External Thunderbold GPU - Arriving soon?

[pscl]

hi guys

the last few years there were always some news about external gpus.

all of you that are interested in this might have heard about the MSI GUS II and the SilverStone Case.

Now, there are news:
http://us.hardware.info/news/38509/...s-finalize-external-thunderbolt-gpu-enclosure

It seems that Asus is about to finish the release of this case. It should be priced about 200$.

Im really glad to hear this and hoping this is not another teaser.
this would solve all my problems... i might be able to use this for my macbooks, and my imac too.

what do you think?

 

[Outrigger]

hi guys

the last few years there were always some news about external gpus.

all of you that are interested in this might have heard about the MSI GUS II and the SilverStone Case.

Now, there are news:
http://us.hardware.info/news/38509/...s-finalize-external-thunderbolt-gpu-enclosure

It seems that Asus is about to finish the release of this case. It should be priced about 200$.

Im really glad to hear this and hoping this is not another teaser.
this would solve all my problems... i might be able to use this for my macbooks, and my imac too.

what do you think?

I think you're confused. its 200 EUR, not USD, so it would be close to $300 just for the enclosure. Add a high end GPU for another $450 to $550 (lets face it, no one is going to buy this just to add a low to mid range card) and now you're talking close to $1000 plus an unsightly thing pumping out hot air and noise.

 

[saturnotaku]

i might be able to use this for my macbooks, and my imac too.

Not if they have a discreet GPU already built in.

 

[pscl]

Not if they have a discreet GPU already built in.

why not?

----------

I think you're confused. its 200 EUR, not USD, so it would be close to $300 just for the enclosure. Add a high end GPU for another $450 to $550 (lets face it, no one is going to buy this just to add a low to mid range card) and now you're talking close to $1000 plus an unsightly thing pumping out hot air and noise.

yes... but better than buying an additional gaming pc.
200€ case + 400€ gfx card: 600€... far away from 1000 =) i`m in.
the only thing im missing about the iMac is the power of a desktop gfx card.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Cool, but even if bought alongside a MacBook Air or a low-end MBP to turn them into workstations when docked, it's difficult to justify these until Thunderbolt is able to pass at least PCI-e x8 speeds. We're getting there though.

 

[MCAsan]

What about an entry level Pro instead? It has two GPUs read to go.

 

[EpicBlob]

Cool, but even if bought alongside a MacBook Air or a low-end MBP to turn them into workstations when docked, it's difficult to justify these until Thunderbolt is able to pass at least PCI-e x8 speeds. We're getting there though.

Trust me, unless you have a Titan or 690 card, the bandwidth wont affect you. I have a Mac Mini plugged into a ViDock GPU enclosure holding a 670 running PCI-e 2.0 x1. This thing still offers me great performance that my Mac Mini couldn't even come close to. 3Dmark11 scores went from 600 to 7500, and I had 5900 with a 660 before I upgraded, so even upgrading to a newer card wasn't restricted. My system cost around $1450 total ($800 for the Mac Mini), try to find me a Mac for that price with similar performance.

The thunderbolt 2 (PCI-e x4) offers about 96% of full performance.

 

[pscl]

Trust me, unless you have a Titan or 690 card, the bandwidth wont affect you. I have a Mac Mini plugged into a ViDock GPU enclosure holding a 670 running PCI-e 2.0 x1. This thing still offers me great performance that my Mac Mini couldn't even come close to. 3Dmark11 scores went from 600 to 7500, and I had 5900 with a 660 before I upgraded, so even upgrading to a newer card wasn't restricted. My system cost around $1450 total ($800 for the Mac Mini), try to find me a Mac for that price with similar performance.

The thunderbolt 2 (PCI-e x4) offers about 96% of full performance.

where did u bought the ViDock? Is it fully functional with bootcamp and osx?

edit: i saw... there is no thunderbold support? well. im out.

 

[paulrbeers]

where did u bought the ViDock? Is it fully functional with bootcamp and osx?

edit: i saw... there is no thunderbold support? well. im out.

You realize you can buy an Thunderbolt to Expresscard adapter right? It's about $150 US....

That's how most are using them with Macs....

 

[pscl]

You realize you can buy an Thunderbolt to Expresscard adapter right? It's about $150 US....

That's how most are using them with Macs....

how does this work?

i think i found something... magma expressbox 3t... but this costs 1499€

WTF?!

 

[paulrbeers]

how does this work?

i think i found something... magma expressbox 3t... but this costs 1499€

WTF?!

Sonnet tech has one for $150

 

[pscl]

Sonnet tech has one for $150

well... i have not heard of those devices on my "external gpu" researches... maybe they are not that good...

