The more I tested the GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra, the less it looked like it justified its 'Ultra' moniker

Date:
Fri, 23 Jan 2026 07:15:00 +0000

Description:
The GMKtec M7 Ultra is a replacement for earlier M7 designs, but it fails to perform as well

FULL STORY ======================================================================GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: 30-second review

Having just reviewed the GMKtec M5 Ultra, that prior investigation puts an interesting twist on the M7 Ultra now before me.

Because the M5 was built on a platform that wasnt widely utilised, and the M7 Ultra turned out to be built on a platform from 2022 that nobody used at all.

However, dont be put off by the older hardware, because this Ryzen 6000
series processor with Zen3+ architecture is well-suited for a mini PC. It has DDR5 support, USB4 and plenty of PCIe lanes, enabling the M7 Ultra to deliver a well-rounded and confident performance level thats above any of the Ryzen systems that use DDR4 and the Vega 8 GPU.

Its also got plenty of potential for upgrades, either internally with the SODIMM and M.2 slots, or externally via USB4. And it must also be one of the cheapest systems to come with Oculink, enabling the external connection of discrete graphics cards via its 64Gb/s interconnect.

Compared to a cutting-edge system, it only has eight cores (sixteen threads), the DDR5 is only 4800 MT/s, and while it is a PCIe 4.0 system, it only supports PCIe 3.0 on the M.2 slots.

Those caveats make me think that the M7 Ultra is suitable for someone who needs a little big more power, but not the performance of a Ryzen 9 or Ryzen AI machine.

For that person who does more than just basic office tasks, this might be ideal, and if they suddenly need more graphics performance, it can be added via Oculink.

Where this system is flawed is that it's slower than the M7 and M7 Pro that came before it. Given the silicon's age, this isnt going to feature in our round-up of the best mini PC systems, but with a reasonably effective
platform and plenty of ports, it's not junk either. GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Price and availability How much does it cost? From $310/260/300 When is it out? Available now Where can you get it? Direct from GMKtec and via online retailers

Much like the M5 Ultra, the M7 Ultra is offered in three basic SKUs that go from the baseline barebones system with no memory or storage, to an intermediate 16GB+512GB option thats reviewed here, to the top spec with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

In the USA, these machines are priced at $309.99, $439.99, and $529.99 , respectively.

GMKtec doesnt have a specific UK outlet, but from the European site (e.g., de.gmktec.com), these systems are 260, 347 and 408 , which, if you have DDR5 and an M.2 module, looks like a great deal. Euro prices are 299.99, 399.99
and 469.99. And all the M7 Ultras bought in Europe come with a free 8-in-1
USB docking hub reputedly worth 29.99.

I'm also seeing it available on both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk with similar pricing.

For those curious, based on the current exchange rates when writing this, the 32GB+1TB model is almost the same price no matter where you buy it, but the barebones model is 12% more expensive.

Another obvious question is how these prices compare with the M5 Ultra? In short, the M7 Ultra is about $50 more than the M5 Ultra for the barebones,
and about $40 more for the 32GB+1TB option. When you consider that the M7 Ultra comes with USB4, uses DDR5 and is significantly faster, then the price difference is modest.

What Id advise against is sourcing this via Amazon, as their systems only
come with 512GB of storage, and the asking price is $489.99.

In this part of the review, Id normally list the other mini PCs that use the same platform and how some are more expensive, and others are cheaper, but
not today.

Unless I missed one, no other mini PC maker is using this platform, and I couldnt find any retail computer, of any variety, that uses it. There are several mini PCs with AMD Ryzen 7 6800H, 6850H, and other H series chips, but these are not the same as the PRO 6850U.

Why is this the case? Ive no information to share. It might be that AMD has TMSC make bins of many Ryzen 6000 mobile chips with no clear market, and now theyre having a clear out of those that didnt sell.

Whatever the reason, this is a mid-2022 platform built on a fab AMD no longer relies on, and it might be that the GMKtec M7 Ultra is the one and only machine the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U gets to see the light of day.

Which might go some way to explain how competitively priced this system is. Value: 4 / 5 (Image credit: Mark Pickavance) GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Specs

Item

Spec

CPU:

AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U( 8C/16T, up to 4.7GHz)

GPU:

AMD Radeon 680M, up to 2.2 GHz

NPU:

N/A

RAM:

16GB DDR5-4800 (8GB x 2) expandable to 64GB

Storage:

512GB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 3

Expansion:

1x M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 3

Ports:

2x USB4, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 2x USB 2.0, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort
1.4, 1x 3.5mm Audio, 1x Oculink

Networking:

2x 2,5GbE Realtek RTL8125, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2

OS:

Windows 11 Pro (pre-installed)

Base Power:

15W-28W

PSU:

19V 6.32A 120.08W

Dimensions:

132 x 125 x 58 mm GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Design Decent build quality Easy internal access VESA mountable

There are two important things about GMKtec systems I like, and those are the build quality and the ease of internal access. And, the M7 Ultra doesnt confront either of those expectations.

