eGPU experiences [version 2.0]

[jcagara08]

All,

Hey hi, I am a newbie here but was a member of that notebook review forums too and was surprised why everything is here when it was in NBR back then well anyway dummy me read the OP of this thread and nowadays I can afford to start a PC build but last January bought myself a lenovo g500

i5 3230M+AMD radeon 8750M 1GB+intel hd 4000 1gb

Before I want to get started with a mini ATX gaming PC build I want to try this eGPU experience so here goes;

So I was reading a little bit of the information and now I am confused as to what setup should I follow, is it the 1.0 or 2.0?

I confirmed from a lenovo support site that my half mini pcie slot can take an SSD so theoretically it can take an eGPU also am I right?

But do I need to mod or flash modded BIOS to get this thing recognized by my laptop?

guidance and wisdom ol sires ot techinferno!

Regards,

Jes

[jot23]

Finally I've got my hands on MSI R9 270 GPU. My 3dmark11 score:

i5-3210m + R9 270. GPU score is significantly higher than the GPU score of GTX660: 6785p vs 6019p. Does it perform that well in games?

No I've tested Crysis 3, ACIV, Batman Arkham Origins.

Some HWINFO logs:

a) Crysis 3.

Played on low settings in FullHD resolution. The performance is way worse than on GTX660. The FPS peaks in vents etc. are higher on R9 270, but overall, 660 beats R9 270. The third mission is barely playable on R9 270 with low settings. With GTX660, I could play the mission on mixed medium to very high settings, getting higher FPS (about 35 average). I don't have a log for the mission 2 "Welcome to the jungle" with the "grass problem", but the FPS was about 10-15% lower on the grass, reaching 15 FPS minimum. Both cards can't achieve playable framerate on this grass level.

Batman Arkham Origins

Played on almost full settings, without motion blur. The game is fully playable on both cards. The benchmark contains both mission in a closed space and some city free running.

For now, I am disappointed with the R9 270 eGPU performance. I hoped, that the GCN architecture could give me some magic like Nvidia Optimus does. I'm going to test BF4 with and without Mantle, to see if that helps. In theory, CPU Usage should be lower with Mantle and the communication between the CPU and GPU, which is a serious drawback of eGPU due to PCIe bandwidth, should be faster.

[jcagara08]

Finally I've got my hands on MSI R9 270 GPU. My 3dmark11 score:

i5-3210m + R9 270. GPU score is significantly higher than the GPU score of GTX660: 6785p vs 6019p. Does it perform that well in games?

No I've tested Crysis 3, ACIV, Batman Arkham Origins.

Some HWINFO logs:

a) Crysis 3.

Played on low settings in FullHD resolution. The performance is way worse than on GTX660. The FPS peaks in vents etc. are higher on R9 270, but overall, 660 beats R9 270. The third mission is barely playable on R9 270 with low settings. With GTX660, I could play the mission on mixed medium to very high settings, getting higher FPS (about 35 average). I don't have a log for the mission 2 "Welcome to the jungle" with the "grass problem", but the FPS was about 10-15% lower on the grass, reaching 15 FPS minimum. Both cards can't achieve playable framerate on this grass level.

Batman Arkham Origins

Played on almost full settings, without motion blur. The game is fully playable on both cards. The benchmark contains both mission in a closed space and some city free running.

For now, I am disappointed with the R9 270 eGPU performance. I hoped, that the GCN architecture could give me some magic like Nvidia Optimus does. I'm going to test BF4 with and without Mantle, to see if that helps. In theory, CPU Usage should be lower with Mantle and the communication between the CPU and GPU, which is a serious drawback of eGPU due to PCIe bandwidth, should be faster.

Awesome post now I can start to build by way on how you did it. Was looking forward to have an r9 270x build mini tax PC but I wanted to try this eGPU setup first. Excited to see some of your BF4 footage man I am crazy bout it always playing TDM btw

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[siska7421]

Good morning,

I've Asus G51Jx notebook with this specifications:

VGA = nVidia GeForce 360M

CPU = i7 720QM

Memory = 8GB

Interface = ExpressCard 26 pin

Os= Windows 7 64bit

Bios version = American Megatrends Inc.206<!-- o ignored -->

Is PE4H-EC060 V3.2 compatible with my notebook?

