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  • Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    Let's see, should I buy a $400 eGPU enclosure so my $1000 notebook can actual do something useful, or should I just buy a used T3500 off ebay for less money and actually get more FPS from my GPU and not have to worry about docking or dealing with a bunch of cheesy connections that may or may not decide to work? Gee, tough choice.
  • xchaotic - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    I think a proper gaming PC is going to be cheaper than this.
    With Cloud save games on Steam, uPlay etc, it's probably easier to sync that way, rather than plug a very expensive GPU enclosure.
  • Flunk - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    Bingo. I currently own BOTH a high-end laptop and gaming PC. This would be more convenient and save me some money the next time around.
  • MisterAlexEsquire - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    Why the clunky, weird case design? I'd much prefer something in a rectangular prism form factor. Rounded edges and such are fine, but this thing looks just hideous.

    I'd love something I can plug my XPS 13 into for games when I get home, but not if it costs as much as building a second machine, anyway.
  • Flunk - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    Then buy one of the other ones. The AKiTiO Node for example sounds like it would fit your requirements.
  • iranterres - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    300$ for an enclosure? Come on...
  • ddriver - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    Direct your gratitude at intel
  • xype - Thursday, December 22, 2016 - link

    It comes with a power supply and needs to be developed, tested and certified. Add to that that neither of these will sell in huge numbers, and $300 is actually cheap. You can always just build your own, though.
  • Cygni - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    These eGPU enclosures that cost more than a complete gaming computer continue to miss the point.
  • xype - Thursday, December 22, 2016 - link

    Small market, people who actually _need_ or _want_ them will pay the price. People on a budget will build their own thigamajigs.
  • xthetenth - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    Neat that they include a big enough power supply big enough for dual GPU cards that don't get made any more without an external liquid cooler that wouldn't fit in the enclosure.
  • damianrobertjones - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    All I'd like is a basic darn box to place a gpu. It doesn't have to be fancy, cost the earth, or do strange things.

    STOP making things, that should be simple, far more complicated in an effort to justify raising the price to stupid levels.

    A gpu ‘caddy’, which is all it pretty much is, should be no more than £199. You then have to buy the darn card so we're then heading towards £450 which is getting a bit silly really (As you also have to buy the machine to plug this into).
  • BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    I agree. It ought to be a metal box with a graphics card, power supply, and a fan inside of it. There's far too much emphasis and expense invested in lights, windows, and other bits that simply add nothing in the realm of functionality. It's a computer part, not a statement of lifestyle.
  • Reflex - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    I would argue that USB and possibly a SATA connector make sense. These should be a docking solution as well. Having to plug in half a dozen cables to use your mobile device on a desk defeats the purpose as well.
  • BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    I don't think there's anything wrong with that idea. A lot of laptops would benefit from additional storage and leaving a keyboard and mouse connected to the GPU box would be useful too. I really think a lot of the cost in these things is sunk into unnecessary dress and lighting.
  • Reflex - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    No disagreement there. The unconventional shapes that offer little to no functionality, the style lighting, it all misses the point. This is not an attempt to turn an ultra-portable device into a desktop. It's an attempt to make it useful on a desk.
  • MrSpadge - Wednesday, December 21, 2016 - link

    I agree: a simple box which doesn't block the GPU air flow, i.e. pretty much just a metal mesh and dust filters between it and the fresh outside air. In this way no fan would be required.. although constructing such a box around a 140+ mm fan could also be tempting. Then let us attach a regular for factor PSU, so we can choose, upgrade/repair and dimension it ourselves and voila, we'd have the case with far the best price/performance ratio. It could especially appeal to people who want more GPUs in a single box for number crunching (no, I'm not talking about *coin mining).
  • digiguy - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    I wonder how much smaller (and portable) would an enclosure with a MXM Pascal GPU be... I doubt however that Nvidia would let this happen anytime soon...
  • unrulycow - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    This is super ugly and likely ridiculously expensive, but I'd like to see Anandtech review a couple of these and see the performance penalty for PCIe 3.0 x4
  • kenansadhu - Wednesday, December 21, 2016 - link

    The Razer Core got a 15% performance penalty, right (it ran at about 85% of the Card's potential). Since it is still using Thunderbolt 3, will there be any difference?
  • rtho782 - Wednesday, December 21, 2016 - link

    The but I don't get is, does it require an external monitor? In which case I may as well just have a desktop.