 

[paulrbeers]

well... i have not heard of those devices on my "external gpu" researches... maybe they are not that good...

It's not for an external GPU it's for hooking the vidock to thunderbolt. Do a search on this forum for vidock and you will see this is the device everyone uses to hook if to thunderbolt.

 

[EpicBlob]

Yeah I connect my ViDock to my mac mini using the sonnet echo thunderbolt/expresscard adapter.

The performance improvement over my Mac Mini was massive (I'm talking 500-1000% improvement).

Here's a pic of my setup:

 

[pscl]

It's not for an external GPU it's for hooking the vidock to thunderbolt. Do a search on this forum for vidock and you will see this is the device everyone uses to hook if to thunderbolt.

Ah ... Got it!

But i cant find any Information about hooking the vidock up to an imac... Is it possible to use the internal Display?

----------

Yeah I connect my ViDock to my mac mini using the sonnet echo thunderbolt/expresscard adapter.

The performance improvement over my Mac Mini was massive (I'm talking 500-1000% improvement).

Here's a pic of my setup:

Looks really Good! Does it work good on bootcamp? Drivers?? I will mostly use this under bootcamp. Maybe possible to use this with parallels?

 

[EpicBlob]

Ah ... Got it!

But i cant find any Information about hooking the vidock up to an imac... Is it possible to use the internal Display?

----------



Looks really Good! Does it work good on bootcamp? Drivers?? I will mostly use this under bootcamp. Maybe possible to use this with parallels?

Works fine in Bootcamp; Windows 7 and 8. It shows up in device manager as a desktop GPU and acts like one: default desktop drivers, overclocking, etc.

You'd need an external display for the iMac because only an Optimus system will engage the internal screen (system that has integrated intel GPU).

 

[rodrigoluizb]

Yeah I connect my ViDock to my mac mini using the sonnet echo thunderbolt/expresscard adapter.

The performance improvement over my Mac Mini was massive (I'm talking 500-1000% improvement).

Here's a pic of my setup:

I saw from this picture that you are running the GPU on MacOSX, not on Windows, but I thought eGPUs don't work via thunderbolt on MacOSX. Did you hacked the drivers or you only installed the drivers for mac without any hacks?

 

[EpicBlob]

I saw from this picture that you are running the GPU on MacOSX, not on Windows, but I thought eGPUs don't work via thunderbolt on MacOSX. Did you hacked the drivers or you only installed the drivers for mac without any hacks?

There are three kext files that you have to change (took about 5 minutes) then you simply leave everything plugged in on boot and it works perfectly. This was found out until a couple months ago though, as before no one thought it'd work.

 

[RicP]

There are three kext files that you have to change (took about 5 minutes) then you simply leave everything plugged in on boot and it works perfectly. This was found out until a couple months ago though, as before no one thought it'd work.

I quite liked the choice made by you!! Work well and smooth?

I have an MBPro retina 15" from late 2013 (base line, w/out dedicated graphics ) and have thunderbolt 2 (20GB/s bandwidth).
I'm interested in this option to add power of graphics for more robust gaming, like with 2 or 3GB DDDR5 graphic card [desktop form factor] (ex. GTX 760 or GTX 780).
I want to play games in both OS X and windows 8.1., as already do.

what alterations was needed for the graphics work (in the kext files, what and where are the files)?
What are the procedure?

Thanks

 

[MCAsan]

is it gonna work on Yosemite?

 

[RicP]

is it gonna work on Yosemite?

i expect so

 

[EpicBlob]

I quite liked the choice made by you!! Work well and smooth?

I have an MBPro retina 15" from late 2013 (base line, w/out dedicated graphics ) and have thunderbolt 2 (20GB/s bandwidth).
I'm interested in this option to add power of graphics for more robust gaming, like with 2 or 3GB DDDR5 graphic card [desktop form factor] (ex. GTX 760 or GTX 780).
I want to play games in both OS X and windows 8.1., as already do.

what alterations was needed for the graphics work (in the kext files, what and where are the files)?
What are the procedure?

Thanks

Hey,

Here's the link to get it working with OS X. At the end of editing the kext files, make sure to use something like kext wizard to make sure they all loaded. And after each OS update, you'll have to re-edit the kexts but it takes around 2 minutes once you know what you're doing.
http://www.journaldulapin.com/2013/08/24/a-thunderbolt-gpu-on-a-mac-how-to/

Then after that, for OS X its just plug and play. Boot up your computer with everything plugged in and it'll be set. Sadly hotplugging doesn't work so if you want to go mobile, you'll have to shut down.