eGPU vs Mini PC cost/benefit analysis

[davide445]

Asking for specific advice about the best GPU for my specific needs (PowerDirector 3D editing and CryEngine 3 SDK development) I received the suggestion that, especially for video editing, CPU and other part of hw such as RAM and HDD are also important for the whole performance.

The suggestion was also why you don't look for a complete cheap mini PC, it doesn't cost so much more.

With a lot of optimization I finally need to compare these two eGPU vs MiniPC conf:

eGPU solution with my own laptop as main PC

(My laptop:

CPU: Intel Core i5 2520M 2.5 Ghz

iGPU: Intel HD 3000 650 Mhz

RAM: 2x4GB Kingston 9905428-043.A01G DDR3 666Mhz

HDD: HITACHI HTS723232A7A364 SATAII 7200 rpm

Mobo Lenovo 429137G Chipset Intel QM67 (Cougar Point) [b3]

Win 7 Pro 64bit)

PE4L V2.1

XFX ProSeries 550W Core Edition

eVGA Club 3D Ati AMD Radeon HD 7850 RoyalQueen 2GB

TOT: 385 USD

Mini PC solution

CPU AMD FX-6300 6-Core Vishera 3.5GHz Socket AM3+ 14MB 95W Boxed

VGA Club 3D Ati AMD Radeon HD 7850 RoyalQueen 2GB

RAM DDR3 Corsair Vengeance Blue Low Profile CML8GX3M2A1600C9B 1600MHz 8GB (2x4GB) CL9

WLAN Pci-e Wireless TP-Link TL-WN781ND 150MBs Wireless N

HDD 3.5" Western Digital Caviar Blu 1TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA3

Mobo Asrock 960GM/U3S3 FX Socket AM3+ AMD 760G DDR3 SATA3 USB3 MicroATX

Case Mini Cooler Master Elite 342 mATX with PSU 500W Black

Keyboard Power X KB618B Multimedia USB Black

MS Windows 8 Pro 64 bit

TOT: 743 USD

Where on the MiniPC solution I really stripped down to the minimum req and costs for all the components.

I can maybe save some 30 USD using FX-6100 instead of 6300, and also other 20 USD without wlan card, but small things. The idea is to have exactly the same functionality of my laptop, so to compare costs, with a balanced (but cheap) architecture.

The difference of 358 USD (retail price) reflect obviously the need to buy hw/sw I already have in my laptop such as CPU, RAM, HDD, keyboard, OS.

I was never considering in detail how much a laptop is behind desktop in term of speed of the various components. Not only CPU, but also RAM, HDD, mobo everything its slower for power consumption and heat dissipation considerations I think.

Considering all of that I wanted to know:

- does anyone use eGPU solutions not only for gaming, but also for video editing, and what are your feeling about performance?

- apart from 3DMark benchmark do you ever performed a more complete PCMark test, so to test the whole eGPU + laptop setup?

- apart from cash availability, do you think a 358 USD premium worth the setup of such a MiniPC?

[Shelltoe]

Well comparing a dualcore with a 6-core seems a bit odd.

In general: everything you have to render for hires output (3D, Video, Audio) relies on your CPU. everything that gives you a livepreview / renders in realtime (eg. CAD editor view, Cyrsis 3) relies on your GPU (except things like Nvidias PhysX).

I'm a graphics designer myself and use the egpu while I'm not in the office. Video and 3D rendering works pretty well on my quadcore rMBP.

4 or even 6 cores is a huge improvement compared to a dualcore. especially for rendering tasks.

I don't know how serious you are about this but if you don't have to be mobile and want better performance go with the desktop solution. It's still not even close to a professional one though.

[davide445]

I'm not a professional and AV it's not the core of my activity.

But still I need to use it, and I value my time for learning and working.

If you say your rMBP work fine with video rendering I receive the information in fact you are working with a conf much more similar to Mini PC than mine laptop+eGPU.

rMBP use a CPU benchmarked better than FX-6300 and your 560 Ti (or you use an 660 Ti?) it's benchmarked at the same level of HD 7850. It also uses 1600mhz RAM and SSD drive.

Sure that Mini PC it's not powerful as can be, but it's similar with your rMBP, so I hope can be productive.

Do you have a DIY enclosure? Do you use Thunderbolt port?

[Shelltoe]

Yeah well it's all about time.

Guess there's nothing you can't do with your Laptop / eGPU setup in terms of av-editing.

A 6-core desktop will be 2 - 3 times faster though.

I'm not sure how well your Laptop will handle crysis 3.

Im currently using a GTX660 TI via Thunderbolt (TH05) and have a pretty neat selfmade enclosure including PSU.

Actually I'll add some pics to my thread later or at weekend.

[davide445]

For AV editing I already used PD 10 and worked (8GB RAM is useful for that) in editing, a bit slow for AVCHD rendering. Don't want to try for 3D video :-)

I'm beginning to use CryEngine 3 SDK loading some maps and elements to create a wind turbine impact analysis simulation.

