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Egpu for a desktop (htpc)


tintin

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UPDATE: Best and cheapest solution is bplus PE4F http://www.bplus.com.tw/Adapter/PE4F.html

It's working perfectly for me at x4 with pcie gen3 speeds (even more stable than a good quality riser)


Hi everybody,
It's a long time i'm following the egpu advances and i want to thanks you for your work.
I want to make a egpu for my dektop home cinema but i didn't found if somebody already made it.
I have a Zotac H67-ITX motherboard so i have a pcie port avalaible (in fact only 4x because cooling system system doesnt allow to put the card so i have to use a riser). But the alimentation isnt strong enough to power my graphic card (

MSI N660

 

TWIN FROZR

) and anyway the card is to big to fit in my box. So i want to put the card outside.

I was wondering what the best and fastest solution is?

- Using a big riser cable (4X2.0 link?) and another desktop power supply to power the card.
Q: will any long riser (50cm) work (losses/transmission problems?)

 
REP: Most cheap risers i tried only worked at gen1 speeds (2.5Gb/s) or even not...

 

(fails with error 12 or 43 or errors during bench tests)

 

 

For Gen2 and Gen3 speeds you need somethong like this

 

that you can buy here (
) or here (
EU
) but it cost ~50$ and its length limited (12'' (30cm) for gen3 and 15'' for gen2)

 

 


Q: how to start the external power supply and is there any risk to damage the card?

 

 
A: Using ATX switch (hwtools SWEX) or this

 


- Using the PE4H-HP4A 12V or 19V power supply : from what i undersand it can do a 4x1.0link ?
Q: Where to buy it? i tried the bplus site but it says it's unavailable (v 2.4)... is it discontinued?
Q: will there be a v.3.2 with a 4x2.0 link? (PE4H-HPxxxA V3.2 ?)
Q: the 120W 19.5V AC Adapter seems to be a litte to small for my card... is there any other that power 180-200W?

- using the PE4L 2.1 + hp060a: limited to 1x2.0?
Q: the performance will be 1/2?

 

 
A: Limit is 1x3.0 because PEHL 2.1 is pcie 3.0 compatible if your connecting slot is working at 3.0 speeds (it's my
because the pcie slot is connected directly to the northbridge on my Zotac H67-ITX motherboard so had just to upgrade for a ivybridge 3.0 cpu).

 

The performance will not be 1/2 of a x2 system and because of the nvidia optimus compression if you are using a Nvidia fermi card (660 here) you will be somewhere beetween a x1 and a x4 link depending on the game as you can see in the following benchs:

 

 

 

 

 

Pcie MB/s 3DM06 3Dvant.gpu 3dM11.gpu heaven 2.5 heaven 3.0
x1.1 250 6749 27% 19026 77% 5850 88% 1643 73% 2297 67%
x1.1opt   24452 98% 18996 77% 5832 88% 1643 73% 2281 67%
x1.2 500 11988 48% 21843 89% 6387 96% 2006 89% 2951 86%
x1.2opt   24712 99% 21703 88% 6380 96% 2008 89% 2961 86%
x1.3 1000 18043 73% 22947 93% 6432 97% 2067 92% 3130 91%
x1.3opt   24884 100% 22905 93% 6449 97% 2096 93% 3110 91%
x4.1 1000 18746 75% 23293 95% 6514 98% 2134 95% 3226 94%
x4.2 2000 23798 96% 24248 99% 6685 101% 2274 101% 3452 101%
x4.3 4000 24874 100% 24563 100% 6638 100% 2246 100% 3426 100%

 

 


Q: is there a 12V alim that will be enough to power my card?

- another solution on the market? (Vidock, ...)
Q: is there a 4x2.0 solution avalaible? (a box and a small alim (12V/19V) will be ideal because it has to fit my living room)



Thanks a lot.

 

Edited by tintin
update
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I would first try the very long riser cable method if I were you. It will be much cheaper than messing with HWTOOLS stuff to begin with, and if you do in the end have to go to HWTOOLS stuff then you haven't lost much.

You can start the external power supply by shorting the PS On pin to any ground pin, and no it won't damage the card.

