YouTuber Transforms Raspberry Pi Alternative To Mini Gaming PC

2023 Author: Sheila Hailey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-26 15:18

While well-known manufacturers of single-board computers such as the Raspberry Pi rely on ARM processors for their models, full-fledged x86 chips are used in the LattePanda devices from DFRobot. In the Alpha 864s, this is an Intel m3-7Y30 - a power-saving dual-core processor with hyper-threading. Admittedly not exactly a high-performance chip, but thanks to the appropriate architecture, it is able to handle a Windows 10 installation and corresponding games without any problems. In addition to the chip, the board of DFRobot also has 8 GB LPDDR3 memory and 64 GB eMMC mass storage, as well as USB ports and a PCIe-compatible M.2 connector.

And that's exactly what YouTuber ETA PRIME used to assemble what is probably the smallest gaming PC in the world. For this he used a PCIe x4 adapter in the M.2 slot. This connection allowed him to install an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 on the LattePanda. Since the power supply of the graphics card could not be guaranteed via the built-in USB-C connection, he also used a Pico power supply. The assembled construction does not win a beauty award, but the performance result is impressive:

Watch the mini graphics card from the video on Amazon

Raspberry Pi alternative as a gaming PC: This is what the mini computer does

In games like DOOM (2016), ETA PRIME was able to achieve frame rates of around 80 FPS in full HD resolution and high details. In Project Cars 2 the frame rate fluctuated between 60 and 70 FPS at medium settings, the remastered version of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim reached 60 FPS and even CPU-heavy games like GTA 5 could be played at low settings with about 40 FPS. So the bottom line is a complete success - if not very practicable, and for several reasons. In addition to the CPU, the GPU could also be slowed down by the limited PCIe interface.

Furthermore, the dimensions of the single-board computer with 115 x 78 x 14 millimeters are pleasantly compact, but due to the upright graphics card, the construction still looks a bit bulky. Overall, the mini gaming PC is still significantly smaller in this way than the computer that we screwed up a few months ago, but also lacks a lot of performance potential.

The GIGA-TECH mini gaming PC

And finally there is the price. Because compared to the Raspberry Pi 4, the LattePanda Alpha 864s costs around ten times the price - a little more than 400 euros. In this case, we have not yet calculated the costs for the graphics card, the adapter and the power supply.

It is questionable whether a reasonable application can be created for this micro gaming PC. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see how small and compact modern game systems can be built - and what a relatively high performance they still offer. What do you think of the system? Let us know in the comments.