Mobile Gaming Redefined / ALIENWARE PLEASE READ IT

People, this is the best mobile gaming idea I have heard for a long time (maybe ever?). THANKS WIDEZU!!! I am also one of those guys, who knows doing this by yourself from scratch maybe possible but I DON'T have the time for it, and if I see a system doing this by a docking port, I would buy it, *** NO MATTER THE COST!!! ***

I think we should keep this thread alive until alienware understands this is a good idea, I am sure they have someone reading this forum which will report this idea to supervisor as soon as they realize it has a good fanbase. I really want this to come true, would change my life and computing needs!

 

+1 would be great have a system that is capable of that. I would buy it in a heart beat as well.

 

I support this as well, i would instantly buy an new Alienware system if this feature was integrated in the new product releases.

I really like the thought. Powerfull, mobile laptop, that has an "adapter" which makes it ridiculously powerfull. Also, if you could make the MXM "as portable as possible" aswell, would have been an large bonus.

- Scott.

 

Guys guys chill. I was just brain storming. Anyways to summarise: everything the same just the mobo having a second MXM connector but no space for an actual GPU. The MXM slot would be extended via a ribbon cable to a port on the side of the laptop.

As for the external MXM, only needs to be as big as the card itself:


A box with a grill is all that is needed

 

^^ Oh yes, it would be ridiculously cool if we had a box full of GPUs (can you imagine a quadfirex in a box which you just dock your laptop and you have RAW power ) and we have alienfx and liquid cooling on it! OH MAN!

 

Seriously dude, you need to get some sleep

I posted that picture only to show the GPU set up in the Clevo X7200 where the fan+heatsink combo rests on top of the GPU taking up not more width or length than the actual MXM card, only height. I suppose with a stretch, the external GPU wouldn't even be that much larger than an external HDD box.

I'm gonna not go too far in suggesting quadsli or quadfire in anyway way because that goes into the realms of almost unfeasible as there are no mobie boards that support it. There are however boards that support dual cards therefore theoretically, everything i suggested is doable. And I mean EVERYTHING.

And yes I would love to work for the AW branch at Dell but I'm just a student at University at the moment

 

It would make sense to take this even farther if the technology could be made to work. A laptop like the Razer Blade, super thin and light and awesome, with a dock that could hold duel GPUs. You place the thin laptop down into the dock, it snaps in and suddenly you have a 2+ inch thick duel GPU beast. Take it out you have a super portable sub 1 inch thick machine.

Sadly, I don't think it is possible right now, getting an MXM level of bandwidth over any kind of distance is extremely hard. Thus, I doubt you could even have a dock that snaps on to the bottom, let alone one connected with a cable, and expect to get anywhere near MXM bandwidth.

 

A brilliant student at that I know I got too (WAY TOO MUCH ) excited over this, but it is just my dreams come true It is just evening here, I need to prepare a class to teach on top of that tonight! (which I will definitely talk about this idea to gather more followers )

 

This is already out, I saw it in Popular Science. It's from Sony and runs off an AMD card. If i remembered incorrectly, sorry for letting your hopes up haha

 

^^Very true. My theory is that there is void of any kind of port, just a MXM pass through. Think of it like eMXM. No interface or board just a big thick cable. Pin to pin. No compression or changes.

I know that stuff exists. It's enabling lower powered machines to have mighty fast GPUs, there is always the eGPU option providing desktop GPU level performance in notebooks. That idea has already been coined. I know that. In my original post I never wanted the external to replace the one in the laptop. My idea was for SLi/XFire only. Not really adding a GPU but more like pairing with an external one.

I never wanted a dock, I used the term but never really like snap in thing. The elegance of an external box housing a secondary GPU for portable SLi/XFire was my initial idea.

