NVIDIA pursuing external graphics accelerators for laptops?
By Joanna Stern 
posted Feb 8th 2010 7:06PM
posted Feb 8th 2010 7:06PM
It's not everyday that we can say there's external laptop GPU love in the air, but right on the heels the appearance of the Gigabyte M1405 with its GeForce GT220 dock, NVIDIA is expressing interest in external laptop GPUs as well. Manager of notebook GPUs Rene Haas told X-bit Labs that he thinks external graphics adapters for laptops are a "big opportunity" for NVIDIA, though he noted the drawback of their high price tags. We assume he is referring to AMD's ATI XGP box (or Fujitsu Siemens's Lasso) which is the only one available -- the ASUS XG station (pictured above) that seemed to vanish into thin air after its brief appearance at CES 2008. Either way, Haas very clearly states that the large market appeal of affordable external GPUs is just his opinion, though we're going to assume his opinion holds a bit of water in Santa Clara.
wow... that could actually be very useful
@Hell Angel Yeah seriously. You're only going to want the high power graphics when you're plugged in anyway, so may as well make them separate.
I've wanted something like this for years. If the picture has anything to do with what they're putting out it's way overdesigned.
Eventually we're either going to move towards modularized or disposable computing, with no user-servicable parts. Apple is pushing us towards disposable computing, but technologies like this - if standardized - would bring modularity to things (and thus extend their usable lifetime).
The connection is likely the inefficient point, and yet if Sony's new very-short-range high speed wireless tech (posted a few pages back) were used, you'd have a much less complex connection to the CPU.
@(Unverified)
As mentioned, the picture is the ASUS XG station, a delightful bit of vaporware. Click the link and see the digital unicorns.
Until there comes the day when i can have a 24" laptop that has a fold-able screen, desktop is still my go-to for games.
@Hell Angel
There actually is a few different products on the market that work with ANY laptop with an expresscard slot, however the bandwidth over the expresscard link (PCIe x1/x2) is limited so you can't run a GTX275 off of it, but you can run a decent mid-level desktop card. Obviously these proprietary solutions using custom PCIe x16 connectors will be far better.
I remember seeing one recently announced that lets you hook up a 5870!
@Hell Angel
Nothing new here, just been waiting for someone to do it justice.
Thin laptop, gpu base. Job done.
@Hell Angel I honestly can't agree more.
This is just genius if they can get this going for around less than $300 for something that would finally let basic laptop users play decent games! Anyone who would want to game on their laptop would want to do so plugged in anyways, making this probably the most ideal solution.
question though were would I connect it at not many ports on a laptop made for constant high speed
@ajac09 USB 3.0 should be able to handle those kinds of speeds. It's not going to come out for a while, so by then, USB 3.0 will be fairly common.
@ajac09 or pci-e
@Special Agent Steve
I believe USB 3.0 is about 500MB/s, where as PCIe x16 is 8000MB/s?
We might need an external 72 pin connector or something similar that links straight to the serial bus (please correct me if I'm wrong). So we will probably see a new docking set up or port for workstation class laptops. Exciting stuff.
@(Unverified)
16 GB/s for the new PCI-Express 3.0 16x
around 400 MB/s for USB 3.0
I believe.
A new port is really gonna be needed for this.
Maybe a good way to jumpstart Light Peak?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/26/exclusive-apple-dictated-light-peak-creation-to-intel-could-be
Awful idea.
It's a PORTABLE device for a reason... so you don't need any bulky external devices plugged into the back. If you need the fastest GPU, get a desktop.
@Hazdaz
Umm, no. I have a 20" laptop, which does work on my lap as well as being portable to be taken to friends house or travel abroad with which I have done. Heavy, yes indeed, but not unbearable and suitable for travel if and when required. There's no reason to get a fixed desktop with a desktop replacement laptop or a tiny underpowered laptop.
External graphics would be a welcome addition for when required, not at the airport terminal but most of the time people use laptops, your desk.
Rephrasing that sentence:
There's no reason to get a fixed desktop or a tiny underpowered laptop, when you can have a desktop replacement laptop that can be portable.
@Hazdaz ...or get a notebook and an external GPU (wait for it)... for your home. That way you can rock out with the portability and power of both worlds.
@taciturnforsale
Exactly what I was (poorly) trying to say. I quite enjoy a nice large 1920x1200 screen on my laptop bigger than most desktop users and can STILL carry it around. I'd love a GPU bump a year or two down the line.
@taciturnforsale
Laptops are too much of a compromise to let something like this work too well.
