Raptor Lake-P in a Modular Moveable Workstation

Khadas is a well known vendor within the ARM-based single-board pc (SBC) circles with boards based mostly on Rockchip and Amlogic SoCs. Not too long ago, the company made its first foray into the small form-factor x86 PC house with a quite distinctive product household – the Khadas Mind. Not like common mini-PCs, the Thoughts is definitely an ecosystem of merchandise created with the intention of bringing a transportable modular workstation to the market. As an alternative of counting on Thunderbolt to realize this imaginative and prescient, the corporate has created a proprietary Thoughts Hyperlink connector and interface with an intent to supply a extra close-knit set of merchandise.

The primary processing unit within the ecosystem is the Khadas Thoughts, which comes with both an Intel Core i7-1360P (Thoughts Premium) or an Intel Core i5-1340P (Thoughts Commonplace). Geared up with the Thoughts Hyperlink Connector, it may well interface to quite a lot of peripherals such because the Thoughts Dock and Thoughts Graphics. Whereas the previous offers extra I/Os, the latter is a full-featured eGPU enclosure with quite a lot of ports. The primary unit additionally features a small battery that permits the unit to be seamlessly ‘hot-plugged’ into completely different peripherals, just like a pocket book.

Khadas despatched throughout the Thoughts Premium together with the Thoughts Dock to offer us with an introduction to the Thoughts ecosystem. This assessment explores the efficiency and product expertise delivered by Raptor Lake-P in an uncommon package deal.

Introduction and Product Impressions

Developments in processor structure and semiconductor manufacturing have resulted in profitable substitute of cumbersome tower desktops with miniaturized computing methods during the last decade. In parallel, notebooks have additionally turn into thinner, lighter, and really highly effective. On the previous entrance, many distributors are having fun with success with ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) machines pioneered by Intel with the NUC product line. A couple of years again, Intel additionally began to introduce Compute Components and even pocket book platforms below the NUC tag so as to diversify past the unique UCFF imaginative and prescient.

These compact machines have their limitations by way of platform energy dissipation. Addition of discrete GPUs is often not doable with the UCFF form-factor, leading to many use-cases nonetheless requiring cumbersome desktops. eGPU enclosures related through Thunderbolt / USB4 have began to deal with this facet. Pocket book platforms have historically been restricted by way of supported display sizes. For a lot of enterprise use-cases specifically, the keyboard and built-in display lie unused, because the pocket book is both docked to a much bigger monitor or saved in storage. Some customers undertake a thin-client mannequin for his or her pocket book, however a number of gadgets and the obligatory want for community connectivity could end in ache factors related to file syncing. Khadas has created the Thoughts product household as an answer to those issues.

The ecosystem consists of the principle computing unit and a bunch of peripherals that interface utilizing a proprietary Thoughts Hyperlink connector. The core computing unit is just like that of an ultrabook’s predominant board – compact, and restricted by way of I/O. Nonetheless, the leeway over the unit’s thickness (in comparison with an everyday ultrabook) has enabled Khadas to equip the board with a vapor chamber-based cooling system. Whereas the LPDDR5 RAM is soldered, the system comes with two M.2 2230 Gen4 x4 NVMe slots. Khadas does not promote barebones variations, however markets two completely different SKUs that come pre-installed with Home windows 11 Residence:

• Thoughts Premium: Core i7-1360P / 32GB of LPDDR5-5200 RAM / 1TB Gen4 x4 NVMe SSD
• Thoughts Commonplace: Core i5-1340P / 16GB of LPDDR5-5200 RAM / 512GB Gen4 x4 NVMe SSD

Khadas has plans for numerous peripherals:

• Thoughts Dock: I/O enlargement with extra community ports, video outputs, audio subsystem, and USB ports.
• Thoughts Graphics: eGPU enclosure with the NVIDIA RTX 4060Ti and extra I/O ports.for the gaming market.
• Thoughts Studio: Giant touchscreen monitor with extra GPU for inventive professionals.
• Thoughts xPlay: 2-in-1 pill / pocket book conversion package (moveable monitor with keyboard)
• Thoughts Speak: Convention room conversion package

At present, the corporate already has the Thoughts Dock able to ship (it got here in as a part of our assessment package deal together with the Thoughts Premium), and the Thoughts Graphics is anticipated to ship in June 2024. The opposite peripherals are nonetheless within the planning levels.

The Thoughts Premium package deal comes with the principle unit and USB-PD compliant Kind-C adapter (as much as 65W) and a braided Kind-C cable together with it. A guaranty card and a fast begin information are additionally included.

The gallery under presents the exterior industrial design of the principle unit in addition to the Thoughts Dock.

The primary unit is a compact rectangular slab measuring 146mm x 105mm x 20mm, with a weight of 450g. The rounded edges and steel enclosure lend it a stable feel and appear. Sadly, the core unit is quite anemic by way of I/O. There are three show outputs – a HDMI port, and two Kind-C ports. Both of the Kind-C ports can be utilized to attach the ability adapter, however in addition they help knowledge switch as detailed under. There are two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Kind-A ports. The absence of USB4 / Thunderbolt 4 is a significant letdown, although.

The Thoughts Dock offers wired networking help, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a SDXC UHS-II card slot and a number of USB 3.2 Gen 1 Kind-A ports. Two HDMI 2.0 ports are additionally included. The Thoughts Dock additionally has a fingerprint reader and a quantity management knob. Audio system are additionally constructed into the dock.

Khadas supplied a full-blown teardown image of the Thoughts Commonplace together with their press package deal.

The primary unit is provided with a Western Digital SN740 NVMe SSD, whereas the Samsung LPDDR5-5200 RAM chips are soldered. A 5.55Wh battery can be included – just like a pocket book platform. Nonetheless, the battery is just not meant for use for normal operation within the absence of energy enter. Fairly, it’s meant to assist in hot-plugging and permitting the system to fall asleep with out having to close down within the absence of exterior energy. Khadas guarantees as much as 25 hours of standby in such situations.

The complete specs of the assessment pattern (as examined) are summarized within the desk under. We consider two configurations – one with simply the Thoughts Premium, and one other with the Thoughts Dock.

Within the subsequent part, we check out the system setup and comply with it up with an in depth platform evaluation.