Have you seen this yet? Now you can not only UPGRADE your video card, you can use DESKTOP video cards with your Laptop!

By Jove, bove, I think you've got it

 

Man, open your mind just a little bit.

There are a lot of people on the go all the time and can't lug around a SFF, monitor etc. everywhere.

Although I have a pretty powerful gaming laptop, I'd love to have one of these once I can install a couple of the latest desktop cards in it.

 

I have yet to see one of those mini desktops that can play games better than highend laptops can.

 

Agreed - the closest I came to that was one of the old Hornet systems. They were "small FF" lian li cases -- small - but large enough for SLI on older gen high end cards.

Also - the Dell Studio Hybrid can hardly decode 1080P video without stuttering....

 

i think what most people are riding on is the vidock 4. the 2 is ok but if the 4 can keep the 6.5% power loss then they are in the money. the vidock 2 is just not enough power for some of us because we already have some sort of "gamer platform" or just wanting something faster .

quick question. because there has yet to me ANY word about the vidock being compatible with the laptop screen, couldnt you just hook it up to just about any TV? for example a hotel TV for the people going traveling who want to game but dont wanna lug a monitor around.

 

i have to wonder, though.... is the 6.5% performance loss on the vidock 2 a hard cap?

by that, i mean...
the vidock 2 has an ati 4670 in it
we've seen the vidock 2 with an ati 4670 performs about 6.5% less than an ati 4670 in a desktop

what's the cause of the performance drop?
is it bandwith of the express card slot?

if so, i wonder about this:
let's say you can quantify the ati 4670's performance
say it has graphics power of "100"
well, in the vidock 2 on a laptop with the 6.5% performance loss, it now has a performance of 93.5

if this is due to a bandwidth limitation of expresscard
won't adding a higher power video card (say performance 200) in the vidock 4 still just leave you at performance 93.5 once it is throttled by the bandwidth limitation?

my numbers of course, are just for the sake of discussion

just some rambling thoughts here....

 

that's what i meant. if it can keep that 6.5% because really, its not that bad. A FREAKING HIGHEND DESKTOP GPU ON A LAPTOP!! lol amazing. and i think that whole bandwidth thing has been touched countless times yet never really answered. people will tell you to reread the whole 26 page forum, which you should, but that directly hasnt been answered. is 6-7k on 3d06 the MOST express 1.0/2.0 can achieve, and if so then this is pointless because then next gen gpu's will have no gain if there is a "hardcap" on it all.

if no immediate (about 4-5 years) hardcap, then this is perfect.
get me through college

 

I agree. I am waiting to see what the 4890 looks like....

 

The Shuttle cases can house a powerful system.

 

Paladin i got a question, wouldn't next gen cards have a faster bandwith then the express card slot, therefore limiting the performance of the gpu. So upgrading to a better gpu wouldnt really do much.

 

Well, the good news is the ViDock ExpressCard, even at 1.0, can achieve much higher 3DMark06 scores than 6-7,000. With the ATi 48xx series cards we are seeing scores well above 10,000.

I wish I could be more precise, but NDA limits me to the above at this time.

However it is clear you can quit worrying about bandwidth limitations...it just ain't so

 

+ reps for paladin

 

thanks pali! ya i was kinda thinking about that this morning. at 6k, it can be pushed to 7k with 1.0. thus there is no bottleneck "yet" and if there was, GET 2.0!!! then that can be doubled which is amazing. worth it to me. thanks for the assurance.

 

I do believe that you can do a lot of cool stuff (such as more filtering, antialiasing etc., cuda ++) without increasing the bandwidth.

But check this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-analysis,1572-8.html

Doesn't look to good :s

 

Well bove, I thought you had it...maybe you just haven't read enough of this thread, or the ViDock2 review thread at http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=397296.

The article you link to is not only 2.5 years old, it is totally not relevant to the ViDock2.

Many have questioned the bandwidth issue with ViDock, but the performance that you can witness in both videos that have been posted here, together with the benchmark scores that have also been posted, simply prove that the performance is outstanding and only slightly limited by the ExpressCard slot. It will certainly outperform any laptop video card in the same class, and unlike video cards in most laptops, it is easily upgradeable to next generation video cards generation after generation.

 

Take it easy =) I'm not questioning whether the Vidock2 would be a huge boost over most laptop gpus, but rather what kind of effect bandwidth can have on the gpu.

One thing that old article does show, is a huge difference in different cards dependency on bandwidth, and the Vidock2 tests surtenly shows that some cards can perform well with little bandwidth.

 

that is great news paladin
i eagerly await the vidock 4 blank! =D

 

i seriously question whether this is going to beat an internal mobility 4650, or even a 9600 or 8600m gt...

can we get some numerical benchmarks?

i still have to struggle with the over-the-top price tag (i can't justify it at that price with alternatives available), but if it really does outperform laptop graphics cards, then it is cool either way.

