external graphic cards?

[DMGrier]

I heard some guys at work talking about companies working on coming out with external graphic cards, any one else hear his?

 

[N3crosis]

Yeah, it's by ATi and it's called XGP. Google it, it sounds pretty damn awesome.

 

[voyagerfan99]

Someone posted a link to a box that you can plug a standard desktop GFX card into and then plug it into a laptop via USB. I am unsure as to where you can buy them though.

 

[Ethan3.14159]

how much benefit could they be if their connected by usb? wouldnt there be a huge bandwidth bottleneck?

 

[oregon]

Yeah, I doubt USB would work, it would have to be eSATA or something. Maybe ethernet?

 

[Ethan3.14159]

maybe it uses the expresscard slot??? because esata is only 3gbits/s thats not nearly enough

 

[TrainTrackHack]

I should imagine that 3gb/s would be enough for basic computing, but anyway... it's actually PCI-E, they're just making an external version it. Or at least this is what I heard. And no, there's no way it could be USB...

 

[Ethan3.14159]

this pretty much explains the xgp technology. 4gbytes/s is impressive for a any external device. i wouldnt ever dream of trying to game on a laptop but some people do and this should help them out a lot

http://ati.amd.com/technology/xgp/index.html

 

[Justin]

here it is
http://www.computerforum.com/122433-external-video-card-notebooks.html

supposedly, it connects via a external pci-e slot. i don't know what the hell that is but i want one for my toshiba satellite!