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Who would buy A dedicated eGPU using TB2?

yangchewren said:
It is true and I cannot deny how upset it has made me for the past two years knowing that affordable expansion could exist, but the big guy doesn't allow it to. Village instruments were denied a simple developer license without a reasonable explanation. Other eGPU chassis/slot producers were requested to recall their products.

Zodiac has accurately summed up how the very creators of thunderbolt are stymieing is uptake and accessibility.
Click to expand...

Not to mention that Apple is basically the only one to use Thunderbolt on their computers and laptops. PC OEMs have basically abandoned TB this year, from what I can see.

I don't know what Intel's plans were with Thunderbolt, but it's a total failure so far. And when they deliberately prevent eGPU solutions, we can see them as 'the bad guy' with good conscience.
 
I've been interested in TB eGPU's for some time. Ever since I found out about TB really and it's direct access to the PCI-e bus.

This is the darker side of Intel, for all their incredible advancements in architecture and fabrication they aren't immune from stifyling innovation in order to increase their sales.
As a previous poster mentioned, the reason this hasn't taken off and we've only seen home made concepts (that worked very well) is because Intel won't allow it. They could easily let this market expand, but that gives the upper hand back to Nvidia and AMD, why increase competition against yourself when you can just nip it in the bud so to speak?

The bandwidth limitations aren't much of a problem, in fact with TB2 I doubt you would see any difference if you were running your GPU from the motherboard PCI-e 3.0 x16 socket or from a TB2 interface as once again mentioned previously, the GPU loads most of the data it needs into it's VRAM and the CPU simply hands it instructions on what to process, it doesn't have to constantly send the data, like textures etc. So most of the time the bus is no where near fully utilised.
That's not to say their wouldn't be a penalty for using a TB2 over a direct PCI-e socket but it wouldn't be a big one and probably not related to bandwidth.

This, daisy chaining, ultra high def, massive and very fast storage arrays seem perfect and ideally suited for TB, but of course only the first one would have any potential negative sales impact for Intel, thus they don't allow it.

I would absolutely love to hook my rMBP up to an external and easily upgradable eGPU and game with most things maxed out, one can dream.
 
Zodiac.mj said:
Intel won't allow it. SilverStone product is as good as dead.

Do you remember MSI GUS II shown year+ ago? It was a TB first gen enclosure. Dead, Intel wouldn't certify it, and you know what does mean.

Go to Village Instruments Facebook page and ask them how it is going with their solution and why it's not in the market. Check what they will say about Intel "support" and "certification" processes.

---

The truth is, Intell wants you to buy their Crystallwell (GT3) GPU now and next version when Broadwell comes up. Allowing external GPU solutions would result in making their GPUs obsolete.

Who would pay more for internal GPU, if you can go with bare minimum to display OS interface without problems and then switch to external box using TB2? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't.
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For curiosity I just emailed Silverstone about the product and this was their response:

"Thank you for your request.
Next year you can find this product on the market."

Who knows!
 
ooans said:
For curiosity I just emailed Silverstone about the product and this was their response:

"Thank you for your request.
Next year you can find this product on the market."

Who knows!
Click to expand...

That's fantastic news, still not going to get my hopes up.
 
What is there to stop products appearing without the proper certification? I'm surprised there aren't tons of them on eBay shipping from a Chinese hardware manufacturer.

It's not as if the hardware doesn't work without the Intel seal of approval... or maybe it does???
 
Jamie1986 said:
What is there to stop products appearing without the proper certification? I'm surprised there aren't tons of them on eBay shipping from a Chinese hardware manufacturer.

It's not as if the hardware doesn't work without the Intel seal of approval... or maybe it does???
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That's a good point, I'm sure it's easily possible, just a case of a case, an external power source, a PCI-e to TB port and bridge and voila!
We've seen it done with home made solutions, while not elegant they work. C'mon China, you've flooded our markets with everything we don't want with razer thin margins, now give us something we do want!

Hell I bet I could spend my free time over the next fortnight and design a non-intel approved solution at uni.
 
SCOLANATOR said:
That's a good point, I'm sure it's easily possible, just a case of a case, an external power source, a PCI-e to TB port and bridge and voila!
We've seen it done with home made solutions, while not elegant they work. C'mon China, you've flooded our markets with everything we don't want with razer thin margins, now give us something we do want!

Hell I bet I could spend my free time over the next fortnight and design a non-intel approved solution at uni.
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I'll fund that if you make it TB2 :p

Heck you could even go into business with your blackmarket gadgets!
 
Jamie1986 said:
I'll fund that if you make it TB2 :p

Heck you could even go into business with your blackmarket gadgets!
Click to expand...

Maybe I'll jump on that kickstarter and do this :p, I'm actually giving it a thought now. Seems perfectly suited to my interests and degree (Masters EEE) but I have more studying to do than I care to think about. I can already pretty much think out how I would do it in my head, the electronics side is pretty straight forward. Biggest problem would be finding a small enough PSU for the system that can power everything up to and including a Titan. Software is simply a case of downloading the relevant Nvidia or AMD drivers.

I have no experience on what to do after I have a completed design and circuit, never had any experience with 3D CAD work either. I wouldn't do a project like this on my own, not with my time constraints.
 
yangchewren said:
It is true and I cannot deny how upset it has made me for the past two years knowing that affordable expansion could exist, but the big guy doesn't allow it to. Village instruments were denied a simple developer license without a reasonable explanation. Other eGPU chassis/slot producers were requested to recall their products.

Zodiac has accurately summed up how the very creators of thunderbolt are stymieing is uptake and accessibility.
Click to expand...

