Intel NUC D33217CK + GTX750Ti@10Gbps-TB1 (AKiTiO Thunder2) + Win10 [Yukikaze]

[Yukikaze]

This is probably the simplest eGPU setup I've dealt with so far. It is also rather silly, since the CPU is definitely the weakest link here. An Ivy Bridge i3 at 1.8Ghz isn't going to push high frame-rates in gaming, after all, and the performance improvement definitely doesn't justify the cost. An actual use for something like this would be to add HEVC decoding abilities to an existing NUC. Just use a cheaper enclosure (such as the 140$ Thundertek one) or opt for mPCIe instead of Thunderbolt to keep the price as low as possible. Obviously the GTX750Ti I used here doesn't decode HEVC in HW, but I suspect a newer low-range video card will work just the same and will do so.

 

I guess I just had to try it. Anyway:

 

Computer Components:

Motherboard: Intel DC33217CK (CPU: i3 3217U @ 1.8Ghz)

Case: Silverstone PT14 Aluminum NUC Case

Memory: 2x4Gb DDR3 1600Mhz

Storage: BP4e V2 120GB mSATA SSD

Power Supply: FSP 65W NUC PSU

OS: Windows 10 64-bit (with the Anniversary Update installed and completely up to date)

 

eGPU Components:

eGPU Enclosure: Akitio Thunder2

eGPU Power Supply: 180W Dell Adapter (this is the one that came with my PE4C ages ago)

eGPU: Gigabyte Low-Profile OC GTX750Ti (60W TDP BIOS Mod)

eGPU Thunderbolt Cable: 0.5m Apple TB Cable

 

This is a truly "this just works" setup: Plug everything together with the NUC powered off, boot into windows, wait for the drivers to get installed, reboot if required, switch monitor output to the eGPU, done.

 

Note: The card is reporting an x4 2.0 PCIe link - This is incorrect (the DC33217CK only has a Thunderbolt 1 controller) and CUDA-Z confirms the transfer rate to be about half of what my Thunderbolt2 ZBook gets. This means that GPU-Z is not a reliable indicator of the actual PCIe link established.

 

 

Edited October 30, 2016 by Yukikaze
Formatting

[Tech Inferno Fan]

24 minutes ago, Yukikaze said:

Note: The card is reporting an x4 2.0 PCIe link - This is incorrect (the DC33217CK only has a Thunderbolt 1 controller) and CUDA-Z confirms the transfer rate to be about half of what my Thunderbolt2 ZBook gets. This means that GPU-Z is not a reliable indicator of the actual PCIe link established.

 

Nice that it's all PnP. Wonder if Intel made it that way?

 

GPU-Z is indeed correctly reporting a x4 2.0 PCIe link to the AKiTiO Thunder2 TB1 bridge. That bridge connects to the NUC TB1 bridge at 10Gbps downstream. Hence the disparity between the performance when compared to your TB2 ZBook which too uses a x4 2.0 PCIe link but a 16Gbps-TB2 downstream link.

[Yukikaze]

Yeah, I figured it has to be the PCIe switch of the Akitio that is causing this discrepancy, still - It is not correct on the end-to-end scale, but GPU-Z has no way of knowing that.

[Yukikaze]

Some pictures of the now permanent setup hooked up to my TV: NUC+Thunder2+Audio DAC.

 

Edited October 30, 2016 by Yukikaze

[El_Febio]

Hi,

 

I have a similar configuration, using a 13 MBP and a NUC DC3217BY with a Thunder2 and a gtx970 Jetstream.

I have some questions, first, shall I use the HDMI on the NUC or on the card? About now I'm on the NUC port, and -second- i'm experiencing problems in installing the drivers.

I tried several times by deactivating internal graphics, installing uninstalling and so on.. but shame on me I've not tried to plug the HDMI of the card.

[El_Febio]

On 10/5/2017 at 0:06 PM, El_Febio said:

 tried to plug the HDMI of the card.

UPDATE

 

i tried this but nothing good happened. The driver installs but after the reboot, nothing displayed. I connected the NUC with teamviewer at another pc and I  manage to open the device manager, which displayed the 970 in the graphic cards BUT with the alert yellow triangle (error message in italian: "Il dispositivo ha riportato un problema ed è stato interrotto. (Codice 43)" ||in english shoub be Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems(Code 43) )

Any help would be appreciated

[El_Febio]

Tried the TB/mini DP capability of the NUC with an HDMI adapter and it works flawlessly. Intel keeps saying that the tb controller isn't capable to handle a tb2 device.

Egpu setup still works great with my tb2 MBP mid 2014.

C'mon guys don't leave me alone!