Brilliant execution, awful inspiration material: This AMD-powered Cybertruck mini PC really is in production
Fans of the Tesla Cybertruck (yes, there are some out there) might be wondering how else they add more of the angular monstrosity electric vehicle to their lives. Well, if its inclusion in Fortnite isn't enough, then how about the Xyber XPC, an AMD-powered mini-PC, replete with moving wheels, doors, and working lights?
Technically the mini PC is still an Indiegogo project at the moment but tech YouTuber Taki Udon (via Wccftech) has received a sample that's supposedly indicative of what the full production run model will be like. Underneath the hood, if you pardon the awful pun, is an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS—an APU with eight Zen 4 cores, 16 threads, 16 MB of L3 cache, and 768 RDNA 3 shaders.
The makers of the Xyber XPC have configured the chip to run with a 54 W TDP by default but as Udon found out, that just makes the chip run far too hot, for very little performance gain. A quick bit of BIOS tweaking is all that's needed to drop it to 30 W and you get the same kind of performance you'd see with an Asus ROG Ally X, the best handheld gaming PC you can buy right now.
Udon's sample has 32 GB of DDR5-5600 which is a large amount of RAM for this kind of gaming PC, though it's not as fast as that used in the Ally X. AMD's APUs do like having lots of fast RAM so if you do end up buying a Xyber XPC, you might want to fit a really quick dual-channel DDR5 kit to get the best possible performance.
There's a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD inside, and the good news is that the motherboard supports the standard M.2 2280 size format, meaning you've got lots of choices if you want to fit a faster or larger solid state drive.
I have to say that the cooling system looks like it's being somewhat strangled by the design of the Xyber XPC's underside, but Udon's testing at 30 W shows that it copes well enough with that power consumption.
Apart from a bunch of USB ports (USB 3.1 Gen 1, 1x Type A and 2x Type-C), an HDMI 2.1 socket, and a 3.5 mm audio jack, you're not getting much else socket-wise, though you do get Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 services.
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What you do get, though, is a pretty decent replication of the Tesla Cybertruck, with a moving steering wheel, suspension, hoods, and doors. It even has working front and rear lights. The power button is basically wired to the front suspension, so pushing down on the frunk switches the PC on and off.
There's no word on how much this is going to cost once in full production but would I buy one? Heaven's above, no. I mean just look at it. Xyber Team has done a great job of fitting a speedy little PC inside the Cybertruck replica but it's a Cybertruck—the very epitome of form over function.
Well, it would be if it had any form to begin with. Taste over function? Umm, maybe not. Anyway, it's a 10 out of 10 for execution from me but a zero out of 10 for the choice of inspiration material. Now, if it was a certain DeLorean time machine, then I'd be first in the queue.