Jump to content

The basic eGPU hardware guide (for Macs)


Recommended Posts

Hi, quick question.

 

I've bought an MSI R9 290 and an Akitio TB2, despite the reported compatibility issues - hoping to give it a go. I'm looking into what PSU requirements I need and have my eyes on a Corsair VS350. 

 

The corsair has these connectors: 

Spoiler

 

24 PIN Motherboard x1
8 PIN CPU x1 
6+2 PIN PCI x1
SATA x 3
Molex x 3
Floppy x 1


 

The 290 takes both a 6 & 8 PIN PCI to power it. Can I use the "8 PIN CPU and 6+2 PIN PCI" from that VS350 to do that? Noob question I know, but better safe than sorry! 
 
Other than that, I just need to make a molex to barrel plug and I'm good to go, as far as I'm aware. 
 
Is all of this correct?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@charliehsmith

It could work, but you would need to make an 8-pin CPU to 6-pin PCIe adapter. The Corsair VS350 can provide 300W in total on the 12V rail, which is very close to what a R9 290 could reach in peaks. In general you would run the PSU close to it's limits and would need to make the adapter. A 500W PSU with both 6/8-Pin plugs should be a better option… imho.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a complete hardware geek I think I'll look into building one of these and selling it off to someone once I get it to work. Honestly technology's recent advancements have well benefited todays gamers. Great guide though, some real interesting stuff been posted here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Trying to figure out if this is going to be worth my time/effort, and the $88 adapter.

 

I have an old pc with a Pentium 4 processor and 2GB of RAMthat I upgraded with a Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS GPU a long time ago.  It did fairly well for the games I played (MS Flight Sim 2004 and X, Armed Assault, BF2, etc...).  I haven't done much gaming at all since then.

 

I now have an ASUS Q500a notebook with an i7-3632QM processor, 8GB RAM, but integrated HD 4000 iGPU.

 

I could use the GPU and power supply from that old PC (which now only has 512 MB of RAM), so I think I would just need to buy the adapter.   I would be using this with a single mPCIe from my WiFI card, as I don't think my notebook has a second mPCIe slot.  It also looks like the GeForce 7600 is too old to benefit from Optimus.  Do you think this upgrade would be worth it, or should I just hold out for a while until I can save up enough to build a gaming PC?  I mostly want to play Flight Sim (2004 and X) with lots of addons, but if I could I would love to play some newer games, like Battlefront, ArmA III, or even something like Skyrim that would be awesome.

 

Thanks for the help!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I am starting my own eGPU project, but one thing still bothers me - the power consumption of the card. I bought this used device:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-gigabyte-gt-640-hd-series-28nm-1800mhz-gddr3-gpu-1050mhz-shader-clock-1050mhz-384-cores-2x-dl-dv
 

I have all the components for my eGPU system ordered and I am now missing a power supply. The specifications say, that it eats up to 65W of energy, yet in the same page it says „System power supply requirement: 350W“. Now, I am thinking, that by "system" they mean motherboard, cpu, ram, hdd and that kind of stuff. My system will be only one component... And this component doesn't even have any external power plugs - it feeds through the PCIe plug...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-gigabyte-gt-640-hd-series-28nm-1800mhz-gddr3-gpu-1050mhz-shader-clock-1050mhz-384-cores-2x-dl-dv

 

But since on many pages the required power for the card is bluntly stated to be the 350W, I would like to hear some more opinions, cause there is a difference in price whether one is buying a 100W or a 400W PSU. What do you think?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So this is a dilemma I couldn't find addressed enough... The main guide here did warn us beginners that having only x1 seriously impairs the gaming experience with any eGPU. But what does that mean exactly? If we say, that the x1 reduces effectiveness by 50%, does this mean for all eGPUs, or it was 50% for a specific one, 60% for a newer one and 90% if you buy a GTX 980?
I mean, I know the limiting factor is the bandwidth (I know it depends on the PCIe version), so, having the newest GPU would have no purpose if you laptop is still a PCIe 2.0, right? Or does a newer card do something magical, where it is able to squeeze more out of the same bandwidth?

