So are external GPUs over Thunderbolt officially a dead concept?

[Mackan]

What does "certification" mean in practical terms?

No expert here, but practically, it means that whoever develops a device using a TB solution needs to have Intel's approval to launch/sell it as a commercial product. Otherwise I guess Intel files a lawsuit.

There was a company that made a TB eGPU solution, but Intel contacted them and demanded they stopped it, and also demanded they recalled the products they sold so far.

Other eGPU solutions have also been in development, but none has seen the light of the day, since Intel simply refuses to certify them.

There was a rumor they would start to approve such solutions next year, but that's probably never going to happen.

 

[gnasher729]

You couldn't be more wrong... Gaming is a HUGE market. 360 has been out for what, nearly 8 years? Along with an equally popular PS3? Most everyone who wants one has had one for many years already. You want an accurate metric? Look at sales for video games, not consoles that everyone already owns. GTA 5 sales hit $800,000,000 on the first day.

360 has been out for nearly eight years. In the last two years, they have been selling less units than Apple TV. The 360 has been outsold by iPods about one-to-five. For GTA 5 sales, I'd like to see numbers that don't come from the company itself, and I'd like to see how they counted their numbers.

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No expert here, but practically, it means that whoever develops a device using a TB solution needs to have Intel's approval to launch/sell it as a commercial product. Otherwise I guess Intel files a lawsuit.

Well, to do that you ask Intel for a license, and they'll give you one.

 

[Unami]

I keep seeing people talk about gaming for this purpose...
What I'm seeing is a GPU render solution for Macbook Pros.
I've begun looking at a GPU render solution for Cinema 4D such as Octane and iRay. These are both CUDA render engines so the new Pro does nothing for me in this instance. If I could connect two of these though with 780ti in them, to a new MacBook Pro, that's one beefy render machine that probably would travel nicely.

same with me - after effects' raytracing engine is cuda-based. i was really wondering why apple went with ATI-only on the nMP, as a lot of creative-professional GPU rendering relies on CUDA. Maybe the nMP will shift that trend, but as it stands now, i can build a way faster hackintosh for these kinds of applications for a fraction of the price of a nMP. heck, even an iMac should be faster in this regard.

on gaming: yes, gaming is a huge market. but people buying external gpus for their mac to game on probably aren't - even if the external gpu would cost as little as a ps4 - which it wouldn't.

 

[nando4]

very dead unfortunately

prohibitively expensive

Not at all. We have plenty of examples of how it's done in a cost effective manner on 2011-2013 Thunderbolt Macbooks at http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/ . Best bang-per-buck implementation being [Guide] 2012 13" rMBP + GTX660 (Sonnet Echo Express SE @ 10Gbps).

What we do know is Intel has sabotaged the eGPU project by issuing standowns to a small Taiwanese company, BPlus, from selling a $180 adapter. Ready-to-go double-width and full length TB-to-pcie enclosures now start in the US$700 range which for a gamer is ridiculously overpriced. They can buy a whole desktop system for that.

Seems Intel is not keen on pluggable CUDA/OpenCL processing power encroaching on their CPU market.

 

[spyguy10709]

If you really want to game with your air, then instead of buying the (soon to be released) thunderbolt GPU enclosures, just build a gaming PC. It may be more costly, but you can save yourself a whole mess of wires.

A titan + enclosure can go to maybe $1200 or maybe more. With that price, you can build a very good gaming PC with a very competent AMD graphics card and a decent CPU.

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This is exactly why we need downvotes back.

"This is exactly why we need downvotes back."

nVidia titan = $1000 dollars
Supposed GPU Enclosure, by your logic - $200 dollars.

$1200 PC - $600 or so that goes into the midrange CPU, motherboard, ram = $600 bucks of gaming performance from the graphics card.

Let's plug that into the original equation of (graphics card) + 200 dollars = Macbook Air Gaming.

Oh look. That midrange/good AMD Graphics card now costs around 800 to add to a MacBook Air! How about that?


Your logic is so flawed. Please, tell me, where can I buy all the other parts to a whole computer for the same price as a theoretical graphics card enclosure? The idea of an External GPU is awesome (that's what you're arguing about), but it's not practical (what everyone else is saying)....

This is exactly why we need downvotes back.

 

[Why??????]

"This is exactly why we need downvotes back."

nVidia titan = $1000 dollars
Supposed GPU Enclosure, by your logic - $200 dollars.

$1200 PC - $600 or so that goes into the midrange CPU, motherboard, ram = $600 bucks of gaming performance from the graphics card.

Let's plug that into the original equation of (graphics card) + 200 dollars = Macbook Air Gaming.

Oh look. That midrange/good AMD Graphics card now costs around 800 to add to a MacBook Air! How about that?


Your logic is so flawed. Please, tell me, where can I buy all the other parts to a whole computer for the same price as a theoretical graphics card enclosure? The idea of an External GPU is awesome (that's what you're arguing about), but it's not practical (what everyone else is saying)....