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I dont wanted to change my case because its a fanless system and my pc is always running so its fit well in my living room. I tried the 4x riser but space was to small so i ordered the pehl 2.4.

First problem the cables are both soldered so i cant put the card in without opening my case :-( is there a 2.0 solution with detachable cable?

I could get the card detected and drivers loaded but i had to first start the pc and then the egpu and making a hardware changes check in device manager. Is that the right way?

If I start the egpu first it doesnt work and even the integrated graphic output gives a black screen...

But now i have a code 12 error... I had understand that this is happening only when you have more than 3gb mem but i have only 2gb installed...

My system is a zotac h67-itx with i2100t cpu with 2gb ram. I also have a wifi card in the minipcie port of the motherboard...

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I dont wanted to change my case because its a fanless system and my pc is always running so its fit well in my living room. I tried the 4x riser but space was to small so i ordered the pehl 2.4.

First problem the cables are both soldered so i cant put the card in without opening my case :-( is there a 2.0 solution with detachable cable?

I could get the card detected and drivers loaded but i had to first start the pc and then the egpu and making a hardware changes check in device manager. Is that the right way?

If I start the egpu first it doesnt work and even the integrated graphic output gives a black screen...

But now i have a code 12 error... I had understand that this is happening only when you have more than 3gb mem but i have only 2gb installed...

My system is a zotac h67-itx with i2100t cpu with 2gb ram. I also have a wifi card in the minipcie port of the motherboard...

As I said, it is more trouble than its worth.

To fix that code12 you need to purchase the setup fix from Tech Inferno Fan on harmonics.

Even if you purchase it, you need to pre load it every single time you boot up your pc.

there is also no work around about turning the egpu on while system is off.

By the time you realize the issues, you may have spent well over a brand new case

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

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i finally got it working with a 4x riser but its too short to put the card in a external box and i had to force the gen1 mode in bios because gen2 is instable...

so im still trying to make my pehl to work. i installed the setup 1x boot and than i tried differents options: setup.bat gives a black sceen (do i have to add something in setup.bat?) and if i try pci compaction i can not exit as if my keyboard doesnt respond any more...

i have also a message that says my chipset isnt found (i have h67)...

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Got my pe4l working even without setup...i dont know why but after using the riser and switching to the pe4l it worked (keeped the allocation?)

Its even going better than with the riser that was instable even in gen1 mode (maybe bad quality because was very cheap) the pe4l is working fine in 1x2.0 mode.

Will make some bench to compare.

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big surprise today! i was wondering if my motherboard supported pcie 3.0 because i had read in some gigabyte evy compatibility stuff that on small motherboard with one pcie slot is directly connected to the nothbridge (what is the case for my zotac h67)

so i switched just for test my cpu to my evy one (3770t) and bingo its works even if my motherboard is not pci 3.0!

post-10827-14494994576782_thumb.png

And better its seems to works fine in pcie 3.0 mode with the pe4l v2.1!! i didnt know pe4l was pci 3.0 compliant....!

Was also wondering if there was something like x1.3 optimus because x1.2opt seems to surpass x1.3 without opt.

Got some trouble first to get the optimus 1.3 activated but finally got it and it rocks:

3Dmark2006 x1.3opt 24884 SM2 9764 HDR 12518 CPU(3770t) 6206

3Dmark2006 x1.3..... 16076 SM2 7539 HDR 5402 CPU(3770t) 6210

3Dmark2006 x1.2opt 15576 SM2 6861 HDR 8556 CPU(2100t) 2986

3Dmark2006 x1.2..... 10595 SM2 4711 HDR 4452 CPU(2100t) 2975

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Is this the first recorded case of PCIe 3 working with an eGPU?

Could you do a Heaven 3.0 benchmark on PCIe3 and PCIe2 as 3Dmark2006 is processor bound?

This could be something really great you are on to here.

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Is this the first recorded case of PCIe 3 working with an eGPU?

Could you do a Heaven 3.0 benchmark on PCIe3 and PCIe2 as 3Dmark2006 is processor bound?

