[DigitalToday reporter Hyunwoo Choo (추현우)] French PC maker Kubb has made a custom fanless mini PC using a 24K gold case. It costs about 2.3 billion won and weighs about 13 kg, online media outlet Gigazine reported on Sept. 28 local time.

The product is based on the Kubb Fanless fanless mini PC. It is a cube measuring about 120×120×120 mm. The aluminium case itself is used as a heatsink to vent CPU heat to the outside, allowing it to operate without a cooling fan.

The 24K model is a special-order unit with its case made from solid 24K gold rather than gold plating. It was made at the request of a wealthy customer who likes gold. The standard model weighs about 2.1 kg, while the 24K model weighs about 13 kg, more than six times heavier despite being the same size.

The price gap is also large. A standard Kubb Fanless PC with an Intel Core Ultra 5 225H sells for 1,595 euros (about 2.5 million won), but the 24K model costs about $1.7 million (about 2.3 billion won). Most of the increase comes from the case using a large amount of gold.

The base model offers a choice of Intel Core Ultra 5 225H, Core Ultra X7 358H and AMD Ryzen AI 5 340. It comes with DDR5 16GB of memory and can be expanded to up to 128GB. Storage includes a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, and a second M.2 SSD can also be added. The operating system is Windows 11 Pro, and it also supports USB4, Thunderbolt 4, HDMI 2.1 and multiple ethernet ports.

The gold case has advantages not only in appearance but also in cooling performance. Gold has higher thermal conductivity than aluminium, which can improve heat dissipation through the case. Still, gold is not the best material purely in terms of heat dissipation. Copper and silver have higher thermal conductivity than gold, and copper in particular is much cheaper than gold.