M-Low

If anyone is wondering - @entzoe was a very reliable buyer; honest and easily reachable. Our transactions went very smoothly and I would definitely recommend purchasing from him as opposed to the external sites for two reasons: 1) save on shipping costs, 2) item itself it marked down. Therefore, you'll be able use the EXP GDC for much less than purchasing from China (or wherever they actually come from). @angerthosenear - will M.2 provide much performance gain over Thunderbolt 2.0 implementations? From my understanding, the port is a x4 PCIe with a 6 Gbit/s bandwidth - but I'm not sure about the bandwidth as that might only be referring to the SATA... I'm guessing that one could use the M.2 to plug directly into the motherboard, which would be pretty sweet. (I don't know enough about this tech) What does the M.2 really mean for eGPUs though???

I can't say for the Dell PSU as I've never used one. For the XBox 360 PSUs (i.e. there are 3 different ones of varying wattage) some soldering is required. The XBox360 Jasper unit has some 150w, which was more than enough to power my GTX 670 o/c and the TH05. The 150w xbox 360 PSU needs to be cut to expose the wires underneath. The wires are as follows: - 3x yellow wires (12v) - 3x black wires (grounds) - 1x red wire (5v) - 1x blue wire (return/checker) I connected one yellow each to the six-pin GPU connectors by wiring those together directly. I then powered the TH05 with the other yellow wire. I then hooked up the blue and red wires to a switch because the blue and red wires are essentially a power safety mechanism that checks whether there's a closed circuit and allows the PSU to come out of sleep-mode, if so. I'm planning on using the 203w xbox 360 PSU for the newer Akitio Thunder2 unit, not that it actually requires more power (i.e. it may, but not an additional 53w - more like 10w). The wires are the same expect there is an extra yellow and black/ground. I'll be wiring the GPU directly as mentioned above, then the GPU riser molex in order to power the x16 interface with another yellow wire. I will then power the actual Thunder2 daughter-board directly by splicing another yellow wire. It's best to splice the wires by twisting them together, then using a little bit of solder to create a solid bond. I then like to melt some plastic cover over top of the solder reduce chances of fire/wire-crossing. *** caveat: I'm not an electrical engineer. I just tried this and it's worked for the last two years without any issues, so... *** Best picture I've found so far... And I've never seen this 200W Pico PSU before. It looks pretty awesome actually. If you can get 200w out of it, you'll just need to wire it up properly and Bob's your uncle! Honestly though, that's a pretty cool find. I might consider trying that one instead.

@sm0kes The above is quite possible. @Call was able to power the thunder2 boards with only the x16 riser molex connector. He states, >> here.A clean solution is easily workable. See what I did with my TH05 >> here. (I will be selling that setup, including the TH05, power brick, and case assembly once my x16 riser arrives as I'm working on a new solution. Anyone with an older MacBook with Thunderbolt 1.0 could use this to it's full potential — much much better than non-Thunderbolt implementations)

@arclord - do you know if the 2.5mm DC jack needs to be plugged in or can we simply power those boards directly into those yellow/black molex plugs??? I have my Akitio in front of me while I am trying to plan my soldering... I'm using an 203w xbox 360 psu, as opposed to my old 150w jasper unit because I need to power the PCI-e riser. I get four yellow 12v wires, 4 grounds, one red and one blue for power safety switch. I'm planning on using two 12v to power the GPU 6 pins, one for the PCI-e riser and one for the boards. What do you think???

Been seeing a couple people unhappy with the postage cost, shipping from China. I'll post this again. Photo 1 Photo 2 Price is the cost that I purchased for USD$48 + tax/shipping, which was purchased at aliexpress. Item condition: Not used. Send private message if interested. I will update this post when gone. (still available at this point)

If anyone is interested. I'm selling my EXP GDC v6.0. So, if you don't want to import from China or save on shipping, the item is located in Toronto. Photo 1 Photo 2 Price is the cost that I purchased for USD$48 + tax/shipping, which was purchased at aliexpress. Item condition: Not used. Send private message if interested. I will update this post when gone. (still available at this point)

Will this one work??? PCI-e 4X TO 16X Riser Card Extender Ribbon Cable with w/ Molex Connector

I'm trying to reconcile my benchmarks with @Tech Inferno Fan's Implementations: Thunderbolt, expresscard and mPCIe eGPUs post, but I'm having little luck. I've run Unigine Heaven on Extreme settings at 1920x1080 and achieved a score of 750. What does this mean? By cross-referencing the above benchmark post, I'd be in the bottom third performance-wise, which is kind of weird given that I'm running a 15" Haswell MBP retina and using the Thunderbolt TH05 with a GTX 670 OC. I've also downloaded 3DMark and ran Fire Strike (score: 5,405), Cloud Gate (score:17,627, and Ice Storm (score:115,705). I'm not sure what these scores mean, but I think that's DX 11, 10, & 9, respectively. But those scores don't match up with anything on the leaderboard. I'm looking for some insight as to what these numbers mean. I frequently get unrecoverable black screens when playing specific MMO's (TESO & TSW), but none for others (EVE and SC2). So, I'm trying to diagnose what's going on and if these benchmarks have anything to say about it. (Note: setup is in my signature, but benchmarks were run using an Antec 80 bronze 450W PSU instead of my modded xbox psu)

