DIY eGPU experiences

[Mech0z]

Intel ships new generation Thunderbolt

Intel will reportedly offer two Thunderbolt solutions for its next-generation Ivy Bridge chips. The 12x12mm DSL3310 controller chip has two lanes of PCI Express bandwidth and uses 2.1W of power, while the DSL3510 provides four PCI express lanes and draws 2.8W.

[arsenal243]

This is my NVidia 680 GTX 1.2Opt benchmark. Compared to my previous 680 GTX 1.1Opt, the performance was well improved. Heaven test was seen to gain up to 35%, while 3DMark 11 seen 22% improvement.

All tests were performed at GPU stock clock. No overclocking were attempted. I observed the maximum temperature was never above 59 degrees Celsius during all the tests, with fan speed below 50% all the time.

eGPU 680 GTX: 1.2Opt vs. 1.1Opt
	1.2Opt	1.1Opt	Gain
3DMark 06	18078	17735	2%
3DMark 11	8585	7012	22.4%
3DMark Vantage	25847	21519	20.1%
Heaven	2347	1750	34.1%
RE 5 (dx10)	144.0	125.3	15%
DMC 4	197.4	126.9	55.6%

* Updates on real game performance problems with previous 1.1Opt:
- Dead Rising 2: Off the record Previously, I encountered massive fps drop in certain areas such as Fortune City Hotel. At some points, it became unplayable. With 1.2Opt, the game runs smoothly in those areas with hundred of zombies on screen at the same time.
- Dungeon Siege III The game suffered from random stutters with my GTX680 1.1Opt, especially when spinning the camera around the characters while moving. I cannot find those random hiccups any more with 1.2Opt.

[ciccio64]

maybe a fresh install based on windows 7 could be better.

Does your friend has a iGPU+dGPU ?

Yeha i know trying to convice in change vista to 7 but so far...anyway no he has only the intel integrated card'

[SimoxTav]

I tried to set "Frame Rate Target" at 20 and 30 fps respectively with EVGA PrecisionX Tool, and a Heaven test showed it did force the frame rate to be precisely those. I observed that the GPU was clocked at higher mhz in intensive scenes to maintain the framerate, and down-clocked in less-intensive ones to reduce the fps.

Yeah i've read that with EVGA Precision tool seems to work correctly, via nVidia Inspector it crashed every single time

[can nabis]

Hi,

i have a question....if i download the optimus verde driver, do i have to chose my internal graphics card (Intel HD3000), my dedicated card (gt525m) or the card that i will use with my DIY (GTS450)?

thank you for helping me!

[nefx]

This is my NVidia 680 GTX 1.2Opt benchmark. Compared to my previous 680 GTX 1.1Opt, the performance was well improved. Heaven test was seen to gain up to 35%, while 3DMark 11 seen 22% improvement.

All tests were performed at GPU stock clock. No overclocking were attempted. I observed the maximum temperature was never above 59 degrees Celsius during all the tests, with fan speed below 50% all the time.

eGPU 680 GTX: 1.2Opt vs. 1.1Opt
	1.2Opt	1.1Opt	Gain
3DMark 06	18078	17735	2%
3DMark 11	8585	7012	22.4%
3DMark Vantage	25847	21519	20.1%
Heaven	2347	1750	34.1%
RE 5	144.0	125.3	15%
DMC 4	197.4	126.9	55.6%

* Updates on real game performance problems with previous 1.1Opt:
- Dead Rising 2: Off the record Previously, I encountered massive fps drop in certain areas such as Fortune City Hotel. At some points, it became unplayable. With 1.2Opt, the game runs smoothly in those areas with hundred of zombies on screen at the same time.
- Dungeon Siege III The game suffered from random stutters with my GTX680 1.1Opt, especially when spinning the camera around the characters while moving. I cannot find those random hiccups any more with 1.2Opt.

Nice result. But it's around 80% of desktop performance.
I have 560 940\2400 and 3700 marks( I need to double performance to use my new 27" 2560*1440 monitor.
arsenal243 Please make some test in FullHD for Heaven and Mark 2011(extreme preset).

[fr0z3n]

Looks like I am going to live with the x1 link only with the T410. (Thanks for the clarification nando)

I figure i'll share some pics with you guys.


I run everything with the lid open, and when i am done playing my games - i close it and store it somewhere. Its probably not practical for most people, but the only time I play games is when I get together with the friends.

[LoneNF]

Looks like I am going to live with the x1 link only with the T410. (Thanks for the clarification nando)

I figure i'll share some pics with you guys.


I run everything with the lid open, and when i am done playing my games - i close it and store it somewhere. Its probably not practical for most people, but the only time I play games is when I get together with the friends.

Looks very nice! Not so compact, but if you have enough room and going by car, not feet or bus or bicycle, than it`s convenient and seems very save.

Does the card cool enough? Because this foam looks heat insulating or possible to degrade from constant +50 +70 Celsius.

[blizzard2012]

When you do a 32bit ALL compaction, it will do pretty much the same thing as the diags shows a success on (see far below).

We see the 4500MHD iGPU and HD5770 are allocated to d000, c000 ranges. e000 is not available so the smaller bars are moved to the fexx range including USB/SATA controllers:

The system should not freeze when doing compaction as it only does the pci write after the compaction has finished. If there is a problem then proceed as follows.

1. do a clean cold boot and post your diags. I'd like to know the bios allocation for the devices.

2. perform a manual compaction at the DOS prompt:

cd %DRV%:\config
compact pciend 100000000 makebatch pci.bat import devcon.txt

3. try the resultant pci.bat

call pci.bat
call grub4dos mbr

4. If no success, then post your \diag contents and the \config\pci.bat file result from the above

I have tried the manual PCI compaction and right after i executed
call pci.bat it hangs at "press any key to continue"

Below are the diag contents and pci.bat file.
Diag&pci.zip

[aodioxp]

Hi guys,
Just got my PE4L2.1b, established x1 2.0 link (at least GPU-Z said so) Problem is... Performance just got worse:
3dmark11
with PE4L1.5 : 4052
with PE4L2.1b: 3814
Just reinstalled driver 295.73, downloaded the driver, but there is no "nvam.inf" to replace...Got it work though...

lenovo T420 with PSU and evga GTX560Ti...
Any ideas or anybody having the same problem here? Please help...

OK, here is the situation. In BIOS, if I set pci-e power to generation 1, the results is the same whether using PE4L1.5 or 2.1b, 4059 for GPU score. When I set it to AUTOMATIC...benchmark results became worse and Dirt2 benchmark became nightmare(min10,average 20)
SW2 set to x2 x4 x8 x16 mode, SW1 set to no delay.

I tried modded verde 295.73 driver, result is slightly better yet worse than PE4L1.5. Is pci-e compression not working? Do I have to update BIOS to 1.37(currently 1.35)?

I have seen guys like jemino using 295.73 desktop driver yet getting good performance with X220...While Fausts was experiencing the same problem.
Updating BIOS is really my final shot...