 

This guy addresses this very topic:
http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/279406-external-gpu-egpu.html

Quote

now since thats out of the way, my opinion is if you have a PCI 2.0 capable laptop or x2 link possible, my suggestion is to get either a Nvidia GTX 4xx or 5xx series GPU. i chose a PNY GTX 560Ti OC edition. i prefer nvidia over ATI because of 2 reasons. 1) i found and others found that they are more compatible then ATI and 2) nvidia allows for something called "optimus" to be engaged only if you have a 4xx, 5xx series, an iGPU, and x1 link which will speed up things a lot for DX9 and DX10 games. the main thing to do on your part is research. research everything about your laptop, figure out if you have a mPCI slot (note that some WWAN chips will NOT work because there not fully connected, however WLAN WILL work) or EC (express card slot). then figure out if your notebook can be configured for x1 or x2 link. also do not get an insane GPU, because no matter what GPU u get, it will not be able to use 100% of it due to the bandwidth limitation. for my laptop, it would not make anymore sense to get anything higher then a ATI 6770 or GTX 560

 

I mean, if this is true, then there is really no reason to buy high-end cards...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Founder
1 hour ago, RokasK said:

I mean, I know the limiting factor is the bandwidth (I know it depends on the PCIe version), so, having the newest GPU would have no purpose if you laptop is still a PCIe 2.0,

 

There are plenty of PCI-Express scaling articles out there that you could reference:

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_Fury_X_PCI-Express_Scaling/

http://www.computerbase.de/2011-08/test-grafikkarten-mit-pcie/9/

 

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Brian said:

Scaling... that's what I missed... But this last one... This one is what I was after - x1 configuration shows barely any inferiority... amazing! I guess I will keep the possibilities in the back of my head about bigger better cards :) tough... the possibility of my motherboard choking the bandwidth by routing data through the chipset.. gotta check that out...

 

Thanks, Brian!

 

 

 

Yet... other places show other situations...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-analysis,1572-8.html

Looks like different games will behave differently on the same setup.

Edited by RokasK
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Founder
9 minutes ago, RokasK said:

Scaling... that's what I missed... But this last one... This one is what I was after - x1 configuration shows barely any inferiority... amazing! I guess I will keep the possibilities in the back of my head about bigger better cards :) tough... the possibility of my motherboard choking the bandwidth by routing data through the chipset.. gotta check that out...

 

Thanks, Brian!

 

 

 

Yet... other places show other situations...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-analysis,1572-8.html

Looks like different games will behave differently on the same setup.

 

PCI-e 2.0 x 1 will take a significant performance hit in games: 

scaling.thumb.png.b1004d112dd460e554a072

 

But anything above x1 does fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have an old laptop hp dv4 with the following specs:

 

  • Intel core i5-2410M 2.3GHZ
  • 8GB of ram DDR3

 

I have a eVGA Geforce GTX 750 TI FTW Edition which I am not using as my desktop "gaming" pc broke.

I was wondering if it is worth the cost using a eGPU solution for my laptop? how will be performance with these specs.

Another annoying aspect to consider is that my mini pcie is found under my keyboard (it's according the manual.... I have not opened it yet to verify if it is really a mini pcie hosting my wifi card).

And my laptop has switchable graphics... not sure if this affects compatibility?

Edited by yeahman45
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How's it going.

 

Recently, I've been looking into eGPUs for my rMBP 13". (Early 2015, 13", 2.7 i5, 8gb,  Intel Iris Graphics 6100 1.5Gb)

I started looking at the Bizon Box 2, but found the threat where it's overpriced and the AKiTiO Thunder2 PCIe Box is better.

I'm looking into getting an EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0.

I've been looking at videos and setups on using the AKiTiO Box, but I still have some remaining questions.

Sorry if they've been answered somewhere already.

 

Here's what I plan on getting:

- AKiTiO Thunder 2 PCIe Box (About $220)

- EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0 (About $350)

PCIE 16x to 16x Cable (Link: http://www.amazon.com/PCIE-Powered-Flexible-Extender-Bitcoin/dp/B00GUKRX6S/ref=pd_bxgy_147_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0XV9YYBVV8T225GQT3JR) (About $7)

            * Can someone verify that this will work. Thanks.

