You can still build your own dock for about half the price of that dock itself but I suppose that's not a bad price for a ready-to-go all in one solution.
The only real hurdle is getting wider adoption of Thunderbolt 3, which will hopefully happen with Intel making it royalty free.
[quote]While you have the ability to add your own, I don't think the most likely use case for an external graphics dock is taking the graphics card out of your gaming PC and putting it in an enclosure to power your thin-and-light laptop. [/quote]
that is my use case :<
is it too much to ask for a sub-$200 egpu enclosure
If I had one of these I simply wouldn't use my desktop any more. If I can have a reliable cable going to an external box somewhere else so I can play intense games in bed without nuking my crotch with the heat of a gaming laptop, you bet your ass I would use it. I wonder how long thunderbolt cables can get and still be usable.
[QUOTE=Trekintosh;52304023]If I had one of these I simply wouldn't use my desktop any more. If I can have a reliable cable going to an external box somewhere else so I can play intense games in bed without nuking my crotch with the heat of a gaming laptop, you bet your ass I would use it. I wonder how long thunderbolt cables can get and still be usable.[/QUOTE]
for copper active tb3 cables, 2m for the full 40Gb/s. copper passive tb3 cables can only do 40 Gb/s at 0.5m, and 20 Gb/s for 1 and 2m cables.
optical can go up to 60m, but they don't exist yet afaik
[QUOTE=elitehakor;52303821]that is my use case :<
is it too much to ask for a sub-$200 egpu enclosure[/QUOTE]
For $50~80 you can get the exact same thing but it uses PCI-E and you can use any card with it, all you need is to build a box around it and off you go.
[url]https://www.banggood.com/Mini-PCI-E-Version-V8_0-EXP-GDC-Beast-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-p-1011222.html[/url]
[url]https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/EXP-GDC-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-with-PCI-E-Interface-Black/1048722_32456172794.html[/url]
I've been eyeing one of these for a while and they're pretty good. But it all depends down to the laptop and how many lanes it has free as to if the performance will be worth it (lot of PCI-E slots in laptops are not even 8x).
[QUOTE=Reagy;52304235]For $50~80 you can get the exact same thing but it uses PCI-E and you can use any card with it, all you need is to build a box around it and off you go.
[url]https://www.banggood.com/Mini-PCI-E-Version-V8_0-EXP-GDC-Beast-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-p-1011222.html[/url]
[url]https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/EXP-GDC-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-with-PCI-E-Interface-Black/1048722_32456172794.html[/url]
I've been eyeing one of these for a while and they're pretty good. But it all depends down to the laptop and how many lanes it has free as to if the performance will be worth it (lot of PCI-E slots in laptops are not even 8x).[/QUOTE]
Does it supply the internal monitor though? Or only external ones? Also I remember people did tests a while ago and found out that even pcie 2x is sufficient for midrange gaming.
[QUOTE=Trekintosh;52305041]Does it supply the internal monitor though? Or only external ones? Also I remember people did tests a while ago and found out that even pcie 2x is sufficient for midrange gaming.[/QUOTE]
Supplies both internal and external but it does depend on the laptop.
[QUOTE=Reagy;52304235]For $50~80 you can get the exact same thing but it uses PCI-E and you can use any card with it, all you need is to build a box around it and off you go.
[url]https://www.banggood.com/Mini-PCI-E-Version-V8_0-EXP-GDC-Beast-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-p-1011222.html[/url]
[url]https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/EXP-GDC-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-with-PCI-E-Interface-Black/1048722_32456172794.html[/url]
I've been eyeing one of these for a while and they're pretty good. But it all depends down to the laptop and how many lanes it has free as to if the performance will be worth it (lot of PCI-E slots in laptops are not even 8x).[/QUOTE]
Do they have a tb3 version of that? I believe intel stopped most of them being made, right?
[QUOTE=Reagy;52304235]For $50~80 you can get the exact same thing but it uses PCI-E and you can use any card with it, all you need is to build a box around it and off you go.
