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11" MacBook Air Owner Connects High-End Graphics Card With Complex Thunderbolt Setup

Funny that I could do the same with my 2009 17" mbp, since it has EC slot. But I don't have to, since it already has dGPU. Amazing how much things have developed in 4 years: you just need to buy more boxes to get the same thing...
 
I tip my hat to this guy but this whole story makes me so sad.

Thunderbolt has been out for over two years, and it's only just NOW that someone on the internet cobbles together a way to unleash its true potential!

WHY HAVE YOU HELD OUT ON US SO LONG, APPLE AND INTEL!!!!!??? :mad::mad::mad:
 
Pretty cool experiment but Thunderbolt (2) still isn't anywhere close to being a real replacement for a GPU installed in a real, internal slot. We're not going to be playing the latest and greatest games on a 27" monitor connected to a MBA anytime soon. Maybe in a few years.

I wonder how many PCIe lanes are dedicated to the thunderbolt 2 controller(s) on the new Mac Pro.
 
ExnomenDei said:
It's very comparable to a PCI-E slot. It's comparable to a PCI-E 2.0 4x slot, which I happen to have a benchmark for:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010...ie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x4x4#.UfgftY3xq38

That's a 480 SLI being tested, which is a pretty nice card even today. To quote:



So a true Thunderbolt device to do this will result in VERY playable power.


EDIT: So the bandwidth of TB is 20 Gbit/s, a 1x lane for PCI-E 2.0 is 500 MB/s. A TB connection is therefore slightly faster than a 4x PCI-E 2.0 slot, but some bandwidth may be lost due to the conversion process.
Click to expand...

First off, that's SLI. SLI over TB2 may not be possible. Second, that's a very old card. As newer cards require more and more bandwidth, the bottleneck of 2GBps becomes apparent. On the NVidia side, a GTX680 (by the way, the 780 is out) has a 20-50% bottleneck at PCIe 4x 2.0 (the equivalent of Thunderbolt 2), depending on the game (also depends a lot on the frame rate). Anything faster than that will have substantially more bottleneck. AMD is a bit better for some reason.

Another poster talked about having a Titan over TB. Even TB2 will be seriously bottlenecked; it may not even run.

It is seriously impressive so little bottleneck exists, if I didn't own a desktop and didn't have a lot of money (or had some other reason for not buying one), this would be a great solution. In 2-3 years, however, this level of bandwidth will be obsolete.

civ5_1280_800.gif
wow_1280_800.gif
 
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Prodo123 said:
Why do this when Sonnet already has a Thunderbolt to PCIe box?
Click to expand...

1. The affordable ~$320 Sonnet Echo Express SE enclosure is too small: it won't host a double-width full length card. It needs to be deshelled to work. The double-width version is $800, stupidly expensive.

2. It has no PCI Reset Delay so MBR/BIOS (bootcamp) Win7/8 will not work.

3. BPlus had a TH05 product without either of those limititations that sold for $180 (inc Thunderbolt cable) but Intel killed/threatened them to pull it.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/3xg6ie3gja1ijv7/TH05_brief.pdf

4.The ~$250 Silverstone TB T004 (double-width, full length, 450W) looks the goods. Let's hope that it makes it to market without Intel/Apple interfering again.
 
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Why is this news?

Can't you get one of the Sonnet Thunderbolt expansion chassis and put a high end graphics card in that? Or am I being naïve here?

This seems like an extremely elaborate workaround that could have a much more fluid-like solution to it. It works for the Pro Audio and Pro Video world, why can't it for the gaming world?
 
build something like this into an Apple TV and Ill buy it.

Better yet an Apple HD 1080P Projector with external graphics card?

Wait wuttt???

U WOT M8????
 
I think we may be seeing the guts of the future. When you don't need to game or need to be portable you put your external graphics card in the closet.

As long as Intel, Apple, etc. keep making laptop integrated graphics better and better I'm all for this kind of desktop solution for laptops.
 
I love it!

