
Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air - arange
http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/4271-2013-11-macbook-air-win7-sonnet-echo-expresscard-pe4l-internal-lcd-%5Bus%24250%5D.html
======
ChikkaChiChi
Let's be honest: The Thunderbolt ecosystem is tragic.

\- We're only now seeing the first docks come available. It only took Belkin
an extra year to develop it.

\- The hopes and dreams of internal buses being used outside the standard case
is still only a dream unless you are willing to pay extreme premiums. Even
then there is still no native solution for video.

\- I still need a special cord from Apple to run Dual-link. If I want a
Thunderbolt display for my Macbook, I still end up with a power cord adapter
that's over a year out of date.

\- And now Apple wants to convince us that somehow, someway, the forthcoming
Mac Pro will somehow usher in a new wave of adoption? What flavor Kool-Aid are
they drinking and are they somehow consuming it through FW800?

While USB3 is faring a little better, I still encounter mystical errors any
time I use a card that relies on Displaylink drivers. The fact of the matter
is that it seems like this latest generation of ports is being hindered less
by the underlying technology and more by corporate bullshit that leaves us all
frustrated.

~~~
wcfields
Ugh, don't get me started on the $300 Belkin Docks. ($250 for the Matrox DS1 /
$400 for the Sonnet Echo 15!)

I feel like I'm living in the early days of VHS (USB3) vs. BetaMax
(ThunderBolt) right now: Expensive, and while BetaMax is technically better,
VHS will win on price & availability.

~~~
extra88
I'm waiting for the $200 CalDigit Station. No FireWire port but multiple USB3
and you can attach 2 monitors, 1 HDMI & 1 Mini DisplayPort.

~~~
lechevalierd3on
Still a bit pricy.

~~~
extra88
Compared to what, USB3 DisplayLink docks? $200 is competitive with dual video
DisplayLink docks and can out-perform them in video display (not to mention OS
X support for DisplayLink sucks). It can also daisy chain other Thunderbolt
devices that can out-perform the USB3 devices you could use on a DisplayLink
dock.

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
To be fair to Apple, DisplayLink kind of sucks on everything.

------
larsberg
I've been assuming this is what Apple is going to do with the next MBP retina.
Intel graphics when headless + a new Thunderbolt Display with built-in Nvidia
or ATI card when "docked."

~~~
ckluis
Partially agree. I assume Apple wants to go down the truly portable route and
offer an addon graphics card in the size and shape of either an airport
extreme or apple tv/mini. This would allow someone with a mini to stack a
graphics card under it and have the graphics card inbetween the mini & any
other screen.

~~~
Shivetya
I am/was hoping thunderbolt would provide me the equivalent of a docking
station set up for Apple laptops. Hooking up one cable is an acceptable
alternative to a docking station. My last Apple laptop setup required four
plug ins, monitor, power, keyboard, and mouse. Yeah I know I could wireless
the mouse/keyboard but that isn't the point.

~~~
jfb
Apple already sells a Thunderbolt docking station, with a very nice 27"
display built in.

~~~
roc
Personally I think baking the GPU power into the displays themselves is the
more Apple-y approach. As opposed to some sort of additional-stackable-boxes
solution.

(Which I'd love to see; I just don't see Apple doing it.)

~~~
grecy
> Personally I think baking the GPU power into the displays themselves is the
> more Apple-y approach.

I don't agree.

Any Monitor with built in GPU won't make sense with the new Mac Pro, which (I
think) will be the driving force for the new (likely 4K) Thunderbolt cinema
displays.

~~~
roc
But without the GPU what Apple machines _other than_ Mac Pros will decently
drive a 4k display? [1]

Apple's left the Pro line to languish for so long, I can't imagine they'd let
it limit their ability to differentiate in the larger display business.

[1] And of those upgraded MBPs that could hit 4k aren't going to be able to do
it on two displays, which is quite popular.

------
Finster
> It has become very clear that gaming is not only high-performance, but super
> practical on an 11" Macbook Air.

I think we have different operational definitions of "practical" here.

------
dmix
Windows only.

> Oh and we're using Windows because games only exist for it, and I can't get
> the setup to work on OSX (haven't tried too much though).

~~~
supergauntlet
Is this necessarily true? If you can get drivers for the video card, wouldn't
it work?

~~~
cloudwalking
You need Apple drivers, and Apple only makes drivers for video cards they
support. So it would not be quite that straightforward.

~~~
schappim
A vendor can create their own drivers. This happens all the time for hardware
made for the existing Mac Pro.