 

Just curious, what alternatives are you talking about? Building a separate desktop?

 

i would imagine performance of a vidock 2 with a 4650 would be similar to a laptop with a 4650 in it

however, that's not the point
the vidock 2 allows you to use a 4650 on a laptop that is light and portable
so you can have light and portable on the go and game when you get home

from your posts, it is obvious that this kind of use isn't appealing to YOU
however there are plenty of people, myself included, that think that this situation is AWESOME!

 

don't get me wrong, i am actually really interested in this. i also think it is important to educate people that you can legitimately build a gaming desktop for less than $450 that will dominate this.

but in the end, if this can shed its high price tag, it definitely could carve out its own place in the market. and i AM genuinely interested in this, and genuinely want to see benchmarks, and i do think it is slick.

 

that's exactly right, you lose a lot of customers just because of the crazy price.

The ViDock could be sold at $60 and still make a very nice profit. You would see a lot of sales at that price.

 

i don't know
all i've seen from you in the vidock-related threads here is constant crapping about building a desktop instead
if you want to build a desktop instead - FINE - just do it
let those of us who are interested in this product discuss it without someone yelling about how dumb we are for considering it over a gaming desktop

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=397296
Take a look.....

 

i'd like to see one for nvidia cards as well. One thing though that I wonder is why it's only expresscard-ready. Why not have one that could use multiple usb ports in a sort of "raid 0" style setup. You could have modular cords for 2 slots, 1 slot, 4 slots, etc... and it would work either with or independent of the expresscard. More places for bandwidth to go through = more of the external card's goodness getting into the game. What's nice here is that if it's somewhat portable and has a decent PSU, you could feasibly put in even ultra-high-end cards like gtx 285s and possibly even quadros in and use more of their bandwidth. (The super-high-end cards have an unbelievable amount of bandwidth, and I fear sometimes it may get wasted due to the limitations of the connection from ViDock and card to the computer itself.)

Other than that, it's a wicked concept, and I like it a lot! GO DONALD!

 

People are complaining about the price, but this is new tech, its ALWAYS going to be expensive at first. (iPhone, PS3,DX 10 gtx cards, blu ray,etc) Expect much better models, better designed, supported ,etc from major companies like hp, dell, asus( not that dying one they already made, I know about it ), within several years. They will also be half the price!!!

 

you are right but just look at the asus xg station, it's older and still expensive.

 

Asus xg station it's a fail,they know no one will buy it so that's why they keep the price high.

 

ive had this thought also, get a laptop with like 5 usb 3.0's and a express 2.0 on it.... lol that will last you forever. to me, it makes sense, more info going out the better it should be

some one has to be able to rig it up somehow and then spread it to the public . id pay an extra 40-50$ to get some designs and help on how to rig a vidock 4 with that .

 

So whats the status of the Vidock 4 Blank?

 

It is still in development. We will announce its availability once it has been released.

Thanks for asking

 

DIY ViDock Alternative

There's an alternative US$35 solution here, just requiring external 12V input to drive the pci-e card.

x2 link capability

Any users with expresscards willing to check their port configuration as shown here? If configured as port1 and port2, it may be possible to link them to get a x2 pci-e link. My mini pci-e only system does have this config so theoretically I could do a x2 setup. If you have port1-port4 available, could link them up as a x4 port.

 

forums dead... just wanted to tell yall i broke down and got a flamin desktop and still pray on a daily basis for my laptop.

im hopin the t410 will use the 5xxx series gpu's now. no vidock 4...?

 

praying that it won't blow up or what?

 

I think the vidock has great opportunities, more and more laptops are being sold compared to desktops so there is, or definitly will be a great demand for this product.
I have no idea how the exprescards work and they have different numbers (I have the / 54 ). But if somehow, the laptop manufacturers and vidock will co-operate to use a faster expresscard so the consumer can upgrade this dock with the heaviest graphic cards witouth any compromise, then their competition will be crushed. If the other manufacturers would want consumer to buy their laptops, they would have to provide the needed exprescard slot as well if they want to attract smart-buyers (who look at future use). Overall laptop sales would definitly decline, but if they don't want their sales to collapse, then the manufactueres would have no choice.
The only thing that I don't like is the need for an extra monitor, but if they can find a way to fix this (witouth obliging buyers to buy a laptop with integerated gma), then it would be a great solution for more power, without making to much compromises towards mobilty. Students who go to a dorm, usualy buy a laptop not only because its easy to take it home with them, but aslo because its safer. Here in belgium for example, some university-cities are praticly empty in the weekend when everybody goes home. This is a great opportunity for thiefs, and I wouldn't want to risk leaving behind a 200-300€ HD-monitor in my dorm when going home.
So basicly, if they find a way to upgrade the vidock's graphic cards witouth the expresscard-bottleneck and to use the laptops own screen, this vidock is deffinitly going to be a much desired product.