GPD introduces GPD BOX mini PC and GPD G2 eGPU with MCIO 8i
The external GPU market is moving faster than it has in years. After the Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 era, the market shifted to OCuLink docks, then Thunderbolt 5 enclosures. Now two faster direct PCIe options are moving into the consumer space: OCuLink 8i and MCIO 8i.
MCIO 8i – PCI Express 5.0 x8
GPD has now introduced two products built around MCIO 8i: the GPD BOX mini PC and the GPD G2 external GPU dock . The GPD BOX is based on Intel Core Ultra 300 “Panther Lake” processors and uses an MCIO 8i connector wired for PCIe 5.0 x8. GPD claims this gives the system 512Gbps bidirectional bandwidth, four times the bandwidth of OCuLink over PCIe 4.0 x4.
The GPD G2 is an external GPU dock for desktop graphics cards. It includes both MCIO 8i and USB4 v2 support, so it is not limited to GPD’s own MCIO system. According to GPD, the dock loses only 2% performance when paired with a GeForce RTX 4090 over MCIO.
Source: GPD
The dock also includes an internal power supply, a PCIe slot for a desktop GPU, an M.2 SSD slot, two USB Type-A ports, LAN, and 100W USB Power Delivery output. The G2 uses 12VHPWR for GPU power. This suggests GPD is targeting full desktop graphics cards rather than compact mobile GPU modules.
The GPD BOX appears to use a mini PC layout with two USB4 v2 ports, four USB Type-A ports, two LAN ports, HDMI, and DisplayPort. GPD has not released the full specification yet, but more details are expected on April 28.
Specs
- GPD BOX: Panther Lake mini PC with MCIO 8i connector
- MCIO 8i bandwidth: PCIe 5.0 x8, claimed 512Gbps bidirectional
- GPD BOX ports: two USB4 v2 ports, USB Type-A, LAN, HDMI, DisplayPort
- GPD G2: external GPU dock for desktop graphics cards
- GPD G2 interfaces: MCIO 8i and USB4 v2
- GPD G2 features: built-in PSU, M.2 SSD slot, USB Type-A, LAN, 100W USB Power Delivery
- Performance claim: 4x faster than OCuLink based on PCIe 4.0 x4
- RTX 4090 claim: 2% performance loss over MCIO, according to GPD
Source: GPD
