DIY eGPU experiences

How is that working for you? what GPU do you have? i saw that you now have 14.6k 3dmark06 what did you have at the beggining, before the eGPU?

 

I just read this in a test from Computerbase.de that says that "if" the VRAM is full the GPU needs to adress extra memory(RAM). In that (one single case) case the the perfomance of the GTX460 1GB dropped on 9% (of the x16 performance). If you'd increase the output-resolution (to >1920x1080) this enormous performance drops might happen more often.

I don't say that a bigger VRAM garantees always a higher performance but if you have 2GB VRAM you are "on the safe side".

 

I looked around the thread and i came to a conclusion about a possible way to make a DIY thunderbolt EGPU:

Buy a PEH4 wich can provide a pcie 2.0 x2

and then a Express card thunderbolt adapter

(this as a high chance to be completely stupid, as it comes from someone with no experience)

You could then use a express card 54 and an express card 34 from the PEH4 to the thunderbolt adapter ( if they both fit).

(and then all the normal procedures, obviously)

would that work? if not, why?

 

I think that would work, but you could only plug in one thing, making it PCI-E x1. you could possible use a PE4L 2.1 and one of these to use an eGPU on a Mac, but other than that, it has no use yet.

Also, there's no price yet.

 

I checked online and the 36dmark06 score is 2550, so a HUGE performance boost. I am using a gtx 560 1gb. I personally love it, was able to play most games great. On Battlefield 3 on high settings and 1440x900 rez and 48 person multiplayer server, I was able to get 57 kills in a match using a sniper (so I give it a green light). Because of the limit in bandwidth, there were some micro stutters, but waay better compared to my intel hd 3000.


Btw, the sonnet echo adapter caps the bandwidth at 1.0, so the highest you can achieve is a 1.1 pcie link.

 

Hey guys. I'm having some performance issues with my eGPU implementation. I've heard good things about it from other members but my own implementation has not been as successful.

My parts list:
EliteBook 8460p, iGPU (HD 3000)
i5-2410M (2.30 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache)
PE4L ( PCIe Adapter ver2.1a ) - Engineering Sample
560ti HAWK @ 1000/2200 w/ Verde 295.73
and a CX 430

My experience is exclusively with Battlefield 3, because it's the only thing I play. I run it at 1920x1080, with everything on low. When I first load up the game I have amazing performance. 50+ with it sometimes reaching up past 70 fps. However, once I start moving around, I start to experience micro-stutters and then the fps starts to spike around. Sometimes it's really smooth and then I turn a corner or I move my view around a little and I'm seeing it dip into the 30s, 20s and sometimes sub 10. I've tried messing around with the resolution but it doesn't seem to noticeably impact performance. I play bf3 competitively so severe micro-stutters is completely unacceptable.

Any thoughts on this issue?

 

When is PE4H V3.0 coming out?
VillageTronic claims they plan to announce the ViDock G4 in the next couple weeks...

 

I assume it does this even without the overclock? Instability can cause bad performance.

 

Hi all, am selling PE4H v2.4a + 60cm Flat mini-HDMI + EC2C +SPB087 ExpressCard to PCI-E Adapter on ebay at this link and in this auction link here

Condition is unboxed/new bought from HWTOOLS\Taiwan, reason for sale: I have a PE4L as well so PE4H is not needed , sold at free\international shipping.

 

Hi Everyone,

Dell Vostro 3450, i3-2310, 4GB, 6630M + ViDock4+ + Gigabyte GTX460 OC + 295.73 (from NVidia homepage).

I was wondering if I'd be able to run it. I made it but don't know if effects are optimal.

1. Everything pluged in. Restart Win7. Device was found. Drivers (windows update) downloaded and installed. Driver 295.73 installed.
2. No option to run on external monitor (dell u2312hm).
3. Restart with Vidock unplugged. Standy. ViDock plugged in. Wake up and everything flow to the external monitor.
4. 3dM06 ~ 12,5k (SM3.0 <7k). (1280x1024 --> 1280x768 --> 0,2k points ... less! )

after that, i downloaded http://forum.notebookreview.com/8089740-post6787.html, put into proper folder, run setup. restart win7. restart ViDock4+, run 3dm06 and clone earlier result.

and now questions: is this result correct? how can i check if stuff is running with optimus? does anyone see any error in my algorythm of turning whole stuff on?

thanks in advance and greetings from Poland

 

Ya I would say that is correct. My i5 2.3ghz dual core achieved a score a bit over 14000 with a 560 1gb.

edit: Also, download GPU-Z from the internet. Make sure your card is selected and you can see it. Mine said 1.0 x16 @ x1 1.1 or something close to that.

