EXTERNAL GPU'S

Thoughts on external GPU's?
Are they just a niche?
do they actually hold value?
Discuss
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Eventually they will be excellent and allow desktop users to migrate to laptops without compromises.

good if you diy and dont want a desktop

terrible if you buy a case

I really hope they work, got the new macbook pro 13 partly to install an external GPU.

I wish someone would build a dock that had a nice GPU that you could throw a thinkpad or latitude on to play games. They already have the boring cuckdocks with usb ports and stuff why not make something worth buying? i'm happy using integrated graphics to save power for basic laptop shit but it would be great to set laptop on a dock to "edit videos" (play real games)

Any of you own/owned/used one,
They any good?

Isn't that adapter useless now because the wood will interfere with the clip on the x16 card?

the compromise is your CPU melts

How come?

youtube.com/watch?v=RVxtkfw0vaE

>They any good?

Provided the cpu is decent/not bottlenecking, yes

Decent option if you dont want to buy a case

I've been thinking about doing this for a thinkpad

Either 3d printed stock or making one with styrene and wood

Dubs checked

>without compromises
>Non-swappable CPU and motherboard aren't compromises
Fuck you.

eGPU is still a good idea though. If only Thunerbolt 3 gpu docks weren't so damn expensive.

Basically they're for people who were retarded enough to buy a laptop when they actually needed a desktop.

problems:
- Normally dGPUs are put in x16 pci-express slots with 16GB/s of bandwidth. Even USB 3.0 cranks that down to ~0.4GB/s
- You are required to carry a bulky PSU that must be connected to an electrical outlet and the dGPU dock so portability you get with laptops is lost
- Laptop processors have abhorrent single thread performance due to thermal throttling which significantly reduces FPS
- Said thermal throttling puts stress on your tiny laptop fan which reduces it's lifespan significantly.

If you're seriously considering a dGPU dock for your shitty laptop then seriously consider selling it on ebay and buying parts for a custom desktop pc instead. The mini-itx pc cases are popular among those who want a mix between portability and power as you can usually mount these cases in the back of monitors.

A good CPU and GPU would be the R5 1600 + Rx 580.

Actually really good.
I put one on my gf's laptop for abit while I had a spare 960 and it was easily within 80% performance of a desktop on an i5 laptop.
There is a guy that has one on the /bst/ threads that uses his as a daily.

Happy to answer any questions on it.

Like says, you need psu and bottle necking, why not just get a desktop it seems like a better option if you really looking into gaming

If they're cheap enough, they're a pretty good way of upgrading the iGPU of mini-PCs used as HTPCs if ever a new video standard that requires a new hardware decoder comes out.

biggest meme after Ryzen

It's not for if your really into gaming. It's for if you have a laptop and also want to play games occasionally. It can be cheaper and better than a console including GPU and PSU. Mine was built so my gf could play games with me like on a rainy Saturday. Your really not that heavily bottlenecked.

You don't sound like you have actually used one.

I'll bite, why not just sell the laptop and build a mini-itx pc?

>Isn't that adapter useless now because the wood will interfere with the clip on the x16 card?
Yes it is, although you can remove it pretty easily from the card. And it has nothing to do with it be 16 lanes, it has to do with cards being full length. On 100GbE ethernet cards, they arent full length and hence dont have them. And there are 8x cards like my RAID card which are full length and have them.

Not but I'm pretty sure your laptop fan blowing at full throttle on your laptop CPU desperately avoiding tJunction by throttling down to 2 GHz isn't gonna help your FPS after the GPU has to cram data through a 0.4GB/s pipeline.