I haven't seen anyone try this product yet, but am anxious to see the results. Source:ThunderTek/PX: PCIe Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis for Macintosh I'm not sure if the wiring is inhibiting FirmTek's video card support or it's simply stated to deter people from using it as an eGPU solution due to a possible/probable Intel/Apple threat. However, it does appear that you'll have to heavily modify the case to fit a full-length video card in there with an appropriate power source. I'd like to see someone do something creative with these "mini" GPUs (e.g. GTX 760 mini), which might work with a FirmTek solution... (still needs to be powered properly though)

ExtremeTech published a nice article on Thunderbolt and it's eGPU implications on April 22nd. Basically, there are plans for a Thunderbolt 3.0 with 40Gbps of bandwidth to support a PCIe 3.0 x4 setup. Thunderbolt 2.0, while large enough for mid- to high-end GPU cards, don't have the bandwidth capable to support 4K or other high-end monitors as it relied upon a single PCIe 2.0 x4 connection. This is good & bad news: Good - eGPU bottlenecks will be almost completely negligable under Thunderbolt 3.0 @ 40Gbps supporting the (standard) PCIe 3.0 x4 setup. IMO, It also seems as if Intel might actually support this initiative. Bad - We might not see Intel support for eGPUs until Thunderbolt 3.0 arrives, which could be a long ways off. Reason being, Intel might be hesitant to support earlier versions of an eGPU solution that has inherent bottlenecks or doesn't operate the way the GPU card was meant. This means that we'll have to rely upon make-shift solutions or pay absurdly high prices for a complete T-2.0 setup from companies like Magma or Sonnet in the meantime. Source: Next-gen Thunderbolt details: 40Gbps, PCIe 3.0, HDMI 2.0, and 100W power delivery for single-cable PCs

New idea that I'm cooking up here, but I'm going to need some community help... I only need a PCIe backplane that accepts a x4 input signal and transmits to a x16 or x8 PCIe Gen2 or Gen 3 slot. Something really similar to this backplane from Trenton systems. The aforementioned Trenton backplane is a "legacy" backplane, which I'm assuming has lower bus speeds and utilizes Gen1 PCIe. There's a lot of really inexpensive server backplanes from HP, etc. which makes this very interesting. I've been googling this entire week, trying to find a backplane with these characteristics: - input is female x4 Gen2/3 PCIe slot (not PCI-x) - output is x8 &/or x16 (can fit x16 card) Gen 2/3 PCIe - powered by ATX or whatever (doesn't really matter the power source as long as it doesn't use up one of the pcie 6pin+2 plugs) - hopefully small form factor but willing but I'm not too fussy - inexpensive!!! I found the perfect backplane at OSS, but it costs +$165 not to mention tax and shipping, etc. (ridiculous price for a backplane) If any has one of these lying around or has connections, please let me know! This could be a real coup for the eGPU vision/project.

There's a mPCIe port or access in the newer MacBook Pros???

Sooo - I just ordered the EXP GDC as well. Just to test it out. I also have a GTX 670... haha I'm wondering whether you can use a Thunderbolt to hdmi cable as opposed to the expresscard to hdmi and how that'll work... What do you think??? PS: I guess I should have asked before ordering, but if it doesn't work, I'll try to offload the EXP GDC to someone.

Good question. I tried upgrading a week ago but Win8.1 didn't recognize my GPU for some strange reason. I couldn't get it to work so I reverted back to Win8.0. I wonder if this is worth pursuing further...

@stalker8 - it'll be hard to find an opinion on whether to buy this or that on this forum as the moderators and top contributors provide scaling analysis in the sticky threads. That being said, I don't know of anyone that has tired or provided benchmark analysis of the EXP GDC solution. However, their product looks newer and many are eagerly awaiting feedback before buying. It's pretty inexpensive - why not try the EXP GDC and help the forum out with feedback?

Thank you @Shelltoe - always a big help. I was able to run ESO for about two hours yesterday by underclocking to the reference card (915MHz). It did, however, black screen at the end of that period. The strange thing about this is that the GPU itself seemed fine this time, but the laptop was unresponsive. The way I know this is the laptop's keyboard lights went blank, even though my USB desktop keyboard was fine (lit up). My desktop keyboard and mouse plugs into my monitor. I started to think that this has something to do with the laptop somehow, which is strange given it's a brand new MacBook Pro. But the laptop doesn't ever crash in other applications... so, I'm guessing that this has something to do with how the laptop communicates with the TH05 or the TH05 itself. But I'm just guessing... Has anyone had a similar experience? Black screens?

