Desktop graphics on your mini PC over a single cable

My RTX 3080 now spends most of its life switched off, and that’s precisely how I need it. For years, I’ve wished my mini PC to sport like a desktop with out bringing again a desktop’s warmth, noise, and footprint, and USB4 lastly makes that sensible. Ugreen’s LinkStation eGPU Dock places a full-size graphics card on the tip of a single cable, and after a number of weeks of plugging it in solely when it’s time to play, it’s grow to be my favourite PC gaming accent.

8/10

Brand

Ugreen

GPU Included

No

GPU Max Power

850W

GPU Max Size

Up to 4 slots extensive

The Ugreen LinkStation eGPU Dock is designed to ship desktop-class efficiency to any USB4- or OCuLink-enabled system. With an 850W energy provide able to driving essentially the most power-hungry graphics playing cards available on the market, the LinkStation contains 4 customary 8-pin PCIe energy connectors in addition to the newer 16-pin ATX 3.1 connector required by GPUs just like the RTX 50-series. 

Pros & Cons

• Sets up in below 10 minutes
• Built-in 850W energy provide with 12V-2×6 and 8-pin connectors
• Hot-plugging offers you on-demand GPU energy
• USB4 and OCuLink in a single dock
• Premium all-metal chassis

• $500 is so much for an enclosure
• Ports sit on the underside of the unit
• Performance relies upon closely on the host?s USB4 implementation

Price and availability

The Ugreen LinkStation eGPU Dock is accessible to buy for $500 direct from Ugreen and Amazon.

The Ugreen LinkStation units up in minutes

And it helps virtually each trendy graphics card available on the market

There is little to assemble with the Ugreen LinkStation. It comes principally able to exit of the field, and I used to be up and operating in below 10 minutes.

Mine got here with a single set of PCIe energy cables caught out of the facet already. My RTX 3080 has three 8-pin energy connectors, so I unscrewed the facet panel of the LinkStation to search out that there was one other pair of 8-pin connectors hiding in there.

In addition to that, there may be additionally a 12V-2×6 (16-pin) ATX 3.1 connector in the identical compartment popping out of the ability provide, making this eGPU suitable with primarily all graphics playing cards as much as the RTX 5090.

Speaking of the ability provide, the Ugreen LinkStation has an 850W energy provide pre-installed and able to go. The total chassis is manufactured from metallic and feels extraordinarily premium, too. The energy button is true on the entrance (although there may be nonetheless an influence swap on the PSU itself) and the standing mild is definitely actually helpful.

When the standing mild is orange, that signifies that the eGPU is both powering up or not related. When it’s white, the connection has been made to your laptop.

The cables all come out of the underside of the unit. That’s the place the ability provide is, in addition to the USB4 port. I might have appreciated to have seen the USB4 port on the again, however that’s my solely nitpick of this whole system.

In my assessment, I’m going to give attention to utilizing the eGPU dock to add an external graphics card to my PCs, however that’s not all this dock can do. Really, that is simply an exterior PCIe interface on your laptop that connects over USB4 or OCuLink.

That means you could possibly use it for one thing like a seize card, networking card, or the rest that both received’t slot in your PC case or simply can’t hook up with your mini PC another method.

This eGPU offers a small PC a giant graphics improve

Desktop-class graphics are only a plug away

Over the years, I’ve had all completely different sizes of gaming PCs. I began with a standard ATX system again in round 2014, moved to eATX in 2016, again to ATX after that, to mITX in 2020, after which again to eATX after that.

So, it’s protected to say I’ve used all kind elements potential for my laptop. That is, till I received a mini PC.

I completely love how small mini PCs are, however they aren’t all that nice at gaming. Take the Yoga Mini 11 for instance. I like that little system and the built-in Intel Arc B390 is definitely pretty beefy for the dimensions of system it’s, nevertheless it nonetheless doesn’t have the efficiency that I’d like.

That market is exactly what the Ugreen LinkStation eGPU Dock is designed for. This eGPU has each OCuLink and USB4 on it to plug into a variety of techniques. I examined it with three completely different USB4 techniques (sadly I don’t have something with OCuLink available to check it with) to see how the efficiency stacked up throughout all of them.

