I only needed 10 minutes with the GMKtec NEO-X1 Pro to cancel my Steam Machine order – and I've never looked back

I've always loved the Steam Machine concept, but like many have been disappointed by the sacrifices Valve had to make to get the thing out of the door. It looks great, runs on SteamOS – which is a big plus for me – but the hardware just isn't powerful enough, especially for the price.

At £1,149 / $1,349 for the 2TB model with no controller, I couldn't shake the feeling that saving up just a bit more cash would get me a far better compact gaming PC. And I was right.

Having spent some time with the GMKtec NEO-X1, there's no comparison. Yep, it's a fair bit larger – although only as tall and deep as a PS5 – and yes, I've mainly tested the Pro model so far. But considering the standard version starts at £1,629.99 with the company's current on-site discount (and is down to $2.199.99 on Amazon in the US) it's definitely worth considering upping your budget.

GMKtec NEO-X1 Pro: design and connectivity

I've always found GMKtec to be one of the best mini PC manufacturers for design. Its products look great, with a proprietary aesthetic running through its higher-end models.

I particularly like the trademark green flourishes, which make the NEO-X1 Pro really stand out. The whole cabinet is constructed from aluminium and looks classy, while the top matches the power button with a bright green finish.

There are carry handles installed from the off, although you can remove them, and they double as feet on the bottom too.

You need to keep the PC in a vertical position for airflow, but it looks good enough to be sat next to a TV as well as a gaming monitor.

The left-hand side is removable to expose the mammoth liquid cooling unit and RTX 5070 (in the Pro). unscrewing and moving them out of the way allows for access to the memory and two SSD slots.

There's an abundance of connectivity options This includes two USB-A 2.0 and a USB-C port next to the power button on the front, plus a 3.5mm audio jack. Around the back you get another two USB-A 2.0 ports, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, a USB-C, 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, three 3.5mm audio jacks, a DisplayPort 4 (8K@60Hz) from the main board, as well as a HDMI 2.1.

The graphics card also supplies its own video ports – HDMI 2.1b (8K@60Hz) and three DisplayPort 2.1b. In total, you can run four displays at 8K simultaneously.

Wireless connection options include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. There are two removable antennas packaged for stronger reception.

The whole shebang comes with Windows 11 Pro preinstalled.

GMKtec NEO-X1 Pro: power where you need it

Both NEO-X1 variants are capable of up to 160W TDP, which is when running in performance mode (they can actually reach 170W at peak, but I've not seen it).

There are silent (54W) and balanced (85W) modes too, but I immediately switched it over to performance in the bios when I first started up the Pro.

Admittedly, in performance mode you can get a fair bit of noise generated by the fans and cooling in certain circumstances, but it really depends on where and how you plan to use the PC. I personally didn't mind it when attached to a TV in my office, the game audio running through a Dolby amp and Atmos sound system easily drowned it out. However, if you do plan to use it in a living room environment, you might need to tone down settings a notch.

It also depends on the demands of each game, of course. Many ran at their highest settings in up to 4K without ever hearing a peep from the fans. Some though, such as Grand Theft Auto V: Enhanced Edition running at 2160p in Ultra RT, made it whir like a Dyson during a heatwave. For me, the performance and frame rates were worth it, but it's easy to adjust to something a little less aggressive.

Certainly, there is enough grunt on board to play games at their best, especially if you run them with some form of image scaling – such as Nvidia DLSS. I found that most of the games ran at over 100 frames-per-second at 1440p and high or ultra settings. Some achieved that at 4K.

Many of them were equally capable with ray-tracing features activated. One or two with path tracing (at 1440p).

Cyberpunk 2077, for example, ran at just over 60fps in 1440p with High settings and path tracing switched on, and between 90-104fps at Ultra RT settings. I ran both tests with DLSS set to auto, but no frame generation. Both setups are very playable.

As for CD Projekt Red's other masterpiece – the recently updated The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered edition – I had to be a bit more realistic with my expectations. It ran at over 70fps at 1440p in High settings with ray-tracing switched on, but required DLSS to be set at Balanced. To achieve path tracing at anything like a decent frame rate, the other option was to add x2 frame gen as well.

Even though it's now eight years-old, Red Dead Redemption 2 still gives PCs a decent workout, so I was pleased to see it running at approximately 140fps at 1440p in the maxed out Ultra settings (with DLSS on and set to auto). Switching up to 2160p (4K) achieved an average of 111fps with the same settings – still very impressive.

