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US$300 AKiTiO Node TB3 eGFX box (32Gbps-TB3)


rene_canlas

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14 hours ago, DanKnight said:

 

USB and RJ45 ports are on the table. They may or may not be put on the Node, but may in a future product. (I'm pushing for minimum 1 RJ45 / 1 USB!) Just curious, how many USB ports do you use on average and at most?

Power delivery is a more complicated situation that depends on the laptop's requirements and spec. Depending on laptop, it may or may not work, and that is something we're still in the validating process for.

At least 3. One for Keyboard one for Mouse and one for Headset.

IMHO 4 is the best solution.

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@DanKnight From my experience: Ethernet and one USB 3.1 port should be fine from your side. Additional needed ports can then be added with a hub. I've had a 15" Macbook Pro Retina in use until some days ago. As it only offers 2 USB 3 ports a hub was a must have. I ended up with one powered 4 port USB 3 hub where I attach a USB sound card, my external USB 3 hdd and another passive 4 port USB 2.0 hub where I attached my peripherals to(USB mouse, Xbox 360 controller receiver, Logitech Unifying adapter). The left over ports are used for connecting a smartphone or something else like a wheel or joystick.

That's the ports needed for complete desktop usage for me, as an example. You hardly can or want to put all those ports on an eGPU adapter so a hub is bought anyway I'd say. Given I'd use a Razer Core with it's 4 USB ports, I'd still need a hub.

 

But I agree that you should really go for at least one USB 3 port, already in your first dedicated eGPU product. Ethernet is nice to have but could also be solved by an USB adapter.

 

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People still dont understand how easily the TB3 port starts having over head issues. The moment you start using those extra ports, and want to game at the same time, your performance will tank. Unless you want to unplug and plug in a few wires every time you want to play something.

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8 hours ago, rene_canlas said:

I asked a similar question to InXtron CS (Akitio ODM?) about charging. The reply I got was that their implementation of thunderbolt port on the board could provide up to 15W (5V/3A) of power.  That's too small to charge a laptop.

 

Maybe Dan can confirm?

Yeap, there are 3 TB3 controllers out there, one is a single port version, the second one is a dual port and the 3rd one is the lower power version. 

On desktops AFAIK they are capable of sourcing upto 100W, not sure about the laptop implementations, but the 15W sounds in line with what i have heard as well.

Edited by bloodhawk
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On 28/09/2016 at 3:57 AM, Morv said:

 

Nope? The TB3 connection provides 40 Gbps but the PCIe slot only uses 32 Gbps to follow PCIe specifications. Makes 8 Gbps leftover which can be used for peripheral stuff. Ethernet takes 1 Gbps, makes 7 Gbps left for the USB ports. Unless one is going to use only external SSDs with these ports, it's not going to happen that the bandwidth is used in a way that the GPU performance is crippled.

If you are talking about PCIe 3.0 X16, its bandwidth is 32 GBps instead of 32 Gbps you mentioned. Thunderbolt 3.0 is not as fast as you would expect compared to PCIe 3.0. Its speed is only comparable with PCIe 3.0 X4

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2 hours ago, Fulmar said:

If you are talking about PCIe 3.0 X16, its bandwidth is 32 GBps instead of 32 Gbps you mentioned. Thunderbolt 3.0 is not as fast as you would expect compared to PCIe 3.0. Its speed is only comparable with PCIe 3.0 X4

No, I was talking about PCIe 3.0 x4. Thunderbolt 3 offers 40 Gbps where the biggest fulfillable PCIe specification is the one of PCIe 3.0 x4 with 32 Gbps bandwidth. I don't see why you think I'm talking about PCIe 3.0 x16?

 

I own a Thunderbolt 2 eGPU for nearly 2 years and know about it's speed limitations.

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On 10/3/2016 at 11:21 PM, rene_canlas said:

I asked a similar question to InXtron CS (Akitio ODM?) about charging. The reply I got was that their implementation of thunderbolt port on the board could provide up to 15W (5V/3A) of power.  That's too small to charge a laptop.

 

Maybe Dan can confirm?

 

On 10/4/2016 at 7:33 AM, bloodhawk said:

Yeap, there are 3 TB3 controllers out there, one is a single port version, the second one is a dual port and the 3rd one is the lower power version. 

On desktops AFAIK they are capable of sourcing upto 100W, not sure about the laptop implementations, but the 15W sounds in line with what i have heard as well.

 

@rene_canlas @bloodhawk Yes, currently it is a 5V/3A Power Delivery spec. However, it is not yet finalized. This is why I mentioned earlier, it may or may not charge some laptops due to the laptop's spec. Razer's Core has a 100W Power Delivery spec, but can't charge some laptops because of the laptop's spec.