I just love love love love technically creative types, they build and create their own fun. Forget waiting for companies to give them what they want, they just go out and make it, these savvy savvy individuals - I just really love it.
 
nando4 said:
1. The enclosure is too small: it won't host a double-width full length card. It needs to be deshelled to work.

2. It has no PCI Reset Delay so MBR/BIOS (bootcamp) Win7 will not work.

3. Given the above limitations, it's expensive at ~US$320. BPlus had a TH05 product without those limits that sold for $180 (inc Thunderbolt cable) but Intel killed/threatened them to pull it.

http://www.taiwantrade.com.tw/resou...47-5c66-44c6-967d-4f5c85dc4cc2_TH05_brief.pdf

The ~$250 Silverstone TB T004 (double-width, full length, 450W) looks the goods. Let's hope that it makes it to market without Intel/Apple interfering again.
Click to expand...

1. The Echo Express Pro is said to be able to house double-width full-length cards The setup in the article is also caseless, and who cares if it is, anyways.

2. This review was done entirely on a Windows computer on Windows 7.

3. The setup in the article is more than $240, with the ExpressCard box effectively halving the already bottlenecked throughput of the Thunderbolt interface. The PCIe box gives a throughput equal to that of two PCIe 2.0 lanes, while the ExpressCard box gives only one. I'd say that's even worse than any of the limitations you listed.

slughead said:
This is WAY cheaper, plus that box may be too small for some things (and requires PCIe power anyway).
Click to expand...

Alternatively you could run the Echo Express SE instead, which is around $350, shave the nub to fit a x16 card and run it caseless. It may be $100 more, but it gets rid of the throughput issue, and if you're buying something like this in the first place $100 is a relatively small amount of money.
 
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baryon said:
Genius! I think this is what the future of computing should be: have a relatively low cost, ultra-portable laptop with great features like good battery life, multi-touch trackpad and all that, and if you want to play hardcore, buy an external graphics card to do serious work or play games when sitting at a desk. You wouldn't need all that power on the go anyway, so it makes sense to leave that at home. It's also upgradable (an upgradable laptop GPU? who would have thought!) and you don't have to pay for something you won't use. Also, if you buy a new notebook, you can keep using your expensive graphics card.
Click to expand...

Plenty of older laptops have upgradable GPUs and CPUs.
 
ok great the guy brought graphic power to his MBA, but the laptop itself is going to heat up

at some point it is going to damage the MBA which is not built for this kind of use
 
Johnnnny said:
But the Mac Pro's have TB 2.0, which I imagine would allow for that kind of bandwidth?
Click to expand...

Thunderbolt 1 is 10Gb/s
PCIe x4 v2.0 is 16Gb/s
Thunderbolt 2 is 20Gb/s
PCIe x8 v2.0 is 32Gb/s
PCIe x16 v2.0 is 64Gb/s
PCIe x8 v3.0 is 64Gb/s
PCIe x16 v3.0 is 128Gb/s
 
macchiato2009 said:
ok great the guy brought graphic power to his MBA, but the laptop itself is going to heat up

at some point it is going to damage the MBA which is not built for this kind of use
Click to expand...

I don't see why it would hear up more than it would maxing CPU without external graphics, which it can handle fine as far as i know. Extra power of external graphics card only heats up said external graphics card.
 
toke lahti said:
Funny that I could do the same with my 2009 17" mbp, since it has EC slot. But I don't have to, since it already has dGPU. Amazing how much things have developed in 4 years: you just need to buy more boxes to get the same thing...
Click to expand...

But that dGPU isn't that good. ;)

This would beat the crap out of your GPU.

Amazing how much things have developed in 4 years: You just need to buy more boxes to get a much better thing... ;)
 
ConCat said:
Nifty, but expresscard does hurt thunderbolt's performance. I suppose it's going to be much cheaper than a thunderbolt-native version though.
Click to expand...

Expect a PCIe to Thundebolt conversion box doing exactly this for power users of the new Mac Pro and other models. Seen enough business plans where this may be viable.

Combine this a brushed aliminum box with drive bay(s), USB 3.0 ports and some memory card slots and perhaps a Lighting dock, you have a great combo product like the old Radius / SpoerMac days.
 
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