Log Pocket Sandwich: 1.6 liter LattePanda 3 Delta build with dedicated GPU

[CC Ricers]

I've had a LattePanda 3 Delta for a couple of months and while playing around with it, already having done a Windows setup with a low profile graphics card attached via m.2 riser adapter- not a bad setup for its specs and still capable at 1080p gaming. It's a humble Radeon WX 4100 Polaris card and I could later upgrade this to a RX 6400 for over double the performance. The setup was inspired by @REVOCCASES' tiny eGPU case that has its own power board. I wanted to make a full build in a similarly small volume with the LattePanda.

With a 12V 90W power brick, this works beautifully, powering both the GPU and motherboard, with proper shut off when the PC is turned off. All that's needed is to make an enclosure for it.

At first, this was going to remain a sub 1 liter build excluding the power brick but the power brick is also hilarously almost the same size as the build itself, so the next step is to replace it with a GaN USB-C charger and integrate more of the power circuitry inside the case.

So now, the build will include a 20V PD power trigger board and step down converter to replace the 12V power brick. These will go inside the enclosure and the size will increase to 1.5L-1.6L. I imagine it to be looking something like the Gigabyte Brix Pro with the 10 series GeForce cards.

Perhaps I will also make room for a 80mm or 92mm fan at the top to ventilate all heat from PSU and GPU to the top. The CPU motherboard itself doesn't dissipate as much heat in comparison, but as it will be sandwiched in the middle it's probably a good idea to pull the heat out from the other components.

 

[Snerual]

Holy moly, this is such an amazing project! Though from what I can read here, the Latte Panda only has a 2x PCIe gen 3 slot? That is going to be a serious bottleneck, no? But hopefully something with Gen 4 supports comes in a future iteration!

With a full Gen 4 SSD slot, you would even be able to take full advantage of the RX 6400.

 

[CC Ricers]

Yeah, the 2x slot is a bottleneck, but even with this card it's still considerably better graphics performance than the integrated GPU. Beyond that, the DDR4 being in single channel might also limit performance.

There is a LattePanda Sigma with a 4x Gen 4 slot and TB4 port, but it is also bigger than this board. (take a Intel NUC board and make it 50% longer and that's roughly the size of the Sigma) My budget also won't allow such an upgrade right now.

 

[Firehazel]

Oooh, now this is marvelous! Reminds me of the build done by ETA Prime with the same SBC. I have a LP RX 6400, almost makes me want to get LattePanda Delta and try this out. What risers and adapters are you using?

 

[CC Ricers]

Oooh, now this is marvelous! Reminds me of the build done by ETA Prime with the same SBC. I have a LP RX 6400, almost makes me want to get LattePanda Delta and try this out. What risers and adapters are you using?

For the riser cable I used an ADT-link m.2 to PCIe 3.0 cable of 5cm length, the exact model for the angle is R43NL.

It included a SATA to FDD cable for power but I wanted all black cables so I bough this set of black FDD cables and cut them to solder to the barrel connector that gets power straight from the 12V power adapter.