    If not, then given that you need to move the frames back over the pcie link, it really is going to struggle for bandwidth.

    1080p60 @24 bit colour is getting up to 10% of the bandwidth of pcie 3.0x4. As soon as you go 1440p, you double the bandwidth. 4k, is quadruple the bandwidth, 40% of the total, and 120hz also doubles it.

    1080p60 might be accepted today, but just around the corner people will be looking for 4k120 HDR12, which will be 120% of the bandwidth of pcie 3.0 x4, leaving no future on this solution.
  • xype - Thursday, December 22, 2016 - link

    > In which case I may as well just have a desktop.

    Uhm. Then it’s not for you?

    I think people buying these don’t care that much about the "future" and their games, but being able to play games with their laptops right now.

    Me, I’d be in the market, maybe sometime in 2017. I have a work-issued new MBP that is an amazing machine for the work I do. Getting an eGPU box with space for an SSD would save me some money, and I have an external screen at home anyway.

    I know that a lot of people find the idea of eGPUs interesting, but when it comes down to it, it’s just not something that many will even consider buying. It’s just weird that they keep saying so online as if there would ever be a realistic option that would make them consider such hardware in the first place (short of an eGPU box with a 1080 for $250 in total).

    Which is also the reason why most of these are expensive. The market is very small and the people who want/need one will pay for it.
  • MadAd - Tuesday, December 20, 2016 - link

    *waits for the model with half the power, 1 slot, 1 fan and a fraction of the price

    I guess I have waited this long, another year wont make any difference. All I want is ITX based desktops with a remote GFX card for my daily/bi daily dose of shooting players in Planetside 2.

    Once im done I want to shut off the graphic card completely, and not be tied to big PC cases sitting around 24/7 just because I like to game. I have a NAS, ITX makes so much sense for desktop, the only thing missing is a decent external video caddy selection.
  • eldakka - Saturday, December 24, 2016 - link

    There are small footprint ITX cases that can support a single dual-slot graphics card. Much more cost-effective and space efficient than a tiny ITX case + extra tiny external case for GPU.
  • rl2e - Wednesday, December 21, 2016 - link

    They list ROG GL502VM as compatible, but I don't think that laptop even has a TB3 port.
  • Traffic - Wednesday, May 24, 2017 - link

    Its so funny that people hasnt found this solution almost at all. What could be better, have a full graphics capable computer at home with easy to carry around 2 in 1 for example. Just wondering can one buy a miix 720 for example and connect it with Asus XG2 with good GPU it would be something.
  • Nataku4ca - Friday, October 27, 2017 - link

    I agree with you, I've been eyeing new equipment for a few month now as my current desktop is almost 10years old and on it's last leg. I've pretty much decided to get the Miix720 and found a guy who tried it with the Razor core and it works. People really need to understand a few things to see the value for these setup.

    1. It's really a docking station replacement, a docking station from each manufacturer generally runs around 150~300CAD depending on number of ports and other features. The XG took care of most of the things someone like me would care about (USB expansion, network port, video out, more HDD space)

    2. For a 2-in1 like the Miix720, the extra bay for harddrive really saves the day. I've shopped around for external enclosure (USB) as I have some extra drives, but if I'm just buying enclosure they're almost always more than 80CAD. having this would save me a bundle of money. (yes you can buy new external drives with drives included for likely cheaper, but why waste what you have)

    3. Not everyone would agree, but I've been imagining a day where I have one portable device that I can do everything on, but won't be bulky like a gaming laptop. The XG allows for that. If I replace my monitors as well so that they can be daisy chained, would have 1 or may be 2 cables depending on the solution I go with, to plug into the 2-in-1 and everything else can be tucked away nicely. makes for a much cleaner and nicer looking desktop. (If you're married like me, you likely know what I mean and why it's appealing...)

    4. as bulky as this may seem (and as sad that LAN party is no longer a thing) it makes me moving to another place for gaming due to kids screaming much simpler when I need to (again something probably only parents would appreciate)

    5. Well, kind of have to realize that this is just the beginning, kind of like how 2-in-1s were at the beginning, or how much the cheapest desktop cost in the early 90s, or that 600CAD 160GB SSD I bought when they first came out. it's NEW!

    rant over, hopefully I'll get my setup together in a month or two

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