Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air(forum.techinferno.com) |
Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air(forum.techinferno.com) |
- We're only now seeing the first docks come available. It only took Belkin an extra year to develop it.
- The hopes and dreams of internal buses being used outside the standard case is still only a dream unless you are willing to pay extreme premiums. Even then there is still no native solution for video.
- I still need a special cord from Apple to run Dual-link. If I want a Thunderbolt display for my Macbook, I still end up with a power cord adapter that's over a year out of date.
- And now Apple wants to convince us that somehow, someway, the forthcoming Mac Pro will somehow usher in a new wave of adoption? What flavor Kool-Aid are they drinking and are they somehow consuming it through FW800?
While USB3 is faring a little better, I still encounter mystical errors any time I use a card that relies on Displaylink drivers. The fact of the matter is that it seems like this latest generation of ports is being hindered less by the underlying technology and more by corporate bullshit that leaves us all frustrated.
I feel like I'm living in the early days of VHS (USB3) vs. BetaMax (ThunderBolt) right now: Expensive, and while BetaMax is technically better, VHS will win on price & availability.
For some professional enviroments Apple still considers Thunderbolt to be useful. Its sad that they are the only ones thinking this way becouse it truly is a good solution and having more brands on board will probably push the price of cables and docks down, but if we are going to point fingers I think Intel is the one we should point them to.
But it's been nearly three goddamned years and the uptake on Thunderbolt is nothing short of pathetic; some of the blame has got to rest with Apple.
I think we have different operational definitions of "practical" here.
> 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).
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.
http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock
For my work setup with OSX something like this would be great!
Wouldn't the latency remove any substantial merit?
The obvious answer is a user replaceable card - but that hardly screams "Apple."
Checkout Option:
[ ] That P stands for "Prosumer", not "Professional", until you add this monitor.
+ $1299For 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...
Your argument is invalid and only considered from a 'I want to game' point of view, not from a "I prefer a Mac and would like to play PC games without a 'proper gaming machine'" point of view.
I don't agree and I think you lack imagination. My computer case is still a lot bigger than such a setup would be.
I do agree to an extent with Bryan, saying that one could get a small case and put a computer in there, but then I'd have 2 things to keep up to date (and pay for). My Macbook has 16GB of memory and an i5 processor. My Desktop has an i5 as well and 8GB of memory plus some hard drives, dvd, drive, etc, etc and the GPU. The GPU is the one thing my Mac lacks. So with $250 (according to the article) I can upgrade something that I will have no matter what, my Macbook, since I use it to work on, and get rid of something that I am now forced to have (hobbying aside).
@infinita I already have a 'proper' 24inch screen on my desk at home and some Logitech Z5500 speakers and a gaming mouse. I can game using my Macbook's keyboard easily. This will all be there even if I'd get rid of my Desktop.
With this 'new' setup I can have just the GPU on my desk, or build some custom casing (cables and adapters be gone) and attach it behind my monitor. I then just plugin the Macbook and boom, instant gaming pleasure. Besides, when companies start building these setups they would grow smaller and more practical.
As for windows, that is nothing a small thunderbolt (or USB3) harddrive won't solve. Granted it might be a bit slower than SATA (is that true for thunderbolt as well?), but hard drives are not the main bottleneck in gaming anyway, the GPU, CPU and RAM are still more important. I for one don't even use RAID in my current PC.
It is not all ideal, but it still is a lot more ideal than maintaining and upgrading 2 machines and have this huge case standing around just for some GTA V.
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.
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.
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
(it's named after a pro gamer, which makes it even funnier - I can just imagine shilling for a PSU: 'The 12V rail on this supply helps me react even faster!')
Thunderbolt is constrained to 10Gbit (20Gbit in some contrived used cases if your'e using Thunderbolt2). A 16-lane PCI-e gaming video card consumes anywhere between 32Gbit and 126Gbit (with modern cards coming in on the high end of that).
So you can get it working, but it'd be mostly pointless. The main impetus for an external video card is to get desktop-like video performance for demanding applications like gaming, but you are heavily bus-bottlenecked which reduces the video performance to a small fraction of its potential.
[1] - http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/279391-28-power-requiremen...
