GEEKOM IT13 Max Linux Review: Pop!

Is the GEEKOM IT13 Max worth buying? In this review, I test its hardware, configuration options, gaming performance, Geekbench results, and Linux compatibility with Pop!_OS and openSUSE Leap 16.

Discover where this powerful mini PC shines, its biggest weakness, and which configuration you should choose.

Relevant Links

Note: Geekom provided the last two links and are responsible for their contents and current deals.

Hardware Overview

The IT13 Max is a medium-sized Mini PC, measuring approximately just over 5 inches by 5 inches, and just under 2 inches thick. It has a decent amount of heft to it and feels very solid overall. The components are protected by a reinforced metal frame, so the system feels like it should hold up well over time.

When it comes to connectivity, the IT13 Max has eight USB ports, two 2.5-gigabit Ethernet ports, a headset jack, and an SD card reader – so it offers just about everything most people will need.

Those eight USB ports include five USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, one USB 2.0 Type-A port, and two 40-gigabit USB4 Type-C ports. That gives you plenty of connectivity for external storage, input devices, adapters, and other accessories.

The IT13 Max also supports up to four displays. There are two HDMI 2.0 ports on the back, and the two USB4 ports support DisplayPort Alt Mode, allowing you to connect two additional displays with compatible USB-C display adapters.

When it comes to specifications, this computer is pretty impressive. It features an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, a higher-end mobile processor with 16 cores and 22 threads. Those cores are divided into six performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and two low-power efficiency cores. The processor can boost as high as 5.1 gigahertz, and it also includes integrated Intel Arc graphics and a dedicated NPU for supported AI workloads.

There are two configurations available. One includes 16 gigabytes of DDR5 memory and a 1-terabyte SSD.

The other configuration includes 24 gigabytes of LPDDR5 memory and a 500-gigabyte SSD. The downside with that config is that memory can’t be upgraded later, so if you plan on installing up to the maximum of 96GB of RAM, you should go with the 16GB model instead. That distinction is important when deciding which model to buy.

For storage, you get either a 500-gigabyte or 1-terabyte PCIe Gen 4 SSD, depending on the configuration. The primary M.2 2280 NVMe slot supports drives as large as 4 terabytes, and there’s also a second M.2 2242 storage slot. GEEKOM advertises support for up to 6 terabytes of M.2 storage in total, so there’s plenty of room to expand.

Overall, the IT13 Max is marketed as a general-purpose, high-performance PC, and it should perform well across a wide variety of tasks. Whether you use it as a desktop workstation, a homelab server, or perhaps a media or streaming server, the hardware makes it a potentially good fit for several different use cases.

Gaming performance, however, wasn’t especially strong in my testing. In more demanding games, it struggled to maintain around 20 frames per second in medium or low settings. Of course, it isn’t marketed primarily as a gaming PC. Its integrated Arc graphics are better suited to everyday graphical workloads, media processing, and lighter games than demanding modern titles.

In theory, you could connect a compatible external GPU through one of the USB4 ports and achieve much better gaming performance. I didn’t have the appropriate external-GPU hardware available, though, so I wasn’t able to test that myself.

All in all, I’d say the IT13 Max is aimed primarily at people who want to get work done – and its Core Ultra 9 processor is more than capable of handling demanding productivity workloads.

Linux Support

We’ll talk more about performance later in the video, but first, I want to spend some time on Linux compatibility.

As usual, the IT13 Max ships with Windows 11 – but that’s easy enough to rectify. For what it’s worth, the included Windows installation worked fine during my testing. It was also a fairly standard installation, without much in the way of vendor-specific customization or bundled software.

But since this is a Linux channel, I’d be remiss if I didn’t try a few distributions on the IT13 Max.

Most modern PCs can run Linux reasonably well, although compatibility with newer components can sometimes depend on the distribution’s kernel and firmware versions. Thankfully, I didn’t encounter any significant compatibility problems with the IT13 Max.

This time around, I tested Pop!_OS 24.04, and also openSUSE Leap 16.1. I chose the latter because I haven’t checked out openSUSE in a while, so I wanted an excuse to play around with it.

With Pop!_OS, all hardware was supported out of the box and everything ran as you’d expect. At no point did I have to configure anything – Pop supports the hardware very well.

When it comes to openSUSE though, the situation was a bit different. Out of the box, the audio card was not detected and I was unable to play audio. Thankfully, that was easy to fix, all I had to do was install a couple of packages, reboot, and then audio started working immediately. So, if you decide to install openSUSE on it you’ll probably have to do the same thing. All in all, Linux support is pretty good and if the worst-case scenario is possibly having to install a few packages, that’s not too bad.