While the top and underside of this NUC are plastic, the part that is likely to take the greatest amount of abuse, the sides, is metal on all faces.

Its a cool gunmetal grey, and the plastic top is painted to match.

Access is remarkably straightforward, with the top rotating to come away, and with that removed, there are four large screws visible that most people
should have a suitable screwdriver for.

I like that these are large, easily visible screws, not the tiny ones that ping under my desk before activating their inbuilt cloaking devices. These
are only discoverable either with socked feet or the use of a stupidly powerful electromagnet.

Even I couldnt misplace these screws was my first thought on seeing them.

With those removed, the DDR5-4800 modules and M.2 slots are unobscured, and upgrading either of them merely requires the replacement parts and a couple
of spare minutes.

The memory modules were branded as GMKtec, but the chips had OEM Micro branding. Therefore, based on the repositioning of that source for memory, we wont be seeing this in future GMKtec products.

Thankfully, you can swap the RAM with any DDR5-4800 SODIMMs of any brand, as long as theyre the same type and size. (Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

On the outside, the M7 Ultra doesnt go off the beaten path with all the ports on the front or back, and those on the front are well placed for the attachment of storage. Both USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports are on the front,
along with the USB4 port, the 3.5mm audio jack and the Oculink port. Oh, and the power button.

Maybe the Oculink port might have been better on the back, but there isnt
much room with dual 2.5GbE LAN sockets, dual USB 2.0, another USB4 port and both HDMI and DisplayPort.

One feature which is slightly controversial on the M7 Ultra is that hot air
is ejected under the external ports, not above them. While there is the possibility that it might impact the connected cables, I cant see this air getting heated enough to melt the insulation on these.

As GMKtec do with most of its systems, included with the M7 Ultra, is a plate that can be used to VESA mount the system to the back of a monitor. As the scale of this system might make it tempting for someone to pick it up and
take it home, connecting it to the monitor is probably a good idea. For those seriously concerned about theft, it also has a security slot on the rear.

As with the M5 Ultra, the engineering, accessibility and port deployment are good, and there doesnt appear to be any significant design issues with this design. Design: 4 / 5 (Image credit: Mark Pickavance) GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Hardware AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U DDR5 Memory Gen 3 PCIe M.2 Slots

The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U is a mobile processor featuring eight cores, launched in April 2022 as an offshoot of the Ryzen 6000 series. And, the closest silicon from the core series is the Ryzen 7 6800H, a Zen 3+ (Rembrandt) architecture chip made for Socket FP7.

AMDs Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) doubles the effective thread count to sixteen, giving it some potential for multi-threaded software.

Operating at a base frequency of 2.7GHz, boosting up to 4.7GHz when required, this silicon was part of the swansong of the 6nm process at TSMC before AMD moved to the 4nm fabrication in the 7040 series.

The thermal design power (TDP) is just 15W, but that can be bumped to 28W, making it highly energy-efficient. It supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, with a maximum official speed of 4800 MT/s. It also supports 6400 MT/s for surface-mounted LPDDR5, but GMKtec hasnt chosen to use that.

And, as Ive alluded to already, this is the only PC Ive found that uses this specific processor, so it now seems unlikely that a machine using the greater bandwidth memory is ever likely to appear.

Since Zen3+, AMD has evolved the Zen4 and Zen5 architectures, with more powerful GPUs, 8000MHz DDR5 options and larger core and thread capabilities.

In this context, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U provides a solid underpinning to the system where it can run reliably for long periods and remain effectively silent. (Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

However, there are a few choices GMKtec made that are more nuanced than
merely picking an older processor. One might assume AMD let this business
have these at a bargain price.

As is often the case, this all revolves around PCIe lanes and how these critical resources are allocated. In this system, there are various draws on the bandwidth of the PCIe subsystem, which has twenty lanes of PCIe 4.0 at
its disposal. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U has an integrated USB4 controller,
but it still needs at least four lanes for USB4 and at least four more for Oculink, leaving only eight lanes for everything else.

In that pile are all the other USB ports, dual 2.5GbE LAN ports, the small
M.2 slot for the Wi-Fi, and most importantly, the two M.2 slots. However you dice this up, without using a PCIe switch, something had to give, and what gave here was the M.2 slots ended up being only Gen 3, not Gen 4.

I can see a strong argument that either one of the USB4 ports or the Oculink should have been sacrificed to provide Gen 4 storage, but that might have created a thermal issue for keeping the NVMe drives cool.

With the amount of bandwidth available, this was a tough choice, and GMKtec went with Oculink and two USB4 ports but downgraded the M.2 slots, for good
or bad.