This could be something really great you are on to here.

x1 3.0 is faster than 2011-2013 Thunderbolt, but unfortunately expresscard slots aren't using it

BPlus advised that the PE4L 2.1b was pci-e 3.0 compliant furter confirmed by tintin's results. Issue is that the expresscard slot of Series6/7 notebooks runs off the southbridge which is specced at pci-e 2.0 only. Now the northbridge is specced at pci-e 3.0. Unfortunately no manufacturer is attaching expresscard slots from there.

It would be great it they did. x1 3.0 is the same bandwidth as x2 2.0 after overheads. Difference is the x1 3.0 would get us Optimus pci-e compression so would outperform x2 2.0.

Got any contacts in China (Foxconn, Inventec, etc)? If so, pls urge them to attach the expresscard slot off the <strike>southbridge</strike> northbridge. It would gives us more bandwidth than 2011-2013 Thunderbolt ports without Intel's imposition, eg: Thunderbolt certification. That performance competition may give Intel incentive to bump up Thunderbolt performance to pci-e 3.0 (16/20Gbps).

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Got any contacts in China (Foxconn, Inventec, etc)? If so, pls urge them to attach the expresscard slot off the southbridge. It would gives us more bandwidth than 2011-2013 Thunderbolt ports without Intel's imposition, eg: Thunderbolt certification. That performance competition may give Intel incentive to bump up Thunderbolt performance to pci-e 3.0 (16/20Gbps).

Nothing of interest really, I can try Clevo, but as they will want to sell gaming laptops with high-end mobile GPUs then a faster expresscard + eGPU isn't really common to their interests, sadly.

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i updated 3dmarks06 scores with sm2/hdr for giving a better idea.

will make some more benchs tomorrow.

Maybe there are minipci ports that are related to the northbridge in some notebooks?

I was surprised how optimus compression seems efficient, why wouldnt nvidia always use it particulary in 1.0 modes? it will give them some good results in benchs?

or maybe even for a pcie 1.0 card there is no bandwith bottlenech at 16x?

For me it would be perfect if it could be activated for a x4.3 link that i can obtain with a riser because i suppose that at this bandwith (4x 8G + opt comp.) there would no real difference with a classical 16x link. Is there a way to mod the drivers?

It will be also effective for multiple cuda unit calculation allowing more units sharing a 16x link...

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I thought about this, and I don't know whether with a say 4x link that the compression would hit the CPU so hard that it would actually be a performance drop (as with more bus width there is more data to compress). Although the increase from PCIe 2 to 3 says that this is not too much of a problem (however you are using fast desktop CPU, much faster than the average mid range i5 most of us are using for eGPUs). It makes me sad that the X220 hasn't got socketed CPU as the sandy quad i7's go for pretty cheap these days.

And yes, the 16x 1.0 cards were not able to max out the link. Only very high end current gen cards will make use of the 16x 3.0 bandwidth in normal gaming (things like CUDA is exception).

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i was thinking that too but for a 4x link as you said maybe the performance gain will remain (an option in the driver to activate would be perfect)

i wonder if it is the normal cpu units that are making the compression or if nvidia found some way to use the no more used igpu units parts?

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i was thinking that too but for a 4x link as you said maybe the performance gain will remain (an option in the driver to activate would be perfect)

i wonder if it is the normal cpu units that are making the compression or if nvidia found some way to use the no more used igpu units parts?

I think that sadly it would be counterproductive for NVidia to let compression work on higher links, as they would still prefer you buy a faster laptop GPU for more than a similarly performing desktop one for cheaper.

If we had PCIe 3.0 Thunderbolt with working optimus + compression that would be so great.

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I have a quad core i7 3615qm (pretty close to your 3770t) and a nvidia 660 running at 1.2opt and got 23081 for 36mark06. So the 1.3opt definitely gives the gpu a nice boost. Would it be possible to get some benchmarks of games? The added bandwidth would probably be much more apparent.

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Thank you for the Info, but can you test your eGPU (x1.3) with 3dMark /-vintage/-11 ? Because the results of the 3dMark 06 are also dependent on the CPU. So if you would test the another 3dmark, we can better comparing the connection (I think). Also you can comparing your results with my results.