On both distros, the IT13 Max’s Wifi 7 card was detected no issue, and download speed was just as fast as I’d expect. The numbers are a bit lower because I’ve implemented quality of service rules to share bandwidth reliably between devices, so the numbers could’ve been higher – but to be fair, even with throttling on my network WiFi worked perfectly.

Also, Linux performance has been great too – everything felt responsive and I don’t have any complaints there. Aside from having to install a few packages to get audio working on OpenSUSE, Linux support is fantastic. Of course, your experience may vary depending on your preferred distribution and how current its kernel and firmware packages are. But based on my testing, any reasonably up-to-date Linux distribution should have a good chance of working well on the IT13 Max.

Performance

As I spent more time with the IT13 Max, its overall performance really impressed me. During normal use, I didn’t experience any noticeable slowdowns, and the system consistently felt fast and responsive.

In fact, I’d say it’s one of the best-performing Mini PCs I’ve tested lately, so performance is a clear win here.

When it comes to the included Intel Ultra 9 chip, it features a hybrid design – with performance cores, effeciency cores, and low-power cores all on one die. There’s 16 cores and 22 threads total, with 24MB of L3 cache. The included Ultra 9 CPU is based on Intel’s Meteor Lake generation, and it’s a big step up from older mini desktops. This machine is definitely powerful.

There is one weakness though – gaming performance. But as I mentioned earlier, the IT13 Max isn’t marketed as a gaming PC. Its integrated Arc graphics should still be capable of running older games, indie titles, and less-demanding games—especially if you’re willing to reduce the resolution or graphics settings. That versatility helps support GEEKOM’s claim that this is an all-rounder, because it performs well at most of the tasks it’s designed to handle.

For more specific testing, I decided to run Geekbench on the IT13 Max, and I’ll leave a URL on the screen if you want to see the results I received for yourself. This machine scored 2312 in the single-core test, and 15037 on the multi-core test. This gives us excellent single thread performance plus impressive multi-core muscle. This is a chip built for productivity and creative workloads – so it’s a good fit if you’re looking for a powerful workstation.

I also tested SteamOS on it. I wasn’t sure how well that would work because Valve’s official support for SteamOS on third-party hardware is still limited, and the IT13 Max isn’t an officially validated SteamOS system.

That said, SteamOS did install and run, although my results were mixed. Gaming performance was fairly modest, but I saw similar frame rates while running the same games under Windows. That suggests the integrated GPU—and the settings I tested—was the primary limitation, rather than SteamOS alone.

I also encountered inconsistent game compatibility. Some titles launched and ran, while others failed to start. Those failures could be related to Proton compatibility, graphics drivers, or the fact that SteamOS hasn’t been specifically optimized and validated for this hardware.

Valve continues to improve SteamOS compatibility with non-Deck hardware, including newer Intel platforms, so the experience may improve over time. As things stand now, though, I’d consider SteamOS on the IT13 Max experimental rather than officially supported.

It can handle lighter gaming reasonably well, but its real strengths are still productivity, development, content creation, and other CPU-focused workloads.

Overall

All in all, I have very little to criticize about the IT13 Max. It’s marketed as a high-performance PC for everyday computing and professional workloads, and it fits those use cases very well.

Its main appeal is the combination of a powerful mobile processor, unusually extensive networking and I/O, and a very small footprint. It makes the most sense as a premium everyday workstation, a development machine, a media system, or a compact server—with some occasional lighter gaming on the side.

Linux compatibility was also excellent in my testing. Both Pop!_OS and openSUSE Leap ran exceptionally well, and I encountered no compatibility problems with the hardware and features I tested.

At the time of this recording, GEEKOM lists the IT13 Max for $799 in the United States, regardless of which configuration you choose. As always, pricing and promotions can change, so check the link in the description for the current price.

One configuration includes 16 gigabytes of DDR5 memory and a 1-terabyte SSD. The other gives you 24 gigabytes of faster LPDDR5 memory but reduces the SSD to 500 gigabytes.

There’s another important difference, though: the 16-gigabyte model uses upgradeable SO-DIMM memory and supports as much as 96 gigabytes. The 24-gigabyte LPDDR5 memory is soldered and cannot be upgraded.

That means the 16-gigabyte model is the more flexible choice if you expect to upgrade the memory later. The 24-gigabyte version gives you more—and potentially faster—memory out of the box, but you’ll be limited to that capacity for the life of the system.