Beelink GTi13 Ultra i9-13900HK with EX Docking Station review: size matters

Beelink is back with another Mini PC, this time the beefy-looking GTi13 Ultra, which includes an Intel i9-13900HK (came out in Q2 2023) with a base clock of 4.1 GHz, a Turbo Boost of 5.4 GHz, and a default TDP of 45W that can boost up to 115W.

Although Beelink does not have a dedicated buyers guide for its different sorts of Mini PCs, the GT series is the only one capable of (light) gaming.

Below are its full specifications.

	Beelink GTi13 Ultra
Dimensions	158 x 158 x 55.8mm
Weight	1290g
CPU TDP	Intel Core i9-13900HK (Base 4.1GHz, Turbo 5.4GHz 14C, 20T, 24MB L3 Cache) Min: 35W Base: 45W Turbo: 115W
Graphics	Intel Iris® Xe Graphics eligible (96 EUs @ 1500MHz)
NPU	No
Memory	32GB, 64GB, 96GB Dual SO-DIMM DDR5 5200MHz (up to 96GB)
Storage	Dual M.2 2280 PCle4.0 X4 (Crucial P3 Plus 1TB or 2TB)
OS	Windows 11 Pro
Bluetooth	Bluetooth v5.2
Wireless LAN	Wi-Fi 6 (Intel AX200)
Kensington Lock	No
SD Card reader	Yes (front)
Power	45W (internal PSU) 100-240V; 50-60Hz; 1.9A Power Adapter
Front I/O Ports	1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (10 Gbps) 1 x SD Card slot 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (10 Gbps) 1 x 3.5mm Audio jack
Rear I/O Ports	2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (10 Gbps) 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (10 Gbps) 2 x 2.5G RJ45 LAN 1 x DisplayPort 1.4a 1 x HDMI 2.0b 1x Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps) 1 x 3.5mm Audio jack 1 x AC in
Expansion	PCIe 4.0x8 slot (required for EX Docking station)
Colors	Space Grey, Frost Silver
Price (MSRP)	$759 ($589 discount price)

Bold denotes our configuration.

The GTi13 Ultra comes in three different configurations, and two colors: Frost Silver or Space Grey, the latter of which we were sent, ours also included the 32GB+1TB option. The 64GB+2TB (at $769), and 96GB+2TB (at $839) are not yet available and must be pre-ordered. However, aside from the different amount of storage and memory, the rest is the same, right down to the 5200 MT/s DDR5 memory speeds and use of Crucial P3 Plus SSD; a Windows 11 Pro license is also pre-loaded.

Beelink also sent me the optional docking station, so naturally, we had to test this as well, but we'll come to that later.

Here are the specs of the docking station:

	Beelink Multi-Functional EX Docking Station
Dimensions	225 x 179 x 64.7mm
Connectors	1x PCIe 5.0 X16 Slot (Operating at PCIe X8 Speed) 2x Graphics Card 8-Pin Power Connector 2x Antenna Connectors 1x USB 1x 4-Pin Fan Connector
Interface	M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 X1 Slot, M.2 2230 Slot (Cannot be used simultaneously with M.2 2280 Slot)
Control	Power button (and indicator light)
Power	600W 100-240V; 50-60Hz; 3.5-7A Power Adapter
Price (MSRP)	$179

You might be thinking, this is cheaaaap for what it offers, however, since this particular EX Docking Station uses a proprietary method to connect, don't assume you can swap this between Mini PCs with OCuLink. I know, right, this made me sad. But anyway, moving on. The dock also supports hosting a 2230 Wi-Fi module (which is already present in the GTi13 Ultra anyway) or a 2280 NVMe M.2 SSD. But I think if you do that, you'll be lane sharing with the external GPU, which is also already lowered to a max of X8 rather than the X16 you would get in a full-sized PC.

