TH05 and DIYeGPU

So, soon I may be purchasing a Lenovo T430 with an i7, which I've been lead to believe has Thunderbolt. and I would love to do a eGPU set up, I had a few questions about this:
1)I know that the TH05 is only 2x, but would it offer more performance than the PE4H?
2) If I go with TH06 solution, would it be compatible with the DIYeGPU software? It seems like it would be, I just wanted to make sure
and 3) should I go with an AMD or Nvidia card? I am a fan of AMD desktop cards, but seeing as the laptop has a Nvidia card in it, would an external one 'play nice' with it or something?

thanks in advanced!

 

T430 doesn't have thunderbolt. TH05 doesn't exist. no one can buy it.

 

Engineering Samples of the TH05 can be purchased here: TH05 ( PCI-Express to Thunderbolt™ Adapter)
Supposedly they are fully functional.

Lenovo did state that the T430s has a thunderbolt port when equipped with an I7 - so if he gets that configuration it should be good.

 

T430 and T430s are completely different notebooks. Also there's other T430s versions without i7 and with thunderbolt. just search the forum for a list of thunderbolt notebooks.

imo you should get an nvidia and see if you can use the notebook display. no one have tried yet so you have to find that for yourself. imo it will be the same as other egpu implementations.

 

Yeah, I should have specified the Engineering Sample, sorry.
I didnt want to go for the T430s because it seemed relatively similar, but with a weaker dGPU, and more expensive. I don't mind the weight thats added, but oh well.

So, for the long run, I should get a T430s, and wait for the TH05 to come out?

 

You should be able to use the engineering samples to make an eGPU then again it does say "not for home or office use"..., Bplus was saying during the summer they don't expect an X4 variant until far into 2013 so I guess its a waiting game if you want the complete version.

For the T430s, I'm looking at it heavily myself for an eGpu able laptop, but there may be other options available depending on your budget/region (like the edge s430, see a list of thunderbolt laptops here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har.../676600-list-thunderbolt-enabled-laptops.html). But it seems selection is pretty limited right now.

Personally I'm going to wait a little longer and try to see what might be upcoming in 2013 laptop wise but thats just me.

 

imo get the T430s or the S430. you can get the S430 with thunderbolt as low as 750€. don't known if it compensates. the only other notebook available with thunderbolt is acer S5 and that's overpriced.
gigabyte u2442 and asus G75 and G55 will have thunderbolt in the future.
imo there will be some new notebook models with the upcomming windows 8 just next month that might have thunderbolt.
I'm waiting for such an opportunity to grab one.
Haswell has native thunderbolt support but will only be released in Q4 2013.

Having a notebook with a crappy unupgradable cpu and an egpu doesn't make much sense since the cpu will bottleneck the system.

 

yeah, Id be nice if Lenovo would be like "Hey, we got Thunderbolt on here!" But I really don't want to wait that long, I might just go with the T430 and build a cheap AMD desktop with a 7850 or some thing, that was my plan orgionally, but if eGPUs could do x4 by like december, i'd go for that. It just seems like a i7 laptop and a 7850 eGPU would be the answer to my dreams. (I just dont like having two machines, I havent found anything to sync them together.)

 

why do you want x4 so much? are you expecting a miracle? performance increase from x2 to x4 will be about 10%-20%. it still bottlenecks the gpu by 5-10%.
Also by December you'll have AMD 8xxx gpu's.
moneywise it's always better to build an egpu. it's a much cheaper option and since you save so much money you can upgrade some components and actually get even more performance for your money tehn having a notebook + desktop.
also you could always upgrade to x4 later.

 

I've just received my TH05, missing a few things before I can set it up.
Will be using a macbook pro 13, I won't be updating till I've set everything up and if help is needed epicblob has been willing to point me in the right direction. With a busy work schedule I'll do my best to make some time, I'm sure others would have purchased the engineering sample hopefully we'll see some good results, I plan to use a gtx 680 from my desktop to test.

