From what I recall doesn't the air run a slower/gimped version of thunderbolt compared to the MBP?
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MSI's external thunderbolt GPU and MBA
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Yes it does... I didn't find out about that until after I purchased it. It wouldn't have stopped me though even if I had known. I still have hope that something along the lines of the GUS II will be compatible...
it's been a few months since the announcement..still no ETA on the arrival or any new details. Additionally, unless I looked at the prototype wrong, this will only work for people with HDMI compatible monitors and will not work with the TB display.
Well, unless the MSI eGPU uses more than two channels, I don't think it really matters. From what I remember, the MBA has 2 channels and the MBP has 4.
You'll be able to use any monitor you want, as long as the GPU supports it. I don't think there are any GPUs with Thunderbolt, and I doubt this product will be used that much in Mac OS X. I don't think they will have very good driver support.
Regardless, you can always just drop in your own GPU.
There is HDMI to minidisplay which should work on TB display. The wait is killing me. I can't wait to play games on my 23" Dell Ultrasharp 1920x1080!
Unfortunately there is currently no way to connect mini displayport to the thunderbolt display. For example the thunderbolt display wont work with any pre 2011 macs. Those adapters will work for the mini displayport cinema display but note that hdmi only carries 1920x1200 so you will not be able to use the full resolution of the display. The best adapter is the dual link DVI to mini displayport or better yet get a card that has a displayport(either full sized or mini, they are pin to pin compatible so you can adapt from one to the other cheaply)
my hope
it is just my speculation but MSI might be holding its product launch in anticipation for the new macbook air and macbook pro that should be equipped with next gen thunderbolt. In this way, they will get maximum publicity and a larger user-base of thunderbolts users.
it is just my speculation but MSI might be holding its product launch in anticipation for the new macbook air and macbook pro that should be equipped with next gen thunderbolt. In this way, they will get maximum publicity and a larger user-base of thunderbolts users.
That's hurts! haha oh well. I probably should have purchased a MacBook Pro but I'm making a point of using my air as my primary computer. I have an HP laptop that has discrete graphics and a quad core i7 so I'm not in too much of a need or anything. I just really liked the idea of an external GPU with an air.
MSI, Sonnet, Vidock, Apple, Intel. They all need to start releasing their new gear so we can buy it in time for Diablo 3!
I don't know man. If playing Diablo III is your priority, perhaps the MBA is not the right decision for you to begin with. No matter the improvements, the MBA will never be an optimal gaming solution...
It seems there is another version by "Magma". On April 10 they released the following news:
So, while it seems this is coming out in the near future, there are a "few" limitations. The price of $979 seems very high (even if you get two x8 ports and one x4 at 250w of power). Also, the most alarming thing is that it apparently works with most cards under Windows (as it's treated as a normal PCIe slot), but OS X has no support for external graphics through thunderbolt, and other cards needs specific thunderbolt drivers.
I guess we'll need to do our gaming through BootCamp with the external GPU solutions
More info here: http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp
So, while it seems this is coming out in the near future, there are a "few" limitations. The price of $979 seems very high (even if you get two x8 ports and one x4 at 250w of power). Also, the most alarming thing is that it apparently works with most cards under Windows (as it's treated as a normal PCIe slot), but OS X has no support for external graphics through thunderbolt, and other cards needs specific thunderbolt drivers.
I guess we'll need to do our gaming through BootCamp with the external GPU solutions
More info here: http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp
It is not like most of the games support OSX anyway. Only blizzard seems to support OSX.
It seems there is another version by "Magma". On April 10 they released the following news:
So, while it seems this is coming out in the near future, there are a "few" limitations. The price of $979 seems very high (even if you get two x8 ports and one x4 at 250w of power). Also, the most alarming thing is that it apparently works with most cards under Windows (as it's treated as a normal PCIe slot), but OS X has no support for external graphics through thunderbolt, and other cards needs specific thunderbolt drivers.
I guess we'll need to do our gaming through BootCamp with the external GPU solutions
More info here: http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp
fortunately I'm only looking for improved performance on blizzard games anyway.
Meh it looks like my 4yr old PC is still plenty good enough for diablo iii @max settings anyway.
IOve said it once, and I'll say it again.
Game in Windows. Even on the MBA. Yes, WoW works within OSx. But so far its been terrible experience.
Running in OSx, with the latest updates. I cannot run WoW over 800x600 with lowest graphic settings. anything over this completely bogs down and drops to 15-30fps at best.
Switching to windows 7 and latest drivers has absolutely smashed the performance. Same game, different platform. I Run WoW on my MBA with "medium high" custom settings at native resolution averaging 30-40fps (there are some dips, but the game is entirely playable).
Also: $979? for the magma. ARE THEY BLOODY INSANE! You can build a half competent 2nd gaming computer for that cost! what is in this thing? Gold and Diamond? it's effectively a metal enclosure with a butchered 1/2 motherboard and a few thunderbolt controllers. for 979 you've almost paid for a 2nd MBA!
Magma is pricing themselves completely out to lunch
When are these coming out??? I can't wait to be able to just have an 11" air as my only computer and just plug it into an egpu and have a the power of a desktop while home...that will be amazing!
I think it would be far more amazing to not pay ~$1000 for sub-par performance that you will experience with those boxes and graphics cards. I'll dig out the review of the Sony laptop that comes with an external GPU connected via thunderbolt to show you why you should not get excited about this
It's Sony's new Z2. Here's the review from Anand:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5530/sony-vaio-z2-everything-is-peripheral
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5530/sony-vaio-z2-everything-is-peripheral
Thanks, but I was actually looking for another review from Anandtech as well that showed how the interface was limiting the card in comparison to another laptop with a slower AMD mobile gpu that was integrated directly on the mother board. Oh well.
Well, running an eGPU over ExpressCard 1.0 nets pretty amazing results and that's at 2.5Gbps.
eGPU real benchmark examples:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...851-diy-egpu-experiences.html#implementations
Note: x1.1Opt is an EC 1.0 which hits 2.5Gbps, x1.2 is an EC 2.0 which hits 5Gbps.
Nvidia GTX 580M SLI benchmark:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-580M-SLI.56637.0.html
I'd say 18k 3dm6 scores for the EC 1.0 is pretty good considering the top end 500 mobile series in SLI mode is only hitting 23.2k. This is at roughly 1/4 of the bandwidth of Thunderbolt too.
Thanks, but that seems to go against other articles on the topic. Confusion.
Those are all real user benchmarks. Nando4 does an excellent job with assisting the eGPU community. I'd recommend asking over on Notebookreview's eGPU thread (linked in my last post) any specific questions you have regarding the benchmarks and I'm sure he can answer them.
He helped me through testing the ViDock 4+ for x1.2 speeds when I couldn't get it to run at the advertised rate (EC 2.0 or 5Gbps).