COMPUTEX 2026 Gigabyte showed off a high density server platform at Computex this week that crams 40 low-power compute nodes into a pizza box. Amid a sea of nearly identical MGX and NVL blades, the R1C7-KOA-AS1 was one of the more unusual systems on this year’s show floor. Rather than using Intel or AMD's datacenter class Xeon or Epyc, the machine is powered by dozens of notebook processors. Specifically, Gigabyte has opted for Intel's Core Ultra 7 258V. Launched in mid 2024, each chip is equipped with four Lion Cove P-cores and four Skymont E-cores clocked at up to 4.8 GHz and 3.7 GHz respectively. Each processor is paired with 32 GB of LPDDR5x 8,533 MT/s memory, Arc 140V graphics with eight Xe cores, and a 48 TOPS NPU. These chips are mounted on a thin motherboard roughly the size of an index card. Each node is equipped with a pair of PCIe 5.0 m.2 drives, which probably provide redundant storage. Eight of these nodes slot into one of the chassis’ five carriers for a total of 40 systems, 320 cores (160 P / 160 E), and 1.28 TB of high-speed memory. Networking and power come in the form of two 100 Gbps QSFP28 LAN Ports, and a pair of 3200 watt 80-plus Titanium power supplies. We're told the system is well suited to running micro services workloads like Kubernetes, but we suspect many will be attracted to it as a bare metal alternative to VDI, for something like Microsoft 365 cloud PCs or casual cloud game streaming. The Intel 258V's on board graphics means customers wouldn't need to worry about vGPU licensing costs. Each node would have its own dedicated graphics acceleration. Gigabyte currently lists the system as "To be released" on its website. We've asked for comment on timing and will let you know if we hear anything back. ®