Sorry for not being clear forevertrj - I'm guessing you're new to the forum... there's a lot of weird, "non-normal" stuff here that you won't see in a typical overclocking forum. This PSU powers only the GPU and the TH05 board. 450w is overkill for this setup which would likely only need 170w for the GPU itself (GTX670 specs link) and another 10-20w for the board. I'm using the this Antec instead of my modified xbox 360 japser psu as I'm guessing it's more stable. You might be asking about how I'm powering the cpu, ram, harddrivers, etc.? Those are housed inside a brand new MacBook Pro - which are adequately powered given the entire GPU load is off-loaded to the aforementioned setup. The MBP communicates with the external (desktop) GPU setup via a thunderbolt port. Question regarding crashes still stands. Anyone have any insight??? Anyone experiencing ESO crashes???

Hey all I was wondering if anyone else is having issues with their eGPU setup (TH05) crashing mid-game. I only use my eGPU setup for EvE Online (which has no problems whatsoever) and the new Elder Scrolls Online (which crashes within 5 min of gameplay). The screen just goes immediately black, without warning. Sometimes there's a little stuttering noise generated through the gpu's soundcard, but that's it. The black screen crash is unrecoverable. The big question is: I'm wondering whether this is something to do with my particular gpu (MSI GTX670 OC) or possibly the setup bottleneck creating crashes... I'm using a MBP with Thunderbolt 2.0, the TH05, and external monitor. I've changed the PSU to a proper Antec 450w (platinum) - so i know that's not the issue. Is anyone else having issues with ESO??? Black screen crashes???

Yes - to be clear. When I start up Win8 without the eGPU attached, the Iris Pro 5200 boots up (with no problems) and provides sound. When I boot into Win8 with eGPU on, then I only have the single GTX 670. Now my setup is actually portable...

by the way... I downloaded the new bootcamp software from Apple Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.564 and it fixed all problems. No joke - my Intel® Irish Pro Graphics 5200 are working correctly and I have sound natively all in Windows 8 EFI. My eGPU works great as well...

I just noticed that Apple snuck out a new Boot Camp support software (v 5.1.5621) on 11-Feb-2014. Wondering if the new support software addressed the many compatibility issues we've seen so far with the eGPU Win8 EFI implementation? graphic card issues in Win8 audio card issues in Win8 Thank you! (Also - if anyone has a suggestion on free gpu benchmarking software, please let me know, and I'll post the results on my rig)

Thought of that - does not work. This is an issue. Apparently the new bootcamp drivers are not compatible with the new network adapter in the new MBP. I was on the phone with Apple tech people for four hours on Saturday going through this multiple times in many different ways. Thanks for your effort - but this is an issue. Short-term solution is to use a USB wifi card. This totally sucks because it uses up one of the limited two usb slots.

I can confirm that setup with the new MBP 15" with dGPU is a breeze. It took me almost no time to get everything installed and windows up EXCEPT there is no driver available for the Broadcom Network Adapter card inside right now... as far as I can tell Bootcamp does not provide the right driver. This has been a real pain. If anyone has the Windows driver for the Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (6.30.223.154.47) please let me know. It's the supposedly new 802.11 ac super fast one that's much faster than "n"... I have no internet on my new machine and can't download any benchmark tests for you guys with no wifi...

Hi all - just got the new MBP 15" with Thunderbolt v2 controller, but I can't connect to my network adapter... Consequently, I have no network connection when in Windows. I'd really like to run some benchmarking for y'all to see how this setup goes. Anyone know where I can get the proper drivers for these new MBP's??? I really don't want to download 0.5GB of Bootcamp and risk installing it, only to find out that installing bootcamp stuff messes up everything. Anyone have any thoughts. I'd really appreciate your help. Thanks.

omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg... New MacBook Pros Get Battery Boost With Haswell | Gadget Lab | Wired.com I will be ordering one today specifically to benchmark my TH05 eGPU setup and I'm looking for advice... Choice A 13" Retina Intel Iris Graphics With these upgrades... 2.8GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz ($200 cheaper with i5) 16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM ($200 cheaper with 8GB) Choice B 15" Retina Intel Iris Graphics Pro With comparable upgrades 18 GB ram Bigger 500GB SSD Choice C 15" Retina Intel Iris Graphics Pro Nvidia Geforce GT 750M They all come to basically the same price with upgrades included, but the 13" slightly cheaper and Choice C (dGPU) being slightly more expensive... Is the dGPU in Choice C worth it? Anyone heard anything about these new Iris graphics? Pro vs non-Pro? Will this interfere with eGPU through thunderbolt or possibly support? Thoughts?