Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air • Hacker News Board

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#11

Post by x3ro » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:38 PM UTC

whitehat2k9 wrote: post #2

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

Sure you can. However, I already own a MacBook which I use for everything except gaming, for which I had to buy a PC. As soon as these external GPUs become available commercially, I don't have to buy a separate PC for gaming anymore, just a nice GPU and the case, which actually _is_ more cost effective bottom line, assuming that I need my notebook anyway.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#12

Post by kayoone » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:39 PM UTC

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!

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#13

Post by recuter » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

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.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#14

Post by Shivetya » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

ckluis wrote: post #8

larsberg wrote: post #6

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."

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.

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.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#15

Post by apashee » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

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

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#16

Post by FooBarWidget » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:44 PM UTC

recuter wrote: post #13

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.

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.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#17

Post by oijaf888 » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

whitehat2k9 wrote: post #2

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

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.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#18

Post by bryanlarsen » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:56 PM UTC

mosselman wrote: post #10

whitehat2k9 wrote: post #2

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

I am a developer and I prefer developing on my macbook by FAR over windows and I prefer it a lot over Ubuntu et al. Right now I still have my desktop PC taking up space and clutering my desk just so that I can play a few games. I'd rather sell it and for less than what I get for the whole thing buy a thunderbolt GPU and game that way. Your argument is invalid and only considered from a 'I want to game' point of view,…

With this solution you have a PC power supply + a GPU + a bunch of adapters and cables. This probably takes up as much space as a small case would.

This solution also only works in Windows. So you still have to set up and maintain a separate "gaming machine", aka a Windows partition on your Mac.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#19

Post by aroch » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:57 PM UTC

whitehat2k9 wrote: post #2

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

And you can still run OSX on it...

This is my current setup (minus the drives / SSDs I own already): http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1mjxn

Runs OSX 10.8/10.9, Arch linux and Win7

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#20

Post by aroch » Tue, Jul 30, 2013, 3:58 PM UTC

oijaf888 wrote: post #17

whitehat2k9 wrote: post #2

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

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.

Pretty sure they're referring to the cost of the computer + parts...Also, its like $400-500 for parts unless you have a [fairly] recent graphics card just sitting around