PCIe riser, and put it on top of the metal "case" ?
Drawback is, the heat coming from the heat sink will get picked up by the card.
Now I am looking at those 3D printing model for ext. GPU, so that it can sit next to the mini PC with a PCIE x4 extension cable
Hey everyone. Sorry if this is a noob question but would this be a good idea?
It's under £100. It does seem like alot of these Mini PCs come with malware though so... not exactly ideal.
If you don't mind it's only GbE but not 2.5GbE it's OK.
For malware issue, if you don't use the bundled OS, I don't think it's a problem?
Apparently some units are hiding stuff in the actual BIOS. With the device being under £100 it makes me quite skeptical.
It looks exactly like the Acemagician T8 Pro/Plus.
If you don't need the CPU power of the Intel CPU, you can get a Cyberoam CR15 or CR25 for less than 30£ on eBay.
seems ok for the price. Sunny with a little shade:
A German IT magazine had it analyzed and disassembled recently:
https://www.golem.de/news/mini-pc-mit-intel-n100-im-test-eine-wundertuete-von-aliexpress-fuer-130-euro-2311-179481.html
Rough outline:
- 2x 1gbit
- soldered RAM
- the included SSD looked suspicious, could have been an anonymized used SSD (it had the labels of the vendor laser-removed)
- shitty PSU quality
- if you raise the power limit in BIOS from default 6W to 10W, you get twice the performance, but then the fan goes on occasionally (but was kind of quiet)
the recent ones, I read about, had the malware preinstalled on their SSD, so at least not a BIO(S)hazard
would be interesting to know, if Ace BIOS downloads would work here too
Youtube video here that attempts to dig into who Topton and CWWK actually are and if they can be trusted.
I just went to the CWWK support site where they deliver their BIOS updates and noticed their cert expired on 3/25/24. 
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now contenter: Latte Panda
Latte Panda seem to have a description for older modules of how to upload firmware updates, but I do not see where to download those. But on the other hand this module was just introduced on newstickers about 4h ago.
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Just bought MSI cubi 2 port barebones for $99. Couldn't find anything cheaper with a name brand! I am fine with Gigabit but it does have realtek ethernet RTL8111H
Hardkernel has introduced a new lineup of their X86 based devices, Odroid H4. N97 or N305, with Intel Nics; for those adverse to the crab Nics of old.
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Looking at the design, I doubt the H4 can work properly only with that small heatsink, my CWWK Magic is using a much larger piece of metal case to be a heatsink and still get hot during high loading with my N100, and N305 would be even worse.
if two 1GbE ports are enough, MSI US are currently selling an N100 mini PC for $99.