This Frankenstein build turns an Nvidia GeForce card into a mini gaming PC

Mini gaming PC owners have typically had a choice: downsize and lose their graphics card, use an eGPU enclosure, or keep their rig large enough to plug their GPU in directly. This bizarre build, however, turns that logic on its head, integrating an entire PC into the chassis of an Nvidia GeForce graphics card instead. The end result is a Frankenstein monster that, in the end, isn't really a GPU after all.

Ripping apart an Nvidia graphics card to fit an entire PC inside it might have seemed impossible just a few years ago. However, the best mini gaming PC designs are now small enough to accommodate incredibly small motherboards, which can then squeeze into tiny spaces, such as this graphics card.

Built by custom PC builder CherryTree, the "GeeFarce RTX 5027 POS" looks a lot like a typical third-party graphics card, with cooling fans and RGB lighting. It's anything but, however. In a sample, shared with tech YouTube channel Gamers Nexus and unveiled in a recent video, we can see inside that the GPU itself has been removed. Replacing it are the internal components of an Asus NUC 13 Pro, with a 13th-gen Intel Core i7-1360P CPU, 64GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage.

In a full review, including benchmarks, the GeeFarce RTX 5027 looks to be relatively well constructed. It isn't a perfect build, but CherryTree has been able to carefully integrate the Asus NUC's motherboard into the graphics card's design. However, some faults do remain, with a heatsink that doesn't actually draw heat from the NUC - a design oversight that could definitely be improved to help with cooling in the long run. It also comes with a PCIe connector and, while you could plug this into a normal PC, it can't be powered that way, instead requiring a standalone laptop-style power brick.

Given the limitations of the NUC's hardware, with its integrated Iris Xe graphics, this isn't much of a gaming powerhouse. That's a shame because, as we've seen in my recent Geekom A6 review, mini gaming PCs are now powerful enough to handle 1080p gaming, with faster and newer hardware than this machine, although given the size constraints, it might be tricky to keep those thermals in place with anything newer.

Either way, this is a cool, if totally bizarre, use for a broken graphics card. It isn't going to be great for your next 4K gaming PC build, but as a cool server or second PC, I would absolutely put the GeeFarce RTX 5027 on display and push it to its limit.

If you've got a PC already, you might want to stick to a more traditional upgrade for your rig. You can check our best graphics card guide next for the best GPUs out there right now, from both AMD and Nvidia.

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