What's in the box

• Dual 8-Pin double-ended male-male patch cords for graphics card
• An EX-graphics card back plate
• A baffle plate
• Wi-Fi plate
• 4x M2.5 and 2x M3 screws
• Power adapter
• User manual

We'll come back to the Docking station, because although they sent it to me, it is an optional purchase, and I am sure readers would like to know what they are getting if they just purchase the GTi13 Ultra by itself.

The packaging is a familiar affair for a Mini PC. The box is completely white, aside from some decals of the Mini PC and branding. Upon removing the outer cardboard sleeve and opening the box, you will find the GTi13 Ultra sitting in a cardboard mold above a Hello card and booklet that has guidance on controls, how to access it to swap out the SSD or memory, and safety information in several European languages along with an HDMI lead, and power cable.

What’s In The Box

• 1 x GTi13 Ultra Mini PC
• 1 x Power Adapter
• 1 x HDMI Cable
• 1 x User manual

The GTi13 Ultra does not come with a VESA mount option, which is probably sensible given its size and weight, and the fact that it is designed to work with the optional EX Docking station. In short, you have everything you need to get going.

Design

The exterior looks like a larger variant of the GEEKOM GTi13 Pro that we reviewed last year, in the sense that it is made from one piece of aluminum alloy. It essentially encases the entire PC so that there is no detachable lid. The top is completely flat, with the Beelink logo painted in black and centered on the top of the Mini PC.

All of the edges are rounded off, so there are no sharp edges, and it definitely has a premium feel to it. At almost 1.3kg it's not exactly light, but for very good reason. This Mini PC is supposed to let you do some gaming on it, so the larger case needs to be able to dock using its internal full 1x PCIe X8 slot, which we'll come to in a bit.

The front of the GTi13 Ultra includes two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, one Type A, the other Type C, unfortunately it's not possible to connect a screen on the front, which is a bit of an inconvenience. There's also an SD Card reader and audio jack. What looks like four holes across the top of the front is what Beelink calls a "360° omnidirectional" mic array; there's no button to deactivate it, though, which might be a bit of a privacy concern. The power button also incorporates a fingerprint sensor, which, from my testing, was pretty good and quick with Windows Hello.

Beelink claims that the GTi13 Ultra is quiet too, just 35dB is measured in their lab when operated with a 65W TDP, which is slightly more than the base 45W, and could be considered under some load. In my testing, I could not hear it at all, even when running the benchmarks.

Beelink uses the MCS 2.0 Cooling System, which accounts for the low noise levels, and makes the following claim on its product page:

Air intake from the bottom is so efficient at dissipating the heat that GTi13 Ultra needs very low fan speed to stay cool and stable at 65W TDP, ensuring near-silent operation. Since there are no vents on the top and side panels, the GTi13 Ultra can now have a more refreshing design.

I can confirm the GTi13 Ultra generally did not get hot to the touch beyond a bit of warmth on the top of the Mini PC during the Cinebench 2024 test, and barely made any noise that I could hear.

As far as looks go, it is a completely silver/grey, and thanks to the shell being made from one piece of aluminum, there are no joints to be seen on the sides or up top where you would normally find a "lid" that can be removed to access the internals. It goes without saying that thanks to the aluminum finish, it isn't a fingerprint magnet. The top Beelink logo is a nice touch, too; it looks and feels like premium hardware.

Teardown

This is where things get interesting.

• To access, you first have to remove the four rubber covers, which are weakly glued in and indented; a small flat head screwdriver is enough for the job;
• Then you can remove four tiny screws, and lift off the plastic backplate;
• Next, remove four more tiny screws to remove the dust cover;
• Then remove four (normal sized) screws to free up the speakers module (in the documentation it is suggested to remove the ribbon cable, but I did not do this);
• Next, remove two screws to release and move off the PSU;
• Finally, remove a screwbolt(!) to remove the metal plate above the memory and NVMe slots (indicated in the above image with a yellow arrow).

The PSU connector cannot be removed, so just like the speakers, you should leave it 'hangin' while carefully managing your memory and NVMe slots.