Is PE4H-EC060 V3.2 compatible with the GeForce GTX 750?<!-- o ignored -->

Can the PE4H-EC060 V3.2 use the notebook's screen?<!-- o ignored -->

Thanks<!-- o ignored -->

[prosetheus]

Finally I've got my hands on MSI R9 270 GPU. My 3dmark11 score:

i5-3210m + R9 270. GPU score is significantly higher than the GPU score of GTX660: 6785p vs 6019p. Does it perform that well in games?

No I've tested Crysis 3, ACIV, Batman Arkham Origins.

Some HWINFO logs:

a) Crysis 3.

Played on low settings in FullHD resolution. The performance is way worse than on GTX660. The FPS peaks in vents etc. are higher on R9 270, but overall, 660 beats R9 270. The third mission is barely playable on R9 270 with low settings. With GTX660, I could play the mission on mixed medium to very high settings, getting higher FPS (about 35 average). I don't have a log for the mission 2 "Welcome to the jungle" with the "grass problem", but the FPS was about 10-15% lower on the grass, reaching 15 FPS minimum. Both cards can't achieve playable framerate on this grass level.

Batman Arkham Origins

Played on almost full settings, without motion blur. The game is fully playable on both cards. The benchmark contains both mission in a closed space and some city free running.

For now, I am disappointed with the R9 270 eGPU performance. I hoped, that the GCN architecture could give me some magic like Nvidia Optimus does. I'm going to test BF4 with and without Mantle, to see if that helps. In theory, CPU Usage should be lower with Mantle and the communication between the CPU and GPU, which is a serious drawback of eGPU due to PCIe bandwidth, should be faster.

Thank you for your analysis. I will be following your experience closely, as I was interested in an AMD egpu as well. Shame to hear that you had problems with Crysis 3. Looking forward to comparisons in other games.

[herpmerpderp]

I'm curious;

has anybody attempted an NGFF M.2 set up?

[amarD]

The ExpressCard PE4L finally arrived! Unfortunately, none of the AC adapters I have fit ...

Which brings me to the question ... I'm planning on using this with the fairly low power 750 Ti. If I were to get an adapter for one of the 65W laptop power bricks I have to fit the connector on the PE4L, would that work, or do I need a proper PSU?

[jacobsson]

The ExpressCard PE4L finally arrived! Unfortunately, none of the AC adapters I have fit ...

Which brings me to the question ... I'm planning on using this with the fairly low power 750 Ti. If I were to get an adapter for one of the 65W laptop power bricks I have to fit the connector on the PE4L, would that work, or do I need a proper PSU?

750TI, very nice choice!!

You will manage fine with a ~80W ac 5.5/2.5mm (12v) ac-adapter. I'll update this post when I find one!

By the way, what adapters do you own, probably 19v? In that case don't attemp to use them!

EDIT: This one looks affordable? You'll have plenty of power (96W), so no need for power starvation.

[jot23]

I wanted to benchmark Battlefield 4. Unfortunately, FPS stayed at about 20-30 FPS. GPU Usage seems strange, it's 30-50% all the time, while CPU Usage gets 100% constantly. Moreover, the GPU Render Test in GPU-Z shows barely 20 FPS. I tried 4 different drivers, turning ulps off, different PSU... Nothing helped. Do you know, what could be an issue here?

[jcagara08]

I wanted to benchmark Battlefield 4. Unfortunately, FPS stayed at about 20-30 FPS. GPU Usage seems strange, it's 30-50% all the time, while CPU Usage gets 100% constantly. Moreover, the GPU Render Test in GPU-Z shows barely 20 FPS. I tried 4 different drivers, turning ulps off, different PSU... Nothing helped. Do you know, what could be an issue here?

I read that somewhere here maybe windows will auto detect and use the intel hd drivers or maybe it was not totally disabled? Do you have intel hd + nvidia graphics on your laptop?

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[jot23]

I read that somewhere here maybe windows will auto detect and use the intel hd drivers or maybe it was not totally disabled? Do you have intel hd + nvidia graphics on your laptop?

Sent from my iPhone 5S using Tapatalk

I have HD400 iGPU and no dGPU. Maybe it's the driver conflict, because usually I'm using GTX660. I didn't uninstall Nvidia drivers. But Geforce GPU works fine with AMD Catalyst installed.

[jcagara08]

I have HD400 iGPU and no dGPU. Maybe it's the driver conflict, because usually I'm using GTX660. I didn't uninstall Nvidia drivers. But Geforce GPU works fine with AMD Catalyst installed.

Did you use the DDU uninstaller to properly uninstall graphics driver AMD or Nvidia?

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[jot23]

Did you use the DDU uninstalled to properly uninstall graphics driver AMD or Nvidia?