 

correct, i've brose more carefully other results and it's correct. i've already unplugged ViDock but i'll check it tomorrow. i need to sell my vostro 3450 and buy something with 12/13" size and without dGPU.

i don't know why during 3dm11, before physics test i got crash 3 times in a row

 

Its the CPU. Mine did the same thing Even my friend with a 2600k i7 had a bit of trouble with 3dm11. If you are buying a new laptop, go go a fast i7 dual core or quad core. That would definitely boost the score.

 

how to solve it?

thanks, i'm aware of that boost but also afraid of temperatures inside 12-13" laptop :/ i'm not sure if take so risk with quad core (i7 dual core would be ok) inside 12-14" what do you think about it?

 

Hey guys,

I've been searching this thread a lot but I haven't been able to find much information on the temperature of the express card part of the setup in the Vidock or DIY vidock setup...

I've got an x220 and I've been getting involved with some rather complicated solidworks assemblies to the point where my system lags for a couple seconds when my mouse moves over the edges of a model. So it should come as no surprise that I'm here...Love the cool temperature running/light x220, hate the lack of graphics processing power.

The express port on the x220 is right under the left part of the palm rest. My question is, How hot does the express card get under light and heavy graphical usage?

If it does get very hot, is there a way to use some kind of extender dummy card so that the hot card isn't directly under my palm

Thanks guys

 

The expresscard slot simply passes very low watt 3.3V pci-e signals between the Intel I/O controller and the eGPU. There is no heat near/above/below the expresscard slot.

 

Yes, it's happening even when I downclock. I don't hear any over usage of the fans on the GPU either way. Any ideas?

 

@bjorm

Well over clocking the CPU is always an idea

But for laptops, I would check the first page of this forum. You can probably find which laptop is best for an egpu. And don't make the mistake I made to save a bit of money. If possible, get the best CPU for that laptop. Because an extra $100 or so for an i7 is a lot cheaper than a whole new computer (and because of the egpu, upgrading the video card will be easy but CPU, not so much. I should have gone the extra mile with the i7 2.8ghz instead of a 2.3 i5. Lesson learned

 

!!!!I'm buying this thing right now!

 

Hey guys, I'm looking for a little bit of help. I just bought an ATI Radeon 4850 and when it arrived, it urns out that it doesn't have a 6-pin connector because it noramlly get all its power from PCI-E 2.0. I was wondering if this still would work with my PE4H?
Thanks

 

One advantage of an eGPU is the ability to time-share a graphics card between a laptop and a desktop. I wonder- how many insertion/removal cycles can a graphics card withstand before the card or the slot breaks? From my experiences with the PCIe slot, it seems fairly robust, but at the same time, it was designed as an internal connector, not something seeing daily abuse. Now that the new adapters have soldered cables, those who use mPCIe to connect their eGPUs will have to pull out the graphics card every time they want to move their laptops or pull out the mPCIe card- how long do you think these connectors can last?

 

Any benchmarks on Battlefield 3?

 

so for the past few days now, ive been wanting to purchase a PE4H from Harmonic Inversion Technology, but first they were out of stock and said that they would be back in stock by Feb 24, 2012. It said that until Feb 29, when it changed to say it would be back in stock by Mar 2, 2012. It is now March 2, 2012, and the SSL certificate on the website has expired, so the connection is untrusted, and the PE4H is still not in stock. Does anyone have any advice for me? I would really like to purchase from this vendor in particular (for setup 1.x) but the website seems to be updated very slowly and as of right now, a little shady since the SSL certificate is expired. any tips?

they have two differing pages linking to the same product, one saying that it is out of stock, and the other, not mentioning stock, but allowing you to place an order.
this one says it is out of stock
this one does not

so i would like to know, if i can purchase from this vendor and can i trust them?

 

HD4850 power requirement is 114W. So, you can use either 120W AC adapter or ATX PSU (using floppy power connector to drive PE4H & the HD4850).

