So I just hooked up a 2GB 5850 to my laptop...

GHarris said:
This is seriously impressive.

It reminds me of ATI's "XGP", which AMD have been touting for a while without really seeing any adoption from manufacturers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iqrm_2Gqu8

I think it's a shame XGP hasn't taken off, it seems very useful to me.

But anyway, aside from that, I do wonder about the actual effects of using only a PCI Express 1x link. I know the Techpowerup review that has been linked to says that you get about 75% of the performance when using only 1x instead of 16x but, rather disappointingly, the review only shows average framerates. We don't know what is creating those averages - for example, is the 1x average fps only 75% of the 16x average fps because the maximum framerate is lower? Or is it because you, perhaps, get massive stuttering from time to time resulting in terrible minimum frame rates? I personally would fear that the latter is more likely, and if so it's a shame because this would be far more detrimental to the gameplay experience than, say, a lower max framerate.

I hope the OP can give us some detailed benchmarks explaining exactly what happens to the gameplay experience as a result of this bottleneck.
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Wouldn't surprise me if all graphics went external one day cause of the heat and power issues. But we would need external pci x16 first for the desktop. But that's pretty awesome though.
 
thescreensavers said:
^ Yes I see that, but everyone is making it seem like the OP is the one who did it first, the engadget article does not even list the main people involved in making it happen. Just the OP who followed the guide and made a post about it on a more popular forum.

nando4 and moral hazard should both be getting the praises about this. not the OP.

Thats the only issue I have since they put in alot of time and work into making this happen.

I guess I should blame engadget since they did not do there homework, but whoever tipped them from this forum did not mention NBR, I have sent an email to them and commented in the comments.
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agree'd.. but ya have to give the OP'er credit for at least posting it here.. i mean shit i never even heard of this til now and im sure as heck going to be doing it with my laptop.. :p
 
bookmark.
got HTPC and a laptop from work.
Cannot install whatever i want at it, cannot move from xp either... so i have to have two pc's :p

But god this is [H]
 
+1 on the [H]ard comments - very cool solution. Can't believe it takes one of us to do what we've been asking manufacturers to do for years!
 
This kind of work has been mentioned several times over the last few years.

I know I mentioned it 4 years ago, but at the time there were few hunks of gear that would have made it this clean!

Modders take note! Now you know where you can stuff a card into a custom box and not need it connected to Mobo.
 
Oh wow! Can't wait for benchmarks to see how it handles else where.

I remember years ago a company was trying to experiment with an external video card for laptops, but didn't hear much after the initial announcement.

Regardless, this is cool! I wonder what the modders are now thinking for enclosure or even just a open bench case to just fit the PSU and video card :D
 
hum... might not be buying a desktop after all, a solution like this would fit my needs whille getting a 3:30 4:00 battery life... best of both worlds
 
There are already external video cards that run over USB, but they are slower than the intel graphics, only good for business use/email.

However, with USB 3.0 running at 4.8gbit, or faster than a PCIe 1x slot, I wonder when someone is going to bring out a faster USB 3.0 connected video card that would support gaming?
 
Very creative, More work than I'd ever bother doing but it's a nice proof of concept.

Not a fan of Lenovo though. I know most laptops are at least assembled in China but Lenovo is a straight on IBM sellout that I'll have nothing to do with.
 
*tips his [H] mug*

I can't believe I didn't see this until now, very nice job Cyclone :cool:.
 
Very impressive. This is something I may have to consider for our HTPC laptop that we use for hulu.
 
On my T61p. Sooner or later I'm going to have to try this out with one of my HD5770s.

Is hybrid Xfire possible? What about running PhysX with Nvidia GPU notebook mixed with ATI card?


I'd like to see a 3dMark06 score. :D
 
This is awesome.

How well do the drivers work? Can you just install the newest desktop drivers and be good to go?
 
i have no idea why this type of has not been a standard for years. the ability to take any laptop and slap a high end GPU on it has been a gamers dream. great work!
 
nutzo said:
There are already external video cards that run over USB, but they are slower than the intel graphics, only good for business use/email.

However, with USB 3.0 running at 4.8gbit, or faster than a PCIe 1x slot, I wonder when someone is going to bring out a faster USB 3.0 connected video card that would support gaming?
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A few of the newer notebooks support PCIe 2x which is doubles the bandwidth. USB 3.0 isn't a good solution due to overhead (which goes through the CPU). Next year we should see ExpressCard 2.0 (5Gb/s) and hopefully more notebooks with PCIe 1.0 2x (or even PCIe 2.0 1x - same bandwidth of 500MB/s or 5GT/s).

RadCliffeX said:
When will the crossfire/SLI version be available?
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You only have a single PCIe slot in the notebook (via ExpressCard), so the only thing you'd be able to do is get dual GPU cores on a single card such as the HD 5970, though since it's already so crippled by the PCIe bandwidth, I doubt you will see much benefit as compared with a much cheaper card.

criccio said:
Haha yes! And yours truly "tipped" them on it, check the "thanks" at the bottom.
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You should have read the initial post and included NBR as the source of this project.
 
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Found the info I needed from earlier. Was rather simple really about the expresscard slots.
 
I tip my hat to you good sir. You've also made it to Engadget and other aggregate websites I follow.

Well done :D
 
jwalk6 said:
Very creative, More work than I'd ever bother doing but it's a nice proof of concept.

Not a fan of Lenovo though. I know most laptops are at least assembled in China but Lenovo is a straight on IBM sellout that I'll have nothing to do with.
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Really a shame. As much as I am not a fan of a Company owned by the Country of China.... IBM/Lenovo's Thinkpads are some of the best Windows Laptops out there. Both reliable and well made. I support them at work and we have had very, very few issues with them.
 
It's too bad it's limited to a 1x bus, but at least it's v2.0?

Why didn't the IEEE do at least 4x? OH THE HUMANITY!
 
hmm, they sell a pcix 1x card to support that external long slot card....wonder if I can jam one of those into my pc and get a physic card going....
 
Bigbacon said:
hmm, they sell a pcix 1x card to support that external long slot card....wonder if I can jam one of those into my pc and get a physic card going....
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Getting a $85 piece of hardware for a $50 video card for physx is a bit of overkill, rather spend that on a new motherboard with an extra PCIe slot (FYI, PCIx is something else).

EDIT: LOL, just looked at your specs...why do you need to add physX?!?
 
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Tempted to grab one of these and temporarily plug my HD5850 into my Everex XT5000T just to top some 3DMark charts for my model laptop :p
 
This is kinda of topic, but that desk is perfect for the room I've been forced to move my rig to. Where did you get it if you don't mind my asking?
 
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