nibbles

I read most of this thread but didn't see any mention of this idea: Has anyone seen or talked with manufacturers about an eGPU board in the form of an ATX or micro-ATX motherboard?

This would be targeted to eGPU DIYers who would then be able to build a solution by adding a standard PC chassis, PSU and video card(s).

I think it makes sense because so much is in common physically between a PC and what an eGPU needs, including flexibility for card choice and number, PSU, cooling and housing.

Think of it as a PC motherboard with no CPU, memory, etc, and with just TB on the back. For bonus points vendors could get creative and add SATA and RAID for external storage and the like.

Even some kind of metal plate adapter to transform a "naked" (deboxed) Akitio into a mITX sized board (complete with back I/O shield for a clean look with just the 2 thunderbolt ports) would be enough for me. Wouldn't be difficult to manifacture or particularly pricey.

As for SATA ports, currently one could fit a couple of daisy chained Lacie 9000186 hubs inside the PC case and use eSATA to SATA cables.

Hell one could even fit a whole MacMini inside the same case and have a real "all in one" with

- MacMini 2014 (two TB2 ports)

- naked Akitio board

- eGPU

- lacie eSATA hubs and multiple HDDs

- silent PSU to power the eGPU and HDDs

With a bit of elbow grease, maybe some industrial strength heat resistant velcro, a 3D printed I/O shield, a long enough pcie riser, all of this is very possible even without a proper mITX/mATX/ATX akitio board. But yes everything would be easier with one. Problem is, I think most people want compact solutions, so it would be pricey to produce ad hoc bigger akitio boards for a little niche of users.

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Cumulative graphs are handy but game-specific graphs tell a different story.

Look at games like Ryse, even at 1080p the performance hit is dramatic.

Even with TB2 and the full 4x pcie2.0 lanes (16Gbps), you get 45fps at 1080p. With a gtx980.

There must be some technical reason behind it, but there are definitely some games that benefit from every Mbps of bandwidth you throw at them. So always go with TB2 if possible. And cross your fingers for TB3 (pcie3.0 4x) to become available as soon as possible.