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MSI's external thunderbolt GPU and MBA
- Thread starter arctic
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There are more reasons for TB than merely external video cards for playing games. I'm more interested in using it as a passive backplane and clustering computers together.
Eventually external video card will be monetarily feasible, but right now they are not economically viable.
Eventually external video card will be monetarily feasible, but right now they are not economically viable.
I wonder if this will ever get support on the mac. It seems like Apple would rather have you bought the MBP Retina instead of an air and this. 
Also does the new Airs have "full" TB support? If I remember correctly the previous version of the MBA had a less powerful TB port.
Also does the new Airs have "full" TB support? If I remember correctly the previous version of the MBA had a less powerful TB port.
I wonder if this will ever get support on the mac. It seems like Apple would rather have you bought the MBP Retina instead of an air and this.
Also does the new Airs have "full" TB support? If I remember correctly the previous version of the MBA had a less powerful TB port.
According to iFixit, the 2012 MacBook Air uses THE SAME Thunderbolt controller as the MacBook Pro (at least the one with the retina display). Compare step 16 here:MacBook AIR teardown (which states "Intel DSL3510L Thunderbolt controller" next to the YELLOW dot) to step 15 here: MacBook PRO teardown (which states "Intel DSL3510L Thunderbolt controller" next to the BLUE dot).
MSI's vaporware product still on the market. What a surprise.
You can't use the MSI vaporware anyway. "The only limitation to the GUS II is the internal GPU has to be powered by PCIe alone (there are no aux PCIe power connectors inside the chassis). "
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5352/msis-gus-ii-external-gpu-via-thunderbolt
No power supply = weak GPU
MBA has the SAME thunderbolt port. You are thinking about multi-display chaining, which is limited by GPU, not by TB:
http://obamapacman.com/2011/09/apple-thunderbolt-display-multi-monitor-daisychaining-support/
You can't use the MSI vaporware anyway. "The only limitation to the GUS II is the internal GPU has to be powered by PCIe alone (there are no aux PCIe power connectors inside the chassis). "
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5352/msis-gus-ii-external-gpu-via-thunderbolt
No power supply = weak GPU
I wonder if this will ever get support on the mac. It seems like Apple would rather have you bought the MBP Retina instead of an air and this.
Also does the new Airs have "full" TB support? If I remember correctly the previous version of the MBA had a less powerful TB port.
MBA has the SAME thunderbolt port. You are thinking about multi-display chaining, which is limited by GPU, not by TB:
http://obamapacman.com/2011/09/apple-thunderbolt-display-multi-monitor-daisychaining-support/
I was looking into the sonnet tech echo, looks like it's able to run a GPU, but the support department doesn't seem to know anything about it.
I want this mainly for gaming when booting in windows, I would love to use my thunderbolt display, but that's only an option when there is an option to add the display signal from the external GPU to the thunderbolt cable.
I've looked at making a standalone PC with a thunderbolt motherboard, there the thunderbolt has a display-in on the board itself, if you don't attach the GPU there you won't be able to use a display connected with thunderbolt, but if you do you use the GPU. Now I don't want a whole PC, too big, too ugly so it would rock if you could do almost the same thing with the sonnettech, anyone knows if this is possible?
I want this mainly for gaming when booting in windows, I would love to use my thunderbolt display, but that's only an option when there is an option to add the display signal from the external GPU to the thunderbolt cable.
I've looked at making a standalone PC with a thunderbolt motherboard, there the thunderbolt has a display-in on the board itself, if you don't attach the GPU there you won't be able to use a display connected with thunderbolt, but if you do you use the GPU. Now I don't want a whole PC, too big, too ugly
so it would rock if you could do almost the same thing with the sonnettech, anyone knows if this is possible?On this subject, I got a mail from Magma this morning about their "ExpressBox 3T":
Their site (www.magma.com) sadly seems down at the moment, but it sure is an interesting option in the external GPU area
Their site (www.magma.com) sadly seems down at the moment, but it sure is an interesting option in the external GPU area
Why? All TB is is an external PCI-E slot, and not a 16x one. As far as clusters go a lot still run on 1GbE. If you need the speed there's already 10GbE for budget and both DDR and QDR inifiniband push way more data than thunderbolt can even actually handle.