ADLINK has introduced the portable, pocket-sized NVIDIA RTX A500 GPU that replaces the iGPU in your system for AI acceleration.
ADLINK Pocket AI aims to put graphics computing in your hands with the power of NVIDIA RTX GPUs
Imagine carrying an AI performance GPU in your pocket. As silly as it may sound, ADLINK makes it with its mobile GPU Pocket AI powered by NVIDIA GPU with Tensor Core technology.
The idea behind this technology is interesting. The goal is to bring AI and graphics functions to every device through “plug-and-play.” ADLINK Pocket AI is specifically designed for professionals with AI tasks that require a dedicated GPU To highlight the potential of this innovative technology, Memory check He has uploaded a comprehensive review that covers every aspect in detail.
Starting with the onboard GPU, the Pocket AI has the NVIDIA RTX A500 GPU, which has 2048 CUDA cores and 64 Tensor cores running on a 64-bit interface with 4GB of GDDR6 memory. It comes with a processing power of 6.54 TFLOPS peak FP32 with a TDP of 25W. On paper, the GPU has lower specs than the RTX 3050, but if you’re running an older machine with an iGPU, it could be a nice upgrade, especially if you want to focus on AI-intensive tasks.
As for the design details, the Pocket AI comes with a rubber shell that holds the GPU and protects users from possible burns as the NVIDIA RTX A500 runs very hot. The device has a beautiful black and green color and has two ports on board. The first is power delivery and the second is Thunderbolt 3, which connects the GPU to your device. The Pocket AI’s cooling mechanism is simple, with an intake fan at the bottom with wide cutouts to keep air circulating.
It depends on how Pocket AI behaves in real applications. StorageReview Luxmark and UL Labs benchmarked Procyon AI’s GPU performance, and its performance numbers show more than double the performance of iGPUs. Check out the numbers obtained below:
standard | Iris XE 96-Kern | Adlink Pocket AI | |
Luxmark-Halle | 1828 | 3979 | 14226 |
Luxmark Foods | 869 | 1837 | 5499 |
Procyon AI conclusion | 59 | 264 | 651 |
Benchmarks show that while Pocket AI doesn’t have outstanding performance, it’s well suited for workloads in the AI industry. The product is ideal for situations where continuing to use an existing device is preferable to switching to a new device. If you want to add advanced graphics processing capabilities to your device, Pocket AI is the right choice. However, the ability to combine the power of Pocket AI with portability comes at a price.
The Pocket AI is currently priced at US$429, which is a steep price considering the built-in components. To give you an idea, the NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti is currently selling for the same price. With that in mind, I think Pocket AI isn’t worth the price here. However, this is the case with almost all external GPU options and modules. The GPD G1, which comes with an AMD RX 7600M XT GPU, costs around $800, the same price as the RX 7900 XT enthusiast card.
Additionally, while you can gain portability and computing power with Pocket AI, by and large, most consumers won’t have a problem carrying a GPU around every day; Instead, they prefer a more permanent solution, which is getting a better device. Also, Pocket AI has also raised concerns about temperatures that are evident in such devices.
Overall, Pocket AI seems to be an innovation that comes with many problems. While the trend remains, ADLINK’s Pocket AI cannot succeed unless it has a better price point and improves in the heat dissipation department.
They are: Memory check