GEEKOM Mini IT12 2025 Edition Review – Part 3: Ubuntu 24.04 on an Intel Core i7-1280P mini PC

We’ve already checked out GEEKOM Mini IT12 2025 Edition mini PC’s hardware with an unboxing and a teardown, and tested the Intel Core i7-1280P mini PC with Windows 11 Pro in detail in the second part of the review. We’ve now had time to test the Mini IT12 2025 Edition mini PC with Ubuntu 24.04, so we’ll report our experience with Linux in the third part of the review.

We’ll specifically go through system information, test key features, benchmark the system and compare it against the earlier Mini IT12 “2023 Edition” powered by an Intel Core i7-12650H processor, because checking out storage and USB performance, WiFi 6 and 2.5GbE network performance, stress testing the mini PC, and finally measuring fan noise and power consumption.

Ubuntu 24.04 installation

We decided to install Ubuntu 24.04 LTS alongside Windows 11 in a dual-boot configuration, so we resized the Windows 11 partition by about half before installing Ubuntu 24.04 from a USB drive.

We had no issue during the installation and didn’t even need to change some settings in the BIOS/UEFI like we sometimes do.

GEEKOM Mini IT12 2025 Ubuntu 24.04 system information

Going to the Settings->About window, we can confirm we have a GEEKOM Mini IT12 equipped with a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1280P processor with 20 threads and Intel Graphics (ADL GT2), 32GB 32GB, 2TB storage ( the 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD that ships with the mini PC plus a 1TB SATA HDD we installed), running Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS 64-bit with Linux 6.11.

We can get a few more details on the command line…

… and additional details with the inxi utility:

Everything looks detected properly with an Intel Core i7-1280 14-core/20-thread CPU up to 4,800 MHz, an Intel i226-V 2.5GbE controller, a MediaTek MT7922 802.11ax and Bluetooth module, a CT1000O3PSS8 NVMe SSD, a Toshiba HDWL110 hard driver, and 32GB of memory. The idle temperature is about 52°C.

Ubuntu 24.04 benchmarks on GEEKOM Mini IT12 2025 Edition

Let’s start Ubuntu benchmarks with sbc-bench.sh:

The 7-zip score indicates some throttling with the run delivering 42121 MIPS, going down to 34645 and 34599 MIPS for the second and third runs.  Looking into the CPU temperature data, it looks like the CPU allows a performance boost for a short time, quickly raising the temperature up to 97°C, but then throttling occurs and the temperature drops to about 62-66°C and stabilizes there over longer runs. We’ll check that into more detail at the end of the review.

Let’s check PL1, PL2, and PL4 power limits:

PL1 is set to 28W, PL2 to 45W, and PL4 to 64W. These are the same values as in Windows 11.

Geekbench 6.4 can help us evaluate the single-core and multi-core performance of the Intel Core i7-1280P CPU in this system.

That would be 2532 points for the single-core test and 9926 points for the multi-core one, or not even a ratio of 4 in a 14-core CPU….

We’ll now start testing the GPU with Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.. The Mini IT12 2025 Edition could render the scene at 46.9 FPS with a score of 1180 points at the standard 1920×1080 resolution.

Next up is YouTube 4K and 8K video in Firefox.

A 4K @ 30 FPS video plays fine with only 4 frames dropped out of 10,285 after streaming the video for almost 6 minutes.

Switching to a 60 FPS video at the same resolution is also smooth, albeit with 61 frames dropped out of 11,853 (6:16).

8K 30 FPS is a pass with no frames dropped at all after playing the video for 6 minutes.

8K 60 FPS is usually more challenging. The Mini IT12 2025 Edition could almost handle it, but dropped more frames (1,349 out of 19,311), or a 7% drop rate, which may not be acceptable to most people. It was still better than our experience with Firefox on Windows 11, where Chrome was a better option.

We evaluated web browsing performance with Speedometer 2.0 on Firefox, and the mini PC achieved a pretty decent score of 313 runs per minute.

Most of our old reviews rely on Speedometer 2.0 data, but the benchmark is deprecated, so we also ran Speedometer 3.0 for future reviews. Score: 20.3 points.

