign loss than through USB4. On the EVO-T2S, the connection operates at PCIe 4.0 x4, providing a theoretical bandwidth of slightly below 8GB/s. That is notably helpful if the built-in Arc B390 iGPU now not proves adequate or if the mini PC is to be upgraded for GPU-accelerated functions. Nonetheless, the port doesn’t help hot-plugging; eGPU enclosures ought to subsequently solely be related or disconnected whereas the system is switched off.
