eGPU experiences [version 2.0]

[meatom]

AC adapters have been problematic before which can be quickly diagnosed by borrowing an ATX PSU off someone and testing. They also provide the full 3.3V@3A per pci-e spec, something the AC adapter solution doesn't do.

Also suggest reinstall the latest Intel 4500MHD driver along with AMD Catalyst drivers.

Tried everything you suggest, with no success. Seems that the egpu is working just like an extension of the igpu, like a video out of igpu, and when I try to run some program in the external lcd the system crashes. Seems to be a very unstable work, becauseI have video in both, laptop lcd and external lcd, but it crashes easly. There is any registry of uncompatibility between the core 2 duo processor and the egpu system? Or between ram memory? I tested de video card and it's working good.

[daver160]

I eagerly await to hear your results! I've been mulling over moving up to a PE4L, and if it's possible to get Gen2 speeds with the PM3N I already have from the PE4H I have.

Does anyone know if BPlus/HWTools allows you to purchase individual parts, rather than bundles?

[Tech Inferno Fan]

I eagerly await to hear your results! I've been mulling over moving up to a PE4L, and if it's possible to get Gen2 speeds with the PM3N I already have from the PE4H I have.

Does anyone know if BPlus/HWTools allows you to purchase individual parts, rather than bundles?

Yeah.. just click buy in the PCIEMM-060B at PE4L ( PCIe passive adapter ver1.5 ) . They want $22 for it plus $18 shipping. I'm curious as to how bulky the end is. The far-zoomed pic makes it somewhat difficult to tell if it's a completely round cable or somewhat flat. I am eagerly awaiting jacobsson's testing.

This PCIEMM-060B cable, if indeed Gen2 compliant, when combined with a PE4H 2.4 would give us a x4 2.0 capable platform. Good news for anybody wanting to mess with altering a Dell E6x30 flash descriptor to get x4 on port1 and having 4 cables running out of it (EC + 3xmPCIe) could get 20Gbps performance today. My favorite eGPU adapter was the PE4H 2.4.

[meatom]

How can I find out how much pci space a HD5450 video card needs? Because I only can obtain 256mb, with Setup 1.x.

[daver160]

The far-zoomed pic makes it somewhat difficult to tell if it's a completely round cable or somewhat flat. I am eagerly awaiting jacobsson's testing.

This PCIEMM-060B cable, if indeed Gen2 compliant, when combined with a PE4H 2.4 would give us a x4 2.0 capable platform. Good news for anybody wanting to mess with altering a Dell E6x30 flash descriptor to get x4 on port1 and having 4 cables running out of it (EC + 3xmPCIe) could get 20Gbps performance today. My favorite eGPU adapter was the PE4H 2.4.

Check out this PDF from Bplus' own website:

http://www.bplus.com.tw/PDF/PCIEMM_060.pdf

It depicts the "B" model as being completely round, while the "A" model is flat.

As well, if you check out BPlus' page for the PE4H adapter, you'll see that they are indeed touting that it is Gen2 capable with the new PCIEMM-xxxB cables.

http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/PE4H.html

An interesting turn of events!

[Tech Inferno Fan]

As well, if you check out BPlus' page for the PE4H adapter, you'll see that they are indeed touting that it is Gen2 capable with the new PCIEMM-xxxB cables.

PE4H ( PCIe passive adapter ver2.4 )

An interesting turn of events!

Indeed. Confirmed as saved in the (06-15-2013) Thunderbolt, MXM, USB 3.0, PCIe 2.0 eGPU update linked in the NEWS section on the first post:

6-15-2013: Masaharu about the new Gen2 compliant PCIEMM-060B detachable cables

> I see you guys have updated at PE4L ( PCIe passive adapter ver1.5 )

> with a new "Gen2" capable PCIEMM-060B cable that's different to thePCIEMM-060A one.

> Users have desired detachable Gen2 compliant cables for a while now, especially

> for mPCIe use, so are very excited about this new product.

Yes, now we have PCIEMM-060B.

The cable is narrow, 2.5mm diameter, very high quality with Sumitomo cable inside.

> Can you confirm this does pass Gen2 signals OK?

> We had a fiasco a few months back with the PCIEMM-060A claiming

> as such then users finding it could only pass Gen1.

