$230 RTX 3060M 12GB from Aliexpress...

[Kenrou]

This $230 RTX 3060M 12GB is a special kind of variant only found on markets like AliExpress... and with a custom driver you can get it working perfectly on desktop... though the caveats are strong, there are some really enlightening facts.... especially vs the RTX 3060 12GB and RTX 4060....

TLDR:

 

[rainless]

Dude... I can get you an RTX 4090 with 128GB vRam on AliExpress RIGHT NOW...

...AND it'll have Prince's face on it!

 

[Kenrou]

I just find what they're doing actually interesting, I mean, modding mobile chips to desktop has been around for a while, but nowadays we get custom PCBs/coolers/drivers to go with it as standard, it's crazy... And the fact that the chip actually has more CUDA cores (that is strange in itself) and more memory, therefore running better than the original, but at the same time using half the power (or less) is mental.

Too bad I've only seen this in entry level GPUs, would be fun to see the numbers a 4080/4090 mobile would pull in this situation no? This might actually take off if the drivers were modded properly (or specific new ones made by Nvidia) and then sold at a decent price?

 

[Woomack]

It would be great to see some weird stuff like mobile CPU+ reasonable mobile GPU on a desktop motherboard (ITX or something). I mean, mobile CPUs are already fast enough for everything. Mobile GPUs heat up less, and it would be more than fine with desktop-size coolers.
So far, I found only mobos like this https://store.minisforum.de/en/products/bd
8 cores up to 5.1GHz, 2x M.2 PCIe 5.0 x4, PCIe x16 slot, 2x DDR5 SODIMM, and the price isn't bad considering it has a CPU. It could have a CPU with 780M graphics and it would be better, but there is no option like that. Now put a mobile gaming series Nvidia or AMD, and can build a pretty good small gaming PC.
Btw. Minisforum has Black Friday promos if anyone is interested (the US store has everything cheaper). They're on Amazon too.
I was close to ordering that ITX mobo, but I guess I expect too much from BIOS and available options.