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OK I misread the NUC description, tbh mini PCI-e is so throttled it will not be worth buying a GTX 980 for. I can't predict whether it'll work properly out of the box either. On paper it should be compatible with an eGPU but you may or may not have to do some tweaking in order to get it to work. I simply can't know. The Dell DA-2 should run the GTX 980 and 760, just don't use a highly overclocked version. You'll need some PCI-e power cables to connect from the adapter to the card.

Yeah, it was working out the box for the most part. I had to reboot the system with card attached, hotplugging would not work for me. I think my laptop (X220) has very little problems with eGPU connections via the ExpressCard slot but other laptops may require Setup 1.30 or fiddling about. Right now you'd want a laptop with a Thunderbolt port to take advantage of the larger PCI-e speeds, ExpressCard coming in second and mPCI-e being the least favourable I think. I see the NUC mini pc comes with a PCI-e expansion slot, so you do not need a EXP GDC, what you probably need is a some kind of extension to the PCI-e slot so that you can attach the GPU outside of the box. Doing this you will probably be able to take full advantage of the PCI-e speeds the GPU can offer (x16 2.0/3.0). The only large problem is the underpowered processor, the i5-4250U which is a low power consumption CPU which will probably bottleneck some CPU-demanding (Crysis and Battlefield series) titles and some other recent games.

MSI 4G Gaming GTX 970, I think the card can achieve 10k+ on Fire Strike on a desktop rig though. I'm running a heavily modded Skyrim at ~25 - 40FPS which includes a demanding ENB and 2K/4K Textures on 1680x1050. It still stutters now and again on the outside but I'm guessing this is inescapable. The weak processor + bandwidth just won't let me run it 100% smoothly. But, then again I'm used to running things on low graphics at 20FPS so this is mind-blowing for me and thank God I have crappy eyes so <60 FPS isn't a big deal. Might eventually incorporate the GTX 970 into a desktop rig to actually use the power it can provide. For now I'm happy running every single game I have smoothly on ultra.

Just using the free basic edition

Works smoothly for me Score 14205 for Sky Diver Score 6330 for Fire Strike

After several delays and having to change multiple etailers my MSI GTX 970 is finally here! First game I ran was EU4 of all things, I'm just excited to finally have a desktop video card after using overheating laptop GPUs. Downloading 3DMark now to benchmark, under no illusion that my i5 and x1.2 link is going to bottleneck the heck out of the card.

Is there a reason why 3dmark06 is preferred over the newer versions? Availability?

Thanks for the help, it seems 8 pin only needs 3x 12V and it'd be happy, here is the link to the cable: 8 Pin To 8 Or 6 Pin PCI E3 Express Cable - Modular Graphics Power Supply | eBay I will be receiving my 970 on Friday after some supplier delays with Scan.co.uk, I'll make sure to post a thread on the main forum. Keep in mind the card will be severely throttled in modern games due to 2nd gen mobile Sandy Bridge (i5-2520M).

Turns out I did a complete brainfart when I ordered my cables. I ordered an 8 to 6+2 pin cable, my GTX 970 takes one 8 pin, will I be able to reverse the cable and use it?

Bought the GTX 970 today in the UK, will arrive on Monday. Hopefully the DA-2 and modular cable I ordered off eBay will arrive before Wednesday as well. £12 for the DA-2 including the kettle cable and I found the modular cable on eBay also for £5. For those in the UK who rather buy from the UK: 8 Pin To 8 Or 6 Pin PCI E3 Express Cable - Modular Graphics Power Supply | eBay Hopefully the GTX 970 will work out the box with my X220.

I always thought NVIDIA cards were preferred for Optimus?

First of all, I'd like to say a big thank you to Tech Inferno Fan and all the contributors to eGPU community for amassing a wealth of information and experiences. Secondly my question is about the Maxwell cards that are coming in Q4 this year. I'm looking to buy a GPU with a budget of £200 and right now and the GTX 760 looks like the most attractive option. I'd prefer to get something stronger than the 750 Ti but I'm not sure whether to splash out money for a better GPU when my CPU is relatively old and I have ExpressCard 2.0 speeds(Thinkpad X220, Sandy Bridge i5-2520m). I don't mind waiting for the new Maxwell cards but would it be of much benefit to do so?

Hey, thanks for sharing your setup. I'm thinking of running the same card on my X220. I'm still not sure about Optimus x1.1/1.2, I was under the impression you could only use optimus compression for Kepler and Fermi GPUs?