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That solved the issue! I'll post the logs soon.

[jcagara08]

That solved the issue! I'll post the logs soon.

Whoah nice please post logs dude ASAP and how BF4 plays now!

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[jot23]

First log:

BF4 on map Siege of Shanghai. FullHD + medium settings. eGPU setup:

HP 2570p

i5-3210m

MSI Radeon R9 270

Starting at 7th minute, I played with Mantle. First 7 minutes is gameplay without Mantle. As we can see, Mantle gave me... nothing. Framerate is not very good, many drops below 40 FPS. The CPU Usage is very high and it bottlenecks the GPU. Mantle should help the CPU Usage, but it does not. I'll check out the Star Swarm benchmark to see, if Mantle even works on eGPU. For now, Mantle gives me nothing.

[Apophis]

My setup is Lenovo x220 + Nvidia GTX650:

[GUIDE] Low profile 12" Lenovo X220 + [email protected] (PE4L 2.1b) - Page 2

• E4L 2.1b + EC2C with EC-060A
  
• ASUS GTX650-E-1GD5 GeForce GTX 650 PCI-E 3.0 GDDR5 1GB 128-bit Memo 5000 MHz
  
• EZCool AD-970-90W universal laptop adapter (with different connectors)
  
• Lenovo X220, 1.38 BIOS
  
• USB to USB cable
  

Settings used:

• BIOS: PCI Express Speed: Automatic, PCI Express Power Management: Off
  
• PE4L: SW1: 1, SW2: 2-3
  

After using it for almost two months, it stopped working. I hadn't used it for almost a week.

My standard power-up process

1. DC adapter to PE4L 2.1b

2. USB 5V (connected to DC adapter) to PE4L 2.1b

3. PE4L to my laptop via ExpressCard Adapter.

4. Power up laptop and everything works.

However, at the moment, when I plug the 5V to PE4L, GPU fans goes really loud and fast, also nothing comes up to the laptop. Also nothing comes to Device Manager.

I also tried to take the 5V from laptop, but did not work.

[jacobsson]

My setup is Lenovo x220 + Nvidia GTX650:

[GUIDE] Low profile 12" Lenovo X220 + [email protected] (PE4L 2.1b) - Page 2

• E4L 2.1b + EC2C with EC-060A
  
• ASUS GTX650-E-1GD5 GeForce GTX 650 PCI-E 3.0 GDDR5 1GB 128-bit Memo 5000 MHz
  
• EZCool AD-970-90W universal laptop adapter (with different connectors)
  
• Lenovo X220, 1.38 BIOS
  
• USB to USB cable
  

Settings used:

• BIOS: PCI Express Speed: Automatic, PCI Express Power Management: Off
  
• PE4L: SW1: 1, SW2: 2-3
  

After using it for almost two months, it stopped working. I hadn't used it for almost a week.

My standard power-up process

1. DC adapter to PE4L 2.1b

2. USB 5V (connected to DC adapter) to PE4L 2.1b

3. PE4L to my laptop via ExpressCard Adapter.

4. Power up laptop and everything works.

However, at the moment, when I plug the 5V to PE4L, GPU fans goes really loud and fast, also nothing comes up to the laptop. Also nothing comes to Device Manager.

I also tried to take the 5V from laptop, but did not work.

Hi!

You never mentioned testing the different reset delays Sw1 & Sw2?

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[herpmerpderp]

Just wondering; the NGFF M.2 slots on the Haswell Lenovos, are those the ones compatible with eGPU or has it not been confirmed yet? Just took a look through the manual and I can't find (or missed) any clarification on what the slot supports.

[jcagara08]

First log:

BF4 on map Siege of Shanghai. FullHD + medium settings. eGPU setup:

HP 2570p

i5-3210m

MSI Radeon R9 270

Starting at 7th minute, I played with Mantle. First 7 minutes is gameplay without Mantle. As we can see, Mantle gave me... nothing. Framerate is not very good, many drops below 40 FPS. The CPU Usage is very high and it bottlenecks the GPU. Mantle should help the CPU Usage, but it does not. I'll check out the Star Swarm benchmark to see, if Mantle even works on eGPU. For now, Mantle gives me nothing.

Im glad that software helped you out, but did you make sure you really uninstalled all the graphics driver in safe mode and rebooted?

Which AMD drivers did you use? Here is the latest one; 14.3 beta V1.0

AMD Catalyst 14.2 Beta Driver for Windows

Man can you post videos or captured videos of your setup and gameplay if you won't mind?

