> It has become very clear that gaming is not only high-performance, but super practical on an 11" Macbook Air. I think we have different operational definitions of "practical" here.
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Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
81–90 of 102 posts
Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
#82Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something Awful's Hardware/Software forum has a huge thread on SSDs. The thread name is pretty explicit of what NOT to use: "The SSD Megathread - Don't buy OCZ or Crucial drives, read the OP!" http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=345... To summarize if you don't have an account: I don't want to read anything just tell me what SSD to buy! (last updated: 07/25/2013) The Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Delu…
Funny, my 520 got flaky after 6 months and failed after 2 years.
I have an Intel (not sure which model, X-25M? Does that exist?) I got in 2009, it started failing last year (SMART warned me). I emailed Intel about it and they asked me to send them SMART results, I did, they told me to mail them the drive, I backed everything up just fine and sent it in, and a (hellish, HDD-slow) week later I got a brand new one.
Restored the data, it's still going like a champ.
Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
#84I'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.
Sony has done this in the past. The add-on wasn't cheap.
Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any caveats on running OS X on this setup? Thanks for sharing, btw. :)
I run 2 x 30" (2560x1440) and 1 21"(1920x1200) IPS monitors (all DVI). I have 3 Samsung 540 256GB SSD, 2 WD RED 7200RPM 3TB drives (with lifetime warranty!) in the slots. 1. You should probably jump up to 750W PSU (Which is what I did in the end) just for a little more wiggle room. I also moved to small footprint RAM to fit under my cooler -- 4 x 8GB sticks. 2. Use Clover not Chameleon as your bootloader. It's EFI em…
>2 WD RED 7200RPM 3TB drives (with lifetime warranty!)
I thought Reds were ~5400 RPM ("Intellipower") with a three year warranty.
Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
#86Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
#87I'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 would LOVE to see Apple's version of a laptop dock, so far we've only seen kinda ugly all-about-usability docks from the likes of lenovo, nothing aesthetically pleasing, so I think it would be really cool to see what Apple would come up with in this department.
For examples of slightly bad ideas look no further than the Thinkpad Helix -- it would work if there was no switch to undock and they could figure out a way to get rid of the whole flap thing...
Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you expand on this? I've been eyeing the Belkin.
Nothing personal/technological; the reviews of it have been very positive. It's the $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous. (Though I know it takes a lot of R&D.. etc..., but this is just how Firewire devices were: full of promise, but are few and far between plus priced too high)
> $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous
Is it? Sounds pretty normal to me. Belkin is a pretty good brand and charges accordingly. Like Apple, really.
I think that for their target market $300 won't be a barrier at all. In fact after checking it out I'm pretty tempted...
Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing personal/technological; the reviews of it have been very positive. It's the $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous. (Though I know it takes a lot of R&D.. etc..., but this is just how Firewire devices were: full of promise, but are few and far between plus priced too high)
> $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous Is it? Sounds pretty normal to me. Belkin is a pretty good brand and charges accordingly. Like Apple, really. I think that for their target market $300 won't be a barrier at all. In fact after checking it out I'm pretty tempted...
$300 is about 3 times what it should be, in my opinion. It's not much more than a fancy USB hub with audio & a NIC. USB 3.0 hubs with NICs are about $50-60, or one could easily use a regular USB 3.0 hub and attach a USB NIC, sound card, etc. Perhaps not as clean but a hell of a lot cheaper.
Even worse, the price is not really $300 - in order to use it, you'll need a thunderbolt cable which is nearly $40 (!).
There are few to no storage solutions that can benefit from thunderbolt over USB 3.0 and the whole ecosystem reeks of greed and vendor lock-in. No, thanks.
Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you trying to say Apple wouldn't put GPUs in displays because it might accelerate the display upgrade cycle?
I'm trying to say that customers aren't quite stupid enough to invest in a display that they'll throw out 18 months later.
As long as it can be used with a pass-through Thunderbolt mode, it would still be perfectly usable as a display/port expander without using the internal GPU, should you buy a faster machine.
Also, Apple stuff seems to last damn near forever, so it'll hold a lot of resale value (even if the GPU is two years old) for those who want to upgrade.