GMKtec NucBox K8 Plus debuts as new AMD Hawk Point mini PC with OCuLink port

The GMKtec NucBox K8 launched earlier this year with the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, a top-end CPU from the Hawk Point lineup. Now, the company has unveiled the Plus variant of the same mini PC. The core specs of the new model are similar to the last one, which means it hasn't been upgraded to the new Strix Point lineup.

However, the NucBox K8 Plus has a slightly better port selection. The non-Plus model had only a single USB4 port, while the newer mini PC has two of them. Like the previous unit, this new model retains the OCuLink port, making it possible to get decent performance out of an eGPU connected to this system.

GMKTec also says that the NucBox K8 Plus has a better cooling setup with a new heat dissipation design. These two should lead to better temperatures during gaming and lower noise levels during load. This better cooling system also makes the latest mini PC max out at a higher TDP than the non-Plus variant.

Besides that, all the other specs are similar to the non-Plus model. That means the NucBox K8 Plus is powered by the same Ryzen 7 8845HS with Radeon 780M iGPU. This CPU can be paired with up to 96 GB of DDR5 RAM through the two SODIMM slots.

As for storage, there are two M.2 slots that can hold PCIe 4.0 SSDs. GMKtec further details that the NucBox K8 Plus has three performance modes. The Quiet and Balanced modes keep the TDP to 35W and 54W, respectively. When the mini PC is set to Performance mode, the TDP jumps to 70W, which, as mentioned earlier, is higher than the 64W max TDP setting found in the non-Plus model.

The company plans to put the new mini PC on sale in China on September 23 at a starting price of CNY 2,199, about $310. There's no word on the international availability of the NucBox K8 Plus yet, but GMKtec does sell the non-Plus variant in the global market (32 GB RAM and 1 TB storage variant curr. $749.99 on Amazon). So, the new variant should make its international debut soon.