AMD Announces the XConnect External Graphics Technology with Razer and Intel

[vega22]

vr must be so bad on the xbone :lol:

 

[Parn]

I guess the external graphics cards will be quite cumbersome to carry around as they will have built-in PSUs. With R9 390 drawing over 250W of power, the size of the that PSU won't be small.

 

[john_]

I guess the external graphics cards will be quite cumbersome to carry around as they will have built-in PSUs. With R9 390 drawing over 250W of power, the size of the that PSU won't be small.

Don't imagine only big boxes with even bigger power supplies. For example think of a mobile 14nm GPU in an external box, much smaller than that of Razer's, with a performance equal to a modern GTX 970 and a TDP no more than 90W. You probably don't even need an extra PSU. The external GPU's box could be the size of a 3,5'' external hard drive, and with the laptop's battery charged at 100% you could be using the same laptop external PSU, to power on the external GPU box, while gaming.

 

[Caring1]

Don't imagine only big boxes with even bigger power supplies. For example think of a mobile 14nm GPU in an external box, much smaller than that of Razer's, with a performance equal to a modern GTX 970 and a TDP no more than 90W. You probably don't even need an extra PSU. The external GPU's box could be the size of a 3,5'' external hard drive, and with the laptop's battery charged at 100% you could be using the same laptop external PSU, to power on the external GPU box, while gaming.

I was thinking along similar lines, that it won't be long before mGPU's are used and a power brick is all that is required.

 

[midnightoil]

Intel collaborating with "Radeon Group", wow.
/googles for cheapest notebook with TB3 port

They have to.

Apple will have this, and Intel don't want to lose their Apple contract(s) yet. There is zero chance of Apple going back to NVIDIA, so Intel have to work with AMD here. They'll probably lose iMacs and laptops in '17 to AMD's APUs anyway, but they can hope.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Why nobody is upgrading the ExpressCard (v3?) slot to support 16 Lanes of PCI-EX 3.0, and be done with all this drama??

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I was thinking along similar lines, that it won't be long before mGPU's are used and a power brick is all that is required.

Would be useful if the whole MxM standard actually took off... But the problem there is availability as they arent a mainstream product that will rake them in millions. MXM parts are available but so bloody expensive.

Why nobody is upgrading the ExpressCard (v3?) slot to support 16 Lanes of PCI-EX 3.0, and be done with all this drama??

Because USB C is smaller then a ExpressCard slot and for that reason a lot of thinner or smaller more compact laptops might not have one.

 

[cdawall]

USB 3.1 comes out roughly equal to PCI-E 1.0 4x, which is quite a lot of GPU bandwidth for expanding on a laptop/netbook with the *universal* USB 3.1 port (which will be on almost everything in a few years time)


Thunderbolt for the serious gaming laptops, or at least serious CPU power laptops with IGP - and the dedicated external GPU.

I thought 3.1@40Gb/s was close to a 3.0@4x slot (without overhead)

as for limitations at full res it works fine haha

 

[Tartaros]

Would be useful if the whole MxM standard actually took off... But the problem there is availability as they arent a mainstream product that will rake them in millions. MXM parts are available but so bloody expensive.

They are not that expensive compared to their desktop counterparts. Even so this can be a chance to expand its market, instead of a full box getting a smaller box with a mxm gpu sounds good.

 

[cdawall]

They are not that expensive compared to their desktop counterparts. Even so this can be a chance to expand its market, instead of a full box getting a smaller box with a mxm gpu sounds good.

Two thunderbolt ports for sli/xfire with mxm cards?

 

[Caring1]

Two thunderbolt ports for sli/xfire with mxm cards?

Have the controller in the box if the bandwidth will handle it.
It could still be smaller than a regular GPU.

 

[vega22]

surely i aint the only one thinking amd went down this road for the consoles?

 

[Parn]

I thought 3.1@40Gb/s was close to a 3.0@4x slot (without overhead)

I believe he's using the new naming convention set out by the USB-IF. So the 3.1 is here is actually 3.1 Gen1 which is basically renamed 3.0. The previously known 3.1 is now 3.1 Gen2 which has the speed you quoted.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

They are not that expensive compared to their desktop counterparts. Even so this can be a chance to expand its market, instead of a full box getting a smaller box with a mxm gpu sounds good.

care to do your research first?

MXM 970M - $690 (GBP>USD)
MSI GTX970 - $415 (GBP>USD) - average retail price for a 970
(Desktop equivalent to a 970M is a 960 or something inbetween a 760 & 770 - Even worse if you think that a 960 retails here for $244 - thats a huge difference in price)


MXM 980M - $795 (GBP>USD)
MSI GTX 980 - $617 (GBP>USD) - average retail price for a 980
(Desktop equivalent to a 980M is said to be about a GTX770 which retails for $374 - thats a huge difference in price)

What i would class as 'not that expensive...' is a difference between $5-10 - $15 at a stretch even. But as you can see here 'not that expensive....' is actually in excess of $150. When youre paying close to if not over $200 compared to their desktop counterparts Its bloody expensive.

And even if they were you currently cant get MXM cards off some of the bigger retailers out there. The only place where i could really find them was on ebay but I have heard of people calling up some of the big boutique laptop makers out there and asking if they would sell them just the MXM card for an upgrade instead of an entire laptop, And they are under no obligation to grant your request.