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Asus G46VW eGPU TB Project: Now with a 970!

ha1o2surfer

Introduction: 

This may not get a lot of attention but figured I'd post it anyways as TB eGPU is NOT forgotten!!!!!! :)

 

Fining the perfect laptop is tough enough. After looking at the laptops at CES 2015, I am even more dissapointed in the options. I need a laptop with the following features..

1) Powerful Quad Core

2) Needs to NOT throttle (for heavens sake it's 2015, don't pull an apple.. looking at you Eon15-x...

3) Keep fan noise under 32dB (looking at you... every single laptop in the world)

4) Needs a decent dGPU for light gaming on the go

5) needs to have 3 display outputs, 1 HDMI, 1DP, and 1VGA. 

6) needs more than 6 hours of battery life

7) needs Optimus

 

As you can see I am pretty picky and I have always been settling for less.. until I found the Asus G46VW. Perfect laptop IMO and I've owned over 40 laptops in the last 2 years trying to find the perfect one lol

 

Current Laptop Specs: 

CPU: 3840QM @ 4.0ghz

GPU: GTX 660m 1250/1250

RAM: 16GB G-Skill

SSD: 1TB mSATA (Samsung)

and... it's the Thunderbolt Model! so you see where I'm going with this..

 

Parts for eGPU setup: 

ThunderTek PX: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/TTPX/ ($194)

Thunderbolt Cable: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD861ZM/A/apple-thunderbolt-cable-20-m?fnode=51 ($40)

GTX 970: $299

PSU: Dell Poweredge 700w (from my old server): http://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-Dell-PowerEdge-2850-NPS-700AB-A-0R1446-700W-Server-Power-Supply-1-Fan-PSU-/181636838169?pt=US_Server_Power_Supplies&hash=item2a4a663319 ($15 yes... 15 dollars...)

x4 to x16 powered riser ($15)

 

2x 6pin adapters cut from an old broken PSU I had laying around. (free?)

Asus G46VW: $699 from Newegg (no link anymore sorry)

CPU: 3840QM (from my old W530)

 

PSU Setup:

I set out to find a PSU to power my 970 as well as the ThunderTek PX at the same time. I went to a few stores and saw some 450 watt PSUs for 50 bucks. Ew, I looked at newegg and didn't feel like spending another 50 bucks for a stupid PSU. Went down to my basement and grabbed the first PSU I found. A dell PowerEdge 2850 700 watt. Cool! Found the pinout online and wired it up so I could get it to run without being plugged into the backplane. Below is how I got my particular PS to turn on. 

 

ki3Ms98.jpg

 

I then cut up some Molex from my old Power Supply as well as 2 6 pins and connected them to P1 (+12 Return) and P6 (+12)

I'll skip to the load tests here even though I haven't explained the rest of my setup up.

Under no load the PSU is at 12.2 volts, under full GPU load the voltage dips to 12 volts. NICE!

 

ThunderBolt Setup:

 

I literally just found the cheapest TB to PCIe enclosure I could find. Nothing really special about this particular one other than no thunderbolt daisy chaining. I prefer this as I don't have to share a bus even if there is nothing connected to the other end. Picture Below, that's about all to say about this...

nUOf4g0.jpg

 

Software Setup: 

I will try and keep this simple and easy to understand.. lol 

Back in the Windows 7 days, eGPUs were tough because we were constantly fighting with how the BIOS and Windows allocated devices. Setup 1.x basically took control and allowed eGPUs to be registered in the system no matter what limiations the BIOS had or how Windows was configured. If you want to read in dept on how this works visit this link:

 

 http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/2123-diy-egpu-setup-1-30-a.html

 

The people who created this software has some amazing talents and I wouldn't be able to even attempt to try some of what I'm doing without them. I have donated quite a bit to them and happy to support that community!

 

So there are two ways of having an eGPU connected to your system and I will explain those below.

 

1) 3rd GPU method, this method is basically just attaching an eGPU to your system and adding it on. Kind of like adding a GPU in your desktop. Nothing special; this allows for your laptop to use the GPU to drive an external monitor for gaming. This method allows people with a dGPU to use that for physx while using your eGPU for rendering the game. It also lets people with eGPUs to use thier display outputs on the laptop that may be connected to your internal dGPU allowing for, in my case, up to 10 displays ;) This method gives the BEST performance (i'll explain why in the 2nd method) All that is needed with my Windows 8.1 machine is to disable my dGPU, plug in my eGPU then reenable the dGPU. All done!

2) This method is called optimus.. can you guess why? This method allows an eGPU to drive your internal display. I have gotten this to work my demoting the dGPU to the bottom of the PCIe chain but it's not reliable so lets just say this method renders the dGPU unusable at this time. The method gives the worst performance as thunderbolt the TB chip that is connected to the PCH just doesn't have the bandwidth to pipe the PCIe data as well as the optimus data at the same time. This method is great for going over a friends house though. I play a lot of CoD 4 : Zombies and maxed out I hover around 400FPS at 1366x768 on my internal screen.. yeah.... lol

 

Performance: 

 

Now this section will be updated slowly as the week goes by.. I don't have a lot of time but I will post a few here in the meantime.. ;)

 

TessMark:                                                                                                CudaZ: TB Performance 

 

fGxFlpF.pngAngLufT.png

 

And.. and few games in the very near future. 

 

Pictures:

 

Still working on a case... lol don't laugh..

 

MkKwqec.jpg

 

QWulAMz.jpg

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This.

This is...

Amazing...

It is literally in a plastic tub.

| Intel i7 5820K @ 4.8GHz | G.Skill Ripjaws 4X4GB | X99 PRO | HoF 980 | Asus MX299Q | Sennheiser HD600 |

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Hey bro, you should have used duct tape, to match the grey scheme inside the plastic tub.

Want to help researchers improve the lives on millions of people with just your computer? Then join World Community Grid distributed computing, and start helping the world to solve it's most difficult problems!

 

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