If GHz didn't matter in games then we would all be using 20-core processors at 0.5GHz without a heatsink right now.

in regard to an expresscard egpu + old laptop setup, it can make sense. consider the old sandy/ivy bridge thinkpads we keep jerking off over in Sup Forums. an egpu adapter ($50) + the old card your friend just swapped out of his desktop (free if he ain't a dick) can make the difference between a popular game like overwatch not starting on the hd 3000 igpu, and it running a good 60 fps at medium settings on the internal screen (better on external). not bad for a laptop pushing 5 or 6 years
\
and the power doesn't need to be from some huge gross atx psu either. dell da-2 psu ($15) does about 200w and is laid out a bit more sanely, or even some chink 12v brick ($10) off ebay can power a 65w card like the 750ti. the overall setup on your desk doesn't need to take up more space than a regular powered external hard drive

Seems like there's a massive amount of engineering to make that desirable or even practical. If it got to the point where you could have a "GPU station" where you just plug a single cable into your laptop and you have yourself a full fledged desktop workstation, then it'd be useful for certain people.

Because you need the laptop. The motherboard alone is twice the price of an adapter.
I'm not saying this product is for everyone. It's not for me but it did it's job for my gf.
I'm trying to find the benchmarks I saved. This product is $50USD and will perform almost as well as a desktop.

I did have to do some stuff to the CPU to stop it throttling.

Why not just make a wireless GPU that all your devices can connect to and utilize?

Just imagine it, desktop graphics on your cellphone!

Cool idea. I'm going to patent it so nobody can try to build one for the next hundred years.

>Because you need the laptop. The motherboard alone is twice the price of an adapter.
~$60 LGA 1151 mini-ITX motherboards have been out for some time.

>I'm not saying this product is for everyone. It's not for me but it did it's job for my gf.
At a huge cost and loss of performance.

>I'm trying to find the benchmarks I saved. This product is $50USD and will perform almost as well as a desktop.
lol

>I did have to do some stuff to the CPU to stop it throttling.
So what did you do about the 0.4GB/s bandwidth bottleneck?

Razer has a hot pluggable one.
But no one on Sup Forums is actually using a thunderbolt enabled eGPU setup.
If they have a money to buy a thunderbolt laptop + eGPU solution they'd be using a desktop.
So they're on thinkpads and expresscards.
Literally a solution for poorfags, if I'm a company making products I wouldn't make new products around the dead expresscard slot. There's no future going forward for eGPU until every budget laptop has a thunderbolt port.

>So what did you do about the 0.4GB/s bandwidth bottleneck?

use an nvidia card and squeeze out some extra throughput via optimus compression
bring down settings and resolution until frame rates are accessible
accept a non-optimal solution will get non-optimal results, don't chase that "EVERY SETTING HAS TO BE MAXED TO ENJOY THIS FUN VIDEO GAME DIVERSION" dragon

>"literally had to butcher my game to play it but it's ok"
Dam dude, where did it all go wrong?

it's still just a game. why agonize over dynamic reflections and slightly sharper textures that you'll never give a second thought after the ~*gameplay*~ kick in

>I'm so poor and retarded I play vidya through a dGPU dock and a laptop
You voted for trump, didn't you?

Like half or more of the people that try one have issues, either you have to run shady programs to allocate memory for it, deal with weird and unexplainable bugs only on certain games, deal with driver magic with files from obscure russian forums, or simply get it working 1 out of every 3 times. They rarely work as they should but if you're lucky and manage to get it right im sure its worth it.

I think they are a ways away from being practical. I own an Razer Blade Stealth and a Razer Core with an RX 460 in it. It plays all the games I play just fine, even PUBG and RB6S. I can fit all of this in a book bag and have an ultrabook with a nice screen for work.

With that said, there are issues with certain Unreal Engine titles correctly using the eGPU. It's not flawless, but overall I'm happy with my purchase.

>laptops without compromises.
No fuck you.

>Huge cost
>$50
What? Your motherboard still costs more than this "expensive" adapter.
Still have to buy a case, wifi, RAM, HDD, CPU.

>0.4GB/s Bottlekneck
If your buying this adapter your more likely to peer it with something like a 750ti. The 960 I used did suffer some bottleneck but not much.

>lol
Actually use one smart ass then give me your opinion.

