Thunderbolt 3 external GPU options

Hey guys,

I'm about to get a Skull Canyon NUC for my work PC when I get my tax back and thought down the track I'd get an external GPU for weekend LANs since my UMX4 is so friggen heavy and I don't like moving glass panelled $5 systems around. Currently there's the Core, Asus and Silverstone option coming out but I was wondering if anyone new of any other, less well known and less flashy alternatives that I could gut and get my own chassis built. I'm not fond of Razer or Asus products, I love silverstone but their chassis looks quite bulky, so I don't know what other options are available.

Any thoughts and input?

Cheers

Tazor

 

Not used any of the new products but I got one of their early expresscard egpu solutions, it was well built, solid and worked perfectly...

http://www.hwtools.net/eGPU.html

Worth a look.

edit: scratch that, thought they'd gotten thunderbolt but they havent.. sorry!

 

Yeah that's basically all I need, just with a thunderbolt 3 connector or header.

 

Hi,

Which NUC''s have TB3? i cant find any that do.

Cheers
Frogloose

 

https://www.pccasegear.com/products/35470/intel-boxnuc6i7kyk4-core-i7-iris-pro-nuc-barebone-kit

Skull canyon bro

 

Hi,

Seems very expensive for what it is, would nearly be cheaper to build a mitx box, and just as portable.

Cheers
Frogloose

 

Not quite as portable, this thing is less than a litre but has a skylake i7 with 4c/8t and dual m.2 slots, ddr4 and excellent connectivity. An equivalent s
ITX rig that is this easy to get around would still cost over $1000 since the closest option to the cpu is a 6700 (admittedly faster) but is more power hungry and hotter and mother boards are expensive, especially with the output options you find on the NUC. It's niche but it's worth it.

 

Hi,

You are forgetting the EGPU, which if you look at the Alienware external amplifier size its about the same size as a mitx box, combine that with the NUC and its still 'big'

And its two units to lug around rather then one.

Cheers
Frogloose

 

True, but I won't use it with the eGPU all the time, 5 days a week it will be at work at the other 2 I want the option to use it at LANS. The reason posting this thread was because I completely agree with you, current docks are way too big so I'd prefer to build my own, around the 5 litre mark and maybe even open air with a vesa mount so I could still have something smaller than an ITX system. It will be more expensive as anything niche is, but I don't want an ITX pc, they're too big for work and this is perfect, but I don't want a third computer for LANS and things either.

 

Hi,

Its still a 3rd PC, regardless of which way you justify it. By the time you buy it and the bits and pieces needed to run it (ram and m2) you are close to the same price of just buying an Alienware 13/15 R2 and later on getting an external amplifier for 199.

Just doesnt make sense to me what you are proposing, both financially and logisitcally.

Cheers
Frogloose

 

Alright, we've established that frogloose dislikes the idea. For those of us who are still keen to do it regardless, where are all the thunder bolt 3 enclosures? All the big player (asus, gigabyte, Razer) ones look too big. I've got an itx size video card and I'm just gonna end up with a bunch of wasted space.
I think the only way to go is a custom job. But it seems like there aren't any kits available (yet) there are a few thunderbolt 2 or the older express slot style out there.
Check out some of the other egpu threads in the forum. Hopefully one of those mobs releases something soon!

 

A bit of a thread bump, but I just got my egpu working. A nice kit supporting both ATX and SFX psu's. Come with a thunderbolt cable as well. $AUD225 delivered.

A review that guided me to buying this one - https://egpu.io/exp-gdc-th3p4g2-thunderbolt-gpu-dock-review/ - I got the TH3P4G3 model. From the comments seems some capacitors and other bits have changed, but otherwise the review unit looks exactly the same. Its hooked up to a HP Elitebook 830 G5 with an i7-8650U. The gpu is an AsRock 6600 itx. Using an external monitor connected to the gpu.

Zero issues so far. Fortnite is happy so my old and crusty gaming boxen has been switched off for good. Haven't tried out chaining other thunderbolt devices to the TH3P4G3, as I don't have any others.

Given that USB4 v2 can do 120Gbps in asymmetric mode which is 3 times faster than current thunderbolt data rates, I suspect egpu solutions could become more mainstream in the future for us casual gamers.

 

have you looked at the AW Alpha R2? I7 6700t, and has the AW EGPU plug out the back. Thier Egpu chassis can be had for 100 bucks... i love it so much, i bought the company... no seriously,, i bought 3 of them.. awesome for lan parties.. and depending on your egpu uses, the Alpha still contains a decent GPU inside, so depending on what games your aiming at in your LAN party, you might even get away just bringing the tiny Alpha.

lol and there i go responding to a bloody 6 year old thread... Doh!!

 

Still good content

 

Just buy a 6800U already

 

Nein!

Given how good this setup runs atm, I'm considering waiting for a Zen 4 laptop with USB 4 v2. Heck this laptop don't even expose 4 pcie lanes to the thunderbolt connector... only 2 Despite this my Superposition score is almost twice my brothers with a 1600X + RX 480.

RDNA2 is stronk even with an anemic bandwidth and a mere 4 cores sitting at 2Ghz

 

here you go

stock bench, yoga at 90hz high perf


and fans didnt spin up until scene 7. cpu doesnt go over 2% and yer gpu pegged to the wall

 

egpu ftw!

edit: oh... upgrade your drivers. Those are old... new drivers should give you 10+% better score.

 

Cheers for the heads-up on drivers. I was kinda holding off due to the modern standby rubbish and wait for it to be sorted. Will drop win11 onto the slow ring shortly and hold off on silly updates so they are nice and stable by the time I get them.
I played M$ beta tester with a surface pro 3, such a frustrating experience ...

If I ever need more gou power I'll go egpu. This lappy has USB4 so it's TB3 speeds ??

What's your CPU % at during a bench run ??

 

Maybe. Will depend on the bios. There are some noise out there about AMD releasing bioses late to support Thunderbolt devices via USB 4 and the manufacturers are still caching up in releasing updated bios to their 6000 series devices.

In terms of speeds, TB3/4 supports 4 lanes of PCIe3.0, but some devices only supplies 2 lanes to the connector. This is the case for my laptop. I strongly suspect that AMD would be fielding full 4 lanes (its only 2 lanes of PCIe 4.0) to its USB implementation.

TB5 is rumoured to have been demo'ed at Intel at twice current TB3/4 speeds which just happens to be the same speed as USB 4 v2 ie 80Gbps. No announcements have been made by Intel in relation to TB5.

Don't know. Have to run MSI Afterburner next time I'm in Windows. I suspect that the cores are maxed out.