DIY eGPU experiences

[Wolf_vx]

I hope I am not too late to the discussion here. I also hope that my opinion will be taken into account although please do note that I am not trying to offend anyone and these are just my thoughts.

I have read all the posts relating to the VillageTronic collaboration. I sure do have to say that it took good amount of time to read and I had to take a good number of notes (my pen has even decided to give up writing at some point) so that I don't forget to mention all of my thoughts. I am a constructive thinker and being this late to the discussion I have lots of info to base my thoughts against at.

Firstly I will say that it is appreciated that VT (VillageTronic) has decided to show up here and share his piece of mind. It is also good that Nando decided to take this conversation here as this involves community as well. And I am thankful to Mr.Chen for disclosing the full content of the e-mail, which gave more light on the situation here. Now, Mr.Chen, you shouldn't take Nando's first post to the heart, as all of those words were probably based on speculations and not facts, and you did good job at trying to clear them up.

Ok, onto the topic. Damn, this is going to be long.
I will start off with the Setup1.x software. Basing on the posts I have seen here, its seems try that there some grudge between VT and DIY project. Any one that came here with ViDock got instantly sent out the door back to VT for support. And even the first page tells ViDock holders to go back to VT. For one thing, I think it is good that it does so, because people that payed that price should be getting support from VT and not from here. But I also think that DIY should offer support for the Setup software regardless of the Vidock holder or the DIY, since it was purchased here. But we are talking about payments again. Now, going back to when Setup Software was free, VT did what you would expect them to do, tell people to get the software here and as Mr.Chun has stated, it was all under license agreement. And people did what you would expect them to do, not to pay for the software because they have already payed for the ViDock. But in a sense, that is what you would expect from anyone really, in regards to a free software with "feel free to donate" buttons, usually people would not want to pay. Again, but, there is still some fault on VT side, as they should have negotiated on this matter earlier. I believe its just a matter of mutual misunderstanding. About the Software's donations money, I believe that all of it goes toward further development (unless I am wrong), and I believe its the right move. If it was free, it probably wouldn't be as good and useful as it is now and wouldn't be able to support newer systems (not many people are motivated to do things for free for years).
Now onto "The Price". It appears to me people aren't really aware of how things are with companies and all that business. It also appears that not many people took Business Studies classes. I will clarify on that a little bit. Firstly, there are things such as manufacturing costs (components cost) and these make the starting price and everyone seems to understand that. But there are other things such as operational costs. These include rent, lights, gas, water, wages and salaries. And those also have to be covered in the price of a unit, but unlike the manufacturing costs, they are spread over all products sold. This means that, the more products you sell, the smaller the portion of that cost each unit has to cover. In terms of numbers, if operational cost each month is, lets say, $50 and if we only sell 1 product per month, means the price has to be (components cost + $50), and if we sell 50 units each month (components cost + $1). This is the basic gist. Returning back to VT, they have big operational costs. Firstly R&D(Research and Development) department doesn't bring any profit what so ever and costs lots of money to run. Secondly, they manufacture, means people have to be payed for work. And that is not even close to covering all the costs. And based on how DIY is successful, VT is bound to have small number of units sold, hence the price is so high. And people are comparing VT to BPlus. Now compare it again with this knowledge. I will outline some of it. BPlus has a good number of products and they are selling PE4H/L like hot cakes. Hence, why they can make them cheaper, as operational costs are spread over a big number of products sold. In fact, they would be the ones making some nice profits for DIY eGPU project.
Good point was raised about other companies coming into play on eGPU market. And I believe it is true, they will come. Which is why I think it is a WIN / WIN if DIY and VT collaborate. Firstly, it will give a nice foothold for VT on the market due to something called "Brand Loyalty" and "Word of Mouth". People will buy from the same place if the first product they bought from it was satisfying, and will buy fro a place with good customer reviews. Secondly, it profits DIY, as DIY gets the features it needs instead having to adjust to manufacturers. A good example of that would be Intel. They are making ThunderBolt to push you into buying a new laptop and then they will want you to pay good money for the TB adapters because they see that you will be getting too good of a service to only pay $100 for it. This brings me onto another thing. Intel and Nvidia are already interested in this DIY project. One reason to believe that is obvious, the TB port. But the other one is that Nvidia is not further locking down Optimus. They are still introducing their iGPU dGPU combos for which I see absolutely no reason. Intel's VGAs are absolutely worthless. It would be easier for Nvidia to just wok some more on Power Management of the GPU, which is as simple as updating drivers, and they would be getting the same battery life as non iGPU dGPU laptops. Instead, Nvidia sees this DIY eGPU as increase in profits. You firstly buy a laptop with Nvidia's dGPU, basically paying them, and then you buy a desktop GPU, extra sales. I wish AMD would get a smell of this and come up with their Optimus equivalent technology and unlock it for everyone. Then we would start see Nvidia showing more care in this project and maybe even fully unlock Optimus, which in term would confirm that they are showing interest in this.
Returning back to the ViDock's Price. There really is not much difference between. I don't know about US prices so I will use Japanese ones equivalent in US Dollars. PE4L (ViDock's equivalent) is around $100 + ATX PSU, cost me another $100, total of around $200 without a nice enclosure and portability. ViDock is priced around $250 and has enclosure and is all built for you into a nice package which is more portable, basically everything is done for you. It all comes down to about the same price so I don't see many reasons for people to cry about it. I can bet those that cry, never accounted for the PSU cost. And do not forget, that it is suggested here, by Nando himself, to buy Vidock if you want a neater solution for about the same price.