We tested PCIEMM-060B many times and confirmed

Gen2 / 5Gbps support and much better than 060A.

> I'm happy to test one for you with a Series-7 (3rd Gen i5) 2570P + GTX660Ti I have.

Ok, we will provide two of PCIEMM-060B to you.

Please them with you PC to confirm.

Am personally happy to they've got an alternative to the Gen2 cable used on the PE4L 2.1b.. That cable is difficult to work with. This one, being 2.5mm in diameter sounds to be similar sized to the original pre-2011 mHDMI cables supplied with PE4L 1.5 or PE4H 2.4.

Means that old PE4H 2.4 will be resurrected as the likely enthusiast's choice from the eGPU adapters being sold by BPlus. It's certainly my favorite one. Means having a x4 2.0 capable platform for exploration too.

[meatom]

Hi!

I tried everything to do my system works. It's a core2duo T5550, 1.83ghz with 4gb of ram, video card HD5450, TOLUD 3.0gb.

With pci compactation in Setup 1.x I can only release 256mb of pci space, so I removed 2gb of ram memory and now I get 1024mb of pci space with pci compactation. Now my eGPU is working! But my question is, how can I use my eGPU with 4gb of ram memory? Is it possible?

Thank you.

[daver160]

Hi!

I tried everything to do my system works. It's a core2duo T5550, 1.83ghz with 4gb of ram, video card HD5450, TOLUD 3.0gb.

With pci compactation in Setup 1.x I can only release 256mb of pci space, so I removed 2gb of ram memory and now I get 1024mb of pci space with pci compactation. Now my eGPU is working! But my question is, how can I use my eGPU with 4gb of ram memory? Is it possible?

Thank you.

You shouldn't need to remove RAM to get compaction to give you that much PCI space. When you're in Setup 1.x, are you disabling your HD 5450 dGPU? That should free up a lot of space right away

[rhx123]

I am leaving to go to university in a few months time, and because of size/transport reasons I can't take my tower and 27inch screen, so I can only take laptop, eGPU, and 22inch screen.

I am currently using 650Ti for my eGPU, but I have a 7950 currently in my desktop.

I am wondering if the 7950 would give me decent performance gains over the 650Ti even though I would be losing the NVidia compression, or if I should bite the bullet and say buy a new faster NVidia GPU for when I go.

I don't really want to spend money as I want to save for the new Asus Zenbook Infinity.

I have a X220 and PE4L v2.1b so everything will be running at 1x 2.0.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

I am leaving to go to university in a few months time, and because of size/transport reasons I can't take my tower and 27inch screen, so I can only take laptop, eGPU, and 22inch screen.

I am currently using 650Ti for my eGPU, but I have a 7950 currently in my desktop.

I am wondering if the 7950 would give me decent performance gains over the 650Ti even though I would be losing the NVidia compression, or if I should bite the bullet and say buy a new faster NVidia GPU for when I go.

I don't really want to spend money as I want to save for the new Asus Zenbook Infinity.

I have a X220 and PE4L v2.1b so everything will be running at 1x 2.0.

Please see comparative AMD vs NVidia testing on a x1 2.0 (+Opt) capable platform from which you can make an informed decision:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/3062-%5Bguide%5D-2012-13-mbp-gtx660ti-hd7870-th05-%40-x2-2-0-a.html

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2747-%5Bguide%5D-12-dell-e6230-gtx660%40x1-2opt-hd7870%40x1-2-pe4l-ec060a-2-1b.html

Sumamry: the x1 pci-e compression with NVidia Optimus is necessary for them to deliver similar performance to equivalent AMD cards when using DX9 at that bandwidth. I did find that in DX10 and DX11 the NVidia cards did mostly have a small performance lead with the pci-e compression having little to no effect. Presumably textures are already pre-compressed by the game/app before being sent over the pcie-link.

Where the AMD cards fail badly for our purposes is the internal LCD mode. Optimus provides very good performance with transparent driver support to do that all at zero cost. AMD cards needs third party LucidLogix Virtu software which costs $$, isn't available in the mobile version for purchase and delivers less raw FPS performance than NVidia cards.

Since the HD7950 is in your desktop already why not give it a whirl and see for yourself? It will be a decent performance improvement over a GTX650Ti when used with your 22" external LCD.

