$500 for E-GPU setup, what would you buy?

Hey all, I'm thinking about buying an E-GPU setup in order to play Battlefield 3 at 1920x1080 at high-ultra.

I have $500 to spend for everything.

Here's my laptop (1x link):
Dell Latitude E6410
i7-620M
8GB RAM (Planning to use Setup 1.1x to do disable dGPU & PCIE Automated Allocation to get >3.5GB TOLUD)
Nvidia NVS3100M + Intel GMA (not sure which model)
Intel X25 160GB SSD

I know my laptop is only capable of using 1x but would it still be possible to achieve some higher benchmarks than say, a 580M that scores 20k on 3DMark06?

Here's what I am planning so far:
PE4H: ~$100
Corsair CX750: ~$85
GPU:???

Thanks in advance guys!

 

What kind of FPS are you looking for to play battlefield 3? On my setup, I can run it at 1080p at 60fps most of the time but with everything on low.

Does your laptop have an express card on it? Or are you planning on connecting to your m-pcie inside of the laptop?

Is the i7 a quad or dual core? my sandy bridge i5 dual is a pretty big bottleneck, especially in a game like battlefield 3.

a x1 link is going to cause lots of stuttering in Battlefield. I had x1 then went to opt 1.2 and there was a huge difference.

I use a 560 1gb and get around a 15k with 36mark06. Especially since you'll have a x1 link, a higher end card will not do you any justice. Not sure what your price range is but a 560 would be more than enough (660 or 560ti if you really wanted to).

 

Thanks for your reply,

I am looking for a consistent 60fps+.

If I understand this correctly, even if I buy a high end card like the 660gtx, the 1x link will cause BF3 play to stutter no matter what?

I only plan on using the Expresscard slot on the laptop

The i7 is a dual core with 4 threads.

 

Yeah no prob.

Hmm a constant 60fps is going to be difficult with your setup.. You might have to lower the resolution while on low settings. I hate the look of fullscreen non-native resolution so for some games 1600x900 or 1440x900 iin windowed mode is fine for me. I also have a 27inch monitor its still huge

Yeah the stuttering won't be fixed by a higher end card. I'm not sure about what card would best fit with your need in terms of least power wasted. How much money would you plan on spending for the gpu? From the looks of it you have $300, but in reality you could probably live with a sub $150 card (560, 460, 550ti, 650ti, etc).

Another thing is which intel GMA do you have? If you don't have a compatible one, Optimus won't be triggered which will be a huuuge drop in performance.

 

What laptop candidates would you recommend for a 1.2x link? Also, is the seutp for a 1.2x laptop basically the same as a 1x? Plug and play through express card and setup through Setup 1.1x?

 

I was thinking about the HP 2560p since you can buy an i7 model used on eBay for around $400-$500. Since it has an Intel HD 3000, I will be able to do Opt. 1.2x correct, allowing me to get much better performance than 1x?

 

I was actually about to recommend you to purchase a different computer as it would benefit you much better

1.2 Opt will give you a very nice boost in performance, and what I'm guessing is a dual core i7 will perform better (but it will still be a bottleneck, just not nearly as bad).

As as I said before, the gpu is really dependent on how much you want to shell out for one. If you have the money I would say get a better card so you won't regret it later on, but given that it'll be an e-gpu a 660 would probably be the highest you'd want to go. I've heard great things about the 560ti and seems to be the go-to card for many. If your budget was $200, I'd honestly go for a 660, they're about 35% faster than the 560ti, use less power, and add some nice features. Heres a link to a pretty nice deal of a 660 (perfect reviews):

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N660OC-2GD GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

 

Oh and I forget who had said it, but CUDA cores are very important especially for e-gpus. This card has 960 cores; not too shabby.

 

Thanks for all your help EpicBlob, I was actually considering the 660 or the 560ti, seems like the 660 would be worth the extra $50.

Is a 1.2x opt pretty easy to set up? I am trying to make it as close to plug and play as possible. From what I've been reading, it's really only a matter of hooking it all up, plugging it into the express card slot, setup using Setup 1.1x, and then install modified drivers to enable Optimus? Sound about right?

 

Pretty much just like that (unless you run into error 12, but yeah x1 should fix that). You might now even have to download the modified drivers. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe the diy egpu can now just be used with the regular drivers (might want to look into that just in case). For a macbook mine was pretty much plug/n/play once I figured it out, but yeah it shouldn't be that long to get yours up and running.

 

Hm...I thought only a couple laptop models suffered from Error 12, my current Latitude E6410 being one of them. I was under the assumption that all the Sandy Bridge laptops had no such problem.

Doesn't sound too hard though. Thanks for all the help!

 

Nah there's actually a decent amount that have issues with it. It is something much easier to fix now so that shouldn't be an issue

Yeah no problem. Welcome to the e-gpu club!