Jekyll/Hyde Vidock Configuration?

So the DIY vidock thread is enormous, but hugely intriguing.

I figured it might be worthwhile to start a diff thread to talk about practical applications of both the Vidock2 and the DIY Vidock, assuming it's at that stage.

I'm drifting over to the Laptop world, but I'm trying to figure out the best bang/buck, while maintaining a semblance of portability.

The idea of putting everything into a small carryon suitcase is appealing. Figure a laptop, a bunch of power bricks, 2 external drives, an external video card and a small projector and you've got something that's pretty mobile. Not netbook mobile, but more mobile than a sff pc or a desktop..

Currently I've got a unibody macbook setup paired with a second monitor, 2 external drives, and a big ole usb hub. Basically, an umbilical to the desk. If I need to go out and about, I can pickup the laptop and go. Downside is that I need to lug around an external drive, but that's because the onboard drive is teeny tiny.

I'm looking into a second laptop to replace my recently deceased desktop. My thought was originally to get a fairly self-contained laptop with a 260m and quad core, but I'm wondering if that's a waste compared to the vidock solutions.

Basically, do these external cards work?

Do they work well enough that you'd consider going with a lower-end onboard card, supplanted with a beefier external card?

Is the diy stuff truly workable? What machines would you pair it with if you wanted a monster cpu?

 

Really a bad idea. If everyone just got something to say and make new thread then we are going to confuse the reader of the old thread. No need to forget as well that followers don't search for new started threads as they either been bookmarked the old thread or just directly trying to go back for it.
All of the related ideas or might even clear something up should be in the old thread to benefit everyone. You might as well check the only division of the old thread was the MXM project which it even justify itself (If its been in one thread then we can't avoid conflicts which going to stop/slow any ideas or progress in a project or anther). Add to that as some users are following both projects and if we saw some thing useful we can even quote or post it in the other thread.

Portability in (gaming) != DIY viDock
for the DIY you will need a monitor + source of power + the DIY external card itself



Basically its not portable enough, the only portable part is your laptop ,but if you are gaming in your home then its not a big deal.

this is possible + add getting a cheap laptop + upgrade RAM/CPU and you just made yourself a laptop console system *Nice idea* I can see you taking laptop motherboard and fitting everything into something more better than carry-on suitcase (for all of the mentioned you will need a better case thats have a better air-flow)
Anyway, everything comes with its own price (you need to think about this first)

You need to know that currently DIY vidock and even vidock supports x1 speed (PCI-E x1 speed/bandwidth) with an exception to DIY vidock where it can support x2 (I might go here and see it is possible to modify it to support x3)
As these are the main factors, its hard to guess which one can outperform the other. But as a rule the same graphics card in a laptop [MXM (16x)] is faster than a desktop graphics card with this DIY (1x). The performance is depended on the RAM in theory (the more RAM the less the card is using its bandwidth) ,so the drop in performance will be decreased when more RAM on the GPU is available. Anther general rule we need to prove is that ATI cards are less demanded on bandwidth (So ATI cards will give you better performance in this DIY than nVidia and it wont hurt your wallet that much)

Anyway you need to do your own research of your card (Desktop version) on PCIE (x1) and compare the result of benchmark with 260m and see which one fits you more

You need to conclude that from the above.
Also about the idea you mentioned , could you please post it in the DIY thread.

I might probably post your question/answers on the DIY thread for helping new comers on their answers

Useful links:
Let's figure out how to convert internal MXM connector an external PCI-E x16 box

Lets figure out how to make a DIY ViDock