[rhx123]

Please see comparative AMD vs NVidia testing on a x1 2.0 (+Opt) capable platform from which you can make an informed decision:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/3062-%5Bguide%5D-2012-13-mbp-gtx660ti-hd7870-th05-%40-x2-2-0-a.html

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2747-%5Bguide%5D-12-dell-e6230-gtx660%40x1-2opt-hd7870%40x1-2-pe4l-ec060a-2-1b.html

Sumamry: the x1 pci-e compression with NVidia Optimus is necessary for them to deliver similar performance to equivalent AMD cards when using DX9 at that bandwidth. I did find that in DX10 and DX11 the NVidia cards did mostly have a small performance lead with the pci-e compression having little to no effect. Presumably textures are already pre-compressed by the game/app before being sent over the pcie-link.

Where the AMD cards fail badly for our purposes is the internal LCD mode. Optimus provides very good performance with transparent driver support to do that all at zero cost. AMD cards needs third party LucidLogix Virtu software which costs $$, isn't available in the mobile version for purchase and delivers less raw FPS performance than NVidia cards.

Since the HD7950 is in your desktop already why not give it a whirl and see for yourself? It will be a decent performance improvement over a GTX650Ti when used with your 22" external LCD.

Well, given I use mostly DX9 games, I just bought a GTX670 for my eGPU. I'll just have to work some more overtime

[albertfu]

Hello Nando4,

I plan to build a @x4.1 eGPU configuration on Dell Studio XPS 1645 (PM55 + first gen i7), will it be impacted by half-duplex issue if I choose an AMD card like 7870 or 7950 ?

If yes, is there a way to fix this half-duplex issue ? Or should I really choose nVIDIA cards (660 or 660Ti with same price tags as 7870 and 7950) to get better performance ?

I saw AMD cards are more suitable for eGPU purposes as they are less sensitive to lower PCIE bandwidth here and in another post comparing 7970 and GTX680 (Ivy Bridge PCI-Express Scaling with HD 7970 and GTX 680 Review | techPowerUp).

Thanks in advance

[albertfu]

One week ago on BPlus's site there was no PCIEMM-060B cable and now it is! Finally a detachable solution for PCIE Gen2 eGPU!

[Tenkes]

Means that old PE4H 2.4 will be resurrected as the likely enthusiast's choice from the eGPU adapters being sold by BPlus. It's certainly my favorite one. Means having a x4 2.0 capable platform for exploration too.

How would you make x4 with i-gen chipsets? As far as I read on your guide it is impossible to make x2E on recent intel setups.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

How would you make x4 with i-gen chipsets? As far as I read on your guide it is impossible to make x2E on recent intel setups.

x2 2.0 and x4 2.0 would be with Series-6 (2nd-gen i-core) or newer chipsets. Firstly, you'd need electrical mPCIe/EC ports that are organised as x2: [p1+2], [p3+4], [p5+6] or [p7+8]; x4: [p1+2+3+4] or [p5+6+7+8]. Intel have locked the port setting into the flash descriptor so would (1) need a way to unlock the flash descriptor and (2) use the ME Utilities to change the port setting. You can see that flashing would be involved so it's no longer dynamic in the way that the port could be altered via Setup 1.x bootup. So you'd pretty much set say your port1 to x2 and leave it that way for eGPU usage, forgoing whatever port2 did previously.

The challenge with the flash descriptor is the same as faced by others in http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/2091-lets-enable-overclocking-all-6-7-series-laptops.html . There have been some success stories there.

[Gwypaas]

Is the CPU in the Dell e6330 socketed? I'm looking at the model with the i5 3380M 2.9 GHz running on a QM77 chipset. And if it is, is it possible to later upgrade it to a i7 quad like the 3612QM?

[albertfu]

Unfortunately it is a BGA CPU in E6330 so you can't change it easily

[inot]

Hi

I am a bit confused about what notebooks are good for 1.2opt.

sandy/ivy + exprescard ok?

but via mpcie slot I am not sure?

Some notebooks I was looking: clevo W550, W350 acer v3 series. any good?

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Hi

I am a bit confused about what notebooks are good for 1.2opt.

sandy/ivy + exprescard ok?

but via mpcie slot I am not sure?

Some notebooks I was looking: clevo W550, W350 acer v3 series. any good?