Think of it as you are at work, laptop plugged in full single GTX 580m performance. Do some video rendering and photoshop at decent speeds. Then on your break, you reach into your bag and take out what looks like an external HDD just thicker, has a fan on it and a 3 inch wide ribbon cable. Power down your computer, plug in the second GTX 580m without even needing to open up your laptop, restart and you have two GTX 580m's in SLi. Crack out some desktop performance. You could also place the external GPU as a hand warmer

 

I like it!! A very powerful and expensive hand warmer at that.

 

awful config at that

Sony Vaio Z Has External Radeon Light Peak GPU

I don't want a 6650m in a box to carry (better off with iGPU), I want a 580m in a box to SLI!!! what widezu is saying is SLI'ing the lappy, I love my big bad m17x, I am not talking about a super light laptop with a GPU in a box, I want SLI in a mobile environment! (again I am taking it too far but why not! with a new mobo, maybe quadfirex even! )

 

That Sony laptop does look really cool though. But like I said before, we all know about the external dedicated GPU solutions. I'm talking about external secondary GPU solutions for doubling graphics performance. Plus not to mention it being MXM upgradable. Bet you any money that Sony laptop external GPU is not user upgradable.

 

This might pass through AW but Dell would never hear of it. People would find a way to use the external enclosure as the primary video card and continually upgrade the GPU, meaning any decent i7 quad core would be set for gaming until the Xbox 1080 is out without needing an upgrade. I believe the tech exists to do this for sure, but I live in a capitalist world where progress is shunned if it ain't profitable.

And this, while brilliant isn't profitable : (

 

Actually, Dell can use Master and Slave vbioses. Plus if the MXM pass through port was only available on a select group of machines, other laptops would not be able to use it. So the external GPU will only work if connected to a laptop that has a MXM pass through port and an identical master GPU already in the laptop.

I can understand the non-profit if it was a external GPU for lower laptops but this concept simply isn't. This concept is only for pairing GPUs and only as a dream up of what the M17x R4 could be like.

 

This idea has been out for a long time...external GPU's currently exist, and there's a nice DIY tutorial out there here:

How to make an external laptop graphics adaptor | News | TechRadar

or you could purchase a consumer solution for significantly more cash...

Dual graphics would be elementary.

HOWEVER, the issue is bandwidth. USB3 is not fast enough, but with USB4 on the horizon, we may have some hope

 

yeah bandwitdh is the problem, we should have an external MXM slot as widezu is saying, oh it would be great! don't you think slick? you have an m17x-r3 with sli when you want! dream come true

 

ya, that would be cool. but MXM slot would be too expensive. Mobile graphic cards are so expensive. I'd prefer a PCI-express slot and be able to use a desktops graphics card. Its the bandwidth issue that holds this back. If that was solved, i'd bypass the mobile grphics all together with a desktop card.

I'd use the mobile card when i'm away from home...then plug in the external card when i'm at home. I'm waiting anxiously for USB 4

 

you guys do realise as cool as this all may sound...true portability is going down the drain.....i am not against this idea, but a great gaming laptop's true potential should entirely be self contained ...imho.....if u trully aspire for such power a fully tricked out pc would serve you better

 

portability is there man, you just have extra power whenever you want, m17x-r3 remains the same, but a sli bridge is provided with external MXM slot

 

Yeah the only purpose for this concept is keep the protability the same. Or even say in a new model for example a M16x (which to me is the perfect size) there will be a MXM GPU in there. The external box provides a SLi bridge and a MXM connector on the outside.

As I said many times this concept is not to replace the internal GPU but to be an ADDITIONAL GPU as long as both GPUs are the same.

 

Agreed, I would love to be able to utilise Desktop GPU's

 

@Douse, have a search around, you'll find many solutions for eGPUs that use desktop cards. They use the Mini ExpressCard interface.

 

Yeah but it doesn't really use the power as there is the massive bandwidth bottleneck. Might as well stick with top end mxm cards

 

Hence my concept of internal MXM plus external removable MXM. Doesn't compromise portability as you can pack the laptop in a backpack and stick the MXM box in there like an external harddrive. Take the laptop out to use, and then to game, plug in the external MXM and have a dual GPU machine. Simples.