They aren't ready for widespread adoption. They are still kinda $$$ and the best solution for connection isn't hammered out. Thunderbolt 3 is good but wait and see. Also laptop manufacturers aren't building laptops with them in mind yet.

>shit speeds
>shit CPU
External GPUs are a meme.

>$120 laptop that's done everything i've needed except run some game buds are playing
>"hey man i'll give you this old gpu so you can play with us"
>buy egpu + power adapter for $50 (sale)
>play game with buds, have fun
poor and retarded isn't so bad when you have friends :-)

Oh wow you're really emotional about this. I'm sorry this means so much to you. Haha

How about hem house fires?

It's $10 for the current best-performance external GPU adapter.

item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a312a.7700824.w4004-16411295239.7.5h2RHT&id=548267575162

This gets you PCIe x4 3.0, with an average of around 94% of full desktop x16 performance.

If you can't understand why this would be an excellent option if you already have a laptop with a reasonable CPU, you might have brain problems.

I'll get a RX 560 (or 460, whatever is available in my country) for it, ¿would it bottleneck hard through mini PCIe?
I think they hold value if your plan is to revive a pretty old laptop, that's my plan at least with my 6 years old shit, to have it in my room as a personal old "gaming" PC for Borderlands. Even if it's not the best option, it's miles better than using HD 3000 graphics

Spot on.

I decided to do the stupid thing and dump all my money on a few servers for a homelab instead of a kick ass gaming desktop. While I'd love to have money to play games on high res and shit, I'm still in school paying off loans. I bought into the x220 meme and it works perfectly for everything except games, so when a couple of friends wanted to play rocket league with me the only solution was a egpu and an old gtx460 I had laying around. The gtx460 wont even saturate the expresssslot bandwidth and I can still play a few games with some buddies without dropping a few hundred on a desktop I'll hardly use.

When I'm not in school and not poor, I'll get a gaming rig again, but life has priorities.

Get something on the Maxwell/Pascal architecture, anything up to 960. Nvidia works better in this case because they have better compression (the bottleneck wont be as bad in theory).

I sincerely would but here the 750Ti is still more expensive than the fucking 460 even on the used market, that's why I asked if it was maybe too much.
I don't want to buy shitty GPUs like a R7 250 neither

I'm using a 15" MBP and a GTX 1080 via TB. It totally replaces a desktop and there would be no advantage to using one for me. It should be clear from this that saving money wasn't the priority.

I wonder if it would be feasible to build a 12+ gpu system for cyrpto mining via threadripper... surely someone is working on this.

I want to see a ThinkPad docking station with an eGPU adapter made

Is there away to make a thunderbolt 3 to pci+8pin?

don't be retarded

I just wish they put more effort into lowering power draw.

eGPU is epeen

Thats not an answer you banquet of shit

External gpus have lower performance.

>Are they just a niche?
>do they actually hold value?
This is not a dichotomy. Being niche means something holds value, only to a small amount of people.

We just need external CPUs.

Seriously though, does anyone know any research on splitting the CPU into several components that communicate with each other through PCIe or some other shit? I could imagine a CPU that is merely a scheduler for additional components installed in the computer.

You are thinking of NUMA.

muh 6% fps loss

CPU is so sensitive to latency that the length of the traces from the CPU to RAM are constrained by c

If that cheapy chinky company would just make a Thunderbolt 3 version it would be great.

As it stands I would have to remove the internal wifi card and have a tumourous cable poking out the ass of the thing.

the chinkiest one you could get up to now is the akitio node 3. the price is from the intel thunderbolt license. they are apparently dropping that, so expect prices to tank shortly

>Seriously though
If you're going to have an external GPU and an external CPU and an external PSU to drive them both, couldn't you just as well just build a desktop computer at that point?

Not cheapy nor chinky enough for me.

That horrific "beast" branded one in the OP is like thunderbolt license cost being dropped

I didn't know that. Thank god I hope this is true.