And finally, another new game I tested was the new Gears of War: E-Day, which gave me just shy of 100fps at 1440p in High settings, with DLSS set to Quality and with no additional frame generation. It also ran at 60fps in 4K on the exact same settings.

In all occasions I played on a 65-inch Philips OLED+950 TV which supports refresh rates up to 144Hz and, more importantly, variable refresh rate (VRR) tech. This kept the action silky smooth even when jumping around the frame rates.

Of course, the NEO-X1 non-pro edition wouldn't achieve quite those results, but from my experience with the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti it wouldn't be too far off.

As it stands, the Pro model is an absolutely beast of a machine. It even aced the Cinebench test, with its 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 9955HX3D CPU achieving a score of 8,474 for multiple threads, putting it a fair distance above an Apple Mac powered by M4 Max silicon.

This means the NEO-X1 Pro isn't just a gaming beast, it's more than capable for everyday work tasks too, plus video rendering and even running on-board AI models. You're probably better looking elsewhere if the latter is all you want to do, but I'm basically saying this is a superb all-rounder.

Oh, and its 3DMark Time Spy score of 20,100 (21,803 graphics, 13,934 CPU) is particularly impressive in the grand scheme of things. I suspect there's even wriggle room to get that higher.

GMKtec NEO-X1 Pro : experience and upgradability

All of my testing was done through the preinstalled Windows 11 Pro, although I would have also liked to have tested the PC with Steam OS. However, Valve is yet to add its promised Nvidia GPU support and I didn't want to go down the Bazzite route in this case.

I'll come back to it once Steam OS officially works with Nvidia drivers.

Windows is fine if you're using the NEO-X1 Pro as a desktop machine, less so when attached to a TV as a Steam Machine alternative. I still had to keep my keyboard and mouse nearby.

If you do want to use it as a living room console, you can have it boot straight into Xbox mode or Steam Big Picture, and even turn off the PIN screen Windows forces upon you on boot. But it never quite feels as smooth an experience as a dedicated OS for gaming.

Most won't worry about that, though. Connect it to a gaming monitor and you're flying. It's small enough to sit on the desk without looming over you, yet also packed with power.

Remove the side and you can even upgrade the SSD and memory, although doing so can be a bit of a pain to the uninitiated. To get to the dual M.2 NVMe slots you have to remove the liquid cooler and GPU. The two DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM memory slots are a bit more simple, they are just under the cooler, but the RTX 5070 hides the second M.2 slot so that has to be taken out first too.

That being said, considering it comes with a 2TB SSD and 64GB of DDR5 RAM anyway, with costs of additional storage and memory continuing to be ludicrous, it's only power users that will likely want to expand.

Certainly, GMKtec keeps everything super tidy inside to give you the option and leeway.

GMKtec NEO-X1 Pro: conclusion

The NEO-X1 Pro is a great example of a "mini PC" without compromises. It is a fraction of the size of a full tower, yet performs like one.

I admittedly have spent my time with the Pro rather than the lesser spec'ed model, but considering much of the DNA is the same, aside from a few of the components, I am nigh-on certain that it continues to be much better value than a Steam Machine. Especially if you take your gaming seriously.

As for the Pro itself, it's a beautifully built bit of kit. Yeah, it's double the price of the Steam Machine, even with a discount, but it offers quadruple the performance. And when Steam OS finally enables full Nvidia GPU support, it might even become the PC games console Valve had originally set its own heart on.

As it stands, I don't see the need for full, chonky gaming rigs today when this kind of thing is available. It's a more home-friendly way to get into high-end PC gaming, and I'm happy to say that this, and its RTX 5060 Ti sibling, are well worth saving up that bit more for.

Rik is T3’s news editor, which means he looks after the news team and the up-to-the-minute coverage of all the hottest gadgets and products you’ll definitely want to read about. And, with more than 35 years of experience in tech and entertainment journalism, including editing and writing for numerous websites, magazines, and newspapers, he’s always got an eye on the next big thing.

Rik also has extensive knowledge of AV, TV streaming and smart home kit, plus just about everything to do with games since the late 80s. Prior to T3, he spent 13 years at Pocket-lint heading up its news team, and was a TV producer and presenter on such shows as Channel 4's GamesMaster, plus Sky's Games World, Game Over, and Virtual World of Sport.