 

thaatz,

I work at Harmonic Inversion, I will let others commit on their experiences with our company and our trustworthiness. I do apologize for PE4H being out of stock and our issue with the SSL certificate. We have missed a couple of dates of being back in stock for various issues and unfortunately it looks like we just missed another. It is always difficult to state when a product will be back in stock. A delay in receiving one little screw can put a whole product behind scheduled. Of couse we can always error on the side of caution and provide a date far off knowing we will probably meet that date much earlier. But that does not really work either. We try to provide a time when a few things can go wrong but still hit the date we said. Unfortunately that did not work this time. The latest information we have is our production house will ship to us (from Taiwan) on the 8th. Depending on the shipping company and US customs we should receive the product the 12th through the 14th. A day or so to do quality assurance on our end and we should be back in stock, shipping all back orders around the 15th/16th. Hopefully this date will be earlier but that is the latest information we know. Regarding the SSL certificate, it is a I thought he was doing it, but I thought she was doing it situation. Either way it is being taken care of now. It should be fixed very very soon.

If you decide to order from Harmonic Inversion (HIT) I will do everything I can to ship your product on or before March 16th.

Again I apologize for the delay.


Randy

 

I am considering using a Dell SFF case as an enclosure, with this DELL Combo Full Height PCI/PCI-E Riser for Select Dell OptiPlex Desktops : Desktop Accessories | Dell accessory you can use one single full size card in there. Like the new Radeon 7750 single slot. Now, the power supply I found had no floppy power nor PCI Express power but it had a (single) SATA cable. Power SATA Cables - Cpu Stuff has both kinds of adapters for cheap: one to convert the SATA power connector to floppy the other to convert that SATA power to PCI Express.

Also, the way I see this (although not tested IRL yet) the card would face the nonexisting motherboard and that space can be used to add, for example, an Accelero L2 Plus for quiet operation. Already I read that some of the Dell SFF Power Supplies are quiet.

 

So, I did a full review of the E6220 for those of you looking for a nice, thin, ultraportable to use with an eGPU.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...49152-dell-e6220-user-review.html#post8353046

Also, I made a new enclosure. Link to the old one:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/8309172-post8344.html

It was really ugly, so I set out to make another cheap, shoe box enclosure, but one that was alot more attractive. This is the result:











As you can see, it's alot cleaner, with no duct tape. I also, instead of cutting one big hole, but a few smaller ones for the ports. The big blemish is the PSU fan hole, which I messed up pretty badly. Either way, it's still a great option for someone looking to get rid of a shoe box and have theit eGPU in an enclosure.

Be sure to check out my review!

 

For my enclosure I used plexiglass I had in the garage. I definitely wish I'd used thicker material as mine's a bit flexy. Make sure you score the heck out of it too. I have a couple of unclean breaks in my plexi. I filled the corners and uneven breaks with caulk though so its not that bad looking. I also wasn't happy with the glue I used. It took forever to dry and isn't that great.

One thing I'll recommend to anyone that's going to paint plexiglass, buy Krylon Fusion, and also consider painting the inside of the plastic. I painted the outside a matte black, but when I assembled the box (I painted before assembly), I realized it would have looked A LOT cleaner had I painted the inside of the plexi.. Doesn't really matter now as I'm getting rid of my eGPU lol. Got ~$30 in the box, guess I'll just trash it now

 

hey nando,

has there been any word from bplus regarding the thunderbolt implementation of this product? really itching for that to become reality...

 

The holdup isn't BPlus or any of the other vendors wanting to release a Thunderbolt enclosure (Sonnet, Magma, Villagetronic - they can all smell the ch-ching$$). The holdup is Apple+Intel releasing devel kits to these manufacturers. None of those vendors can make a Thunderbolt enclosure without having availability of the Thunderbolt chips to do the pci-e+DP muxing/demuxing.

See the Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, PCIe 2.0 eGPU update for latest up-data-info on Thunderbolt enclosure status.

 

You guys are doing great job here, contributing your results and sharing your experiences. I'm impatiently waiting for thunderbolt ultrabooks or 15'' MB Air, and of course the implementation from BPlus or any other company which will let me use my selection of GPU+PSU combination.
Keep up the good work nando4

 

Quick update on my configuration:
Using SimoxTav's calculations, I estimated my bandwidth use to be:
3 981 312 000 bits = 474.609375 megabytes @1920x1080 @60 fps
With my PCIe setup, my cap should be ~500 megabytes, right?

My configuration was:
i5-2420
4 GB RAM
560Ti Hawk @ 1000/2200 - this clock is very stable, the parts they used in the Hawk is supposedly good stuff
CX430 PSU

I fixed my express card version up to 2.0 on the mobo as nando4 suggest.
Huge change in performance, but I'm still experiencing micro-stutters in battlefield 3. The frames have gone as high as 70+, but it spikes around way too much, sometimes hitting the low 40's.

