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Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

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Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#31

Post by grecy »

roc wrote: post #25
jfb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.)

> 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.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#32

Post by frou_dh »

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."

    Checkout Option:
    
    [ ] That P stands for "Prosumer", not "Professional", until you add this monitor.
        + $1299

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#33

Post by ChuckMcM »

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."

I've been wondering something similar. Since you can lock in the 'value add' of the display, and the current Cinema display with TB is pretty full of stuff anyway, that you'd get a display with built in GPU rather than a display which is being sent the pixels. Not sure how that compares bandwidth consumption wise but from the ability for drivers to not recognize non Apple hosts its a total win.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#35

Post by atourgates »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #16
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.

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

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#38

Post by cloudwalking »

supergauntlet wrote: post #37
dmix wrote: post #5

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).

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

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

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#39

Post by infinita740 »

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,…

I don't think it's a really great idea, games take a lot of disk space and you must have a windows partition. The macbook air storage is a bit small imo.

Plus you don't want to play on a 13 inches screen, let's be realistic.

Not to mention that "clutering" desk with a full keyboard, a good mouse and a bigger screen will still be needed.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#40

Post by TomAnthony »

aroch wrote: post #19
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

Any caveats on running OS X on this setup? Thanks for sharing, btw. :)
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