Beelink, a mini PC manufacturer, open sourcing its docking station. On X (formerly Twitter), the company posted that it was releasing the specifications, patents, and other details related to the EX Docking Station meant for use with its own PCs.
"Beelink is committed to continuing this trend by open-sourcing verified and mature technical specifications and patents, fostering collaboration with developers and peers to advance the entire industry," the company wrote.
The original dock was sold for $159 from Beelink's website. The Beelink EX Docking Station is distinguished from similar eGPU docks due to its use of the PCIe x8 interface to connect the client PC to the docking station, rather than resorting to Thunderbolt or OCuLink. This direct use of PCIe 4.0 x8 makes it the most performant and low-latency solution of modern eGPUs, but you'll need a mini PC that supports PCIe x8 expansion first.
In our prior coverage of the Beelink GTi14, we noted that it seemed made for a PCIe x8 Docking Station that had yet to exist— it's good to see that Beelink is not only addressing that, but releasing those designs to the wider developer community so this feature can become more standard.
Beelink has released pertinent documentation with permissions in place for free use, even by competing manufacturers.
Based on existing benchmarks of the Beelink GTi12 paired with this Beelink EX Docking Station, it seems clear that PCIe 4.0 x8 is indeed the best way to maximize performance gains possible with an external GPU. Behind that is OCuLink, then Thunderbolt 4. Being able to wire up an external GPU doesn't matter if you lose most of its performance to the connector— one key reason Steam Deck doesn't support eGPU, for example, is that it's still stuck on regular old USB 3.0, which peaks at 5 Gigabits per second. Meanwhile, eight PCIe 4.0 lanes are equivalent to roughly 256 Gigabits per second, and OCuLink can only offer four PCIe lanes at best— so half that or less, depending on the age of the connectors.
Will this mark a shift in the market that starts seeing more mini PCs and perhaps even gaming handhelds adopting PCIe x8 cables for external GPU solutions? Possibly, but the more commonplace Thunderbolt and OCuLink eGPU standards will likely maintain marketplace dominance for quite some time, even if they technically are a lot slower than using full-fat PCIe connectors and bandwidth.