But using complex elements I got 7-8 FPS, really not usable to create even a low res video.

Now I know all of it your global laptop+eGPU specs are higher even respect my Mini PC conf, considering also Thunderbolt is faster than ExpressCard so the power of 660Ti will be not wasted by bandwidth bottleneck.

Your conf its higher respect the average (asking for advice on PD and CE forum they suggest me 650Ti or higher and at least i7 - don't understood specific model) or just fine for real pro?.

[rhx123]

The "6" core is actually only 3 core.

The FX parts are in no way compatible to Intel parts.

[davide445]

The "6" core is actually only 3 core.

The FX parts are in no way compatible to Intel parts.

Really don't understood what you mean...

Meaning FX-6300 its not a 6-core?

And why I need to bother about Intel....Asrock 960GM/U3S3 FX Socket AM3+ it's a AM3+ socket...

[Shelltoe]

I'm not that much into AMD CPUs. The last one I had was an Athlon XP 1800+ ... they even faked back then

So it has 3 physical and 6 logical cores?

That's not so great but still it's improvement compared to his i5 2520M

EDIT: davide he's talking about the words they use. Intel counts physical cores. AMD counts logical cores / threads.

[davide445]

Ok thanks so (apologize for my bad English knowledge) was meaning not "comparable" with Intel parts.

Reading a bit appear that AMD FX micro architecture it's an average between single and double core: a "core" does have two physical integer units and one shared floating point unit. Something similar to Intel HyperTrading but with phisical cores.

Appear that your mobo need to have the right BIOS tho handle this efficiently, and also new version "Vishera" such as 6300 does improve the performance under regular conditions.

CPU Mark state FX-6300 it's above a Intel Core i5-3450, but I don't know if that it's relevant for AV editing and rendering.

[Shelltoe]

IMHO you shouldn't care about this stuff. If there are differences in performance they should be really negligible.

Most workstations I've seen use Intel Xeon CPUs (just like the 12 core one I use in the office), a handfull use AMD opterons ... so even my MBP's i7 is just consumerware and nowhere close to highend CPUs.

You should get a CPU with as many cores as you can or want to effort. From there on every $ will give you a tiny bit of extra performance.

[davide445]

Need to say that your i7 3820QM it's better than many Xeon and Opteron processor as you can find here

PassMark - CPU Mark High End CPUs

and even better than 8 "core" FX-8320 that can be the next step of my setup.

Better its always better, the fact is I will be happy to spend just 385 USD for eGPU if this will give me a strong push in performance also in AV.

But I read many different experiences with PD, just now a guy want to return a 650Ti because it doesn't make any difference at all in his workflow speed. Many practitioners are using CPUs with speed around yours, but also some are using much worse solutions.

So I will be happy to find a good benchmark to evaluate the real cost effectiveness of my future system.

Otherwise sure I will go for the best I can afford, that's the above setup.

[davide445]

After reading comments on AMD FX architecture I informed myself better.

The bottom line is that in real word app FX-6300 is equivalent to i3 and FX-8350 to i5, but with much more performance change among different applications and a greater power usage.

Considering that and the relative pricing doesn't worth upgrading to 8350 (a i3 equivalent it's just not enough for AV) and I changed my conf on Intel based, now this

CPU Intel Core i5-3470 3,2GHz Socket 1155 with GPU Ivy Bridge Boxed

VGA Club 3D Ati AMD Radeon HD 7850 RoyalQueen 2GB

Mobo AsRock B75M-GL R2.0 Socket 1155 Intel B75 DDR3 SATA3 USB3 VGA DVI MicroATX

RAM DDR3 Corsair Vengeance Blue Low Profile CML8GX3M2A1600C9B 1600MHz 8GB (2x4GB) CL9

WLAN Pci-e Wireless TP-Link TL-WN781ND 150MBs Wireless N

HDD 3.5" Western Digital Caviar Blu 1TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA3

Case Mini Cooler Master Elite 342 mATX with PSU 500W Black

Keyboard Power X KB618B Multimedia USB Black

MS Windows 8 Pro 64 bit

TOT: 817 USD

That's a respectable amount of money for me.

Will be really pleased to find eGPU solution it's the perfect one, but I think need to find the extra 430 USD!

[Shelltoe]

Need to say that your i7 3820QM it's better than many Xeon and Opteron processor as you can find here

PassMark - CPU Mark High End CPUs

and even better than 8 "core" FX-8320 that can be the next step of my setup.

Better its always better, the fact is I will be happy to spend just 385 USD for eGPU if this will give me a strong push in performance also in AV.

But I read many different experiences with PD, just now a guy want to return a 650Ti because it doesn't make any difference at all in his workflow speed. Many practitioners are using CPUs with speed around yours, but also some are using much worse solutions.

So I will be happy to find a good benchmark to evaluate the real cost effectiveness of my future system.

