jcagara08

Hi all! PE4C V2 is not available as of the moment and will be relaunched on Q4 2014, I think I have to go with this setup. Just a question, since it comes with a 220 watt power supply, can I use an R9 270X which peaks usage at 280 Watts but on paper it has a TDP of 180W, what will happen to GPU performance if bootlenecked by power source? Will it turn off to compensate or cause blue screens on Windows 8.1? I don't want to risk any hardware since I am in tight budget these days and sorry to sound so dumb on these power consumption, TDPs, and whatnot but I really wanted to run at least this GPUs 280X or 270X and will go to my future desktop rig if the EXP GDC V6.0 could not handle such. I don't want to use an NVIDIA GPU by the way.

Wow such priceless setup and effort buddy!

Perhaps a video would make this project more desirable of the people who does not know yet such setup can and could exist!

Just a dream to me...

Yes, PE4C 2.0 was pulled from sale. Was told there was a bug in the hardware design that triggered ait. A

new PE4C V2.1 will be released fixing those problems. I do not have a firm date when that will be. If you need something sooner rather than later then consider a EXP GDC V6. http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/6643-exp-gdc-v6-discussion.html#post88642 . Just note the warnings about quality of the product.

AFAIK both the PE4C V2.x and EXP GDC V6 have a Dell DA-2 220W AC adapter option. That's good enough for a GTX680 or R9 270X. R9 280X requires 250W. A NVidia card is recommended for it's superiour performance over an AMD equivalent where the candidate system has an active Intel HD iGPU and a x1 1.0 or x1 2.0 PCIe link.

Hey thanks Tech Inferno Fan! I will probably wait for the PE4C V2.1, they responded (bplus tech sales) and told me they are planning to release on Q4 2014, so I guess we can still give suggestions for redesigns for the upcoming version to bring improvements and more feasibility too cause they are listening to us! I will probably start to build a small form factor PC as of this moment then. I hope us all to have more options in the future especially that thunderbolt 2 platform being held back by intel..

US$90 PE4C V2.0 with a 220W Dell AC Adapter has been released

Shipping is US$23, so US$113 total. Can purchase the expresscard or mPCIe version and add the additional mPCIe, expresscard or PCIe adapter+cable for another US$20. A much better package than any previous PE4L/PE4H. Highlights being:

- looks like supports x1 or x2 links "Support dual channel signal transfer"

- Gen2 compliant

- supports user-settable Reset Delay switch via jumpers "Support two sets external pin to setup delay time. Support two delay switch to avoid registration problems when boot."

- appears to support CLKRUN delay "Support Suspend Clock"

- has ATX plug on board -> does this mean can draw slot power from second rail on multi-rail PSUs?

Documentation still sketchy on detail with unresolved links. Looks like may have been a rushed release.

Check it out --> PE4C V2.0 (PCIe x16 Adapter) <--

Hey mate, I sent an e-mail to the sales team asking them about the availability of this product PE4C PM100C V2.0 and I did not get a respond yet, hopefully by tommorow on a Monday.

Is it really out of stock or pulled out of sale? I read you made a post somewhere that they are having an upcoming revision release, can you comment on this?

and the supplied AC adapter is only 180 watts not 220W or 240W? I would like to use at least an R9 280X or the least 270X without using a separate PSU.

Otherwise, I will just build myself a SFF gaming PC (silverstonetek ML07 or raven RVZ01+600W SFF PSU+R9 290X+AMD APU) if these things will be further delayed.

I finally understood the whole picture of this amazing adventure you started and even signed on that petition for Intel to let ASUS sell XG 2 station to consumers.

Can't wait to get my hands on the necessary hardware and that setup 1.30 software of yours, my $25 bucks is ready though.

Hey don't mean to hi jack the thread but I have the same brand of laptop, different model though from the cheapy G series, I would like to know too how to overclock this thing..

PM sent to Khenglish

Wow that is one comprehensive review on that PE4C setup I am looking to build as only now I quite understood all that is required to start off with this experiment!

Thanks buddy!

The way I see it I will be doing the same ways that you have demoed and setup.

Thank God the PE4C V2.0 is such a beauty to miss, I will get all things gathered hopefully in the coming months.

Can you do us a favor? Do you mind posting images of your setup mate?