Villagetronic (VT)
- Setup 1.x software costs $25 for it's users. (Nando4)

I believe Mr.Chen has stated in this thread that VT pays 50% of the Setup1.x software license, so its $12.5 for it's users.

As for the suggestions toward the Collaboration, i think VT should try providing a DIY solution. Firstly, it would boost their sales, and secondly it would give us a cheaper and better DIY solutions with features DIY wants to see, possibly with addon features.

P.S. I wish MXM eGPU was available. This would really make it interesting to see how laptop manufacturers would react.

P.P.S. Didn't bother checking for spelling mistakes. It took way too long to write this, hence too tired to check for any.

P.P.P.S Would be nice to see those briefing between Nando and SimoxTav, or maybe even included in them. I would like to think more over this Collaboration thing and maybe even contribute some more, if there is room for it.

Wolf

[EpicBlob]

Wolf_vx,

I would firstly like to say that thank you for understanding. Mr. Chen doesn't make enormous profits on vidocks sold, and its simple logic that as the sales go up, the price will come down. I personally like both products, but I think that many DIY users need to get off the hate-train and realize that they are practically killing off a company that started external gpus. Vidock came out in the early 2000's, and was the only egpu available. Why do you think its called DIY-Vidock?

I also think that price is the only reason people buy diy-egpus instead, but Mr.Chen would really like to lower the price of the Vidock because he has always been concentrated on the users; its hard to lower the price when more than half of your sales are being taken away by a product that has cable defects and is a very stripped down version. If Mr.Chen were to come out with a diy-vidock alternative, he could price it around $70 because he wouldn't have to worry about a sturdy case, power supplies, and added ports.

And I think everyone should be reminded this; we are all one community that shares the same goal (at least we should be). Nothing wrong comes from joining forces to use both sides knowledge to continue and evolve external graphics solutions.

[Wolf_vx]

EpicBlob,

Some good words there. And it is totally true that we need to get off that train, as it leads nowhere.

Wolf

[jacob_s]

Hello again everyone (it's been a while since I've visited). I've been wanting to get an eGPU for a while now, but didn't really have the time. I got motivated again the other day when I was playing the Diablo III beta and getting depressed at how low I had to turn all the settings to get it playable on my 1080p monitor... (if that's not motivation for you, I don't know what is)

Just need to clarify a few things:
I have a Dell Latitude E6420 with the i7-2720QM, 8Gb RAM and the NVS 4200M, which is more than sufficient for most of my work - programming, CPU heavy stuff, etc. I only game very rarely, and since I basically live on my Laptop anyways, I figured I didn't want to go spend the money/effort to get me a modern desktop. Originally I was looking at the ViDock, but they're hellishly expensive and their website didn't inspire confidence ... plus, I normally do things myself anyways . From what I can tell, I have ExpressCard 2.0, so I'll be wanting to get something like the recommended PE4L ( PCIe Adapter ver2.1 ) ... but I'm in the U.S., and I read in this thread that buying from HIT would be preferable. Do they have the part I need, and can someone provide a link? Also, just to clarify since I haven't messed with these things in years: the adapter runs the card in 1x mode to suit the 1x interface (judging by the fact that it's only using the first row of pins..)

I was watching some videos and noticing a lot of micro-lags and stutters while gaming. I'll definitely be going direct to an external monitor, and I would hope to avoid these issues... I would have thought that the rest of my system should be beefy enough.

I would like to use only NVidia drivers... I was reading that they now support Optimus optimization with eGPU's natively now?

I was going to eventually get something to this effect:
Newegg.com - EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

though I'll test the chip with my old 7600GT.