I have 295.73 desktop WQHL installed atm. Any suggestions on how I can eliminate my micro-stutters?

 

I'm not sure if these have already been answered but I have 3 questions:
1. Can you use a x16 card with a PE4L which to my understanding is a x1 slot?
2. Can you run Windows Vista with a eGPU? Does it have to be 64-bit?
3. Is there anything I have to take into consideration if I have 3 GB of Ram?
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T500 if that means anything
Thanks
Dvgeetar

 

Disable the NVidia card's HDMI audio and use the onboard soundcard instead, run a FPS limiter software to smooth out FPS, apply other in-game tweaks, run lower color depth, try different DX versions if game allows it.

Yes they have all been answered. Please refer to the summary first post.

 

Yes they have all been answered. Please refer to the summary first post.[/QUOTE]

I have already read the article before and I really didn't understand it. If you could answer them that would be the biggest help anyone has given me in a long time. Thank ya

Dvgeetar

 

I have already read the article before and I really didn't understand it. If you could answer them that would be the biggest help anyone has given me in a long time. Thank ya

Dvgeetar

 

Our eGPU setup is FINALLY ready! Here is a sneak-peak of it:



Tomorrow back with benchmarks, better photos, advices etc.

Thanks a lot!

 

Thanks for the help. The SSL certificates are still out of date though. I hope this can be fixed soon. I will most likely be purchasing from you when stock comes back.

 

Hello everybody,
I have a question,
Would a x16 graphics card, such as a XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 ( Amazon.com: XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 1 GB DDR2 Graphics Card HD465XZDF2: Electronics), fit into a PE4L? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Dvgeetar

 

Short anwer, yes.

 

Okay lol, well I'm trying to find out if it would work right off the bat when if I connected the two together along with a 460 W PSU to my thinkpad t500. I have been reading that people have had issues with the PE4L, for instance: Problem - PE4L 1.4c with 12V adapter - YouTube What do you think?
Dvgeetar

 

heres my review

edit: arrg the file didn't upload . Anyone know how to upload word files?

 

In short, if you use an ATX power supply you will be fine. They are easy to find and cheap even buying on new.
I will try to do another video about assembly the eGPU next week.
Too busy at my report this week...

 

So i'm in the middle of buying the parts for my eGPU and i just noticed that theres a great sale on newegg for PSUs.

Right now, you can get the CX430 for 36.99, and in addition, theres a $20 rebate which brings it down to 16.99 overall. Here's the link. Just thought i should mention it to you guys, as a lot of people have mentioned this PSU. The sale ends on March 5, though, so get one soon.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how fast HWtools ships out the PE4L? I wanted to get the new PE4L which supports PCIe 2.0 when it comes out, but if I wait until the 6th or so, how long do you guys think it will take to get to me in the US?

 

Good day, i need some help.
I successful boot my laptop with eGPU on. but there is a problem, after boot into windows, everything is lagging. CPU usage always above 50%, here some screenshot, please help.

 

Check in "Processes" tab for which process use a lot of CPU.

(P/S: Please resize the picture.)

 

I was wondering about x1 vs x1E bandwidth: my notebook features a Sis chipset (Sis 968 southbridge), will it work @x1 like Intel chipsets or natively at x1E like Ati/Nvidia chipsets?
Sorry for the dumb question, but I don't exactly understand where the problem of x1 bandwidth is: does it involve every chipset or just Intel chipsets?
Thanks!

 

Hello, i was thinking about to get egpu for my all-in-one pc, but it seems that i dont have expresscard 34 slot, i think it has SD card reader instead. Is there any way to get egpu without expresscard slot? Its samsung U200.

 

x1E tweak only applicable with older Intel chipset (before Intel 5 series chipset). The reason why x1E tweak is needed because when only at x1 configuration, it only work at half duplex when using with ATiAMD or older Nvidia card (before GTX4xx). So, setting x1E will enabled full x1 1.0 bandwidth. Setting x1E is similar to setting x2 but the former only required one cable connection.

For SIS chipset, you probably can use eGPU at x1 without the half duplex problem.

 

At processes tab cannot see what process use alot CPU usage.


But at the resource monitor, it show "System Interrupts"using up 50%. And if nvidia GPU monitor is active, my laptop will lagging.