+1 I STILL think a thunderbolt display with a built in high end GPU would be totally awesome. Though, an external GPU is more practical, as you can use it with any display!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
11" MacBook Air Owner Connects High-End Graphics Card With Complex Thunderbolt Setup
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
+1 I STILL think a thunderbolt display with a built in high end GPU would be totally awesome. Though, an external GPU is more practical, as you can use it with any display!
I've heard some video professionals talking about external solutions.
The nice thing is... it's not tied to one machine.
If you have a Mac Pro full of drives and GPUs... it's for one machine only.
However... using Thunderbolt... you can hook different laptops to it for a variety of uses.
Macbook Air on the road... but you connect to a huge RAID array or GPU number-cruncher in the office.
Third-Parties need to get rolling on this ASAP.
First company that packages this as a cute little side-car box, wins.
First company that packages this as a cute little side-car box, wins.
doesn't the
Doesn't the Sonnottech echo express basically do all this? Not just the adapter but the actual pci chassis. Pop in Video card and there you go.
Doesn't the Sonnottech echo express basically do all this? Not just the adapter but the actual pci chassis. Pop in Video card and there you go.
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html
The gotcha with the above is the limitation of the PSU. Really restricts what video cards you could use. (versus the home-brew one)
The gotcha with the above is the limitation of the PSU. Really restricts what video cards you could use. (versus the home-brew one)
Yes, Sonnet Echo Express SE can't accomodate a dual-width card. Also it has no PCI Reset Delay circuit without which you can't use MBR/BIOS mode out-of-the-box and lastly it costs more. They start at US$320.
There was a board, the BPlus TH05 that cost US$180 (inc Thunderbolt cable), that allowed ~9Gbps link to an eGPU. Can thank Intel/Apple for causing the manufacturer to recall units. We suspect they were threatened. Those fun-wreckers. . .
http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2680-th05-recall-notice.html
http://www.taiwantrade.com.tw/resou...47-5c66-44c6-967d-4f5c85dc4cc2_TH05_brief.pdf
Nice, but I will wait for native
Yes - this was totally a geek's way of adding an eGPU to my mac... but after reading the article (How-To) over at the linked site... I found that you have to run bootcamp Windows 7 to get it to work.
UGH!
That is like adding a lump of poop to a chefs salad. Not going to do that.
I will wait for native (which may never rear its head), but the potential for adding an eGPU to my Mac Mini with my thunderbolt port - pretty cool!
Thanks for the article.
MacGod
Yes - this was totally a geek's way of adding an eGPU to my mac... but after reading the article (How-To) over at the linked site... I found that you have to run bootcamp Windows 7 to get it to work.
UGH!
That is like adding a lump of poop to a chefs salad. Not going to do that.
I will wait for native (which may never rear its head), but the potential for adding an eGPU to my Mac Mini with my thunderbolt port - pretty cool!
Thanks for the article.
MacGod
Yea borderlands!
I bet if apple were to make this they would hold out till the 20gbps thunderbolt it standard in the macs. Makes it easy for the new Mac Pro owners who only get a bunch of thunderbolts.
I bet if apple were to make this they would hold out till the 20gbps thunderbolt it standard in the macs. Makes it easy for the new Mac Pro owners who only get a bunch of thunderbolts.
I've been thinking Apple would do exactly that since the first Mac equipped with thunderbolt came to market.
I was starting to believe that they will never fully explore thunderbolt's potentials, but with the new MacPro announcement I don't think they can continue to get away with not having some kind of thunderbolt-to-PCIe solution.
The problem now is the 27" LED Display with a Titan (or any other kind of PCIe) card built in doesn't make sense anymore. Maybe for the laptops, but not for the new MacPro.
We need some kind of modular solution that can accept different types of cards and I think Apple could do it better than anybody else, but I don't believe they will
.
But after a couple of years it will be the same problem: an outdated / underpowered GPU trapped inside the display which cannot be removed or upgraded.
----------
Instead they focused on making a $399 thunderbolt dock.
I've been thinking Apple would do exactly that since the first Mac equipped with thunderbolt came to market.
I was starting to believe that they will never fully explore thunderbolt's potentials, but with the new MacPro announcement I don't think they can continue to get away with not having some kind of thunderbolt-to-PCIe solution.
The problem now is the 27" LED Display with a Titan (or any other kind of PCIe) card built in doesn't make sense anymore. Maybe for the laptops, but not for the new MacPro.
We need some kind of modular solution that can accept different types of cards and I think Apple could do it better than anybody else, but I don't believe they will
Considering that the new Mac Pro has the fastest graphics that Apple has ever shipped not just in todays performance but in the class of performance.. I don't think they will ever ship an external graphics card or a display with a graphics card built in.
I mean lets just be realistic here, the current Mac Pro ships with a HD 5770. This is a £50 card. When the Mac Pro first launched in 2006 they shipped it with a GeForce 7300GT. Even back then that was a £35 card. These are both low-end cards.
The Mac Pro has always been sold with a stock low-end card. Now look at the new Mac Pro, it doesn't have just one high end card, it has two. And that appears to be the stock configuration. This shows that Apple is serious about putting high end graphics inside their desktop chassis. This says to me the chances of them ever shipping an external GPU at this point are dead.
There are a couple of things that must happen;
1) All laptops should come with Thunderbolt port (they don't, very few do).
2) AMD/Nvidia would have to give up their high end mobile GPU business for laptops, and replace it with these external eGPU solutions. They would have the laptop OEMs against them, since they want to continue to sell expensive 'gaming'/'pro' laptops with irreplaceable GPUs that get obsolete in 1-2 years.
3) Have OS and driver support, no more mucking around to get this to work.
While it is all a fantastic idea, dirty business rules here, and therefore I bet you will never see these solutions become mainstream. Companies like Apple are focused on producing non-upgradeable consumer devices that become obsolete fast, so you have to buy new.
Truly amazing.....!
Always is nice to find new alternatives to extend the capacities of hardware. Ease of unplugging would make this mod a very attractive and viable solution to many people....good work....
Always is nice to find new alternatives to extend the capacities of hardware. Ease of unplugging would make this mod a very attractive and viable solution to many people....good work....
Yeah, but not if that GPU is a little modular thing that connects with Thunderbolt to the display and sits inside of it, not that it's likely that Apple would do that.
This may be all #science neat and stuff, but it has got to be the biggest waste of time on the planet. If you want an ultraportable notebook, get a MacBook Air. If you want to play games on a portable Mac, get a MacBook Pro. If you want a portable computer to plan tons of games, you're best off finding a computer built to those specs in the first place.
I mean an external 400 watt power supply? I feel bad enough with my external BD reader. Plus my iMac has better innards than either a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, so it's not like I'm lacking here.
I mean an external 400 watt power supply? I feel bad enough with my external BD reader. Plus my iMac has better innards than either a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, so it's not like I'm lacking here.
Well, high-end enough to do anything but professional graphics design or "professional" gaming. It's still lame compared to my GTX 650 Ti Boost, which is way more power than I need.