- PSU (Not sure which to get, new to this.)

- Not sure if there's anything else I will need. (Guessing that the cables needed will come with GPU/PSU)

 

Here's a blog that I found when looking, I'd like something similar, as you can tell from my parts.

Link: https://odd-one-out.serek.eu/thunderbolt-2-egpu-setup-using-akitio-thunder2/

 

Now my questions are:

- From the blog-post, and going by his setup, will I have to solder anything?  (I'm guessing not since people usually solder their eGPUs when making them fit in cases)

- Would I need to make any adapters to get the PSU to work with the Graphics Card?

- Paper Clip trick - I'm just going to search it.

- Should i disable the fan inside the AKiTiO Case or just leave it on?

- If I get a monitor s to use, can I connect to the GPU by the HDMI port on it, or would I connect using thunderbolt to my MBP, then HDMI to the Monitor?

           

I appreciate all the help, and sorry if anything was already posted and answered.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lockbox30 We don't recommend using that powered riser cables since they can cause stability problems and are often of poor quality.

The alternative way would be to get a quality riser cable and power the PCIe slot and AKiTiO with a modded barrel plug.

Is there a reason why you want to use it with a riser?

 

Answers:

- no

- no

- yes, you will have to do the paper clip trick

- can

- connect to the I/O of the eGPU, not the Mac or any TB port.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hi iam new to the forum i have late a mac book pro late 2011 and aim thinking to make an egpu configuration i already have call digit thunderbolt connected to my hard disks and i would like to put an external gpu

1. i would like your help in order to buy the correct gpu

2.i would like to put egpu in order to use final cut because i want to edit a lot of videos 

3. i would like to 4k edit if it is possible 

4.i would like to use akitio thunder 2 pie box because its cheap and my budget is tight 

5.i have thunderbolt 1 does it possible to full support egpu

6.is it possible to daisy chain akitio and call digit thunderbolt 

please any help for these questions will help 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, lerass said:

ok amd is fine for me but witch amd with akitio should work fine with thunderbolt 1

 

You can ask goalque if he can recommend stable AMD cards: https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/6745-2014-15”-macbook-pro-2x-r9_280x16gbps-tb2-netstor-na211tb-win81osx-goalque/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey guys.

 

I am a noob , I've only started reading about egpus about three months ago and I was amazed by the capabilities they offer. What i ve read has shaped my search for a new laptop, turning me away from looking for a gaming laptop to  now mainly looking for one with an a thunderbolt 3 connector to use for a future egpu setup . I m not interested i buying a Mac .Mainly with the help of this article https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12G1VTFWkTL5tb8nxUAtnDHwTLyya9I3Vw-OXXrIN4e4/edit?pli=1#gid=0 I have come down to this product http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd?ref=PD_OC

In fact it is a bit expensive for my budget but i can keep it around 1000£. I m mainly interested in the configurations costing1200$ and 1500$ as they are more than enough for my needs.

So here are my questions:

 

1.Both the i5-6300hq and the i7-6700hq processors are the same except from the clock speed (3.2 and 3.5 Ghz at turbo respectively). Will that difference be observable in everyday use or be a bottleneck in gaming. Is a core-u processor even worth considering for gaming?

 

2.I don't have an external screen to use .Is a thunderbolt 3 egpu setup, using the internal screen of the laptop, possible if both an igpu and a dgpu are present ?(in this case igpu=Intel® HD Graphics 530 and dgpu=NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960M with 2GB GDDR5). Does an egpu setup, utilizing the internal lcd ,require for only an igpu to be present?

 

3.What role does the BIOS play in the feasibility of an egpu setup if not only in hot-plugging?

 

4.Are there any issues with Optimus and Windows 10 that i should be aware of?