Regards,

Jes

Hallo for all TI forum member

I'm a noob here. I already read almost a whole discussion here. But just to make sure, I want to ask directly from you

I have a sony vaio VPCZ1 series. The spesification :

Intel i7 640M processor dual core with hyper threading

Intel HM57 Chipset

Nvidia GT330m dGpu

Intel HD iGpu

Switchable GPU and static GPU from bios hack ( Nvidia off or Intel HD off )

Expresscard available

1920x1080 full HD LCD

And I just planning to make my egpu with Asus GTX 660 + pe4h v2.4 + EC2C. May be have you some opinion about my egpu. Will it working, and how about performance I can get with my system..?

eventhough the GTX 660 used pcie 3.0, I think it will be still some benefit use a pcie 3.0 Gpu on pcie 1.1 motherboard,

And because sometime I need to bring my laptop to university, is that possible, to activate the dGpu again without any problem..? I mean I want use GTX 660 and intel HD with optimus driver installed, but in same time I want instal the standard Nvidia driver for my GT 330M

Thanks for your help

and have a great day

Yes I think it will wok just go with setup 1.1 and use DDU uninstaller and you're good to go!

Good luck buddy!

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Your mSATA slot can't be used to host an eGPU since the required pci-e pins (23,25,31,33) are SATA there. Consider using your wifi slot instead. There are both USB and WWAN (usb) wifi dongles/cards available to still allow concurrent wifi + mPCIe eGPU in your system.

A PE4L-2.1B is a x1 open-ended slot. It can accomodate a x16 card and is suggested as a lower cost alternative to PE4H 3.2. Yes, these passive adapters are overly expensive for what they are. Unfortunately the niche market hasn't had bigger players bring us lower cost products.

Sir Tech Inferno Fan thank you very much for your reply ol eGPU GURU!

But I did not undestand your first statement because its quite contradictory you mean I could not do an eGPU setup? But I have asked from the lenovo supprt site regarding utilization of the mPCIE port (only one by the way) currently occupied by my wlan card to be replaced with a half height mini pcie SSD for OS booting purposes and one rep told me yes I SSD can be utilized as pictured, its not supported?

So if you meant that I can do this setup, you recommend me to use the PE4L-2.1B?

Yes these DIY setups can really cost an arm and a leg for me, I am still thinking of building a mini ITX gaming PC at the moment but needed to make sure If I can do all these rocket science tinkering stuff that you guys are doing LOL

First log:

BF4 on map Siege of Shanghai. FullHD + medium settings. eGPU setup:

HP 2570p

i5-3210m

MSI Radeon R9 270

Starting at 7th minute, I played with Mantle. First 7 minutes is gameplay without Mantle. As we can see, Mantle gave me... nothing. Framerate is not very good, many drops below 40 FPS. The CPU Usage is very high and it bottlenecks the GPU. Mantle should help the CPU Usage, but it does not. I'll check out the Star Swarm benchmark to see, if Mantle even works on eGPU. For now, Mantle gives me nothing.

Im glad that software helped you out, but did you make sure you really uninstalled all the graphics driver in safe mode and rebooted?

Which AMD drivers did you use? Here is the latest one; 14.3 beta V1.0

AMD Catalyst 14.2 Beta Driver for Windows

Man can you post videos or captured videos of your setup and gameplay if you won't mind?

Good luck mate!

Still contemplating of starting this project or to proceed building a mini ITX gaming PC

That solved the issue! I'll post the logs soon.

Whoah nice please post logs dude ASAP and how BF4 plays now!

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Anyone can help a brother out?

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I have HD400 iGPU and no dGPU. Maybe it's the driver conflict, because usually I'm using GTX660. I didn't uninstall Nvidia drivers. But Geforce GPU works fine with AMD Catalyst installed.

Did you use the DDU uninstaller to properly uninstall graphics driver AMD or Nvidia?

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I wanted to benchmark Battlefield 4. Unfortunately, FPS stayed at about 20-30 FPS. GPU Usage seems strange, it's 30-50% all the time, while CPU Usage gets 100% constantly. Moreover, the GPU Render Test in GPU-Z shows barely 20 FPS. I tried 4 different drivers, turning ulps off, different PSU... Nothing helped. Do you know, what could be an issue here?

I read that somewhere here maybe windows will auto detect and use the intel hd drivers or maybe it was not totally disabled? Do you have intel hd + nvidia graphics on your laptop?