This thing really isn't built for simple access, and I am glad I was able to put it back together in one piece. In fact after only doing this once, I noticed some thread damage (1) (2) with the four access screw points (for the dust guard) so you will not want to be doing this often. Even though it is suggested to "PLEASE DUST REGULARLY", I would not want to be removing and attaching that plate continuously, also because the screws are so small (M.2-like) it doesn't take much to damage the thread.

So yes, it is possible to add additional SSD (2280 M.2) inside the GTi13 Ultra, so if you plan to expand the memory or internal storage, you'll need to be really careful and make a note of where each screw goes where.

Usage

BIOS

The GTi13 Ultra uses an AMIBIOS, which is similar to what HP, Dell and other PC manufacturers use to lock down customization of the machine's values, like CPU or memory over/underclocking, as well as power management. However, the BIOS here is not locked down, and you can configure it to your heart's content.

WINDOWS

On first boot, you are prompted to complete the setup of Windows 11 Pro, meaning you do not have to fork out for a license. After the setup was finished, I discovered I was on build 26100.863, so I had to install a few drivers and updates that included the February 2025 Patch Tuesday update (KB5051987), and KB5007651 Windows Security platform antimalware platform update. In addition, Beelink does not contain any bloatware on their PCs, so that is always a bonus.

The GTi13 Ultra supports up to five screens natively through the single Thunderbolt 4 port (DP 2.0 with support up to 3 daisy-chained monitors), one full DisplayPort 1.4a (4K @ 144Hz), and an HDMI 2.0b port. However, the front Type-C port is USB 3.2 gen 2 (10 Gbps) with no DP support.

Regarding connectivity, from left to right, there's an AC in, Thunderbolt 4 port above an audio jack, an HDMI 2.0b, above a DisplayPort, next to that dual Type A USB 3.2 Gen 2 above 2.5GbE ports, and a further two Type A USB 3.2 Gen 2 on the right side. Around the front, there a Type A USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, SD Card slot, Type C USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, a port for a 3.5mm headphone jack, power light indicator, and power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader. I linked my Edifier 360DB over Bluetooth, and I did not experience any noticeable audio delays.

As you can see from the above images, there's no Kensington lock option here, which is a shame. The entire top and sides are one piece of aluminum with ample venting on the sides for air cooling.

In regard to the GTi13 Ultra's size, the above images should show a bit more clearly just how big the GTi13 Ultra is. Shown in the second image from left to right are the AceMagic F2A, Beelink GTi13 Ultra, and GEEKOM GTi13 Pro. The AceMagic came with the i9-12900H and did not raise any concerns with getting too hot, but the GEEKOM clearly shows that size becomes an issue for the i9-13900H when under heavy loads.

Benchmarks

Before I started running benchmarks, I ensured that Windows 11 and drivers were up to date. At the time of testing, the GTi13 Ultra was running Windows 11 Professional 24H2 build 26100.3194, and I also upgraded to the latest (32.0.101.6559) Intel Arc Control WHQL-certified drivers (Nov 2024).

With that out of the way, and because people like that sort of thing, I ran some benchmarks and compared them to Team Red's mobile CPU offerings, alongside its spiritual predecessor, the i9-13900H in our GEEKOM GTi13 Pro review unit.

For our benchmarks, UL Solutions provided us with Professional (commercial use) licenses for 3DMark, PCMark 10, and Procyon. In addition, we used a (sponsored) licensed version of Geekbench 6, along with free-to-use Cinebench 2024 and 7-Zip.

PCMark tests are a mix of CPU and real-world productivity tests, such as using an office suite, web browsing, light photo/video editing, and making conference calls.

Cinebench stresses the entire CPU as it is a multi-threaded rendering test. Finally, Geekbench is a synthetic benchmark that is great for a quick look at the potential performance across a wide range of workloads, and 7-Zip is there for compression and decompression speeds.

First, we have the tests without the external GPU dock, ie, with the CPU and its onboard 96EU Intel Xe integrated graphics processing unit (iGPU).