 

It is certainly a great idea. Use a proprietary MXM external plug.

Would also make cooling the external card much easier as you would have more room to move.

 

Exactly. If this was real, I would image the Dell ordering site to list this as an accessory like WirelessHD. No one needs it. But it's great having extra for MOAR power!

 

I want MOAR power!!!!!

 

Like others have said, it is a great idea. But how would you get the 100W of extra power it would need?
A mini-psu within the MXM box?
Surely then it would get a bit bigger.

Personally I'd prefer it they offered or focused on things like a 3-pipe CPU heatsink, super speed ultra quiet fans, 100% copper heatsinks, maybe an even better cooling system in general. The power is already there to be honest, it would just be more efficient with better cooling.

 

The extra power can already be supplied. The M18x can power 2 cards. This concept effectively takes the M18x mobo, saws off the end but leaves the second slot intact and then puts a pass thru there to the outside card. No need for extra PSU.

 

^^ So here's a great question...

why wouldn't you just get a m18x or other xfire/sli capable platform?

 

Because this concept squeezes a M18x mobo into a smaller chassis with the second GPU hanging outside.

 

^^ oh yes, I am with widezu on this one, I want a sli setup under 10 pounds, and looks like by today's technology we cannot have that (all sli supporting laptops are +12) and maybe widezu's approach is a way to achieve that come on slick! it would be really cool to plug a cable and you are sli ready!

 

and then i go back to what i said earlier...if someone is going to externalize a videocard slot, why not make it a pci-e slot instead of the mxm interface. Then i can install a desktop card. A $300 desktop card will blow away current 580m sli or 6990 xfire

 

Because then you would need an external PSU for the external GPU.

 

Yes you would, but that is something that i would be willing to get (an external power supply) if i was going with the external desktop card idea. I'm just going with economics here

Going with an external mxm solution, you would have to upgrade to the 330w laptop power brick ($200) and the cost of a 580m @ $6-700.

For the same money, i can get a killer desktop card and you would only need to get say a 500w xternal supply so say $50-60...and the current king of the hill is the desktop 7970 which is less than $600

That's just my personal preference

 

Wouldn't matter since the places you would hook up an external gpu MXM or PCI-E would be a house or building or some sort.

 

Alternatively to all of this Alienware can just throw a thunderbolt port in the possibly upcoming revisions then MSI's GUS 2 will give us the ability to run any desktop GPU that uses less than 150w of power. Sure its not nearly as small but chances are it would be much cheaper.

 

Yeah i'm not looking at it for a cost effective method or anything like that. I don't think anyone who gets something like a M17x R3 or M18x is buying for needs.

This is just my concept of having a portable SLi solution for a non-SLi system. It's not about getting top performance etc. I never looked at this from the perspective of a buyer and I don't intend to. And I was talking about a future Alienware system not the current one so I'm not considering extra 580m prices and PSU etc

It's not like this will ever be made a reality anyways. This was always a random stab for fun.

Just my concept. Regardless of MXM prices etc. I'm just saying that with the technology today, this can be done.

 

Nobody seems to understand the bandwidth problem here - that's why this whole idea hasn't caught on - I thought someone surely would have brought it up esp with this being NBR.

Expresscard in a laptop is equivalent to PCI-e 1x. The MXM interface is equivalent to PCI-e 2.0 8x. Graphics card like the GTX 580m, 6990m, and 6970m, use a very large percentage of the available bandwidth in the MXM interface. Forcing them through a PCI-e 1x connection would result in performance decreases of 60-90% or more. At that point doesn't it make a lot more sense to simply buy a new MXM module for use in your laptop's MXM slot?

