NotebookCHECK - Notebook Forum

English => Reviews => Topic started by: Redaktion on May 06, 2026, 00:20:01

Title: HP EliteBoard G1a AI review: A PC hidden in plain sight
Post by: Redaktion on May 06, 2026, 00:20:01
The EliteBoard can potentially clean up your cable spaghetti and be a huge space saver in the office — we just wish it were a little bigger with a few more ports.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-EliteBoard-G1a-AI-review-A-PC-hidden-in-plain-sight.1287730.0.html
Title: Re: HP EliteBoard G1a AI review: A PC hidden in plain sight
Post by: may not adequate for AI on May 06, 2026, 09:06:53
Nothing in this deserves the AI in its product name:

For 1800 bucks you could get a whole laptop / Apple Air M5 with 32 GB RAM instead!, its RAM is also running at much faster 9600 MT/s (= 153.6 GB/s) and this could give you 9600/5600 = 70% faster AI token generation.

The following suggestion doesn't replaces this device in size, but: For 1800 you could build a desktop PC that is much more capable: More RAM at the same speed 5600 MT/s or slightly faster at, say, 6200) and you'd have a dedicated GPU for much faster prompt processing, and also faster token generation, because parts of the LLM can be offloaded to the GPU's much faster VRAM, and the desktop PC will be repairable, upgradable and the keyboard can be changed too.

[1]
QuoteThe Ryzen 350:

Quote from: amd.com/en/products/processors/laptop/ryzen/ai-300-series/amd-ryzen-ai-7-350.htmlOverall TOPS
        Up to 66 TOPS (I think it's 8-bit / INT8)
    NPU TOPS
        Up to 50 TOPS (same)
Quote from: nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/laptops/compareGeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU: 440 AI TOPS (4-bit, scammy NGREEDIA, so it's half that -- 220 -- in 8-bit)

GeForce RTX 4050-Laptop-GPU: 194 AI TOPS (8-bit)
194/66 = ~3 times, so it's 3 times slower.

3dmark.com/search:
4050 (notebook): Average score: 8288
Ryzen AI 350' 860M iGPU: Average score: 2885

8288/2885 = ~3 times, which is the same 3 times.

-> Looks like Ryzen AI 350' NPU has to be mainly understood as its iGPU, really. An iGPU is still an ASIC, the most power efficient way. Maybe a NPU is just marketing, instead of just saying it the way NVIDIA says it ("AI TOPS", no mention of a NPU).

Which tells us that it has been all along about what I said in my previous comment ("it's all about memory size, memory bandwidth and the usually, out of it, resulting GPU performance") ;)

AI requires these things:
Here, the iGPU scores 1559 Points in 2560x1440 Time Spy Graphics. Compare this to a e.g. 5070: 3dmark.com/search: "Average score: 20330".
The memory speed is 62210 MB/s, this is in line with any dual-channel, 2*64-bit, 5600 MT/s (like 99% of all PCs/laptops are dual-channel 128-bit). So, this is nothing special.
Title: Re: HP EliteBoard G1a AI review: A PC hidden in plain sight
Post by: may not adequate for AI on May 06, 2026, 09:14:50
The [1] quote is from notebookchat.com/index.php?topic=295286.msg735872#msg735872.
Title: Re: HP EliteBoard G1a AI review: A PC hidden in plain sight
Post by: RobertJasiek on May 06, 2026, 14:02:53
Quote from: may not adequate for AI on May 06, 2026, 09:06:53AI requires these things:
  • Memory size to fit a decently capable LLM.

AI requires these things: Memory size to fit a decently capable AI object(s). (Because LLMs are only one special kind of AI. Other AIs have other objects, which need not be nets.)
Title: Re: HP EliteBoard G1a AI review: A PC hidden in plain sight
Post by: Xistanz on May 08, 2026, 00:34:14
Paired with a usb-c monitor. You mean some viture beasts for minimal clutter.

Right?
Title: Re: HP EliteBoard G1a AI review: A PC hidden in plain sight
Post by: piloteer on May 09, 2026, 10:17:11
Guess you can pair it with a USB Type-C head-mounted display.
Title: Re: HP EliteBoard G1a AI review: A PC hidden in plain sight
Post by: Jack T. on May 11, 2026, 08:35:35
Quote from: may not adequate for AI on May 06, 2026, 09:06:53Nothing in this deserves the AI in its product name:
[..]
Here is a different take on it: notebookchat.com/index.php?topic=307963.msg755813#msg755813.
Title: Re: HP EliteBoard G1a AI review: A PC hidden in plain sight
Post by: Correction on June 12, 2026, 12:56:05
Quote from: may not adequate for AI on May 06, 2026, 09:06:53(The number of CPU threads doesn't matter for running AI (aka inferencing) (4 threads pretty much tops-out a dual-channel PC))
Correction: >4 threads improve MTP LLMs speed:
Using Qwen3.6-27B-UD-Q4_K_XL.gguf (download: huggingface.co/unsloth/Qwen3.6-27B-MTP-GGUF):
Code ("CUDA build") Select
./llama.cpp/build/bin/llama-server --models-preset 'LLMs.ini' --threads 8 --models-max 1 --no-models-autoload -np 1 --no-warmup --chat-template-kwargs '{"preserve_thinking": true}' --no-mmproj --offline --no-mmap --spec-type draft-mtp --spec-draft-n-max 2
Source: reddit/"PSA: Test your "threads" argument in llama.cpp (+80% performance in my case)"