GEEKOM Mini IT13 2025 vs 2023 – Ubuntu Benchmarks comparison

We now have all the Ubuntu benchmark results needed to compare the GEEKOM MINI IT12 2025 Edition with a Core i7-1280P CPU against the 2023 Edition model with a Core i7-12650H CPU. The basic specifications of both mini PCs are identical except for the different CPUs.

	GEEKOM IT12 (2025 Edition)	GEEKOM IT12
SoC	Intel Core i7-1280P	Intel Core i7-12650H
CPU	14 cores, 20 threads, up to 4.80 GHz	10 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.70 GHz
GPU	96 EU Intel Iris Xe Graphics	64 EU Intel UHD Graphics
Memory	32GB DDR4-3200	32GB DDR4-3200
Storage	1TB NVMe SSD	1TB NVMe SSD
Default OS	Windows 11 Pro	Windows 11 Pro

Note: We tested the mini PC with Ubuntu 24.04 this time around, but the old one was running Ubuntu 22.04.

Benchmark results:

	GEEKOM Mini IT12 (Intel Core i7-1280H)	GEEKOM Mini IT12 (Intel Core i7-12650H)
sbc-bench.sh
- memcpy	22,332.8 MB/s	24,180.5 MB/s
- memset	28,914.8 MB/s	27,539.6 MB/s
- 7-zip (average)	37,120	35,730
- 7-zip (top result)	42,121	41,360
- OpenSSL AES-256 16K	1,303,237.97k	1,269,066.41k
Geekbench 6 Single	2532	2,575
Geekbench 6 Multi	9,926	9,874
Unigine Heaven score	1,180	1,002
Speedometer (Firefox)	313	302

While in Windows 11, we noted a clear advantage in multi-core and 3D graphics workload for the new model, it’s less evident on Ubuntu. Both the 14-core Core i7-1280P (new) and 10-core Core i7-12650H (old) mini PCs deliver very similar results, albeit with a slight advantage for the 14-core model in multi-core workloads like 7-zip and Geekbench, and a higher score in Unigine Heaven, but it’s not something most users would be able to notice.

Storage and USB performance

Time to test the 1TB NVMe SSD that ships with the mini PC using iozone3:

The sequential read speed is reported to be up to 4,703 MB/s, while the write speed was measured up to 4,634 MB/s, which compares to 5,186MB/s and 4733 MB/s with CrystalDiskMark in Windows 11.

The speed of the USB 3.2 and USB4 ports was tested with ORICO M234C3-U4 M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure using lsusb (or boltctl) and iozone3 command line utilities. A Seagate USB HDD was used for the USB 2.0 port since the ORICO enclosure is not backward compatible.

For reference, here are the results for the eft USB 3.2 Type-A port on the front panel…

… USB 2.0 port on the rear panel …

… and left USB4 port on the rear panel:

Summary for all six USB ports (from left to right):

• Front panel
  • USB-A #1 – USB 3.2 – 10 Gbps – Read speed: 1,007 MB/s, write speed: 991 MB/s
  • USB-A #2 – USB 3.2 – 10 Gbps –  Read speed: 1,006 MB/s, write speed: 987 MB/s
• Rear panel
  • USB-C #1 – Thunderbolt –  40 Gbps – Read speed: 2,913 MB/s, write speed: 2,721 MB/s
  • USB-A #1 (top) – USB 3.2 – 10 Gbps  – Read speed: 1,007MB/s, write speed: 990 MB/s
  • USB-A #2 (bottom) – USB 2.0 – 480 Mbps – Read speed: 40 MB/s, write speed: 26 MB/s
  • USB-C #2 – Thunderbolt – 40 Gbps – Read speed: 2,922 MB/s, write speed: 2,690 MB/s

All USB ports work as advertised.

Since the mini PC also comes with a SATA slot, we test it with an (old) 1TB HDD:

That would be 133 MB/s reads and 131 MB/s writes, or about as expected for this specific drive.