[url]https://www.banggood.com/Mini-PCI-E-Version-V8_0-EXP-GDC-Beast-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-p-1011222.html[/url]
[url]https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/EXP-GDC-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-with-PCI-E-Interface-Black/1048722_32456172794.html[/url]
I've been eyeing one of these for a while and they're pretty good. But it all depends down to the laptop and how many lanes it has free as to if the performance will be worth it (lot of PCI-E slots in laptops are not even 8x).[/QUOTE]
Full speed Thunderbolt 3 has way more bandwidth than the Mini PCIe x1 slots you usually find open in laptops.
PCIe 3.0 speeds are just under 1GB/s per lane, and 2.0 at about 500MB/s per lane. Full speed Thunderbolt 3, 40Gbps or 5GB/s, is equivalent to a bit better than PCIe 3.0 x4 or PCIe 2.0 x8. Even Thunderbolt 2 (half the speed of 3) is a much better option at speeds equivalent to PCIe 3.0 x2 or 2.0 x4.
A single PCIe lane (at 500MB/s on 2.0 or if you're lucky and have 3.0 1GB/s) is pretty paltry for modern GPUs, you're gonna be bottlenecked pretty hard unless you're lucky and have a laptop with x4 lanes used in the mini PCIe connector instead of just x1, and hopefully at 3.0 speeds.
The bad part is Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe adapters are still pretty expensive, so as I was saying earlier $200 for a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU dock isn't too bad a price.
[QUOTE=Dr. Evilcop;52309059]Full speed Thunderbolt 3 has way more bandwidth than the Mini PCIe x1 slots you usually find open in laptops.
PCIe 3.0 speeds are just under 1GB/s per lane, and 2.0 at about 500MB/s per lane. Full speed Thunderbolt 3, 40Gbps or 5GB/s, is equivalent to a bit better than PCIe 3.0 x4 or PCIe 2.0 x8. Even Thunderbolt 2 (half the speed of 3) is a much better option at speeds equivalent to PCIe 3.0 x2 or 2.0 x4.
A single PCIe lane (at 500MB/s on 2.0 or if you're lucky and have 3.0 1GB/s) is pretty paltry for modern GPUs, you're gonna be bottlenecked pretty hard unless you're lucky and have a laptop with x4 lanes used in the mini PCIe connector instead of just x1, and hopefully at 3.0 speeds.
The bad part is Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe adapters are still pretty expensive, so as I was saying earlier $200 for a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU dock isn't too bad a price.[/QUOTE]
Oh well aware of that, it was just the current alternative to buying the full box currently, build your own rigs have been around for a while and they all use PCIe currently.
Once TB3 becomes more viable for everyone I can totally see more mini docks coming out.
Cooling wise, I can imagine this'd be fucking amazing for the GPU and really the rest of the shit still in your computer.
[QUOTE=Lolkork;52307813]$200 is a lot of money for a case and a crappy 450 w psu
External gpus will take off when TB3 reaches the low end. Right now they can only sell to a niche high end market.
An all-in-one low end external grahpics card will hopefully not be more than $50-$100 more expensive than an internal one.[/QUOTE]
I'd buy an all in one custom board 1050 eGPU. I feel like you could make one of those small enough that I could just slip it into my laptop bag.
[QUOTE=Levelog;52309113]I'd buy an all in one custom board 1050 eGPU. I feel like you could make one of those small enough that I could just slip it into my laptop bag.[/QUOTE]
This would be cool. Instead of sticking a regular GPU in an enclosure, design a GPU intended to be external from the start. I'd buy that if it was a small enough profile.
[QUOTE=Levelog;52309113]I'd buy an all in one custom board 1050 eGPU. I feel like you could make one of those small enough that I could just slip it into my laptop bag.[/QUOTE]
There was one called the "wolfie" on kickstarter. It got canceled though after it "attracted the attention of big companies"
I hope someone gets on it, there is certainly a market
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