Beelink CPU + iGPU	GTi13 Ultra Intel i9-13900HK	GEEKOM GTi13 Pro Intel i9-13900H	Geekom A6 Ryzen 7 6900H	Geekom A8 Ryzen 9 8945HS
3DMark Time Spy Steel Nomad Light Steel Nomad	2,148 1,437 207	1,959 1,296 188	2,574 2,255 395	3,287 2,832 508
PCMark 10 Extended test	6,034 5,912	5,948 5,682	6,366 5,981	7,714 7,473
Procyon NPU GPU (Windows ML) CPU	- 179 111	- 163 83	- - 84	- - 134
Geekbench 6 Single Multicore Compute (OpenCL)	2,417¹ 13,307¹ 17,409¹	1,713¹ 10,940¹ 19,525¹	2,122¹ 10,490¹ 27,958¹	1,962 12,039 37,651
Cinebench 2024 Single Multicore	104 977	103 680	89 683	108 930
7-Zip	100,122	77,066	87,164	105,947

¹ Geekbench 6 was used; previous tests used Geekbench 5

The highest temperature recorded during benchmarking was in Time Spy at 70.8C, which is a better result than the highest recorded in the AceMagic F2A (with an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H) at 72.8C; here we can see the much more effective cooling with the larger cases compared to the GEEKOM GTi13 (with i9-13900H) which reached 87.7C thanks to it's far smaller aluminum case. I ran the Time Spy test three times and recorded the highest score.

Unsurprisingly, both the Procyon WindowsML (CPU) and Intel OpenVINO (iGPU) tests did better on this than on their predecessors, and so did Cinebench and Geekbench single and multicore core tests; although Compute on the latter, which relies on the iGPU, was surprisingly lower, and we aren't exactly sure why.

However, as you might see from these scores, don't think you can replace your gaming desktop with this configuration; you'd still need a dedicated GPU if you intended to do much of any gaming on it, which is where the dock that we later test can come in.

Browser	High	Low
Chrome	27.5	27.0
Edge	25.7	24.0
Firefox	23.3	23.0

Next up, I tested browsing performance using Speedometer 3.0. Speedometer provides a value and also a range showing the highest and lowest scores after three runs, as indicated in the chart above by the two scores for each browser. It's clear to see that Chrome bested its rivals by almost 2 points on the high, and 3 on the low.

I also tested the SSD's capability using AS SSD and CrystalDiskMark 8.0.6.

AS SSD	CrystalDiskMark

Despite running all of the above benchmark tests, the GTi13 Ultra did not get hot to the touch, more like warm, and there were no annoying noises coming from the single fan that cooled the unit.

Finally, a note about the dual 2.5GbE connections. I patched them both and was pleasantly surprised to experience 566 MB/s speeds, which equates to 4739,5Mbit (captured here at 565 MB/s), while downloading 3DMark in Edge browser.

Benchmarking the EX Docking Station

These tests were done at the end of February, and I ran into a few problems, which will be explained after my findings of benchmarks run on cards at PCIe 4.0 X8 mode (the maximum the dock supports at Gen4).

We began using UL Benchmark's PCIe Feature test and noted the bandwidth delivered on each of the three tested discrete GPUs (dGPUs): the Intel Arc B580, the AMD RX 7800 XT, and the Nvidia RTX 4070. In case you are wondering, we tried to use the best possible options for each of the dGPU makers as long as it felt like a reasonable choice for a system with a 600-watt power supply unit, two 8-pin power connectors, and a 13900HK CPU.

Our contact also confirmed that Resizable BAR was enabled by default on this PC, and that is important since it is a necessity on Intel's discrete graphics cards.

Perhaps a bit surprisingly, Intel's B580 delivered the highest bandwidth in the feature test, and Nvidia's 4070 was the poorest. However, realistically, 12.46 GB/s is more than enough for most situations. The takeaway was that the dock was working as intended since theoretically, up to 16 GB/s of data flow is possible on a PCIe x8 config like this.