Am I on the right track here? Is this going to work out fairly well - I'm not asking for super high performance, just medium settings smooth (not glitchy). These behemoth threads make finding every little detail a trick, so I do apologize for what's been covered. I tried to read as much as possible.

[lazyboy]

Returning back to the ViDock's Price. There really is not much difference between. I don't know about US prices so I will use Japanese ones equivalent in US Dollars.
...
As for the suggestions toward the Collaboration, i think VT should try providing a DIY solution. Firstly, it would boost their sales, and secondly it would give us a cheaper and better DIY solutions with features DIY wants to see, possibly with addon features.

Your prices are off.
Also, have you read the "How does a DIY eGPU differ from a Villagetronic" on page one?

Lastly, it baffles me that you claim to have business education and yet suggest that VT should change their entire business model..
Not to mention that you want them to invest time & money in R&D that will somehow produce "cheaper and better DIY solutions".
btw those are not tangible/actionable terms.


IMO if anyone thinks that:
1) VT didn't suggest this because they want to overcome Error 12 on the cheap.
AND/OR
2) We (the community) stand to gain anything from the collaboration.
you're wrong.

I would firstly like to say that thank you for understanding. Mr. Chen doesn't make enormous profits on vidocks sold, and its simple logic that as the sales go up, the price will come down. I personally like both products, but I think that many DIY users need to get off the hate-train and realize that they are practically killing off a company that started external gpus. Vidock came out in the early 2000's, and was the only egpu available. Why do you think its called DIY-Vidock?

I also think that price is the only reason people buy diy-egpus instead, but Mr.Chen would really like to lower the price of the Vidock because he has always been concentrated on the users; its hard to lower the price when more than half of your sales are being taken away by a product that has cable defects and is a very stripped down version.

1) How do you know how much profit VT actually makes? And why should we care?
2) If VT is dying out it's because of the global market, not DIY EGPU. Have you noticed how powerful laptops have become since ViDock came out?
3) So because (you think) he's a nice guy we should all buy his stuff? It's called DIY for a reason. Just like some people install Linux and others OC their CPU; it could be because of cost savings and it could be for many other reasons.
4) If you're saying that DIY EGPU is faulty %50 of the time (its not), and yet somehow takes away sales from a "commercial quality" product it probably suggest that the commercial product is crap or too expensive.



I've yet to see a single, realistic, benefit for the collaboration that didn't borderline overly optimistic wishful thinking.
I'm sorry, but someone had to say it.

[carage]

2) If VT is dying out it's because of the global market, not DIY EGPU. Have you noticed how powerful laptops have become since ViDock came out?

Laptop development has come pretty far but it still lags behind desktop parts. If you look at the charts at notebookcheck you can see that.
Only things like mobile SLI or CF cards can come close to desktop performance, but if you want that...you will need at least a 17 inch chasis. I don't see any mobility in that.
On the CPU front, the i7 is pretty much an i5 on the desktop.
So there is still a long way to go.

[User Retired 2]

Humor: What is on Hubert's mind?

Meandering over to the ViDock facebook page to see if Hubert is still around upon which I see what's on his mind:



When it says "I heard on hearsay", " notes in the community" I wonder where the source was? Now it has already been discussed on here as part of troubleshooting steps on how Fermi can help some systems that cannot accomodate 256MB pci-e space but support Fermi's smaller fragmented space, detail of which Hubert can find it he wants.

So then I take it then we are being actively observed from the sidelines by Villagetronic support Ninjas and the head himself. Do our findings become their findings? What about their findings? Have there been any public ones and did any of them help us? I already see a major lopsideness there.

I think a DIY eGPU (HIT/BPLUS) versus everyone else pros/cons chart is in order with price and 'for-profit' / 'non-profit' being major criteria. Then we can evaluate if it's at all possible to get VT to make something that fits on the 'non-profit' side and is in some way better than what we already have. SimoxTav is already doing some work there on the VT collaboration proposal summary (SimoxTav)

I have no interest in supporting or endorsing his 'for-profit' products other than a link to them so users can explore them as an alternative to the DIY eGPU hardware for perhaps other features that may be of interest.

Now if profit is so important then why not have a community based distribution model for it? Contributors could be equitable shareholders. Then there would be direct benefit from putting time into his existing 'for-profit' ViDock "community-based" product/project.

