Earlier this year, the prolific Chinese PC maker Chuwi introduced a product that contains an AMD (Application Processor Unit) APU that has yet to be announced, the A9-9820.
Called the AeroBox, the workstation positioned itself as a high-performance office mini PC that, by far, closely resembles a gaming console.
Now, we have official confirmation that the device is console-based – the Xbox One S. A Chuwi spokesperson said TechRadar Pro Aerobox uses the motherboard of the console and described the A9-9820 as a "new seventh generation chip" running on Windows 10.
With eight cores, eight threads, and a maximum frequency of 2.35 GHz, the AeroBox published robust numbers on leak-based benchmarks in March 2020 (and in Chuwi's own internal tests). Along with a Radeon R7 350 (GCN 3.0) GPU that runs at up to 985 MHz, it promises to offer solid graphics performance as well.
What exactly?
The A9-9820 processors are likely to be remaining parts, based on the Jaguar microarchitecture, which were built for the Xbox One S, which supports DDR3 memory and has a similar spec list (albeit at a higher clock rate). The GPU has likely been disabled and replaced by a discrete GPU.
We also notice some anomalies in the specification. For example, the motherboard has four memory slots, which is extremely rare for what looks like a microATX board. The device uses a SATA SSD, but the image in the marketing literature shows an HP SSD EX900 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe. Oh, and HP doesn't make 256GB SSDs, only 250GB versions.
Last but not least, there are two PS2 connectors on the back: popular legacy ports at the beginning of the millennium but one that USB stopped using. These, together with the presence of a DVI port, make this product an interesting rarity.
Chuwi has yet to announce a price for the AeroBox and has confirmed that it will not be available outside of Japan at launch, but be on the lookout for more information.