CherryTree Inc.-the name to reckon with in making outsized custom PCs-had a way cooler trick up its sleeve. They have invited Gamers Nexus in for a glimpse of something actually novel: the "GeeFarce 5027 POS." It'll be the next king of GPUs. Probably not. But it surely is some clever stuff.
Instead of letting a dinosaur, Gigabyte graphics card-this one most likely judging by the cooler-come from the RTX 20-series era and about six years old-lie in a drawer or go to the dump, CherryTree resurrected it with a new lease of life: they've cleverly converted this aging GPU into a fully functional computer system.
Once you peek under the old shroud, the secret is revealed: a NUC (Next Unit of Computing) is nested inside. It's an Asus NUC 13 Pro, and while not the latest model, it still packs a decent punch. This mini-PC is running an Intel Core i7-1360P "Raptor Lake" chip. That's 12 cores and 16 threads capable of boosting up to 5 GHz on its performance cores. For graphics, it relies on the integrated Iris Xe graphics with 96 Execution Units.
To round out the system, CherryTree didn't skimp. They've paired this 28W processor with a hefty 64GB of DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM memory and a speedy 2TB MP33 PCIe 3.0 SSD, both from TeamGroup.
CherryTree took advantage of the current Gigabyte cooling system. What materials are available from the original GPU. Well, most of that heatsink is too big to work with the NUC, but those three cooling fans. They're now providing active cooling for the NUCs.
Oh, and the whole assembly can be plugged into any expansion slot from any other PC. Truly a PC-within-a-PC.
Of course, the PCIe interface on the old graphics card itself is just for show now; it's not functional. Powering this unique build is also a clever workaround. CherryTree converted the 8-pin PCIe power connector into a barrel connector, so the GeeFarce 5027 POS draws its power from a wall outlet via an adapter. They've even hardwired a power button onto the side of the "graphics card."
Because the NUC 13 Pro is positioned just where the original graphics card's I/O bracket would be, all its ports can always be accessed-even if installed in another pc. So you get the typical NUC 13 Pro connectivity:
- Two Thunderbolt 4 ports
- One USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port
- One USB 2.0 Type-A port
- Two HDMI 2.1 ports
- A 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port
While the Iris Xe integrated graphics won't be breaking any benchmark records, it seems that the GeeFarce 5027 POS will thrive in mild gaming. Classics like Doom, Doom II, and Quantum Break apparently played smoothly on this rig. Unsurprisingly, in synthetic tests conducted by Gamers Nexus, it couldn't compete with a dedicated card like an RTX 2070 Super.
Consumption of electricity is modest, with peaks around 87W. Even the temperatures remained within safe limits; P-cores hit 75°C, E-cores were at 70°C, and the graphics core at 60°C during testing.
Sadly for all you interested parties, this eccentric creation is simply a limited edition fun project from CherryTree and is not available on the company's site. An excellent example of creative hardware modding.
