The 'world's smallest' external GPU has been tested and it could be the best laptop upgrade yet — here’s why

1 month ago

(Image credit: GPD)

GPD’s ‘GPU box’ mightiness beryllium 1 of nan astir effective ways to springiness your laptop nan graphical upgrade it needs without shelling retired for a caller machine, aliases replacing nan GPU yourself.

The GPD G1 looks much for illustration a docking station than thing other and really whitethorn service arsenic one, fixed nan plethora of ports it offers. But it comes pinch nan added prize of souping up your machine’s graphical capabilities.

Weighing 867g, and measuring 225 x 111 x 30mm, nan lightweight GPU description portion includes a Radeon RX 7600M XT GPU equipped pinch 8GB GDDR6 memory.

The Japanese publication PC Watch, which tested nan device, claims its capacity is adjacent to nan fantabulous Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 graphics paper – which is hardly a slouch.

The performance-boosting GPU box

Benchmarking by PC Watch shows nan effect it had successful boosting gaming scores connected a ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen9 endeavor notebook, equipped pinch an Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPU moving Windows 11 Pro.

When benchmarked against Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition, nan strategy registered a people of 1,373 erstwhile not connected to nan GPD G1, rising 590% to 8,900 erstwhile connected. The Blue Protocol benchmark besides surged from 2,319 – “below minimum hardware requirements” – to 11,937 – “Excellent”.

The tract achieved these results connected nan ThinkPad’s built-in display, pinch nan people dropping by 30% erstwhile connected to an outer show pinch a 2,560 x 1,440 pixel solution via HDMI.

Testing utilizing PCMark 10 and PCMark 10 Extended past followed, to show what effect nan summation of nan GPD G1 could person successful much day-to-day agency settings. Scores climbed by 17% for nan erstwhile and 51% for nan second – demonstrating nan effect of this peculiar outer GPU was significant.

Testing pinch Procyon's Office Productivity Score, pinch benchmarking done against Microsoft Office apps including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook, generated a boost of 6.1%.

Not only does it connection a capacity boost, but it besides doubles arsenic a docking station, making it nan cleanable companion to today’s best business laptops – galore of which deficiency nan scope of connectivity options endeavor users need.

Beyond nan Radeon RTX GPU, included pinch nan portion are 3 3.2 USB-A 3.2 ports, an SD paper reader, 2 DisplayPort 1.4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, alongside an OCuLink port, and 1 USB 4.0 port. The downside? There’s conscionable 1 USB Type-C larboard pinch powerfulness transportation – and nary ethernet connectivity.

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Keumars Afifi-Sabet is nan Features Editor for ITPro, CloudPro and ChannelPro. He oversees nan commissioning and publication of in-depth and long-form features, including lawsuit studies and op-eds, crossed a breadth of topics successful nan B2B exertion space. He besides contributes to a vareity of different publications including The Week Digital and TechRadar Pro. Keumars joined ITPro arsenic a unit writer successful 2018, and has expertise successful a assortment of areas including AI, cyber security, unreality computing and integer transformation, arsenic good arsenic nationalist argumentation and legislation.

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