Article Written By Christopher Moine, SFFN Senior Editor
The GPD BOX Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign has been announced. Measuring 175mm
(width) x 134mm (depth), and 39.5mm (height), the GPD BOX sets itself apart from most mini-PCs by including a built-in 160 watt PSU, and MCIO 8i Link port. The former is a rare site with mini-PCs as most use an external power brick of some sort, while the latter allows for up to 63 gigabytes per second eGPU bandwidth. This is on par with an 8X PCIe 5.0 slot, and should allow for nearly the full performance of most GPUs. The GPD BOX Indiegogo page is claiming only 2% performance loss with a RTX 4090, though this will need to be confirmed with independent testing.
GPD is also preparing a campaign for an eGPU dock to support the MCIO 8i connection with the GPD G2. The dock specs indicate it will support up to PCIe 4.0 x 8 performance, as well a USB 4.0 connections to support additional expansion via M.2 (PCIe 3.0 x 2), RJ45 1,000Mbps LAN port, and an 800 Watt ATX 3.1 PSU.
Returning to the GPD BOX, specs include up to an Intel Core Ultra X7 Panther Lake 358H CPU, with Intel’s hotly anticipated ARC B390 iGPU. The ARC B390 iGPU has been posting performance numbers on par if not exceeding the RTX 3050 mobile in games. Notebookcheck.net lists their average 3DMark Time Spy Graphics score for the ARC B390 as 6,679. For traditionally rendered games, this places the performance slightly below that of the GTX 1080, or RTX 2060 desktop GPUs. As it is an integrated GPU, users can assign the amount of RAM they desire to be used as video memory for the GPU.
Speaking of memory…
Please pay very close attention to the SOLDERED memory. The GPD BOX memory can’t be upgraded. Like many modern laptops, whatever memory it ships with is the memory you are stuck with for the life of the unit. Also remember that the system’s RAM does double duty as its VRAM. In the 32GB configuration, if you dedicate 16GB of the memory to the GPU, you will only have 16GB left over for the OS and apps your running. This could quickly become troublesome with things like photo and video editing.
As for pricing, it was not listed on GPD’s main website at the time of writing. However, Brad Linder of Lilputing has written an article regarding the GPD BOX with pricing. Linder wrote that the pricing will start at $1,452 during crowdfunding, with the ARC B390 model starting at $1,534. Linder also reported that the GPD G2 dock will have a price of $385 during crowd funding, and a retail price of $459.
YouTuber ETA PRIME has taken an early look at the GPD BOX and GPD G2 GPU Dock in his latest video. He found that the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H with ARC B390 iGPU was performing as high a 7,756 points with a 65 Watt TDP in 3DMark Time Spy, which brings it very close to the 10,370 points scored by the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 with the Radeon 8060S at the same 65W TDP.
Check out ETA Prime’s video below.
You can visit the GPD Box Indiegogo campaign page by CLICKING HERE.
You can visit Brad Linder’s article at Lilputing by CLICKING HERE.
AI was not used to write the text in this article. I wrote this while my 7-year-old was pestering me about lawn mowing…which I’m off to do after this.