Networking (2.5GbE and WiFi 6)

Let’s check the network performance of the GEEKOM Mini IT12 2025 Edition, starting with its 2.5GbE port using  UP Xtreme i11 mini PC on the other side and iperf3 utility:

• Download

• Upload

• Full-duplex (bidirectional)

Perfect. Let’s now switch to WiFi 6 by adding a Xiaomi Mi AX6000 router to our testbed.

• Download

• Upload

1.59 Gbps downloads and 1.37 Gbps uploads are excellent results in our environment, so when it comes to networking, the Mini IT12 is really great in Linux.

MediaTek MT7922 modules used to be an issue in Ubuntu or other Linux distributions, but since the Ubuntu 24.04 ISO ships with Linux 6.11 by default, we had no problem and could transfer a file over Bluetooth in either direction with an Android smartphone.

Stress test and CPU throttling

We finally ran a stress test while monitoring the CPU temperature and frequency with sbc-bench.sh to find out whether the Intel Core i7-1280P 14-core/20-thread CPU would throttle on Ubuntu 24.04.

The temperature chart confirms what we had seen with the sbc-bench.sh benchmark, with a temperature spike under load, followed by a sharp drop as the CPU throttles, and then slowly goes back up before stabilization at around 83-84°C after 10 or so minutes.

The CPU frequency peaks at 2800 MHz (big cores) and 2300 MHz (LITTLE cores) during the multi-threaded stress test, and then drops to 2300/1900 MHz and stays there.

Fan noise

The Mini IT12’s fan is very quiet at idle and during light workload in normal use, but it becomes audible under load, although nothing really annoying. We measured the fan noise with a sound level meter placed approximately 5 cm from the top of the mini PC:

• Idle and web browsing – 39.0 – 41.0 dBA
• Stress test (on 20 threads) – 46.0 – 47.6 dBA

The sound level meter measures 37 – 38 dBA in a quiet room.

GEEKOM Mini IT12 2025 Edition power consumption

We measured the power consumption with a wall power meter:

• Turn off – 1.9 Watts
• Idle – 8.2 – 9.4 Watts
• Video playback – 30.1 – 34.6 Watts (YouTube 8K 60 fps in Firefox)
• CPU stress test (stress -c 20)
  • First 30 seconds – 54.7 to 56.0 Watts
  • After 30 seconds – 45.0 to 45.2 Watts

Note: the mini PC was connected to WiFi 6, one USB RF dongle for a wireless keyboard and mouse combo, and a 4K monitor over HDMI.

Conclusion

The GEEKOM Mini IT12 2025 Edition mini PC runs slightly better in Ubuntu 24.04 Linux compared to the Mini IT12 (Core i7-12650H) we reviewed with Ubuntu 22.04 in 2023, but both systems will feel the same to most users since the differences are not that big..

2.5GbE and WiFi 6 networking is excellent, the 1TB NVMe delivers very good performance, 8K and 4K YouTube videos played fine (8Kp60 could be improved), the system is great for web browsing (it got the highest score in Speedometer), and its six USB ports, including two USB4 ports, can be useful for people wanting to connect many peripherals. You don’t have to pay the “AI tax” charged for more recent processors either, if it’s not something you plan on using.

The 96EU GPU and 14-core CPU enable higher graphics and multi-core performance compared to the older model, but the difference is rather marginal. The small form factor also means we can’t extract the full (multi-core) performance of the Core i7-1280P CPU, but that’s to be expected on this type of hardware. There’s some fan noise as well, but it’s not too bad even under heavy workloads.

We’d like to thank GEEKOM for sending the MINI IT12 2025 Edition mini PC with an Intel Core i7-1280P SoC, 32GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD for review.  The model reviewed here can be purchased for $474 on Amazon or the GEEKOM store after applying the coupon code CNXIT122025, but there’s also a time-limited “SumS15” coupon bringing that down to $424 for Prime Day until July 11.

CNXSoft: This article is a translation – with some additional insights – of the original review on CNX Software Thailand by Suthinee Kerdkaew.

Support CNX Software! Donate via cryptocurrencies, become a Patron on Patreon, or purchase goods on Amazon or Aliexpress. We also use affiliate links in articles to earn commissions if you make a purchase after clicking on those links.