Playing games with an external adapter "Beast v8.4" with a Saphire RX580

in #gaming7 years ago (edited)

If you have a laptop with decent specs, I know you already suffer from the mobile version of the GPU. I will present you my setup, and what problems to expect when you take the risk to do something like this for yourself. I will make a video about this when my friend gets out of the hospital.

Laptop:

Laptop model:  Acer Aspire V3-772G,  17.3" , full HD                                                                                                                                                                      CPU:  Intel® Core™ i7-4702MQ 2.20GHz                                                                                                                                              GPU: -dedicated - GTX 760M 2GB                                                                                                                                                                RAM: 16GB, 1600Mhz

External Setup:

Adapter: PCIe PCI-E V8.4D EXP GDC External Laptop Video Card Dock / Laptop Docking Station                                    PSU: OCZ CoreXstream, OCZ-CXS500W                                                                                                                                                 GPU:  Radeon RX 580, Saphire Nitro+ Limited Edition

This is an extended subject but this is worth it if you don't have the money to build a pc with a better CPU than the on in your laptop (my case).

I will leave a list with the most important things to consider. For any details you can leave a comment.

  • Make extended research about your laptop's version of bios. Usually you have to deactivate the dedicated video card from there;
  • Go with AMD not with nVidia. AMD scales a lot, and I mean A LOT better than nVidia, and it's probably the same thing as with mining. The adapter is pciE 1x, so the GPU needs RAW POWER and shit tons of memory to run well. Besides that, nVidia knows about this way of using a desktop GPU for a laptop so they've canceled it from the drivers. If you buy nVidia, you will be stuck with a very old driver. if you go with nvidia, AVOID 1000 SERIES.
  • some open world games have hickups (the only I've found is farcry4 with this kind of problem, but Rust and Assassin's Creed run very well)
  • Even tho with AMD it's mandatory to have an external monitor, The nVidia isn't better. If you think about it, you have a 1x lane to transport data from the cpu to gpu, and from the gpu (with the hdmi cable) the images go to your monitor. If you use the internal monitor of your laptop with nvidia, that 1x lane cuts in half, one for sending one for receiving, and you get even lower speeds.
  • There are some stability issues which I suspect are from the hdmi cable from the pcie slot to the adapter.
  • Be careful what kind of PSU you choose... This model from Saphire eats a lot of power when running full speed, so when it loads, or when you use the menu from games you get coil whine. 
  • Make sure you fixed your card in the adapter's slot correctly!!!!!!! 
  • The performance loss in games, with AMD is between 5% and 20%. With nvidia starts from 15% up to 35%.
  • If you don't have an core i7 on your laptop, the bottleneck will be huge.
  • Be careful when you mod your bios, back up your windows. Something happened, I don't know what, but the system blue-screened when I booted on windows every time. I did a fresh install and everything worked fine.

I made this list because I consider you would have an advantage if you plan to invest in something like this...and again, THIS IS NOT FOR MINING THIS IS FOR GAMING!

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This is interesting. Though I would also like to know about the total price of this solution.

Great post ! Would you mind if I included it in todays "best of gaming"?

@gaming-trail So I will list the prices for my country (which usually are bigger than in the rest of the world) from the day I've bought them, with the conversion rate RON to USD from this date (25-June-2017). And I don't mind if you include it in the "best of gaming" of today, I will actually thank you!

So, we have:

The GPU : approximately $340
The monitor: LG 24MP68, with free sync, 23.8", approximately $170
The adapter: $35 at the time of purchase, now it's $38 ( you can probably get it cheaper with coupons or by ordering it from the app of AliExpress )

link adapter : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/EXP-GDC-Laptop-External-Independent-Video-Card-Dock-with-PCI-E-Interface-Black/32456172794.html?spm=2114.13010608.0.0.qXNuZg

PSU: approximately $50 ( second hand).

Total cost: $600

I don't recommend doing this kind of investing right now because of the huge prices of GPUs, but it's a good investment when everything goes back to normal... Also, I can't stress that enough: buy AMD GPU with A LOT OF MEMORY, the 8GB variant is worth it! You can go for the 4GB but the hiccups will appear in a lot more open world titles.

I hope it helps!