You can get a very good graphics card from AMD that can max out most games for somewhere around that price. Even though the CPU will be mid-range, it'll be a heck load better than the ULV that powers the MBA.

The graphics card in the gaming PC might even perform better than the titan, due to lower latencies and higher bandwidth. It may be a bit higher than an MBA + Titan (I admit I was wrong), but you'll save yourself a lot of cable clutter and hassle.

And I said that we need down votes back because of your gross generalisations of gamers. Seriously? And you think that my logic is flawed...

 

[spyguy10709]

You can get a very good graphics card from AMD that can max out most games for somewhere around that price. Even though the CPU will be mid-range, it'll be a heck load better than the ULV that powers the MBA.

The graphics card in the gaming PC might even perform better than the titan, due to lower latencies and higher bandwidth. It may be a bit higher than an MBA + Titan (I admit I was wrong), but you'll save yourself a lot of cable clutter and hassle.

And I said that we need down votes back because of your gross generalisations of gamers. Seriously? And you think that my logic is flawed...

Yes. Your pricing logic is flawed. If the external tray is 200 dollars, then why would you spend AT LEAST 400 MORE to BUY/BUILD a gaming PC?

That's it. I don't even care anymore.


Hassle? Having a WHOLE FREAKING OTHER COMPUTER is LESS hassle than plugging in a box with ONE cable (and power)?!

 

[Spytap]

360 has been out for nearly eight years. In the last two years, they have been selling less units than Apple TV. The 360 has been outsold by iPods about one-to-five. For GTA 5 sales, I'd like to see numbers that don't come from the company itself, and I'd like to see how they counted their numbers.

I'm not really sure how to even respond to this. It's like you're arguing no one actually buys cars. Gaming is - without exaggeration or hyperbole - one of the highest revenue generating realms of entertainment, and you deciding you don't want to know about it doesn't really change that. Feel free to cherry-pick stats ("Within this time frame, and pretending like a hardware unit is the end of a video game purchase, it's outsold by XX% of a noncomparable consumer electronic device! Therefore no one games.")

There's no statistic or metric that we can put in front of you that will win out against willful ignorance.

 

[2IS]

360 has been out for nearly eight years. In the last two years, they have been selling less units than Apple TV. The 360 has been outsold by iPods about one-to-five. For GTA 5 sales, I'd like to see numbers that don't come from the company itself, and I'd like to see how they counted their numbers.

You're proving my point and don't even see it. It's been around long enough that most everyone who wants the console, has it. I don't know if you're not understanding this concept or are ignoring it on purpose. You're delusional or simply have no idea what you're talking about if you think gaming is a small market. Take your pick, you certainly aren't right.

 

[theSeb]

360

Well, to do that you ask Intel for a license, and they'll give you one.

No, you don't ask. You have to buy a license from Intel to use Thunderbolt technology and your product has to go through certification. What does that mean? It means your product has to pass certain criteria. One of the criteria is that it must be hot pluggable. This is the main problem with external GPUs over Thunderbolt and the reason why we don't have any TB PCIe boxes that officially support GPUs, even though some of them can be used with a GPU. We have seen this proven with the Sonnet Echo Express Pro.

There are products from MSI and Silverstone in development that have actually been shown working at trade shows.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7040/computex-2013-thunderbolt-graphics-from-silverstone

$200-$250 without a GPU? They will have plenty of sales in my opinion.

This is still in the development cycle – the main issue with MSI’s device (and I’d assume Silverstone as well) is how to deal with hot-plugging during the middle of intense GPU workloads. Aside from frame buffer management, at the point in time when the device is detatched there is no longer access to any data on the card – the PC or laptop then has to transfer what it knows to the frame buffer on the IGP and recalculate. Sounds easy-ish, but not a trivial task by any means.

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Seems Intel is not keen on pluggable CUDA/OpenCL processing power encroaching on their CPU market.

Do you know what is funny about unfounded, crazy conspiracy theories? 99.9% of them are just unfounded and silly conspiracy theories. Your statement does not even make any sense from Intel's business point of view.

 

[jblagden]

Not quite Dead

Yes, I'm well aware that I'm not going to fully saturate a Titan, but when I bought my Air there was a glimmer of hope that I'd be able to buy a mount for a proper desktop GPU and attach it when I wanted to do some gaming. Having not seen anything in quite some time except some home build hacks, is this concept officially DOA?

It's not quite dead yet. It is not yet possible to use an external graphics card, at least not affordably nor without having to boot into Windows, but with Thunderbolt-aware drivers which would also allow hot-plugging, it may one day be possible. In fact Village Tronic and Silverstone are each working on affordable eGPU enclosures, which I hope they’ll be able to begin selling this year, especially since they’ve been working on them for a year or so and many people(myself included) really want an affordable eGPU enclosure. The other problem besides drivers is that Intel doesn't want this sort of thing to be affordable. Although, i have made a petition, to try to get them to give Silverstone and Village Tronic the licenses they need: https://www.change.org/petitions/in...-allow-the-sale-of-affordable-egpu-enclosures