 

I'm in the same boat as you, i just got my th05. still getting the rest of the setup and i'm also planning to use a macbook with bootcamp. I'm very interested to know how you go, it would be great if the internal display is able to be used .

 

Keep us all updated...

 

Hello,

I could just set up my th05 with a GTS 450 @ Thinkpad S430.
After a restard and driver installation (306.2), the GTS 450 is recognised and an connected Monitor (@GTS 450) works.
Cinebench results are lower than expected but i hope there are some ways to tweak that.

 

How do the results compare to your former eGPU setup (if you had one)? Could you post some benchmark results and maybe some pics of your setup?

Cheers!
-redback79

 

Is it possible to use the internal screen?

 

performance is crap because bplus limited to x2.
hopefully other thunderbolt egpu products will appear at the same price with x4.

 

I was about to pull the trigger on a very similar setup (difference would be T430s instead of S430) but backed off over worries about the processor. I know the I7 dual core is enough to run something like battlefield 3 in campaign since the GPU takes so much load, but I have serious doubts about performance when there are a lot of physics involved (like in Bf3 multilayer) or in RTS games (BTW I'm not expecting to be able to run it at max settings).

If you've tried this setup with any games I would be very interested in the results.

 

I too am about to pull the trigger on a purchase of the TH05. I am not wanting to use it for 3D games stuff, but to expand the amount of screens I can run off my 2012 MBP 17". I have 3x Dell 2711 2560x1440 screens to run off this thing. I purchased an ATI 7770 to try and run this in eyefinity for work purposes eg. Windows7/Visual Studio etc. Can anyone see this setup being possible with the TH05 considering it's only using 2x lanes? I don't want to purchase the TH05 if not. Cheers.

 

Hello guys,

i was busy playing games with my egpu ;-)
As far as I can say now the performance is quite good. In synthetic benchmarks about ~66%, but I believe its capable of more I think.
Today I expect my ssd and gtx460 to come, so I can start benchmarks with a fresh windows installation and two different video cards.
To this point I can say that all games I have tested until now (Source Games, CoH, Farcry 2, Garrys Mod (lots of cpu usage)) run at maximum settings (exept AA, I did not try max AA as it is bandwidth intense) on native 1600*900 of the S430 Display.
On an external Display with fullhd resolution I played Fifa 12 on max as well.

For more and better benchmarks you have to wait a little longer ;-)

 

Thanks for the info Slowly

If possible, could you (or anyone else post some 3dmark scores)?

I am thinking of biting the bullet soon, and although it is only 2x lanes, I am quite sure it would smoke my 256MB Internal GPU.

Also, if anyone has tried with a MBP, have you been able to get this to work in OSX with a supported GPU?

 

Hi everyone, if any of you got it to work on T430s can you please post a detailed how-to on this?

Thanks :-D

 

I received my TH05 yesterday and have been trying for 24 hours to get it working on my Macbook Pro 17" Late 2011. No luck under windows 7 or 8. Tried installing the OS's in various configurations under EFI but to no avail. It seems unless there is some way to get the Macbook using EFI 2.0 its not going to happen.

Does anyone know if the DIYeGPU Setup app would work with windows 7 with the TH05?

 

Have you disabled the dgpu in your macbook? (probably the 6770m)

 

No I have not. I am not familiar with the process or what the effect is. Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Yes, 6700M.

 

I would disable your discrete gpu (this can be done by right clicking it in device manager under display adapters). Once disabled, it should work with your external monitor (do you have an external monitor btw?)

I'm not 100% sure what the effect is, but there seems to be issues while trying to connect an egpu while your dgpu is enabled.

 

with my default win 7 install under boot camp, I can't even get it to boot the machine with the TH05 attached, as it hangs before the "Starting Windows" screen. Would this help that?

 

When your laptop turns on and the mac chime happens, unplug the thunderbolt cable from your laptop. Once the windows 7 loading screen appears, plug back in the cable.

 

I have tried that but unfortunately it does not work. But are you saying it will only if I also disable my 6700M?

Which of the 3 switch settings should I use on the TH05 board?