Of course, from the MBA with 512 GB SSD we can assume the OP has unlimited amount of money :)
The newest cards need to be flashed to Mac firmware. For example, you can buy pre-flashed GTX 770s like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nvidia-GTX-770-2-GB-for-Apple-Mac-Pr...
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.8.4#Graph...
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)
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...
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.
(Which I'd love to see; I just don't see Apple doing it.)
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.
+ sound
Although I use USB hub so 1x usb.
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 emulation is much better and will give a better OOTB experience (less fiddling with Kexts)
3. You might want to use a different mobo, the Realtec989 can behave strangely under OSX (popping / random interrupts) but this only happened on one install for me and a fresh install cleared it up.
4. Win7 will not install if the drive isn't device 1 or if there are HFS drives around (I have no idea why, seeing as it installs fine on my MBP -- there must be some EFI magic).
5. Fuck any SSD not made by Intel or Samsung -- make sure to use one of the Trim Enablers on the OSX side of things.
6. Don't OC the graphics card unless you're prepared to do some debugging under all OSes you plan on running.
7. OC in increments for the CPU -- test under all OSes before ratcheting up
8. Don't use Win8 with HFS drives, it does stupid shit to their metadata and headers.
9. I didn't bother setting up WiFi since my apartment is wired, but it shouldn't be too hard. Use the included wireless card and there are drivers out there that are confirmed to work.
I thought Reds were ~5400 RPM ("Intellipower") with a three year warranty.
Why?
"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 Deluxe is consistently the best value, get a 240GB or larger drive if you can for best results. The non-Deluxe version uses slightly slower memory, but the Deluxe is usually only ~$5 more expensive so get that unless the non-Deluxe is on sale. See the lists below for more options:
Great, rock-solid drives: * Samsung 840 Pro
* Intel SSD 520 (probably not worth the price premium, discontinued)
* SanDisk Extreme
* Intel SSD 330 (3K-endurance memory)
Good value drives: * Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe (best value, the non-Deluxe version is only a bit slower, but also usually not much cheaper)
* Intel SSD 335 (1.5K-endurance memory, 240GB+ only)
* Samsung 840 non-Pro (1K-endurance memory, 250GB+ only, 120GB version may only last ~3.5 years)
BAD drives to avoid: * OCZ drives have very poor reliability, probably due to insufficient memory validation.
* Kingston drives seem to have reliability issues, perhaps also due to insufficient memory validation?
* ADATA drives also seem to have issues due to memory validation.
* Crucial drives are plagued by firmware issues. The M4 has had a lot of problems but seems to have stabilized (but is a poor value today so shouldn't be purchased), the M500 is brand-new and has known issues, and the V4 is the worst SSD on the market (far slower than an HDD).
* Plextor drives benchmark well but have poorly-tuned firmware.
* SATA300 and other older/last-gen drives are not as reliable as modern drives.
NEW drives to avoid until they mature: * Samsung 840 EVO (potential to be the best SSD)
* SanDisk Extreme II (brand new, lots of potential)
* SanDisk Ultra Plus (would make a decent low-end drive, but isn't usually much cheaper than the other faster drives in the "Good" list above such as the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos)
* Seagate 600 and 600 Pro (new LAMD-based drives, seem to have potential)
* Crucial M500 (960GB model is interesting, but M500 has firmware issues, Crucial has a BAD history resolving those)
* Corsair Neutron (new LAMD-based drive with the same name and better performance, how to tell apart from old slower Corsair Neutron?)
Apple's left the Pro line to languish for so long, I can't imagine they'd let it limit their ability to differentiate in the larger display business.
[1] And of those upgraded MBPs that could hit 4k aren't going to be able to do it on two displays, which is quite popular.
> 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
Great, go and string together your tangle of bargain basement crap all over your desk. The whole point of these docks is to not do that.
You guys are not in the target market. I'm surprised you even have macs.
Not that people with those sorts of interests, even when Apple customers, rely on Apple hardware to serve those interests.
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.
Restored the data, it's still going like a champ.
Yup, famous for being pretty much the first range of affordable SSDs that didn't suck.
The year before you'd be lucky to get more than double digit random writes/sec with anything. One OCZ I tried around that time couldn't even get past one digit - it managed something like 6 writes/second. Then the X-25M/E, came out and suddenly we get tens of thousands.
Still, the return rates (for some online retailers but they are probably generalizable) have shown that Intel and Samsung are your best options.