 

In my opinion one of the most promising steps for a thunderbolt 3 egpu setup has been made with the Razer Core. But still everything is pretty much up in the air right now and there are no actual products available in the market .These are the reasons that have kept me from actually buying the for mentioned Dell xps 15 as i don't wanna pay for a premium product with a premium connector that will not be able to do what i intend it to . This article has only made my confusion worst http://www.pcgamer.com/the-razer-core-looks-like-the-graphics-card-enclosure-weve-been-waiting-for/

 

Thank you for your time and thank you in advance for your help ,Bill

Edited by billyboy45090
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If i plan on getting the AkiTiO Thunder2 Box, and a GTX 970, would it be smart to get a smaller version such as the Galax, or a bigger one such as a EVGA. Are there any differences between the two cards, having one smaller/bigger? Also, if I go with the Galax, and since it'll fit in the Thunder2, would I need to solder anything to make the Galax fit in the Thunder2 while being operational? Lastly, if I get the EVGA, I know I'll need a riser, would I need to solder anything if I go along with using the Riser to connect the PCIe card to the GPU, and having the PSU power the GPU with the Riser transporting power to the PCIe, and leaving the AkiTiO's PSU unplugged and not in use? Any recommendations on a PSU by any chance?

 

Thanks guys, appreciate it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Dschijn said:

@Lockbox30 We don't recommend using that powered riser cables since they can cause stability problems and are often of poor quality.

The alternative way would be to get a quality riser cable and power the PCIe slot and AKiTiO with a modded barrel plug.

Is there a reason why you want to use it with a riser?

 

Answers:

- no

- no

- yes, you will have to do the paper clip trick

- can

- connect to the I/O of the eGPU, not the Mac or any TB port.

I would have gotten a riser cable since the EVGA GTX 970 wouldn't fit in the case. I hadn't realized this post got submitted since I'm in pre-registered mode. Would you recommend getting a smaller card to fit in the case?

 

*Edit

Something like this where he uses the riser, and mentions that using a small card can sometimes cause a burning on the cables inside the AkiTiO case.

 

 

Edited by Lockbox30
Additions
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello,

 

I am new to eGPU installation. I've already read the post regarding the installation process and just want to reconfirm before buying.

My MBP Specs : MacBook Pro "Core i7" 2.8 13-Inch (Late 2011) features a 32 nm "Sandy Bridge" 2.8 GHz Intel "Core i7" processor (2640M) with 16GB RAM and 250GB Samsung SSD

 

Also I tried to search anyone that tried using the Galaxy GeForce GTX750 Ti OC Slim 2GB GPU on Akitio Thunder2 but couldn't found any. Just wondering would it fit in perfectly inside the Akitio Thunder2 enclosure?

 

http://www.galaxytech.jp/__JA_JP__/Product3/ProductDetail?proID=522&isStop=0

http://www.galaxytech.jp/Areas/__JA_JP__/downloads/PDF_Spec/GeForce_GTX_750Ti_OC_SPEC_WEB.pdf

 

My WTB list:-

 

1) AKiTiO Thunder2 PCIe Box

2) Galaxy GeForce GTX750 Ti OC Slim 2GB

3) Corsair CX430M or CS450M PSU

 

Is the list enough or did I miss something?
Sorry for noob question and thanks in advance!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lockbox30 You can use any card... The benefit of short cards is, that you don't have to run them with a riser or bend the case of the AKiTiO. Long cards can be used without a riser, if you are willingly to bend the front part of the case.

I am running my small Galax card inside the AKiTiO with a closed case since a year and have no problems at all. Of course it depends where and how you position the cables inside, so they aren't at risk in the first place.

There are two kinds of riser cables: powered and not powered.

The powered ones are often not very good quality and can cause problems.

The not powered ones will require a barrel mod to power the AKiTiO from the back and not trough the riser (like powered riser does).

 

@iddinmx Yeah the card seems fine. Maybe you can take a look at the single fan EVGA cards as well? :D

Your list is good, but you will still have to make a Molex -> barrel mod to power the AKiTiO with the Corsair PSU.

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Brian changed the title to The basic eGPU hardware guide (for Macs)
  • Brian pinned this topic

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.