~~~
baddox
The existing Mac Pro is quite old. Are graphics cards still being made that
support it?

~~~
gilgoomesh
The current Mac Pro is only 1 year old (although that was just a minor CPU
bump). Similarly, graphics cards you can get for the Mac Pro are typically a
year or so old. You can buy GTX 680s from NVidia or Radeon HD 7950s from ATI.

The newest cards need to be flashed to Mac firmware. For example, you can buy
pre-flashed GTX 770s like this:

[http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nvidia-GTX-770-2-GB-for-Apple-Mac-
Pr...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nvidia-GTX-770-2-GB-for-Apple-Mac-
Pro-680-Fastest-Mac-Card-available-
today-/261226130579?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3cd24a6c93)

------
recuter
I was hoping for an external GPU enclosure, like a storage bay, that lets me
plug in my own card ever since Thunderbolt was announced.

This is a hack that goes: Thunderbolt -> ExpressCard -> PCI-Express. Two
adapters is not quite so elegant, but whatever, this seems to work and I love
it.

A 13" Air has 12 hours of battery life and weighs nothing and now you can dock
it at home to game. Perfect.

~~~
FooBarWidget
Me too. It's sad to read that Intel is blocking the release of such a product.
I don't want a separate gaming system, I want an addon for my mac.

~~~
atourgates
Apart from cost - what's preventing this from working with something like the
Echo-Express pro?
[http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html](http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html)
\- are there software limitations that will prevent a graphics-card from
working in that chassis?

~~~
potatolicious
Bandwidth. We can (and already have) gotten video cards working across
external links, but they are severely bandwidth constrained.

Thunderbolt is constrained to 10Gbit (20Gbit in some contrived used cases if
your'e using Thunderbolt2). A 16-lane PCI-e gaming video card consumes
anywhere between 32Gbit and 126Gbit (with modern cards coming in on the high
end of that).

So you can get it working, but it'd be mostly pointless. The main impetus for
an external video card is to get desktop-like video performance for demanding
applications like gaming, but you are heavily bus-bottlenecked which reduces
the video performance to a small fraction of its potential.

------
SG-
Village Instruments released a ready-made product years ago:

[http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-
index.php?page=ViDock](http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-
index.php?page=ViDock)

------
whitehat2k9
...Or you could put together a proper gaming machine for the same price.

~~~
oijaf888
You can put together a good gaming machine for $250? That seems a bit low to
me but I haven't priced computer parts in a while.

~~~
glogla
$250 is too low. But the whole setup with MBA with 512 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM and i7
CPU, the GPU and then the $250 in parts is not only enough money for powerful
desktop computer, it is enough money for cheaper MBA variant and then powerful
desktop computer.

~~~
baddox
But then you don't have a Macbook Air for when you want a great portable OS X
machine with excellent battery life.

~~~
glogla
You would have Macbook Air, just not one with 512 GB SDD.

Of course, from the MBA with 512 GB SSD we can assume the OP has unlimited
amount of money :)

------
rheide
Hm, the only reason I want a new Macbook Air over an Ultrabook is that it has
the HD5000 graphics which are way faster than anything else on the
ultraportable market right now. Ultrabooks with HD5000 graphics still haven't
launched. If you're going to install Windows on it you might as well buy a
(way cheaper) notebook instead.

------
kayoone
Good writeup! For a home workstartion setup this would be pretty ideal imo..it
would possibly also reduce heat as the load is moved from the internal GPU to
an external one. Windows only kills this though, as i can use my old windows
rig from 2009 with a somewhat recent GPU (core2quad 2.8Ghz + HD6870) which
still plays basically every game without breaking a sweat.

For my work setup with OSX something like this would be great!

~~~
roc
Yeah, $250-not-counting-the-GPU is very much in the "why wouldn't I just dust
off my old mid-tower?" range.

------
kashnikov
So can I do this with my mid 2011 27" imac to get additional graphics
performance or drive additional displays with ease?

------
tvararu
I just got my shiny new MBA 13" 2013 today and was searching for something
like this. Talk about timing.

------
apashee
Hmmm, this is really cool. I'm wondering how well this'll work with my first
gen Thunderbolt MBP.

------
tzaman
Is it possible to achieve the same result on a mac mini (with an external
display, of course) ?

~~~
tankbot
I don't see any reason why not. Coincidentally this is exactly what interests
me as well, though I do have an 11" MBA too so I might use it for both at
different times.

