Beelink EX GPU Dock Quick Look

Beelink EX GPU Dock Internal Overview

Opening the lid, we can see there is a thermal pad, because yes, there is M.2 storage in here as an option.

Here you can see the two M.2 slots. One is for the M.2 SSD, and one is for a WiFi card. Under the black cover is the 600W internal power supply. Unlike the Minisforum solution, you do not need an extra PSU, but you are limited to 600W.

You can see the two antenna wires for the WiFi card. This might seem silly, but we saw WiFi signal on our Beelink GTi12 Ultra become much more challenged when it was installed in this dock.

Next, let us take a look a the system and GPU installed.

Beelink GTi12 Ultra with Beelink EX GPU Dock

First off, the dock comes with power cables.

There is room for a triple slot cooler GPU here. We have an AMD Radeon Pro W7700 installed, and have used a GeForce RTX 4070. Beelink claims you can use a RTX 4090, but at that point, getting a more substantial CPU/ memory solution would be more interesting.

With Beelink GTi12 Ultra is installed you can see that it has a two screw retention plate. That keeps the system inserted, but once doing that, it requires a tool to remove the system.

There is another retention bracket for the GPU that covers a single slot.

GPUs tended to work well in this dock, but we had some challenges with NICs. We are beginning to think many mini PCs are primarily focused on supporting GPUs with solutions like these.

Final Words

There is one school of thought which is that this is very well executed. If you have a compatible system, then you can add a GPU to it making it more useful. For that purpose, it is executed well. At some point, however, this becomes a more static installation and it might make sense to just have a more permanant larger form factor system. Something that would have helped is not having a retention bracket for the system that required screws which would make it faster to change out. For those thinking of this as a highly multi-generational solution, something to keep in mind is that with each PCIe generation we get much shorter runs over PCB, and this solution adds more PCB runs and connectors to the mix. Realistically, this is not a 5+ year investment, so it is good that it is only a bit more than a PSU. (Amazon Affiliate.)

Overall, this is a neat solution, but it also ends up feeling less portable. We have used it a lot more than we thought we would, but perhaps that is because of the Beelink GTi12 Ultra. Stay tuned for that review.