Good luck mate!

Still contemplating of starting this project or to proceed building a mini ITX gaming PC

[Apophis]

Hi!

You never mentioned testing the different reset delays Sw1 & Sw2?

I tried different SW1 settings, but it did not change anything.

[jot23]

Im glad that software helped you out, but did you make sure you really uninstalled all the graphics driver in safe mode and rebooted?

Which AMD drivers did you use? Here is the latest one; 14.3 beta V1.0

AMD Catalyst 14.2 Beta Driver for Windows

Man can you post videos or captured videos of your setup and gameplay if you won't mind?

Good luck mate!

Still contemplating of starting this project or to proceed building a mini ITX gaming PC

Yes, I am sure. Safe mode and many reboots to be sure.

I used the latest 14.3 drivers and older: 14.1 and 13.9 (with lack of Mantle support). The performance was pretty the same. I'll check if Mantle works in the Star Swarm demo tomorrow.

I could post the videos, but I'm still working on my DIY enclosure... and I'll need to return the GPU on Monday. So, I'm not sure if it will be possible to record the video.

If you're planning on making an DIY eGPU, why don't you stay with Nvidia graphics? They work very well, the performance is quite good. Only Geforce is capable of the fastest Expresscard, 1.2Opt connection. Radeon lacks the Optimus support and AMD didn't make an Optimus alternative. I hoped, that Mantle could be a performance booster.

[angerthosenear]

Yes, I am sure. Safe mode and many reboots to be sure.

I used the latest 14.3 drivers and older: 14.1 and 13.9 (with lack of Mantle support). The performance was pretty the same. I'll check if Mantle works in the Star Swarm demo tomorrow.

I could post the videos, but I'm still working on my DIY enclosure... and I'll need to return the GPU on Monday. So, I'm not sure if it will be possible to record the video.

If you're planning on making an DIY eGPU, why don't you stay with Nvidia graphics? They work very well, the performance is quite good. Only Geforce is capable of the fastest Expresscard, 1.2Opt connection. Radeon lacks the Optimus support and AMD didn't make an Optimus alternative. I hoped, that Mantle could be a performance booster.

Mantle does help with performance. I did some testing here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2109-diy-egpu-experiences-%5Bversion-2-0%5D-54.html#post82601

and comparison in a desktop here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/amd/5908-amd-catalyst%99-14-1-mantle-beta-driver.html#post83225

Improvement is about the same for desktop GPU and laptop eGPU (about 10fps in BF4 on 14.1). I don't have, didn't try Star Swarm. A nice Nvidia card is still better for eGPU configurations.

[jot23]

Mantle does help with performance. I did some testing here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2109-diy-egpu-experiences-%5Bversion-2-0%5D-54.html#post82601

and comparison in a desktop here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/amd/5908-amd-catalyst%99-14-1-mantle-beta-driver.html#post83225

Improvement is about the same for desktop GPU and laptop eGPU (about 10fps in BF4 on 14.1). I don't have, didn't try Star Swarm. A nice Nvidia card is still better for eGPU configurations.

It's interesting. Your CPU doesn't seem to be much more powerful. Which map did you play? The Siege of Shanghai map is more difficult to handle for the CPU. I tried other maps too. Your GPU Utilization is way more stable, which means that the CPU is not bottlenecking the GPU that much. Mantle shows better results, while comparing powerful CPU and GPU combinations, but it should work with the weaker ones too. Your GPU is a much better performer. I'll make sure about Mantle working or not with the Star Swarm benchmark.

[angerthosenear]

It's interesting. Your CPU doesn't seem to be much more powerful. Which map did you play? The Siege of Shanghai map is more difficult to handle for the CPU. I tried other maps too. Your GPU Utilization is way more stable, which means that the CPU is not bottlenecking the GPU that much. Mantle shows better results, while comparing powerful CPU and GPU combinations, but it should work with the weaker ones too. Your GPU is a much better performer. I'll make sure about Mantle working or not with the Star Swarm benchmark.

Laptop: i7-2620M with R9 280X eGPU

Desktop: i7-4770K with R9 280X

I played in the Test Range so I can have the most stable comparison between tests. Things like crashing through the concrete walls / shooting those tended to give the largest performance drop.

I wanted to stray from CPU intensive things since the T901 does get really hot and likes to throttle.

[jot23]

That explains your CPU Usage. This map is made for a single player? I mean that there are no enemies, just you and the map and jets/tanks etc.? I'll give it a try tomorrow, to make my benchmarks comparable to yours.