 

It shouldnt be stopping at boot if its unplugged during that cycle. Try booting up only connecting the thunderbolt cable once you are in The windows is loading screen.

 

No luck with that I'm afraid

 

How do you activate the external thunderbolt graphic (gtx450) to use the internal screen? Thought only external screen can be used for thunderbolt-graphic!?
If you can use the internal screen, nvidia optimus compression is still working with thunderbolt?

Thanks for your help

 

You can only use your internal screen if your pc has an HD 4XXXX

 

Hello, can you inform me please if your setup works under os x? If yes what is the procedure to start the external card?
I want to use a TH05 with a Nvidia GFX 670 and the new Mac Mini with 4 cores and Intel HD4000.

PS What new TH05 are you speaking about in your signature?
Thank you and I look forward to your reply!

 

Hello I've got a Lenovo S430, too and it works quiete perfect with TH05 and Gtx 560TI. ~3700P in 3dmark11 on internal LCD Screen in performance mode or Unigine Heaven Everything including AA and Tesselation maxed out at ~33.2 FPS meaning 837 Points also on internal LCD. Crysis 2 on internal LCD (1600x900) on max ~50 FPS.

I've found a site where it's explained how to make it work on macbook air and i don't mind sharing so i hope the link is allowed! https://spicious.com/bplus-th05-thunderbolt-to-pcie-adapter.html

have fun!

 

I have a question...

Does this work out of the box for S430? No extra software or whatnot, just plug and play? Can you please elaborate?

Thanks

 

Hello,

Here is my experience with TH05.

Hardware : Core i5 S430, GTX650 Ti and Seasonic X400.

What did I do to make it work : I have disabled the integrated card and installed the GTX drivers. No other extra stuff was installed. I've just plugged TH05 and the thunderbolt cable on my laptop.

Performance : I've used 2 benchmarks from Street Fighter 4 and Resident Evil 4 at native resolution. Here are the results with the integrated 620m for comparison.

GT620m
SF4 Score : 10289
SF4 FPS : 67.35
RE4 Fixed : 29.4
RE4 Variable Part1: 34.3
RE4 Variable Part2: 34.1
RE4 Variable Part3: 27.8
RE4 Variable Part4 : 32.9
Result : 32.1

GTX650Ti
SF4 Score : 14764
SF4 FPS : 122.74
RE4 Fixed : 64.4
RE4 Variable Part1: 100,3
RE4 Variable Part2: 88.1
RE4 Variable Part3: 76.1
RE4 Variable Part4 : 89.3
Result : 87.4

Problems : So far, I have 2 problems.
- The gpu is not systematically recognized : a reboot resolves this.
- The noise : my GPU makes an annoying noise when games are launched. I don't have this problem in my desktop PC with the the same GPU and PSU.

** UPDATE ** : I have resolved the noise problem by changing the PSU with a Silverstone Strider SFX450.

 

TH05 is not internal screen only... see example here: https://spicious.com/bplus-th05-thunderbolt-to-pcie-adapter.html

 

Anyone figure out how to successfully get this working on a MacBook Air with TH05 and booting Windows 8 64-bit through EFI??? I can't seem to get past the blinking black screen on my external display.

I have the latest Nvidia drivers installed (310.70) and I've installed all Bootcamp stuff to attempt to get sound working... to no success. Am I missing something big here? I've tried all the different shut-down (turn on GPU), hiberate (turn on GPU then), etc. permutations... no success. There's power in the TH05 board, the little LED lights are on...

Is there someone here that's got this to work yet?

(Note: I do see the spicious link above and note that that solution is using Ubuntu, not Win8-64)

 

Haven't seen a MB air user but it should be similar to MBP 13".

The blog you posted is pretty outdated. Take a look here. Also take a look at my thread cause you might have to enable vga out for your thunderbolt port. Nando posted a BIOS MODE solution aswell.

No Optimus for now due to broke intel hd drivers.Broken sound seems to be caused bei broken intel drivers aswell.

Be sure not to use "mm 00020004 1 ;PCI :0" as it will disables your intel hd completely.