Confusion can be dissipated by referring to Pre Purchase FAQ-> 13. What do I need to run the fastest x1.2Opt link shown in the implementations? as linked off the first post.

[bjorm]

8460p, HD+, i7-2630QM, 8GB RAM, SSD + HDD + GTX660 MSI TwinFrozr III - wthout OC - 6012 points Graphics score.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor,Hewlett-Packard 161C score: P5867 3DMarks

[daver160]

Hello Nando4,

I plan to build a @x4.1 eGPU configuration on Dell Studio XPS 1645 (PM55 + first gen i7), will it be impacted by half-duplex issue if I choose an AMD card like 7870 or 7950 ?

If yes, is there a way to fix this half-duplex issue ? Or should I really choose nVIDIA cards (660 or 660Ti with same price tags as 7870 and 7950) to get better performance ?

I saw AMD cards are more suitable for eGPU purposes as they are less sensitive to lower PCIE bandwidth here and in another post comparing 7970 and GTX680 (Ivy Bridge PCI-Express Scaling with HD 7970 and GTX 680 Review | techPowerUp).

Thanks in advance

Personally, I'd go with an AMD card.

The reason why many people get nVidia is because of the extra compression performance boost that the integrated Intel HD iGPU provides to the Optimus. However, the 1645 doesn't have an iGPU (I really miss my 1645), so you would not benefit from Optimus at all. As well, since you already have an AMD 4670/5730, you'll have compatible drivers: if you install the desktop drivers, you can use them on the mobile dGPU. That means that if you need to unplug the eGPU for travel, you won't have to deal with conflicting AMD and Nvidia drivers on the same machine.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Gen2 support of PE4L 1.5 or PE4H 2.4 via PCIEMM-060B

Hmm.. BPlus are advertising this combo as being Gen2 capable but haven't tested it as yet!! Here's what Masaharu from BPlus wrote me today:

Dear Mr. Nando,

Ok, we will send a set you need.

As we also did not test PE4H + PCIEMM060B combination,

we will try it before shipping.

Best Regards,

I'd dearly like it to work but am somewhat doubtful. Why? I tested short 30/45cm flat cables (PCIEM-060A) with various prototype devices and without a TX/RX Redriver chip with just one mHDMI connector end. They all failed to pass Gen2 signals. I concluded the mHDMI connector caused signal errors when running at 5Ghz (Gen2). The prototype devices tested all worked fine at 2.5Ghz (Gen1).

[Arise]

What is a TX/RX Redriver chip?

Are you saying that BPlus is making a false claim regarding their new "B" cable?

I mean they first had a round cable then later they switched to a flat cable and now they are back at square one. But I thought this "B" cable is actually something new, able to make better connections than the first round version and the flat one.

Later edit:

--------------------------

I know it was already mentioned somewhere in this thread about Lenovo Y500 ultrabay.

Just want to remind everyone that (according to some user reports) it seems the Lenovo Ultrabay is using a 2.0 x8 link for its GPUs.

AIDA64 2.85.2400

GPU1: Bus Type PCI Express 2.0 x16 @ 2.0 x8

GPU2: Bus Type PCI Express 2.0 x16 @ 2.0 x8

So what exactly is required to match the Ultrabay connector inside the laptop with a standard PCI Express slot?

[rockmanxz9]

i have 1 question, can my vaio work with eGPU??

this is my system information:

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1

System Model: SVE1511MFXS

BIOS: InsydeH2O Version 03.71.51R0180E5

Processor: Intel® Core i7-3612QM CPU @ 2.10GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.1GH

Memory: 8192MB RAM

VGA Card: Intel® HD Graphics 4000

and anything else you need to know is here

DxDiag: DxDiag.txt

Cpu-z: RYOU-VAIO.txt

Thanks

[jacobsson]

What is a TX/RX Redriver chip?

Are you saying that BPlus is making a false claim regarding their new "B" cable?

I mean they first had a round cable then later they switched to a flat cable and now they are back at square one. But I thought this "B" cable is actually something new, able to make better connections than the first round version and the flat one.

According to earlier tests a detachable cable has always failed GEN2 due to the mini HMDI connector (I'm no expert in electronics so I can't give you any details)

and that is why we are very sceptic regarding this new cable.

I have made an order of this new setup to verify this claim so just wait a week or two until my stuff arrives to be sure!