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External dock for a full size gfx card up to 375w from alienware

SkeeterUK

SkeeterUK

SkeeterUK

Soldato
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http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/27/alienware-graphics-amplifier/

Dunno if you can hook it up to a desktop like the laptop it was intended for but i cant see why not.

Always thought someone would come up with this eventually.

Expensive as hell tho but for micro setups that might wana have a tiny system with a external gfx card setup i guess it might do for them like have it in the sitting room lol. Or if you wana keep a gfx card out of your case for heat reasons, expensive way lol but i guess some might do that.

Edit - bah ignore the above i should have read it all. It uses propriety cable and only works with alienware 13 notebooks or somit. :/
 
It looks so bulky and horrible to carry around. I'd like to see one that can use an external power brick to cut down on the size a little.
 
Near sure that a company done something like this years back at least in demo form. Probably in the region of 8 years plus.
 
SkeeterUK said:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/27/alienware-graphics-amplifier/

Dunno if you can hook it up to a desktop like the laptop it was intended for but i cant see why not.

Always thought someone would come up with this eventually.

Expensive as hell tho but for micro setups that might wana have a tiny system with a external gfx card setup i guess it might do for them like have it in the sitting room lol. Or if you wana keep a gfx card out of your case for heat reasons, expensive way lol but i guess some might do that.

Edit - bah ignore the above i should have read it all. It uses propriety cable and only works with alienware 13 notebooks or somit. :/
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Yea...it sounded interesting...until I got to the line "This requires a proprietary, PCI-Express-based cable, one that only works on the new Alienware 13."...

Thought the idea of this was to make cheapo laptop (but with a good enough CPU such as i5/i7) getting the capability to do proper gaming by hooking up a desktop graphic card, but noooooo...it's just another cash grab attempt by Alienware to make their overpriced product even more overpriced :rolleyes:
 
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Plenty of people trying the DIY approach with this. They generally need a laptop with ExpressCard (which most/all ultrabooks seem to have dropped), a adapter from ebay etc. and a bit/lot of luck with the drivers.

Sort of considering getting a new 'used' laptop (I always buy used business class) and the front runners are the Ivy Bridge Elitebooks like the 2570p as they unlike the Haswell ones still had ExpressCard, and compared to the Thinkpad X230 they have an optical drive (but are ~300g heavier) and eSATA which is nice since it would give me four SATA options: 2.5" SATA + mSATA + SATA in optical + eSATA.

Anyway, seems there are some Thunderbolt ones too:
http://lab501.net/egpu-connecting-external-video-card-notebook-diy-implementation/all/1/
Just a pity that Intel seem to be keen to restrict Thunderbolt :(

EDIT: that Sonnet Echo Thunderbolt box is a bit pricey at over £200 on ebay. And it seems to be limited to 60W (guess that's enough for a 750Ti). The expresscard route looks cheaper.
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
Yea...it sounded interesting...until I got to the line "This requires a proprietary, PCI-Express-based cable, one that only works on the new Alienware 13."...

Thought the idea of this was to make cheapo laptop (but with a good enough CPU such as i5/i7) getting the capability to do proper gaming by hooking up a desktop graphic card, but noooooo...it's just another cash grab attempt by Alienware to make their overpriced product even more overpriced :rolleyes:
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To be fair it isn't just AW doing this. MSI have a thread going in the laptop section which is basically the same thing (proprietary connection and only works with a specific laptop).

The idea behind this is sound but the execution to date from everyone (I mean laptop manufacturers not DIY) is completely lacking focus. Make it non proprietary and get the manufacturers on board to design a standardised interface as the idea will take off. Also don't do what MSI have done and stick the laptop ON TOP OF the GPU dock. That is beyond daft.
 
oweneades said:
The idea behind this is sound but the execution to date from everyone (I mean laptop manufacturers not DIY) is completely lacking focus. Make it non proprietary and get the manufacturers on board to design a standardised interface as the idea will take off. Also don't do what MSI have done and stick the laptop ON TOP OF the GPU dock. That is beyond daft.
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See, this is were Intel may not play ball: AFAIK their settlement with Nvidia specifically requires them to not kill of PCIe. I know Nvidia have this NV-Link type thing (similar to QDI or AMD's HyperTransport) but without their own CPU it's kind of pointless.
 
Looks like a great solution to a problem that should have never have existed in the first place. buy a computer, save the laptop for facebook browsing in bed.
 
IceShock said:
Looks like a great solution to a problem that should have never have existed in the first place. buy a computer, save the laptop for facebook browsing in bed.
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Not really - more like a poor solution to a problem that does make sense for some, even if it is a small niche.

What if I don't want two computers? Maybe I want everything on my laptop so I can carry something small and light with me, but have some additional power when docked?

If you go that far then, why have any expansion ports on laptops e.g. DVI for a bigger screen, USB for a mouse and separate keyboard - surely I should just buy a desktop with a bigger monitor and a keyboard and mouse???
 
The thing I don't get about all this is that the Alienware 13 has a 860m GPU, that's almost as good as a 750Ti, so if you want a noticeable improvement your looking at £200 and up for a decent GPU, however once you have your decent GPU to run your external monitor your going to be bottle necked by the 2.7 GHz (with full boost) i3* in the laptop.

I'm sure this will be useful for later laptops with better processors, but as far as the current situation goes it's an exercise in futility. What they should have done was offer a much smaller external amplifier with another 860m in it for SLI, that would have let the laptop connect higher res monitors when on the desk and run higher settings on it's native screen at LAN partys hell it could have even been powered by the laptop.


*I know they market it as an i5, but it's still just a dual core with HT, they offered the M11x with i3/5/7 options and they were all dual cores with HT lol.
 
What they should do is somehow make a dock for sli xfire ppl maybe even the option to WC em too. Long as performance doesn't suffer somehow from how it connects to the main PC or lappy. Hmm sli for lappys that's a thought lol.
 
IceShock said:
Looks like a great solution to a problem that should have never have existed in the first place. buy a computer, save the laptop for facebook browsing in bed.
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At one point I was moving around quite a bit for work - having a desktop replacement laptop was a god send as even though I usually included an external monitor, keyboard and mouse it was far easier to pack up and go than a full desktop system and often the places I'd be staying in didn't have much space for a full desktop.

Browsing facebook on a laptop in bed is so early 2000s any way, a full windows touchscreen tablet is where its at :P
 
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