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Hi All,

Hey hi, I am a newbie here, I was a member of that notebook review forums too and was surprised why everything is here when it was in NBR site back then (eGPU experiences).

After nearly 3 years of reading and lurking in this topic in awe and wanting to have this project I realized nowadays I can afford to start a PC build but last January bought myself a;

Lenovo G500 i5 3230M+AMD radeon 8750M 1GB+intel hd 4000 1GB, windows 8.1

Before I want to get started with a mini ATX gaming PC build, I want to try this eGPU experience so here goes;

So I was reading a little bit of the information and now I am confused as to what setup should I follow, is it the 1.0 or 2.0? my PCIE version is the 3.0 by the way.

Do I need the PE4H or PE4L? I understand that I need to have the end in half height mini PCIE (PM060A)and I want to use an AMD R9 270X, The part where I don't understand is why the adapters are so expensive that it is easy to mass produce these PCB custom adapters.

I confirmed from a lenovo support site that my half mini pcie slot can take an SSD so theoretically it can take an eGPU also am I right?

from that site;

Re: G500 half mini PCIE ssd??

Options

‎01-03-2014 07:54 AM

hi jcagara08,

Welcome to Lenovo Community Forums!

I believe this will work as the miniPCIE in your system supports Data signaling for both WLAN and SSD.

It should be detected right away once rebooted.

Replacing HDD with SSD.

If your Operating System is Above Windows 8, you wont have an option to create Recovery CD using the One key Recovery,

I may suggest using Paragon Backup & Recovery 12 Home (free trial) and use the Migrate option (see this thread).

Regards

Solid Cruver

and here's my mPCIE slot;

Also I want to use this to prevent spaghetti wire setup, can I change the end of this to PM060A or does this enclosure take only VGA cards and not PCIE 16x GPUs?

[h=1]PE4H V3.2 (PCIe x16 Adapter)[/h]

guidance and wisdom ol sires ot techinferno!

Regards,

Jes

Finally I've got my hands on MSI R9 270 GPU. My 3dmark11 score:

i5-3210m + R9 270. GPU score is significantly higher than the GPU score of GTX660: 6785p vs 6019p. Does it perform that well in games?

No I've tested Crysis 3, ACIV, Batman Arkham Origins.

Some HWINFO logs:

a) Crysis 3.

Played on low settings in FullHD resolution. The performance is way worse than on GTX660. The FPS peaks in vents etc. are higher on R9 270, but overall, 660 beats R9 270. The third mission is barely playable on R9 270 with low settings. With GTX660, I could play the mission on mixed medium to very high settings, getting higher FPS (about 35 average). I don't have a log for the mission 2 "Welcome to the jungle" with the "grass problem", but the FPS was about 10-15% lower on the grass, reaching 15 FPS minimum. Both cards can't achieve playable framerate on this grass level.

Batman Arkham Origins

Played on almost full settings, without motion blur. The game is fully playable on both cards. The benchmark contains both mission in a closed space and some city free running.

For now, I am disappointed with the R9 270 eGPU performance. I hoped, that the GCN architecture could give me some magic like Nvidia Optimus does. I'm going to test BF4 with and without Mantle, to see if that helps. In theory, CPU Usage should be lower with Mantle and the communication between the CPU and GPU, which is a serious drawback of eGPU due to PCIe bandwidth, should be faster.

Awesome post now I can start to build by way on how you did it. Was looking forward to have an r9 270x build mini tax PC but I wanted to try this eGPU setup first. Excited to see some of your BF4 footage man I am crazy bout it always playing TDM btw

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All,

Hey hi, I am a newbie here but was a member of that notebook review forums too and was surprised why everything is here when it was in NBR back then well anyway dummy me read the OP of this thread and nowadays I can afford to start a PC build but last January bought myself a lenovo g500

i5 3230M+AMD radeon 8750M 1GB+intel hd 4000 1gb

Before I want to get started with a mini ATX gaming PC build I want to try this eGPU experience so here goes;

So I was reading a little bit of the information and now I am confused as to what setup should I follow, is it the 1.0 or 2.0?

I confirmed from a lenovo support site that my half mini pcie slot can take an SSD so theoretically it can take an eGPU also am I right?

But do I need to mod or flash modded BIOS to get this thing recognized by my laptop?

guidance and wisdom ol sires ot techinferno!

Regards,

Jes