[SimoxTav]

Ok as promised:

ASSUMPTION:
I studied economics and I'm actually a junior sales manager with *a bit* of experience in P/L analysis (nevertheless in an electronical division ). What Wolf_vx says is basically correct, there are other costs beside the operational ones called SUNKEN costs that raise the price for the final customers, but while I can agree on Hubert about the difference in the solution provided by them (PSU + PCB + Enclosure) + (R&D + Logistics + Operational Costs) + (Margins) against the competitor ones (PCB) + (R&D + Logistics + Operational Costs) + (Margins), i would say there must be changes in the vision and so on in their product if they want compete in THIS market.
The eGPU market is a niche one, made by the most part of appasionates that has a mid to high knowledge on how a PC works and how to achieve the target (the others focus on gaming notebooks or come here with the idea to "resurrect" an old notebook but they're a small amount).
And then there are for sure some people with *over the top* knowledge like kizwan, khenglish, nando and others (based on their past experience on the product and on their personal background).

THESIS:
We're not talking about how VillageTronic should do their core business, but if they want a suggestion, mine is about to transform their product to a modular one like the DIY one (to easily manage these sunken costs extending their range of products). and if I intended correctly Hubert said that is the road they would like to follow with the community, so the path is IMHO correct. I'm skeptical about the choice of a "not so common" connector that depends on the manufacturers will

Today they offer only EC2C connection, power limited solution and while technically speaking it could have its appeal because of the good manufacturing process (enclosure, details etc), but in this community made of people that swap they GPUs, make tests, use mPCIe, find solutions and so on, simply doesn't fit well.

It's like the approach of Apple Vs PC; none is the best, there are simply different approaches. You want everything working out of the box? Then go for Apple, you want to tweak? Go for PCs. The main difference here is that since TODAY, Villagetronic never had a 100% working solution out of the box, so the major benefit that would justify a "margin" is simply non existant because the "solution pool" is mainly focused on the achievement reached here on the board where the passion and not the turnover leads the "product development". With no Setup 1.x utility we should have a low compatible range of notebook but no more damage, but Villagetronic would have many more problems of incompatibility (that leads to RMAs and so potential losses).
So considering this is the scenario, i don't see ways for a WIN/WIN collaboration other than having a newer product developed with the community (like the VillageEco I suggested) to have the support here on this product that would grant benefit to the community due the lowering of the price thanks to the competitiion, or the purchase of the commercial license of the Setup 1.x if they want to provide it with their product, but leaving the board splitted from their business.

Simone

[Wolf_vx]

I'm sorry, but someone had to say it.

Then I am sorry I have to say this. You are either a pessimist or you have over studied business. IMHO, you are a combination of both. Plain criticism won't get things anywhere. It's tough to be creative, but we just have suck it up go with it if we want it move somewhere. No offense there though.

Your prices are off.

Firstly, I did mention I used equivalent prices but I guess you missed that part. Its true that electronics in Japan does cost more but its comparable. A word of advice, check and confirm before claim.

Also, have you read the "How does a DIY eGPU differ from a Villagetronic" on page one?

Question back at you, did you? Or even better, did you read posts made by Mr.Chen? In detail?
It appears to me that you tend to neglect information posted. Firstly, (obviously claims with no info to back up) is that he did mention that he already has RnD working on some eGPU solution (reconfirmed with posts above). Secondly, his business needs to survive, so instead of just continuing to make product, which just barely makes him to turnover, it would be smart for him to adjust their business model. They are not throwing away eGPU to to make cigarettes, but just need to adjust their product for it to bring profit.

In any case, I don't want to turn this into flame war, so I am done discussing it. Please, Do NOT take offense.

Humor: What is on Hubert's mind?

Hmm... I should maybe highlight something here.

Nvidia is not further locking down Optimus.

Careless reading sometimes brings such misunderstandings. *Sigh*

Now it has already been discussed on here as part of troubleshooting steps on how Fermi can help some systems that cannot accomodate 256MB pci-e space but support Fermi's smaller fragmented space

I guess we can interpret this as Nvidia showing some investment into eGPUs. I doubt desktops have problems with resource allocation and considering the age of the Fermi cards, it was probably all thanks to DIY eGPU efforts. But on the other hand, it might well be Nvidia is just screwing around with us. Who knows.

I think a DIY eGPU (HIT/BPLUS) versus everyone else pros/cons chart is in order with price and 'for-profit' / 'non-profit' being major criteria. Then we can evaluate if it's at all possible to get VT to make something that fits on the 'non-profit' side and is in some way better than what we already have.

Will try giving it some thought at a later point. Too sleep deprived to do it today, as mentioned.

Wolf

[can nabis]

hi,

is it possible that HIT would sell the adapter PE4L ( PCIe Adapter ver2.1 ) in the next time? or wont they at all?