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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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The processor it's using is linked in the article: https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/08/29/starfive-jh7110-risc-v-processor-specifications/
It's a system-on-chip (SoC) design with an embedded GPU, the Imagination BXE-4-32, which appears to be designed mainly for smart TVs and set-top boxes.
The SoC itself only has two PCIe 2.0 lanes on separate interfaces so you can't use both for the same device, and one is shared with the USB 3.0 interface.
That's not even enough bandwidth to drive an entry-level notebook GPU from over a decade ago. Seriously: the GeForce GT 520M, launched January 2011, wants a full PCIe 2.0 x16 interface. Same with the Raedeon HD 6330M. You could probably get away with just 8 lanes if you had to, but not only one.
The other commenter wasn't kidding by saying you could get more power out of a Raspberry Pi 4. It's even mentioned in the article.
Connecting a GPU with just one PCIe lane isn't the biggest problem. You'll just slow down data exchange between the CPU and GPU (mostly loading textures and vertex positions).
If your game mostly relies on shaders and renders lots of rather static stuff, you'll mostly just get longer loading times but FPS shouldn't suffer too much.
Given how much modern games stream data in and out of VRAM, I think it would actually be quite a significant issue. Although, for modern games the 520M would probably be below minimum requirements anyway. It was just to illustrate my point.
It would be obviously "an issue" and drastically reduce performance in many cases, but compared to the buildin igpu, you'd probably still be able to get a much better performance for lots of applications.