Akitio Thunder2 PCIe BOX eGPU suggestions

[Nico]

Hi,

 

I have a Macbook Pro Retina 13" (Late 2013) with:

- Haswell i5 4258U

- 8 GB DDR3-1600

- Iris 5100 iGPU

- 256 GB SSD

- Thunderbolt 2

 

I built an eGPU using the Akitio Thunder2 PCIe Box, I tested it with an EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC and it was working perfectly. The card was PCIe powered using a 120W PSU (12V, 10A).

All I need is a graphics card powered only by PCI-Express slot. I was thinking about a GTX 950 LP (new models which draw 75W directly from PCIe). In your opinion which one is better?

 

- ASUS GTX950-2G (will it fit in the Akitio?)

- ASUS MINI-GTX950-2G

- MSI GTX 950 OCV2

- EVGA GTX 950 SC

 

Alternatives:

 

- ASUS Strix GTX 750 Ti with 4GB GDDR5, which will allow games like COD BO3 to run high-res textures, but has less CUDA Cores than GTX 950;

- Wait for Nvidia Pascal/AMD Polaris mid-range GPUs

[Dschijn]

It could work, but even with a 750Ti and a 120W PSU some people had stability issues, which I think a caused by the "weak" 120W PSU.

Using a bigger GPU might result in that situation for you as well. Maybe consider stepping up to sth more powerful. (Dell DA-2 220W?)

The ITX cards from ASUS are often very wide. ASUS cards with 6/8-Pin PCIe power plugs will not fit into the AKiTiO closed. Maybe they do fit without the PCIe power plugs.

EVGA should be the safest way: evga-geforce-gtx-950-low-power