troshlyak

Does somebody know what is the type of the connector that is used by the Dell DA-2 PSU? I bought a regular 8 Pin Male To Female PCIE GPU extension cable, but it is not a match. I need the extension because the DA-2 cable is too stiff and it does not bend enough and cannot be fitted in the place where I'm trying to insert the whole eGPU setup.

I've just received my EXP GDC Beast card and I can confirm that the package includes everything pictured by @Tech Inferno Fan above: 1. EXP GDC Beast 2. Power cable for regular ATX power supply 3. Y-shaped power cable - 6pins on one side - 6pin/8pin on the other (the black/yellow cable) 4. HDMI->ExpressCard cable The package was ordered through aliexpress and arrived for exactly one month (from China to Eastern Europe).

The setup that I'm using is this: 1. Thinkpad X220 - 2x4GB memory, Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2540M CPU @ 2.60GHz 2. EXP GDC Beast 3. Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 760 Windforce (2GB model) 4. Dell DA-2 PSU

Now, the fun part - on top of all that HW runs OS X Yosemite 10.10.1. This is the thing that worried me the most as I was not able to find similar setup that would confirm that this could work out. But after receiving the package my worries quickly fade away :-). In fact, now that I've put it together, I've come to realize that this setup actually made things much easier as I'm already using bootloader that modifies the laptop DSDT (for the OS X to work on top of it). In the end these were the steps that enabled me to use the GPU (pretty trivial, but I've write them down as the setup is not common):

1. Assemble the EXP GDC + GPU (both jumpers stay at default OFF state) 2. Connect the Y-shaped cable on the 6pin side to the EXP GDC and both other ends to both 6pin power inputs of the GPU 3. Connect the Dell DA-2 to the 8pin input on EXP GDC and to power source (at this point the PSU led should turn orange for "standby") 4. Power on the laptop and modify the bootloader configuration - in my case I've only needed to enable "Nvidia inject" in the graphics section of Clover configuration as I'm using it as boot loader 5. Power off the laptop 6. Connect the HDMI->ExpressCard cable at both ends 7. Power on the laptop (at this point the DA-2 led should turn green and the GPU fans should spin up automatically) 8. Connect external display to GPU 9. Enjoy!

According the OS X "System report" this is the relevant information that I see:

[FONT=Helvetica Neue]Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica Neue] Type: GPU[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica Neue] Bus: PCIe[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica Neue] Slot: PCI Slot 0[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica Neue] PCIe Lane Width: x1[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica Neue] VRAM (Total): 2048 MB[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica Neue] Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica Neue] Device ID: 0x1187[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica Neue] Revision ID: 0x00a2[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica Neue] ROM Revision: preset 1.0.0[/FONT]

For the 1day that I'm using it I can confirm that there are no power related issues - reboots or glitches - DELL DA-2 seems to be powerful enough for this card. Also I can confirm that the DA-2 makes cracking noise when the GPU is under load - I don't know where it comes from, but it exists and is loud enough to hear it. Performance wise I've run some quick tests and these are the results (rendered on the external display):

Render:	OpenGL
Mode:	1680x1050 8xAA fullscreen
Preset	Custom
Quality	Ultra
Tessellation:	Extreme
Unigine Valley	1532
Unigine Heaven	697

Although I'm pretty impressed that this setup actually worked, I'm willing to further push it and thus I would like to ask a couple of questions about the software configuration as the information that I found for the OS X/eGPU setups is scattered (event the MacBook Experience thread is mostly for Windows on top of Macs): 1. How can I enable (is it possible at all?) rendering of the internal display through the eGPU? 2. Do I need to install additional CUDA/nVidia drivers - although it is working all the guides that I've read about OS X include installation of both packages 3. Is it possible to disable internal display when using the external display through eGPU 4. Is it possible for the "PCIe Lane Width" to be increased from x1?

I know that some of these questions are slightly off topic, so please disregard them if they are not relevant to this thread.

@troshlyak

The DA-2 is enough for a GTX 670 so you don't need to worry.

Sent from my iPhone

I was asking for the GTX760, but as both cards are with 2x6pin cables and are listed on the Nvidia site with the same TDP - 170W, I assume this answers my question

Has someone tried to power GTX760 with the Dell DA-2? I've ordered the EXP GDC Beast (still waiting to arrive) and Gigabyte GTX760 and I'm wondering - should I buy the passive dell adapter which is 220W or go with a more powerful regular ATX power supply?

Hi, @SRJ - can you confirm that the card (GTX760) is working for you with the DA-2 adapter - is the 220W enough to drive the GPU? I'm still waiting for my parts to arrive (EXP GDC Beast + Dell DA-2 PSU + Gigabyte GTX760) to test them, but I wanted to know if should be looking out for problems related with the PSU not providing enough power. Thanks

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@JakoobCZ - were you able to solve the problem and is this the ARES or BEAST version? I've just ordered the EXP GDC Beast for my x220 (i5-2540) and just found your post. I've started to wonder if I should cancel the order and go for the PE4C v2.1.

Thanks