Id have liked at least one Gen 4 M.2 slot, but Im not the one trying to shoehorn all this technology into a tiny box. Features: 3.5 / 5 GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Performance

Mini PC

GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra

GMKtec NucBox M5 Ultra

CPU

AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U

AMD Ryzen 7 7730U

Cores/Threads

8C 16T

8C 16T

RAM

16GB DDR5 (2x8GB)

32GB DDR4 (2x16GB)

Storage

512GB AirDisk SSD

1TB NVMe

Graphics

Radeon 680M

Radeon Vega 8

3DMark

WildLife

9846

6711

FireStrike

4149

3154

TimeSpy

1495

1264

Steel Nom Lt.

1420

1035

CineBench24

Single

90

78

Multi

401

414

Ratio

4.47

5.29

GeekBench 6

Single

2096

1806

Multi

8582

5939

OpenCL

22656

12823

Vulkan

21484

11472

CrystalDisk

Read MB/s

3558

3624

Write MB/s

2520

2642

PCMark 10

Office

6973

5581

WEI

8

8.1

Given the modest price difference between the M7 Ultra and its M5 Ultra
little brother, these seem the obvious systems to compare.

And, unsurprisingly, with DDR5 memory and the 12 cores of the Radeon 680M in its corner, the M7 Ultra is a good bit quicker than the M5 Ultra in the majority of the tests.

Although, for some curious reason, the CineBench24 multi-core test is a win for the AMD Ryzen 7 7730U over the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U. But these results arent replicated in Geekbench or PCMark 10.

Why Windows Experience Index scores the GPUs inaccurately in this instance is another mystery, but that's the precise result reflected here.

There is, however, a hollow aspect to this victory, which is that my results from the old GMKtec NucBox M7, which used the Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H, were much better, scoring 14909 for 3DMark WildLife. Given that the original M7 system used DDR4, something doesnt add up.

Yes, this system is up to 50% faster than the M5 Ultra, but it should be even quicker than that. Its like it's operating on a single memory module, though
I checked that it isnt.

Looking back at the original M7 and the M7 Pro, the M7 Ultra has less processing power and lower GPU performance than both of these.

Unfortunately, the M7 is out of stock, and the M7 Pro is discontinued, I suspect.

Ive concluded that, unless there was a fault with my machine, the M7 Ultra
has the unfortunate accolade of offering less power than the models it replaced, sadly. Performance: 3 / 5 GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra: Final verdict (Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

Not sure what to think about the GMKtec M7 Ultra, since it uses a processor
no other machine has ever used and yet delivers performance numbers below those of its predecessors.

Whats the most curious thing about this system is that it uses DDR5 memory, but with the same 680M GPU, it's slower than the M7, which used DDR4. How is that possible?

The M7 Ultra's bandwidth should make it faster, not 66% of the M7s speed in the 3DMark Wildlife benchmark.

Im hoping that this system merely needs a firmware update to deliver the results the hardware should be capable of.

Because of these issues its not an obvious replacement for the M7 or the M7 Pro, but there are plenty of alternatives using Ryzen 6000 and 7000 chips
that can perform better. Should I buy a GMKtec NucBox M7 Ultra?

Value

Affordable system, especially barebones

4/5

Design

Easy access and a good port selection

4/5

Features

Odd processor, but Oculink and USB ports

3.5/5

Performance

Not as quick as it should be on paper

3/5

Overalls

Dissapointing follow-up to M7 and M7 Pro

3.5/5 Buy it if...

You want a medium-cost NUC
Not super-cheap but still affordable, the M7 Ultra has a specification that
is suitable for users who need extra performance above an entry-level system. While not as fast as the original M7, it's still better than most Intel Core i5 systems. View Deal

You need a flexible NUC
Compared to some NUC designs, this one is remarkably flexible. With two 2.5 GbE LAN ports and dual M.2 slots, it can be used as a hardware firewall,
media server or marketing display controller. But adding an Oculink port also enables it to be enhanced with a discrete video card, making it suitable for graphics-intensive tasks that the integrated graphics would not handle. View Deal Don't buy it if...

You want ultimate performance
This is a mid-range mini PC, lacking the power of those with the fastest processors, such as the Ryzen AI Max+ 395. View Deal Also consider

Geekom A5
The Geekom A5 mini PC delivers a decent user experience for office work in a small, easy-to-deploy package. It doesn't have a second M.2 slot, but it does have a SATA and a place for a 2.5-inch drive.
In testing it produced almost identical performance to the M5 Ultra, using
its AMD Ryzen 5 7430U CPU.

Check out my Geekom M5 review View Deal

GMKtec NucBox M5 Plus
Another mid-tier mini system, this time the prior design from the same brand as the M5 Ultra. This one utilises the AMD Ryzen 7 5825U (8 cores, 16
Threads) CPU and features 1TB of onboard NVMe storage. Where this is slightly better than the A5 is that the second M.2 slot is 2280, and it has dual
2.5GbE LAN ports.

Check out my GMKTec NucBox M5 Plus review View Deal



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/gmktec-nucbox-m7-ultra-mini-pc-review


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