>Even USB 3.0 cranks that down to ~0.4GB/s
You're not running it over USB3, but over PCIex4.
>Laptop processors have abhorrent single thread performance
Depends on the laptop. Not all of them are "abhorrent". They may not be desktop-class, but not necessarily far from it.

>Basically they're for people who were retarded enough to buy a laptop when they actually needed a desktop.
We have a winner.

How does it actually work when the eGPU drives the internal display? Is it some kind of hardware hack where the DP connection is ferried back across the Thunderbolt cable, or is it some software hack where everything is rendered into memory and ferried back to be displayed by the internal GPU? If the latter, what part of the OS is carrying that operation out?

>believing in the 'c' jew

its not usb 3.0 you tard its pcie 2.0 x4

Thanks, I'll give it a read

Welp.

I think it would be cool to have just one convertible device for everything. The reason is: I'd like to be able to access the same stuff from every computer I use but I don't like cloud services because I have no control over them. Ideally you could restore the same workflow everywhere.

it's more like the latter and it's handled by the nvidia optimus software. the structure is the same as in most current laptops with a discrete gpu, where only the igpu is attached to the display.

Interesting. Thanks, user.

An i5 beating an i7? How's that 6%?

>CPU is so sensitive to latency that the length of the traces from the CPU to RAM are constrained by c
That wuold be true at trace lengths of meters, but in real-world applications, it's more about controlling impedance.

>splitting the CPU into several components that communicate with each other through PCIe or some other shit
Welcome back to 1970s mainframes. There's a reason why more and more components that used to be external get subsumed onto the CPU die, and it has everything to do with signal latency caused both by the electrical characteristics of long interconnects and avoiding bus transceivers that add latency in themselves.

You lost much frames.

CPUs used to be constructed out of multiple boards actually.

...

>in regard to an expresscard egpu + old laptop setup, it can make sense. consider the old sandy/ivy bridge thinkpads we keep jerking off over in Sup Forums. an egpu adapter ($50) + the old card your friend just swapped out of his desktop (free if he ain't a dick) can make the difference between a popular game like overwatch not starting on the hd 3000 igpu, and it running a good 60 fps at medium settings on the internal screen (better on external). not bad for a laptop pushing 5 or 6 years
This is exactly what I needed to know. I just want a solid experience from old games, nothing else.
I'm sold on the idea.

no, that was ~2007, each day onward they become more meme than anything

>hurr my mobile cpu with a desktop gpu

youtube.com/watch?v=SeGWwziCrpw&t=5m0s
Enjoy your throttling which will only get worse as GPUs get faster. You bought into a no-upgradability system.

Why on earth are you so butthurt?
If some people just care about the ability to play team fortress 2 at a stable framerate and a cheapass expresscard adapter with a 3rd/4th hand desktop GPU allows them to do that on the laptop they already own just let them use it.

There's this thing called "casual gaming" you know? I know it's a hard concept to grasp for a drooling videogame obsessed manchild but take it as a given and ignore it.

eGPU no matter the solution is a magnificent and cheap way to extend the usability of your device.
Not everyone needs a desktop.
If I wanted a dedicated videogame machine I'd buy a console.

mite b cool but I'm not bothering yet.

>the price is from the intel thunderbolt license
What is the cost of TB licensing?

Jesus christ I remember this meme from a decade ago.
Do people actually fall for this shit?

Worked for me while I was saving up for a desktop build. i7-2860QM laptop + RX 480 (mPCI-e x1 2.0). Got around 50fps @ 1080p in GTA. CPU would stay boosted at 3Ghz indefinitely, but would get pretty toasty (80-85C, BIOS set to throttle at 90C).

I'm actually glad I went the eGPU route and purchased the 480 before the current buying frenzy.

>without compromise
>cpu bottlenecks
yeah when they make also external CPU's

>an external GF 1080 is considerably slower than an internal GF 1080 on the latest games
Well duh, that's a stupid use case for an eGPU. It would make a lot more sense to use a cheaper eGPU for a laptop with only integrated graphics, and also not use a fucking $299 GPU dock for it.