 

On 10/4/2016 at 3:20 AM, Ness said:

What matters most is egpu experience with different laptop manufacturers/gpus/os. Please don't try to do everything at once. USBs, RJs and powering laptop are all great but not essential. And certainly will postpone release date.

 

On 10/4/2016 at 6:43 AM, errin said:

At least 3. One for Keyboard one for Mouse and one for Headset.

IMHO 4 is the best solution.

 

On 10/4/2016 at 7:25 AM, Morv said:

@DanKnight From my experience: Ethernet and one USB 3.1 port should be fine from your side. Additional needed ports can then be added with a hub. I've had a 15" Macbook Pro Retina in use until some days ago. As it only offers 2 USB 3 ports a hub was a must have. I ended up with one powered 4 port USB 3 hub where I attach a USB sound card, my external USB 3 hdd and another passive 4 port USB 2.0 hub where I attached my peripherals to(USB mouse, Xbox 360 controller receiver, Logitech Unifying adapter). The left over ports are used for connecting a smartphone or something else like a wheel or joystick.

That's the ports needed for complete desktop usage for me, as an example. You hardly can or want to put all those ports on an eGPU adapter so a hub is bought anyway I'd say. Given I'd use a Razer Core with it's 4 USB ports, I'd still need a hub.

 

But I agree that you should really go for at least one USB 3 port, already in your first dedicated eGPU product. Ethernet is nice to have but could also be solved by an USB adapter.

 

 

@errin @Morv Thanks for the info. I myself use one for keyboard, mouse and headset and occasionally one for a flash drive. On my desktop case, I have 2 USB ports in the front, which is no where near enough (i like plugging my peripherals in the front so i can easily unplug them and bring them with me to work.) So I bought a cheap USB 3 hub to plug in all my peripherals. I was thinking of the same solution in the case our enclosure won't have RJ45 or USB ports. We're trying to strive for the most basic solution at a way cheaper cost than our competitors.

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On 9/26/2016 at 6:27 PM, DanKnight said:

 

Currently in the US office, we are testing on the Skull Canyon and Razer Blade Stealth. We haven't ran tests on the upcoming MacBook Pro because Apple hasn't announced anything about it having Thunderbolt 3.

 

Any testing with Dell XPS 13 or XPS 15? I believe these have alpine ridge TB3. Probably more popular devices than razer of skull canyon by a very wide margin.

 

Really a lot of laptops now with TB3 but its very unclear which work for this application. Compatibility will definitely be something people will want to know before buying the product.  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12G1VTFWkTL5tb8nxUAtnDHwTLyya9I3Vw-OXXrIN4e4/edit#gid=0

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2 hours ago, bradsh said:

 

Any testing with Dell XPS 13 or XPS 15? I believe these have alpine ridge TB3. Probably more popular devices than razer of skull canyon by a very wide margin.

 

Really a lot of laptops now with TB3 but its very unclear which work for this application. Compatibility will definitely be something people will want to know before buying the product.  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12G1VTFWkTL5tb8nxUAtnDHwTLyya9I3Vw-OXXrIN4e4/edit#gid=0

 

Not yet. We will probably be sending our Node to Dell for testing and validation though.

 

 

 

 

 

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On ‎10‎/‎13‎/‎2016 at 8:25 PM, rene_canlas said:

I use the TB2 on my XPS 15 (9550) via a Startech TB3 to TB adapter. I get the onboard GTX 960m to play nice with my GTX 1060 by disabling it in device manager.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 

Can you show us how you got that to work? Or is it plug and play?

 

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@DanKnight: Do we know at this stage if the Node will be available outside of the US?

 

Reportedly Razer haven't released the Core in Europe because they can't keep up with demand in the US. As such, the only options we have for EGPUs over here are either to import a Core from the States at considerable expense (also minus the official Razer warranty), or hack together our own solutions using products like your Thunder2/3 boxes.

 

I've been considering getting a Skull Canyon NUC as a replacement for my ageing system for a while now - the GPU is the only missing piece of the puzzle.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Rookie said:

@DanKnight: Do we know at this stage if the Node will be available outside of the US?

 

Reportedly Razer haven't released the Core in Europe because they can't keep up with demand in the US. As such, the only options we have for EGPUs over here are either to import a Core from the States at considerable expense (also minus the official Razer warranty), or hack together our own solutions using products like your Thunder2/3 boxes.