Even though it may be true, I still don't understand the reasoning behind this. Desktop GPUs are a totally different market and are bulky. Intel only makes Iris Pro GPUs, which currently compete only with midrange laptop GPUs. It is basically two totally different markets. I get that intel may expand this in the future, but the only way they'd be able to compete with 150 watt double-wide graphics cards is with their own 150 watt double wide graphics card - which would also fit into one of those enclosures.
 
Freyqq said:
Even though it may be true, I still don't understand the reasoning behind this. Desktop GPUs are a totally different market and are bulky. Intel only makes Iris Pro GPUs, which currently compete only with midrange laptop GPUs. It is basically two totally different markets. I get that intel may expand this in the future, but the only way they'd be able to compete with 150 watt double-wide graphics cards is with their own 150 watt double wide graphics card - which would also fit into one of those enclosures.
Click to expand...

Actually the reason provided wasn't the most compelling one and some others have tried to describe it in better ways.

But i'll write here in summary how intel is stifling the development of thunderbolt.

"Noble":
-Controlling the user experience. Reasoning is that bandwidth mismatch b/w PCIE GPUs and thunderbolt will hamper the user getting a good experience.
-Allowing some people to develop thunderbolt (notice that these are big accessory/peripheral firms)

Bad:
-Difficult for new entrants to get thunderbolt development license. Small players like Village instruments being pushed aside.
-Small amount of firms means that there is lesser competition, prices stay high and choices are limited.
-Revenue capture from all licensed products such as cables etc. (each cable has some decoder chip inside) Excessively priced cables.
-Disallows manufacturing of a chassis/socket specifically for GPU or other non supported expansion cards. TH05 was pulled off shelves weeks after it went on sale.

Ultimately: high cost of peripherals caused by lack of competition due to excessively exclusive licensing and artificially high cost of thunderbolt components.
 
yangchewren said:
Actually the reason provided wasn't the most compelling one and some others have tried to describe it in better ways.

But i'll write here in summary how intel is stifling the development of thunderbolt.

"Noble":
-Controlling the user experience. Reasoning is that bandwidth mismatch b/w PCIE GPUs and thunderbolt will hamper the user getting a good experience.
-Allowing some people to develop thunderbolt (notice that these are big accessory/peripheral firms)

Bad:
-Difficult for new entrants to get thunderbolt development license. Small players like Village instruments being pushed aside.
-Small amount of firms means that there is lesser competition, prices stay high and choices are limited.
-Revenue capture from all licensed products such as cables etc. (each cable has some decoder chip inside) Excessively priced cables.
-Disallows manufacturing of a chassis/socket specifically for GPU or other non supported expansion cards. TH05 was pulled off shelves weeks after it went on sale.

Ultimately: high cost of peripherals caused by lack of competition due to excessively exclusive licensing and artificially high cost of thunderbolt components.
Click to expand...

Well, you can get a thunderbolt cable for $20. Lightning cables for iphones are also $20, and there are tons of peripherals for them. When it came out, the cost of the cable was an issue, but not as much anymore.
 
Zodiac.mj said:
The truth is, Intell wants you to buy their Crystallwell (GT3) GPU now and next version when Broadwell comes up. Allowing external GPU solutions would result in making their GPUs obsolete.

Who would pay more for internal GPU, if you can go with bare minimum to display OS interface without problems and then switch to external box using TB2? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't.
Click to expand...

But wouldn't it not matter to Intel anyway because their iGPU will already be attached to the CPU? They still get the sale regardless of whether someone decides to buy an eGPU or not. Or were you referencing manufacturers not wanting to pay for the better iGPU?

EDIT: and as HurryKayne points out in the post below, thunderbolt is also an Intel product so this could potentially push for more adoption of the port. It would create a nice compromise between having super thin/portable devices and more power.
 
Last edited:
Agent-P said:
But wouldn't it not matter to Intel anyway because their iGPU will already be attached to the CPU? They still get the sale regardless of whether someone decides to buy an eGPU or not. Or were you referencing manufacturers not wanting to pay for the better iGPU?
Click to expand...

Infact and thunderbolt comes from Intel too.
The Egpus are a good way to change internal parts ,if not the only one,
which Cook's team is leaving for Apple thin machines.
Soldered ram,battery overglued,discrete gpus at over 600€ .
I'm not sure i like this trend but,leaving out the refurbished machines,
this is the situation.
I hope Apple steps back,at least on the Pro side.
On the thunderbolt side,the m-logic x holds a 3/4 gpus and costs 500€,
but its TB1.
So its up to you,m-logic and a 15/13 macbook pro without the discrete
or a full 15 - 750m macbook pro.
Last,with MacPro i also think we will see many several new external TB solutions on 2014.
It would be then indeed very interesting to see 750m - eGpu comparison.
 
HurryKayne said:
On the thunderbolt side,the m-logic x holds a 3/4 gpus and costs 500€,
but its TB1.
So its up to you,m-logic and a 15/13 macbook pro without the discrete
or a full 15 - 750m macbook pro.
Click to expand...

I've not come across the m-logic products before - I see the power supply is only 10W?? Is that a mistake? That would not be enough for any GPU as I understand it.
 
I've wanted this the last 3 years, i honestly have no idea why this isn't a thing yet..
 
Jamie1986 said:
I've not come across the m-logic products before - I see the power supply is only 10W?? Is that a mistake? That would not be enough for any GPU as I understand it.
Click to expand...

For sure,i really would like to have a real Gpu with only 10 W power needs.
By the way,if,Mac Mini won't sport soldered ram and if Mac Pro won't allow
any Gpu replacement..i will buy a Mini quad and M.Logic-x this time.
 
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