Otherwise sure I will go for the best I can afford, that's the above setup.

yeah but most of these xeons and opterons were released 2 or more years earlier.

also many of these CPUs are designed for servers, with stability and energy consumtion in mind.

Most games don't even fully support these CPUs in terms of multithreading.

As far as I know these PCmark results aren't really reliable. Take a look.

maybe you can find some more Sandra or Aida benchmarks. There should be some Creative Suite 5 / 6 and rendering benchmarks around too.

again: you shouldn't care about it.

[davide445]

yeah but most of these xeons and opterons were released 2 or more years earlier.

also many of these CPUs are designed for servers, with stability and energy consumtion in mind.

Most games don't even fully support these CPUs in terms of multithreading.

As far as I know these PCmark results aren't really reliable. Take a look.

maybe you can find some more Sandra or Aida benchmarks. There should be some Creative Suite 5 / 6 and rendering benchmarks around too.

again: you shouldn't care about it.

Exactly, that's why I finally read real life applications benchmark such as this one AMD FX-8350, FX-8320, FX-6300 and FX-4300: All Vishera Processors in One Review: as I wrote before I can't think using a i3 equivalent for video editing, and going for AMD i5 equivalent cost me...the same as a real i5, that not only performed good in ALL conditions but also consume much less.

The problem is that all of this cost me 400 USD more than a eGPU solution, but considering the av demand for real CPU speed and not only GPU I'm starting considering unavoidable such expense.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Exactly, that's why I finally read real life applications benchmark such as this one AMD FX-8350, FX-8320, FX-6300 and FX-4300: All Vishera Processors in One Review: as I wrote before I can't think using a i3 equivalent for video editing, and going for AMD i5 equivalent cost me...the same as a real i5, that not only performed good in ALL conditions but also consume much less.

The problem is that all of this cost me 400 USD more than a eGPU solution, but considering the av demand for real CPU speed and not only GPU I'm starting considering unavoidable such expense.

You could replace the X220 with a same-gen 12.5" HP 2560P and upgrade the CPU to a 45W i7-quad like a i7-2820QM to gain portability, lots of CPU grunt and inexpensive eGPU option. Unlike the X220/X230, the HP 2560P/2570P has a socketted CPU allowing such user upgrades (note: warranty implications). A 2560P is often available on ebay-US for less than a Lenovo X220. The one-gen newer 12.5" HP 2570P giving even more performance scope: it allows 3rd gen i7-quad installation AND raid-0 capability across it's primary and optical bay drives.

Still, if you want absolute best performance then consider a desktop PC or Intel's NUC (Next Unit of Computing) if need something in a very compact size.

[davide445]

You could replace the X220 with a same-gen 12.5" HP 2560P and upgrade the CPU to a 45W i7-quad like a i7-2820QM to gain portability, lots of CPU grunt and inexpensive eGPU option. Unlike the X220/X230, the HP 2560P/2570P has a socketted CPU allowing such user upgrades (note: warranty implications). A 2560P is often available on ebay-US for less than a Lenovo X220. The one-gen newer 12.5" HP 2570P giving even more performance scope: it allows 3rd gen i7-quad installation AND raid-0 capability across it's primary and optical bay drives.

Still, if you want absolute best performance then consider a desktop PC or Intel's NUC (Next Unit of Computing) if need something in a very compact size.

Unfortunately 2560/70P will cost me at least 1530 USD, that compared to 800 of the Mini PC conf are a lot more.

Portability has always a value, but this is really too much for me.

My goal is to find the conf that guarantee good performances for prosumer AV/realtime 3D design use at minimum cost.

[davide445]

Just a update to inform interested readers, after reading some more specialized and real world benchmarks such as these one AMD FX-8350 review: is AMD back? - Performance averages and these AMD FX-8350, -8320, -6300 'Vishera' review: finally good enough? - PowerDirector 8 benchmark and user experiences on AudioVideo CPU performances, the conclusion is 2nd FX Vishera series can be equivalent to i7 for multimedia activities, costing much less, at a price of a increased power consumption.

It's weak instead for gaming, but the GPU will help a lot on that for my planned CryEngine SDK usage. So I'm back on AMD architecture, looking for FX-8320 or 8350.

Considering this is eGPU room I will not go further on that discussion, since summarizing all costs and benefits I think my better cost/effective choice will be only "Mini" PC (not so mini, in fact), this one

CPU AMD FX-8320 Black Edition - 3,5 GHz - Socket AM3+

VGA SAPPHIRE TECHNOLOGY Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition - 2 GB GDDR5 - PCI-Express 3.0

RAM CORSAIR Vengeance Red 2 x 4 Gb DDR3-1600 PC3-12800 CL8

HDD SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.14 ST1000DM003 3,5" - 1 TB

MOBO ASROCK 970 Extreme3 - Socket AM3+ - Chipset 970 - ATX

CASE CORSAIR Carbide Series 300R

PSU CORSAIR CX600 80 PLUS Bronze - 600 W

TOT: 824 USD