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sorry no time to make bench but i had made a 3dmark vantage and gpu score is 22632 (+-20000 in 1.2opt)

and heaven 2.5 score in fullhd 1920 was around 1300.

i had also made a 3dmark11 but it is not revealing the bandwith change because fps are to low so it doesnt need a lot bandwith its more card limited...

will make more bench next week.

are there game based bench that you can just download as a demo?

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Ok, by a GPU score from 22632, the x1.3 Opt. have ~10% more bandwith than the x1.2 Opt.... It's a nice result...

I have found my 3dmark vantage graphicscore in a Pc with a x16.2 connection and Nvidia 306.97, there I have 22519.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I edited my first post with some answers and some more benchs here.

I made some pcie 1.0 2.0 3.0 scaling test in x4 mod.

after some research in egpu post and on the web i found i could switch beetween gen1 gen2 and gen3 pcie speeds even under windows using setpci or even more easy using rweverything tool.

I give here the full process that worked for me:

- you need pciutils and/or rweverything tool

- first find the device port address (bus:dev.func) where your grapic card is attached:

use rweverything and look in pci devices or

"lspci -v"
(in admin command prompt) and search for your card

gives 00:01.0 for me because main pcie port on northbridge i assume but will be further away if using expressport

- then find the address of the pci express capability register :

type
"lspci -s 00:01.0 -v"
(change 00:01.0 with you port address)

and look for the line that says:

Capabilities: [a0] Express ...

the hex address (here [a0]) is the one correponding to the beginning of the pci express capability register (CAP_EXP).

current link speed register can be found with a +12 offset

so register [b2] for me gives 43 in x4 pcie 3.0 mode (should be 12 in pcie x1.2 link with expresscard)

target link speed register is +30 offset

so register [d0] for me for me gives 43 in pcie 3.0 mode

changing the last digit of target speed simply changes the speed (keep first digit because actually only first 4 bits are for speed)

so: 41 -> gen1 for me

42 -> gen2

43-> gen3

- Switch the value using rweverything tool or typing:

"setpci -s 00:01.0 CAP_EXP+30.b=41" or "setpci -s 00:01.0 a0+30.b=41"

here for pcie 1.0 mode (change 00:01.0 with your address and a0 with your pcie cap register adresss and 41 with the corresponding wanted value)

after some while current link speed register should change to wanted value...

As we can see it seems that x1.3 optimus is not far away from x4.3 (which gives ~same res than a normal x16.2 link in most case)...

When i have some time i will complete the benchs with x1 values...

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Quote



- using the PE4L 2.1 + hp060a: limited to 1x2.0?
Q: the performance will be 1/2?[INDENT] A: Limit is 1x3.0 because PEHL 2.1 is pcie 3.0 compatible if your connecting slot is working at 3.0 speeds (it's my case because the pcie slot is connected directly to the northbridge on my Zotac H67-ITX motherboard so had just to upgrade for a ivybridge 3.0 cpu).
The performance will not be 1/2 of a x2 system and because of the nvidia optimus compression if you are using a Nvidia fermi card (660 here) you will somewhere beetween a x1 and a x4 link depending on the game as you can see in the following benchs:
[/INDENT]

Pcie MB/s 3DM06 3Dvant.gpu 3dM11.gpu heaven 2.5 heaven 3.0
x1.1 250 6749 27% 19026 77% 5850 88% 1643 73% 2297 67%
x1.1opt
24452 98% 18996 77% 5832 88% 1643 73% 2281 67%
x1.2 500 11988 48% 21843 89% 6387 96% 2006 89% 2951 86%
x1.2opt
24712 99% 21703 88% 6380 96% 2008 89% 2961 86%
x1.3 1000 18043 73% 22947 93% 6432 97% 2067 92% 3130 91%
x1.3opt
24884 100% 22905 93% 6449 97% 2096 93% 3110 91%
x4.1 1000 18746 75% 23293 95% 6514 98% 2134 95% 3226 94%
x4.2 2000 23798 96% 24248 99% 6685 101% 2274 101% 3452 101%
x4.3 4000 24874 100% 24563 100% 6638 100% 2246 100% 3426 100%



Updated the benchs with x1 results.

optimus doesnt seems to have some effect on 3dm11 and heaven bench maybe because they already use some compression?

but effect is spectacular on 3dmark06... are there some games bench that are also more bandwidth dependent?
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