Merlin

Just a note. Recent software performance improvements have made VR on a TB1 Mac (under win 10 with eGpu) much more viable. Nearly everything runs fine--for example The Lab has no problems--but I still have issues with Cloudlands VR mini golf (known to be a bit taxing on the computer) but the speed improvements are obvious. Hoping to try a 1080 or 1070 in the Akitio box to see if new hardware architecture translates to improvements.

I currently run 100% stable Akitio T2 with 970 on Thunderbolt 1 with 2011 17" but want a little more performance for VR. (Runs a bunch of things fine, but stutters in other programs like Cloudlands VR minigolf). Any performance gain with Rocketstor vs Akitio Thunder 2?

Actually my 17" also got the free logic board replacement in February 2106. Mine is the i7-2675QM (I think) Currently 10GB RAM, 750GB SSHD, ATI 6750M dGPU. Did you just upgrade RAM and SSD? Also, I didn't do anything special to make Windows 10 work with eGPU. I just installed it normally (actually an upgrade from Win7). It's even running in Bios mode (not UEFI) and it still works. I discovered I don't need to do a very difficult timing method for it to boot. Just plug in, or power on, the eGPU somewhere in the middle of the boot chime, and keep holding option to select Windows and go. Unigine valley benchmark is somewhere around 3,300 with the GTX 970. Playing Shadow of Mordor is fast and flawless. No discernible lag at all, and so far I've had zero stability issues. The Nvidia driver includes a toggle to disconnect the eGPU after use and still leave Windows running on my internal 6750m. I'm really stunned by the graphics performance from the eGPU under Win10. This makes gaming with eGPU under Win10 indistinguishable from my gaming PC, and that has surprised me the most. The latest drivers Nvidia wrote are very good, at least for this card. OS X works fine as well. Not as much speed throughput because I think internal graphics drivers gets in the way. Seems like not as good driver support there to essentially bypass internal and send everything to eGPU. But 970 is still MUCH faster than dGPU and it's been rock solid stable for me.

Not sure if anyone is still running 2011 Macbook Pro 17", but recently this got pretty exciting for me. I boot Windows 10 with both GTX 970 and internal Radeon 6750M working. Amazing scores on 970 on external monitor. I'm dual booting. Running Windows 10 in bios (legacy) boot mode with regular bootcamp upgrade from Windows 7. Akitio Thunder 2 PCI-e (powered from PSU using barrel adapter) Rosewill gold PSU EVGA GTX 970 FTW+ plugged directly into Akitio (no riser), and latest Nvidia Driver (364.51 win10 64bit). Macbook Pro has all bootcamp drivers installed and working (internal Radeon 6750M fully working, sound, etc). Booted into Windows 10 with eGPU fully working. Ran several Steam VR tests and score either very top of "Capable" (yellow bar), or into low end of "Ready" (green bar). Only drawback is I have to boot using the timing method. Have Thunderbolt cable plugged in, but PSU powered off. Boot holding option to the boot selection screen. Hit enter on Windows, wait 3 seconds, and power on PSU. Works reliably for me. Sometimes I miss the timing, but just try again. It's like a 3 1/2 second wait for me before hitting power switch. Then I'll see windows boot cursor and know I got it. First install: Boot with eGpu plugged in. Download Nvidia drivers. It should detect card and install. If not, try again. First boot after installing drivers: Device manager showed 970 installed and active, but no image on external screen. Used Win+P to extend desktop and to my surprise external screen came alive and is absolutely kicking *** running benchmarks.