I’m truly stunned at how a lot additional juice the Ugreen LinkStation added to the mini PCs I plugged it into. It was in a position to flip a system that would sport decently right into a system that would sport amazingly, throughout a easy USB4 connection.

My Strix Halo system already has a reasonably strong graphics card in it with the Radeon 8060S, so the 3080 will not be a giant improve there. However, the Lenovo Yoga Mini 11 noticed some sizable positive factors by including the 3080 over USB4.

For instance, the Yoga Mini was in a position to (surprisingly) hit 55 FPS on low settings at 4K in Forza Horizon 5, and 37 FPS in Forza Horizon 6 utilizing the built-in Arc B390 graphics card. With the RTX 3080 over USB4, it hit 123 FPS on low in Forza Horizon 5 and 73 FPS in Forza Horizon 6.

Bumping as much as the acute preset in each video games, body charges jumped from 29 to 71 FPS in Forza Horizon 5, and 20 to 40 FPS in Forza Horizon 6.

I preserve my 3080 switched off till it is time to play

Plug it in, swap the show cable, and sport

Two causes I wished to modify away from a giant desktop to a mini PC have been the warmth and noise it generates. My essential gaming desktop for the previous few years has been a Ryzen 9 7900X with an RTX 3080. It’s massive, noisy, and places out a ton of warmth when gaming. But it additionally places out a good quantity of warmth at idle, too.

A mini PC takes up a fraction of the footprint, makes use of barely any energy at idle, and hardly produces any warmth by comparability. My downside with mini PCs was all the time that they couldn’t sport all that nicely. I wished a strategy to have on-demand gaming energy after I wanted it, however tuck it away after I didn’t.

The Ugreen LinkStation works in that actual method. Because it’s USB4, it truly helps scorching plugging. This signifies that the LinkStation could be plugged right into a Windows mini PC with the system on and the whole lot simply spins proper up. Now, I do need to swap my HDMI or DisplayPort cable over to the GPU as soon as I try this, however that’s not a giant deal.

I’m in a position to preserve the LinkStation powered off after I don’t want it, after which I energy it on after I do. Having on-demand gaming energy is one thing that I by no means anticipated to have, however I’m so glad that I do.

There are some video games or applications that may want a reboot to totally make the most of the eGPU, however a lot of the stuff I examined it with labored simply fantastic with merely plugging it in.

I even examined the LinkStation with an NVIDIA GPU on my ACEMAGIC M1A PRO+ AMD Strix Halo mini PC with the Radeon 8060S GPU in it and it labored completely without having to use DDU. I simply plug the eGPU with my RTX 3080 in after I want it, and unplug it after I don’t.

Whenever I do plug the LinkStation in, although, my 3080 springs to life—warmth and all. Since the LinkStation is totally open on principally all sides, there’s incredible airflow and the 3080 is ready to preserve itself cool with out a lot trouble. But, there’s additionally nothing to dam the noise. So, it will be as loud as your GPU is.

The energy provide is sort of quiet although, which is de facto nice. I heard no whine from the PSU and the chassis by no means heated up.

On a superb USB4 hyperlink, you retain most of a desktop 3080

I’m stunned simply how shut the comparability is with PCIe

Something I used to be instantly inquisitive about was the efficiency comparability between utilizing the GPU in a PCIe slot in comparison with utilizing it within the LinkStation. Native PCIe has about 6.4 occasions extra bandwidth (at PCIe 4.0 x16) than USB4 does. In my testing of the particular bandwidth, it was about 3.3GB/s over USB4 in comparison with 26.9GB/s over PCIe, so about eight occasions extra bandwidth. This means there shall be an enormous efficiency loss, proper? Wrong.

Let’s examine the Ryzen 9 7900X desktop with my RTX 3080 connected over PCIe to my Ryzen AI Max+ 395 Strix Halo system with the RTX 3080 within the LinkStation connected over USB4 with gaming efficiency. Also, for all pictures or benchmarks talked about elsewhere within the assessment, I ran each sport at 4K utilizing in-game presets with no upscaling or body technology of any sort.

