ameatball

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for an ideal eGPU setup for a Lenovo W520 (see signature for details of the laptop). The main issue is: I have very large 3D data sets/meshes that are very taxing (stuttering) on my current GPU. Since school/work is paying for the setup, I figure I might as well get the best eGPU setup as possible. I know the GTX 690 and GTX Titan have gotten rave reviews/incredible benchmarks. But will they be overkill for the PCI-E slot bottleneck effects? Will the GTX 780 even be overkill?

Any and all help/instructions for a high-end eGPU setup for my laptop would be immensely appreciated.

Thank you.

They recently stacked the GTX 690 against two 680 cards:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 Review & Rating | PCMag.com

Absolutely nuts. Figured people on this thread might appreciate.

My colleague has this exact same issue with this exact same model - it was fixed when he re-enabled the integrated Intel graphics.

Hello,

First off, thank you SO MUCH for posting this super-helpful step by step guide.

I need a more powerful graphics card on my Thinkpad W520 for 3D modeling with high volume data sets and meshes (current graphics card is choppy with the higher volume data sets). Therefore, I need a powerful eGPU setup.

I know that you used the W530, but do you think taht this exact same set up will work with my W520? Details of my W520 are in the signature. Any help would be immensely appreciated.

Thanks again.

Hi,

You need (or what i used):

- PE4L 2.1b (SW1 = 1, SW2 = 2-3)

- DIY eGPU Setup 1.2 (PM Tech Inferno Fan for pruchase)

- NVidia GPU (GTX 780 in my case)

- PSU with enough power

- ThinkPad W530 (see sig.)

1. Connect your PE4L with the GPU and the PSU etc. (dont plug in the Expresscard)

2. Download the latest NVidia Desktop drivers (320.18 for me), but dont install yet

3. Install the DIY eGPU Setup 1.1b5 + update

(i had to manually copy the files from V:\V_ to the destination folders)

4. Shutdown your Notebook

5. Power on and hit Enter + F1 to get into BIOS

6. Display settings -> change (if not already) it to "NVidia Optimus" + OS detection "enabled"

7. Save and reboot + power on your eGPU but dont plug in the Expresscard

8. Wait until you see the bootmenu with "Windows 7" and "DIY eGPU setup 1.1b5"

9. Plug in the PE4L in your Expresscard 34-Slot

10. Enter the eGPU setup and go to menu-based-setup

11. Change the following settings:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7783[/ATTACH]

- dGPU off

- compaction 32-bitA on eGPU and iGPU

12. Hit Chainload mbr -> Windows 7

13. In Windows Install the NVidia driver you downloaded

14. In V:\config\startup.bat change the last lines to:

call speedup lbcache

call iport dGPU off

call vidwait 60 10de:1004 (your Hardware IDs may differ)

call vidinit -d 10de:1004 (your Hardware IDs may differ)

call

call pci

call grub4dos mbr

and save it.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7784[/ATTACH]

15. Shutdown and detach the PE4L from the Expresscard-Slot

16. Start the Notebook and wait until you see the bootmenu -> plugin the PE4L and start eGPU Setup + startup.bat (hit 1) -> Windows 7

17. Now it should working. Check it in devicemanager (disable NVidia HD audio) + check Optimus in NVidia control panel (PhysX to CPU):

18. If you want, you can change the bootmenu time, order etc. with something like EasyBCD.

Benchmarks:

3dMark 2006: 25860 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,LENOVO 3051RY8 score: 25860 3DMarks

3dMark 2011: 9516 (10175 GPU-Score) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,LENOVO 3051RY8 score: P9516 3DMarks

3dMark Vant.: 30255 (33406 GPU-Score) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,LENOVO 3051RY8 score: P30255 3DMarks

Feel free to ask any questions or correct any mistakes / make things easier etc..

- - - Updated - - -

Also I completely forgot to ask: would a graphics card like the GTX Titan or the GTX 690 be overkill since there is apparently a bottleneck with the PCI-e connection to the laptop?

Thanks again.