SLI or CFX wouldn't work either - CFX might work, but would only see very small gains. The reason again is the bandwidth and the fact that both SLI and CFX required both gpu's to be in sync - this would be impossible with one of the cards being forced to use 1/8th of the bandwidth the other card was seeing. SLI couldn't function - CFX might due to the face the cards do not need to be completely in sync (you can have different OC levels on CFX pairs and still run CFX) - but again gains in performance would not be worth the hassle or cost.

If you guys want dual gpu's you need to either get yourself an M18x, M17x R2, a Clevo x8100 or Clevo x7200 as all four of those laptops have dual MXM slots with the full PCI-e 8x bandwidth capabilities across both slots.

(You're not going to find PCI-e 2.0 8x bandwidth with USB 3, esata, thunderbolt, expresscard, or any similar interface.)

The only practical reason for having such an adapter (and the reason why a few exist) is to allow for users with extraordinarily weak graphics solutions in their laptops (intel integrated) to have some extra headroom - not much but some. Most people however when looking into it realize that performance gains - even with the strongest gpu - would be nominal - and not worth the cost. Suggesting this for a laptop that already has a powerful gpu like the m17x R3 makes even less sense.

 

I ditched the ExpressCard idea after I realised the bandwidth problem.

 

There were several posts in this thread on bandwidth issues

 

just brain storming man, it doesn't need to be the most brilliant / achievable goal ever... although I am still on with this MOAR power! still slick's suggestion would be also nice a desktop card, but I don't think it is possible right? a ton of things must change on mobo (right?) also this idea is definitely a far into the future thing, but I think a powerful laptop, docking somewhere becoming even more powerful is a very neat idea which can give way to future gaming, I would love a machine which docks (yes I want docking) to a powerful cluster of GPUs and I still have some good graphical processing power on my lappy for travelling too, what widezu saying is like the first step towards this direction, but what I said and I am sure the others who responded positively is the idea of combining your desktop and laptop into a single machine, I am sure it is impossible as of now (well, for the products we can get anyway) but would have been great for future!

 

You want a laptop, that can dock into an external GPU, to provide more power, and are willing to spend upwards of $800 on it? Buy a desktop. For so many reasons, this external GPU idea is never going to take off.

 

Who said it was going to take off? I just had an idea and I posted it. I knew there was going to be holes in concept. So what if we can have an external desktop GPU? So what if it costs much more than actually building a more powerful desktop. So what if people want to buy a high powered notebook instead of spending a fraction on a desktop. This is the Alienware section. We get because we want, not because we need. Just because we shouldn't, doesn't mean we won't. I shouldn't gamble away my money at a casino but I do it anyways because I like it. Same principle.

 

Well said widezu. This obviously wouldn't suit everyone, but nothing does.

Personally, I would love an external GPU that I could dock into when I'm at home and leave when I'm out and about. It would also be much more portable if I were to take the eGPU dock compared to a desktop.

 

couldn't be said any better, and I am pretty sure if anybody writes at m17x forum, can claim otherwise... after all we all paid a handsome amount for our lappies...

what I say still remains the same, the future of pc gaming I am kinda sure lies in laptops (at some point people will definitely get tired of the cables and non-portability of desktop systems, I already did that's why I bought an m17x ) and putting desktop power in a laptop is impossible idea as of now, so what may happen is that you may have a cluster of GPUs which can be ported on a device which is able to control them = laptop

 

As much as I would love to think that the future of gaming is in laptops I still don't see it.

Recently laptop sales have overtaken desktop PCs and part sales but that is because there are so many laptops are there to chose from and non-custom desktops are just so damn ugly!

There is a price for portability and you cannot build your own laptop. Unless you have access to different Alienware/Clevo parts to frankensystem something. That would still cost a bomb.

I'm gonna build a desktop some day but for now while I'm still a student doing lots of travelling, I'll stick to laptops hence the idea of removable SLi.

 

I said pc gaming, I am also sad that lame consoles will take over pc's eventually in gaming