In Forza Horizon 5, a reasonably strong benchmark sport for me, the Strix Halo system over USB4 noticed 132 FPS on low, 114 FPS on excessive, and 77 FPS on excessive. The Ryzen 9 7900X system with PCIe noticed 196 FPS on low, 160 FPS on excessive, and 106 FPS on excessive.

Forza Horizon 6 is a a lot newer and extra demanding sport, and the unfold was considerably related. The Strix Halo system by way of USB4 noticed 76 FPS on low, 63 FPS on excessive, and 41 FPS on excessive, whereas the Ryzen 9 7900X desktop over PCIe noticed 118 FPS on low, 84 FPS on excessive, and 63 FPS on excessive.

These numbers are a lot nearer than I anticipated them to be. I do know that the RTX 3080 is an older GPU, nevertheless it nonetheless goes to point out simply how little distinction there may be within the efficiency for some titles.

Your USB4 port issues greater than your graphics card

My desktop’s USB4 ports didn’t truly give me the complete expertise

As I mentioned, I examined the Ugreen LinkStation with three completely different techniques: a Ryzen Strix Halo mini PC, my Ryzen 9 7900X desktop, and the Lenovo mini PC.

All of the techniques have been in a position to make a USB4 reference to the LinkStation. However, my desktop (with the ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard) made a hyperlink at half pace. This meant that the efficiency was fairly degraded in comparison with the opposite techniques.

Running 3DMark’s Time Spy hid this distinction as a result of it additionally studies CPU efficiency blended with GPU efficiency. However, in real-world video games, the distinction is sort of staggering.

I examined all techniques utilizing 3DMark’s PCI Express Feature Test to check the bandwidth that the eGPU was in a position to ship over USB4, and I noticed on common 3.2 to three.3GB/s of bandwidth between the Strix Halo and Lenovo mini PCs. However, as a result of my X670E Taichi motherboard solely linked up at half pace, it noticed simply 1.5GB/s switch pace.

All three techniques are labeled USB4 with 40Gb/s connection capabilities, however not all techniques carried out the identical. This isn’t the fault of the Ugreen LinkStation, both, as I used the very same cable for every check. I imagine it has to do with the {hardware} and drivers on the system, and the Intel Thunderbolt controller that’s used on the X670E Taichi motherboard particularly.

How does that restrict translate to efficiency? Quite sizable, truly. The Ryzen 9 7900X system (the X670E Taichi) solely hit 53 FPS in Forza Horizon 5 on the low preset. That’s a fraction of the 132 FPS that the Strix Halo system hit, and the 123 FPS that the Lenovo hit.

I want there was a tough and quick rule I might let you know to observe to just remember to can join with a full 40Gb/s connection on the LinkStation, however I’ve not been in a position to solidify it sadly.

Should you purchase the Ugreen LinkStation eGPU Dock?

The Ugreen LinkStation eGPU Dock will not be low cost by any means. At $500, it’s a large funding to say the least. However, it does an incredible job at connecting a graphics card to any USB4-enabled system.

I notably love the way it helps hot-plugging so I can simply have on-demand gaming efficiency sitting on my desk that produces zero warmth after I don’t want it, and is prepared at a second’s discover after I do.

If you’re seeking to enhance the efficiency of your mini PC and make it into a greater gaming system with out shopping for a complete new laptop, I feel the Ugreen LinkStation is completely excellent for you. It does the job nicely, and there’s even an OCuLink port for a sooner (64Gb/s) connection in case you have a system that helps it.

If you will have a desktop that has a PCIe slot, I might skip it for gaming. It simply doesn’t present an expertise that’s materially the identical as or higher than PCIe, so I might keep on with that. Just put your GPU within the PCIe slot. However, for different PCIe-enabled units (like seize playing cards), the eGPU could be incredible.

8/10

Brand

Ugreen

GPU Included

No

GPU Max Power

850W

GPU Max Size

Up to 4 slots extensive

The Ugreen LinkStation eGPU Dock is designed to ship desktop-class efficiency to any USB4- or OCuLink-enabled system. With an 850W energy provide able to driving essentially the most power-hungry graphics playing cards available on the market, the LinkStation contains 4 customary 8-pin PCIe energy connectors in addition to the newer 16-pin ATX 3.1 connector required by GPUs just like the RTX 50-series.