Looks great, nice and minimalistic.

Any chance you will test one of these eGPU boxes one of these days. Would love to see how it stacks up to dGPU.

Loophole35:

Any chance you will test one of these eGPU boxes one of these days. Would love to see how it stacks up to dGPU.

I think it will perform reasonably well. Unless you go for 4k internal, but even then it would be OK. For external, it would deliver great performance, and in many cases performance would actually be limited by notebooks CPU. Thing I do not like is price. In the end it is 650W PSU + Thunderbolt to PCIe board + box. Let's say they use some overpriced branded PSU and get it for $120, PCB + chips on it $60, Box $20. So $200 cost + $250 premium. But in reality, good 650W Fortron PSU costs $50 for end customer, so they can have it for $40. PCB with thunderbolt + PCIe electronics costs like $40 if we include development cost and intended return of investment for its development within one year. $10 Box. So it is actually device which can be made at around $100 and has $350 premium. Price at which I would consider it ready to market? $250 Why, because at $450 price tag, one can as well build desktop with stronger CPU than most of notebooks this is intended for.

Fox2232:

650W PSU

Why is that so high? Is that not incredibly excessive for any single GPU? Surely a 300w PSU covers practically all GPU's on the market? Not that I follow it that closely. 650w is around what my whole PC is powered by afair (not that it's a bargain basement PSU but still) What we do need that I agree with you is, is some circuit boards similar to whatever is in this thing, to let is build our own boxes

scatman839:

Why is that so high? Is that not incredibly excessive for any single GPU? Surely a 300w PSU covers practically all GPU's on the market? Not that I follow it that closely. 650w is around what my whole PC is powered by afair (not that it's a bargain basement PSU but still) What we do need that I agree with you is, is some circuit boards similar to whatever is in this thing, to let is build our own boxes

I am not really sure, but maybe it supports some Dual GPU cards like AMD's Pro Duo which has 350W TDP and possibly can eat more at times. In the end, 300W TDP on GPU does not mean it can't spike to 400W for fraction of second. And once overclocked... I think 450W would be optimal from both Price and energy efficiency perspective while being sufficient to feed any GPU.

Yeah I see where you're at. Best I saw it's not dual GPU but you can drive up prices with partnerships for a marginal market. I've seen these boxes for awhile now, and I really like the idea, I have a gaming laptop (very outdated now but still a good laptop imo) and lightweight nintendo switch style laptops are real cool, but the companies that sell these things should also sell DIY boxes that are boxes + circuit board, install your own PSU and GPU

Fox2232:

I am not really sure, but maybe it supports some Dual GPU cards like AMD's Pro Duo which has 350W TDP and possibly can eat more at times. In the end, 300W TDP on GPU does not mean it can't spike to 400W for fraction of second. And once overclocked... I think 450W would be optimal from both Price and energy efficiency perspective while being sufficient to feed any GPU.

Don't confuse TDP with watt consumption.

Honestly can't remember the correction any more.

CalculuS:

Don't confuse TDP with watt consumption.

I am not, that's exactly why I wrote that 300W TDP card can eat much more at times.

Well a 650W unit may be a better idea over a 500W. Just for efficiency.

Fox2232:

I am not, that's exactly why I wrote that 300W TDP card can eat much more at times.

I thought you were implying it can eat much more than 300W even though TDP has nothing to do with watt consumption. TDP merely means thats the maximum amount of heat the cooling system of a particular chip can dissipate.

CalculuS:

I thought you were implying it can eat much more than 300W even though TDP has nothing to do with watt consumption. TDP merely means thats the maximum amount of heat the cooling system of a particular chip can dissipate.

TDP of cooling solution is defining factor for short/long term power consumption. If you have chip capable to draw between 20~250W and slap on it 300W cooling solution, then chip will never be affected. But if you use 200W TDP cooling... chip can still overshoot it and use 250W till it reaches certain temperature threshold where it downclocks for safety reasons. (those mini size GPU do that some times) intel mobile CPUs do it all the time. And there has been many cases where someone measured actual power draw of just graphics card under load and noted power consumption spikes. On nVidia mostly interframe gating leads to average power consumption per frame to sit within card's specification. But because it is average and ~30% of time it takes to render frame GPU power gates unused parts, it does draw more in remaining 70% of rendering time. While this does not affect TDP or GPU temperature in negative way, VRMs and PSU has to survive constant current spiking. In contrast AMD uses internal power limits and if card was to go over any limit, it will downclock to stay within. nVidia's way is better for performance, AMD's is lighter on power delivery components (at same average power consumption).

445 look pricey for a nice box with power supply. How long till we see selling just the circuit board?