Making an External Graphics Card

Krovos

Krovos

Member
I have a Samsung Series 7 laptop and I'm looking for a nicer video card that would allow me to game more efficiently. It currently runs off of Intel Graphics 4000 with a GeForce GT650M, but since it's integrated it doesn't run all too well. I ran accross a link that promoted a company from Taiwan that sells Express Card to PCI-E x16 adapters which allow you to hook up a video card externally in Micro ITX case with a power supply. Unfortunately I do not have to money to build a rig at the moment, otherwise I would wouldn't even be worrying about this. If I were to invest into something like a GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB 192-bit GDDR5, would it be worth it? Would running an external component through Express Card surpass would I currently have?
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/co...ke-an-external-laptop-graphics-adaptor-915616

The following specs of my laptop are:
OS: Windows 7
CPU: 3rd Gen Intel i7 Sandy Bridge 2.4Ghz (3.3Ghz Intel Turbo Boost)
RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600
GFX: Intel Graphics 4000 / Ge Force GT650M 2GB
HDD: 1TB 5400 RPM
SSD: 8GB
 
They made USB PCIe adapters, but they weren't very effective. In short, you need to buy an actual gaming laptop if you want to game on the go.
 
I could imagine, I would never trust the speed of USB to run an internal component. What about an Express Card though? Would the SSD in the card be enough to transer information quick enough? I don't need to game on the go, I'm unfortunately just stuck with a laptop that I need for college. I was planning on leaving the case at home and just plugging in when I wanted to game.
 
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There are adapters to do this, but you are looking at about $2000+ to get it. Really you are better off buying a decent laptop to start with.
 
You are missing the point. The one you linked is expresscard. This means you will be running into the issue of BIOS support (also take into account if you even have an expresscard slot) and will be running PCIe x1 bandwidth. At that bandwidth even a gtx690 will be outperformed by a HD2000 iGPU.
 
Oh okay, I think I understand. What you are saying is even though the board is x16, the card is only x1?
 
Expresscard is bidirectional X1, just like PCMCIA was a standard PCI lane. The card can not perform beyond the EC standard.

There are adapters that can do X4 or X8 but like said, thy cost more than a new laptop, not to mention the interface requires a x8 adapter to start with, though a XMX version should be around too.
 
wolfeking said:
There are adapters to do this, but you are looking at about $2000+ to get it. Really you are better off buying a decent laptop to start with.
Click to expand...

uh...where the heck did you get the 2000 dollar figure? i think you might want to look into it a little further. They are acceptable for situations where you are stuck with a GMA and are looking for some boost, but saying a HD2000 will whip a high end card in a enclosure is baloney.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/e-g.../418851-diy-egpu-experiences.html#post5324240

Take a look at this OP and make a decision, but honestly you may be better off just leaning on the internal card. I would say go for it if you were stuck on a GMA or similar but you do have a somewhat capable built in gpu...just wont hold a candle to a discrete desktop card regardless of the bus that is moving the bits and bytes.
 
Vidock used to be that much, but it seems in the last 2 years that it has come way down in price.

Besides that, you are never going to get even 1/4 the possible performance of a gpu running it at x1 bandwidth, which is the maximum that expresscard can provide. Otherwise you're looking at thunderbolt, and still not even close to x8 bandwidth. You're simply not going to be able to move the data to the card fast enough to take advantage of the extra power.
 
That isn't the point of these solutions Wolf. They are for a system that has a need for a little more boost and the owner doesn't want to shell out for another laptop. The people that buy these things understand the bandwidth limitation and are willing to compromise so that they have a little bit more processing power than a low power GMA or HD Intel graphics engine can provide. Say sticking a GTX650Ti or such into an enclosure while the machine has a HD4000 integrated graphics card would be the ideal situation to use one of these. Else it would just be a waste.

Was trying to find this:

http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock

Couldn't remember the name...sure if you go with the expensive high watt solution it gets expensive, but if you stick with the lower end model that doesn't require external power you probably could make a pretty capable augmentation to a laptop with low-end graphics.
 
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Even using a 650 it is not going to be that much better. If the user needs the power, he should have bought the laptop he needed in the first place. These solutions are for people that are trying to make the best of a situation they should not be in.
That aside, you still need an expresscard port, which is getting hard to come by, and are in x1 bandwidth. YOu could try it, but I don't think you are going to get much to run on x1 bandwidth graphically, and even with th elower price now a days, you are putting out $350 when the OP already has a GT650m that he could overclock and still have decent performance out of. The whole discussion is pointless really.
 
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