 

I've been considering getting a Skull Canyon NUC as a replacement for my ageing system for a while now - the GPU is the only missing piece of the puzzle.

 

 

 

The Node will be available outside of the US, we just don't know when. We predict we will be in the same situation as Razer, but I will try my best to work with the team to get some out to EU. Again, not sure when. I'm hoping we can get them in EU by early 2017. I know we got a big EU community, so I won't forget you guys.

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12 hours ago, DanKnight said:

 

The Node will be available outside of the US, we just don't know when. We predict we will be in the same situation as Razer, but I will try my best to work with the team to get some out to EU. Again, not sure when. I'm hoping we can get them in EU by early 2017. I know we got a big EU community, so I won't forget you guys.

 

Good to hear! :)

 

Another question - most of the benchmarks that I've seen for the Core show that we can expect a slight performance hit from an EGPU versus a natively installed card. From what I've read it looks like we should expect cards to perform at around 80-85% of their true capacity. I'm assuming this is a limitation of the TB3 interface and thus the same will hold true for the Node?

 

(By no means a deal-breaker, just good to know.)

Edited by Rookie
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13 hours ago, bloodhawk said:

Hooked up to the node?  

 

Heck yeah. Going to set-up a webcam to show off the Skull Canyon and Node working together.

 

6 hours ago, Rookie said:

 

Good to hear! :)

 

Another question - most of the benchmarks that I've seen for the Core show that we can expect a slight performance hit from an EGPU versus a natively installed card. From what I've read it looks like we should expect cards to perform at around 80-85% of their true capacity. I'm assuming this is a limitation of the TB3 interface and thus the same will hold true for the Node?

 

(By no means a deal-breaker, just good to know.)

 

Good question. Yeah, there's some overhead from Thunderbolt, so there will be a hit on performance. But a GPU working at 80-90% is still better than an integrated or embedded GPU. :P

Edited by DanKnight
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18 minutes ago, DanKnight said:

 

Heck yeah. Going to set-up a webcam to show off the Skull Canyon and Node working together.

 

 

Good question. Yeah, there's some overhead from Thunderbolt, so there will be a hit on performance. But a GPU working at 80-90% is still better than an integrated or embedded GPU. :P

 

Oh, absolutely. I mean, the IGPU on the Skull Canyon is actually not that bad all things considered, but even a slightly impaired discrete GPU will completely stomp it!

 

I think I'll take a TB3 connection with a minor performance hit over having a PCI-E ribbon adaptor sticking out of the case and hooked up to some sort of Frankenstein PSU setup. ;)

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So recently reviewed PowerColor Devil Box loses about 25% of desktop gpu power (tested with quadcore laptop cpu and even more with low-voltage cpu). Are we going to see same performance form Node?

Unfortunately pcie x4 is not the case :(

Edited by Ness
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2 hours ago, Ness said:

So recently reviewed PowerColor Devil Box loses about 25% of desktop gpu power (tested with quadcore laptop cpu and even more with low-voltage cpu). Are we going to see same performance form Node?

Unfortunately pcie x4 is not the case :(

As i Mentioned earlier,  that will be the case with every TB3 based egpu solution.  

Check out the difference in scores between TB3 Vs.  A direct connect via m. 2 using a GTX1080 -

 

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On 21.10.2016 at 10:24 PM, bloodhawk said:

As i Mentioned earlier,  that will be the case with every TB3 based egpu solution.  

Check out the difference in scores between TB3 Vs.  A direct connect via m. 2 using a GTX1080 -

 

OK, thanks! But what about difference in performance between stealth/core and XPS/core (http://www.ultrabookreview.com/10761-razer-core-review/)? Can I assume that Razer came up with something to minimize tb3 controller latency?

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Just now, Ness said:

OK, thanks! But what about difference in performance between stealth/core and XPS/core (http://www.ultrabookreview.com/10761-razer-core-review/)? Can I assume that Razer came up with something to minimize tb3 controller latency?

 

The author of the article explains why the Blade+core eGPU benchmark performance is better than XPS+core:

 

- Blade gets a faster [email protected] CPU with hyperthreading support

- XPS15 gets a slower [email protected] CPU with no hyperthreading support

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Just now, Tech Inferno Fan said:

 

The author of the article explains why the Blade+core eGPU benchmark performance is better than XPS+core:

 

- Blade gets a faster [email protected] CPU with hyperthreading support

- XPS15 gets a slower [email protected] CPU with no hyperthreading support

damn, thought it was stealth :( sry

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  • Tech Inferno Fan changed the title to US$300 AKiTiO Node TB3 eGFX box (32Gbps-TB3)

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