Also, it's probably only the latest games at Ultra settings that really require the full bandwidth of a 16x PCIe v3 connexion. If you're mostly planning to play somewhat less demanding games, bottlenecking probably won't be remotely as hard.

But yes, I don't quite understand what kind of audience ASUS is hoping for with a $299 eGPU dock, that doesn't really seem to make sense. Something more like OP's picture probably makes a lot more sense.

>I'd like to be able to access the same stuff from every computer I use but I don't like cloud

Then just build your own and don't really on other sites or whatever.

>Of course, it's got glowing LEDs, and it looks very pretty, it's got a lot nice angular design...
Very hard to take seriously.

You miss the point.
That video is to show the throttling using the same laptop CPU. The internal GTX1080 is just for comparison. That eGPU GTX1080 is running at GTX1060 speed. What about a future GTX1160,, GTX1260, GTX1360? Looking into the future, one bought into throttled system, which can be gotten around by build a mini-ITX desktop.

What if you're a poorfag? Start with a cheapest motherboard/Pentium/GPU, plop in a used i7 and another GPU a few years down the road.

What if you go the iGPU path? You CPU is not ungradable, you thunderbolt connection isn't upgradeable, your GPU isn't upgradeable because it's throttled by the thunderbolt. The only solution is buy a new Thunderbolt 4 laptop.

If you get a 45w+ quad core (which are now starting to be available in well priced semi-compact laptops like the 14" latitude 5480) then an eGPU is completely suitable.

I've bought a Workstation for gaming and VM and a laptop for whatever and small game (my GF use it for Netflix).

Instead of buying a good laptop and a good GPU (2000€ ?), you buy a good desktop and a decent laptop (1600€ in my case).
I can upgrade easily the workstation, I don't need to update the laptop, just remove Windows and put a new Linux.

A friend continue to buy only laptop, they costs a fortune for a decent experience.

I get 60fps on high at 1440p in Tekken 7 with a GTX770 over 1x pcie 2.0 with an X230. eGPUs aren't memes, especially with modern Thunderbolt connections.

If you're not going to use 1080ti or AyyMD cards it should be fine for gayming. In my case 960 4GB link is never used in 100%, so it's as fast as it could be in a desktop computer.
If you got the ability and need to get one - do it ASAP. You won't regret it. Just make sure to use it with laptop that supports hotplugging option.

Why do you think CPUs are not swappable in laptops? Are you retarded senpai?
pic rel, gonna replace i7-3740qm with i7-3940xm this month. i7-3940xm is faster than i7-2600k, i7-3770k and some other desktop CPUs.

>Normally dGPUs are put in x16 pci-express slots with 16GB/s of bandwidth. Even USB 3.0 cranks that down to ~0.4GB/s
So? Ever heard of Optimus technology, which includes heavy link compression?
>You are required to carry a bulky PSU that must be connected to an electrical outlet and the dGPU dock so portability you get with laptops is lost
You're required to carry PSU of your desire, starting from smaller-than-your-laptops-psu 65W ones to 220W Dell DA-2. It's up to you which PSU you pick, as long as it's 12V and it can power up your card properly.
>Laptop processors have abhorrent single thread performance due to thermal throttling which significantly reduces FPS
Bullshit and lie. i7-3940xm CPU (literally ~$110 on ebay) is faster than i7-3770k, and it's unlocked. Depending on what cooling system you got in your laptop you can always mod it to handle higher TDP.
>Said thermal throttling puts stress on your tiny laptop fan which reduces it's lifespan significantly.
True if you count consumer shit laptops. Business laptops are certified to handle heat without affecting lifespan.

Did you just wittingly ignore all the points I made?

If so, let me perhaps state it more succinctly: The point with an eGPU is to be able to gayme *at all* with a laptop that otherwise has an iGPU.

My point is don't do that, it's stupid in many ways.

ur stupid senpai