GPD BOX pricing confirmed, 358H model starts at $1,534
Crowdfunding platform and high price, nothing customers like.
GPD has opened crowdfunding pledges for the GPD BOX, its Panther Lake mini PC with dual USB4 v2.0 and an optional G2 external GPU dock. Pricing starts at $1452 for the GPD BOX 356H with 32GB of LPDDR5x memory and a 1TB SSD.
The Core Ultra X7 358H version with the same 32GB/1TB configuration costs $1,534. Both versions are based on Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” processors. The two CPU options are not interchangeable from an expansion point of view.
GPD lists the MCIO 8i port only for the Core Ultra 7 356H configuration. This port provides a PCIe 5.0 x8 link, which GPD lists at 512 Gbps of bidirectional bandwidth. The Core Ultra X7 358H model does not have MCIO 8i, so external GPU support on that version goes through USB4 v2.0 instead, with a PCIe 4.0 x4 link.
Source: GPD
GPD also offers bundles with the GPD G2 eGPU dock. The 356H + G2 bundle is priced at $1,837, while the 358H + G2 bundle costs $1,919. GPD says the G2 uses an 800W Gold server-grade power supply and supports desktop PCIe graphics cards. The company also claims around a 2% performance loss with a GeForce RTX 4090 .
So unfortunately, an interesting idea for eGPUs turns out to be extremely expensive and out of budget for most users. Still, we will be looking at MCIO equipped devices, and perhaps it will become a new standard, given that OCuLink and Thunderbolt 5 are locked to 64Gb/s.
Source: GPD