Up next, on 3DMark Steel Nomad, which is a DirectX 12-based rasterization test, all three GPUs performed to their potential, which again proves that the dock is providing plenty of bandwidth for the cards.

As you may have noticed, aside from the default 3DMark test settings at 4K (2160p), we also set up a custom test with a lowered resolution of 1080p. This was done to identify if there was some CPU bottlenecking issue on the system (Please check out this article to understand in detail how it works).

As we went down in resolution, we saw that the framerates on Nvidia's 4070 and AMD's 7800 XT improved more than on the Intel B580. This poorer scaling on the Arc card suggests that Intel still has some work to do in terms of driver overhead management.

Speed Way, a ray tracing test in the 3DMark suite, showed a similar thing, that AMD and Nvidia's GPUs saw a higher jump in FPS output upon turning down the resolution.

Testing the PCIe 5.0 X8 dock's claims

As you may suspect, all my testing was done at the end of February, while we are well past mid-April at the time of publishing. Well, at the beginning of March AMD sent me the 9070 XT, which is a PCIe 5.0 card; since Beelink claims that this dock is PCIe 5.0 capable (at X8) I wanted to test it with the newer card, and then the problems started.

I had a myriad of issues from the eGPU not getting detected and not showing a picture, even with the other cards I previously tested with. After several back-and-forths with my contact, they decided to have me ship back the GTi13 Ultra and EX Dock, and they would send me a replacement. Fast forward to April and I have the replacement kit, however whenever i could get the 9070 XT detected and working in Windows, it remained on PCIe 4.0 x8, which is the default behavior for Gen4 cards, however my contact also said that it should support PCIe 5.0 x8 which is something I was never able to achieve.

The card is detected by Windows to support full PCIe x16 but in all my tests and multiple reseating and tweaking of the BIOS PCIe slot settings, I could not get over Gen4 at x8. For the purpose of full disclosure, these were my findings with the EX docking station. If you have purchased this kit and have a different experience, please do leave a comment, or help me understand where I went wrong!

I did tell my contact that I suspected that it might be to do with the dock cables not supporting PCIe 5.0 speeds, but I never got an answer about that. I do have spare PCIe PSU cables, but they do not fit in the dock. I also never really got an explanation as to why Gen4 cards were limited to X8 speed, if the dock supposedly supports PCIe 5.0 x8, which is basically PCIe 4.0 x16.

Conclusion

My experience had mixed results. The GTi13 Ultra on its own is a great Mini PC, unfortunately, I did not have the greatest experience with the EX dock because I could not get it to work at the advertised speeds, so I will be basing my conclusion mostly on the mini PC.

If we compare this directly with the Intel i9-13900H, then the Intel i9-13900HK is definitely a step up across the board. The GTi13 Ultra also looks pretty cool and is not expensive. Coupled with support for external GPUs (if you are happy with the Gen4 x8 experience), you can even game pretty great on it, all for under $750 at the time of writing.

For me, this loses a point for the awkward way you can access the GTi13 Ultra, but it definitely checks the boxes in all other areas. Type-C and Type-A ports, along with an SD Card slot on the front. Technically, you can connect four screens to this with the EX dock attached, otherwise it is just three with the included full-sized HDMI and DisplayPort, along with the rear Thunderbolt 4 port, which supports DisplayPort.

I can't really comment on the EX dock, for me it's a dud because it doesn't do what the manufacturer claims it does; unless I was so unlucky that I received two with hardware issues, it would not be fair for me to score this positively or negatively. I had more issues than just lane speed. For me, the GPU was not showing a display, or even being detected between boots, when nothing had changed! No amount of emailing and tweaking changed this.

The Beelink GTi13 Ultra is available right now at $10 off for $589 on the official website or for $599 on Amazon. I feel the deal price is right for what you get: a sturdy, modern, and well-built mini PC, and if you want to take a chance on the EX dock, go for it. Your experience might be far better than mine.

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