All the components in a laptop cost more, tend to be slower but use less juice than a comparable desktop unit. This external GPU is bound to be over-priced, and under-performing - remember that it's going to have a bottleneck whatever bus it uses to communicate with the host laptop which will clamp down on performance. Then beyond that bottleneck, a laptop's HDD is slower, as is most mobile CPUs and RAM. If you are looking for some crazy-fast performance, laptops are just not cut out for it, and for the ones that are fairly quick, you are going to pay a large premium for them.
You would be much better served with a nice desktop machine with a fast GPU (which can be bought for cheap) and a separate netbook/laptop for general computing functions than trying to jerry-rig some add-on device to an existing laptop. If you need faster mobile graphics, then I personally would just stick with the faster Nvidia or ATI GPUs, not some separate add-on.
@Almo
Wow...a 20" laptop? That's a testicle sterilizer if I ever heard of one. If you're just going to a friends house why won't 13 inches work? I feel like you want a device to be universal but the fact is something can't do a plethora of things and perform well in all of them. Ever heard of the phrase jack of all trades, but master at none? That's what a 20" laptop is... If I had to try running my average workload (Adobe CS4, with 150 Firefox tabs, Outlook, Work, Powerpoint, all running simultaneously) I would want a desktop. This isn't even Mac of PC. Form follows function.
@Almo
You have the Dragon, dontcha?
@Hazdaz
Well of course it'll be overpriced initially, this is a relatively new product idea they're flirting with! Several initial investments later though, after they get all the kinks worked out and the required standardizations made, you may very well be able to get something close to desktop graphics at a price that doesn't lag too far behind. Mass production allows prices to go down, and considering the number of laptops that sell these days, if cards are played correctly these things could very much become commonplace.
what about the ViDock 2? thats bin around for awhile!
http://www.villagetronic.com/vidock2/index.html
@BajanSurfer they were supposed to update it last year if i'm not wrong, but there's been no word from the company about that. plus it's not avaliable everywhere
@BajanSurfer
unfortunately most laptops only have expresscard slot which is only pci-e 1x slot and gaming takes about 50-60% hit due to the interface being so slow.
@hiro256
But its a 10x performance jump from a crappy GMA laptop graphics card to anything else.
@joebob
it could 50x faster if we had amd/ati 16x pcie XGP instead of the crappy expresscard :(
i'd rather see vidock sell in the uk, but this sounds good too.
I can see some practical uses in having a modular GPU, but knowing Nvidia, they're gonna slap on prices twice more expensive than anyone else.
It would be quite nice if NVIDIA and AMD would sit down and come up with a nice standard port that interfaces with a PCIe x16 slot. Notebook manufacturers could apply with little to no licensing fees.
Then we could just buy cards and put them in ourselves.
Obviously this will never happen.
@Naris
I've been thinking that all along. I upgrade my desktop's card every year, and the old card usually gets given to family and friends. It would be cool to move it to a generic laptop dock instead.
I hate laptops, netbooks.. they are sloooooowww very slooooww even with SSD's...
@Billy Gun
Then obviously you cheaped out and bought crappy laptops. Mine runs nice and fast. 2.4Ghz Core 2, 4GB RAM, and so on.... Running Windows 7 and its not one bit slow.
@Jaylittles531 yes, but be sure even that configuration or to the same price you would get a fester desktop.. everything (hardware, processor, GPU, HDD etc... ) ore ment to save energy, so they are all more lasy.
Sorry, this is my opinion, I realy like fast PC's
@Billy Gun Oh, the luxuries afforded of the basement dweller. (I say this in jest, please don't ban me Engadinejad.)
Anyhow, we need external GPUs yesterday! It is silly to think these wouldn't sell like Dennys' Grand Slams on Tuesday after the Super Bowl. Everyone wants a more portable laptop and everyone wants more power accessible to them from time to time.
If you need this why not just buy a Desktop Replacement type Laptop?
@Jaylittles531 Most of those still have non-replaceable GPU's, and a GPU upgrade can extend the life of a gaming computer. This is probably more geared towards that kind of situation.
@Jaylittles531 to game on a 12-13" thin and light? those desktop replacement laptops are not exactly easy to carry around. though alienware released that 11" gaming netbook
we've heard about external graphics cards for the past 2-3 years.
i have a feeling they just want to tug our nuts.
I was excited back in CES 2007 with ASUS... waiting... waiting... and then nothing. I want to finally be able to get rid of my desktop!!!
It'd be nice if this concept were to be realized and not just presented as a tease to us gaming laptop owners. Less bulky would be ideal, obviously... but I'm always interested in these kinds of ideas. Keep us posted of any further developments, engadget!
...I really would like a car stereo receiver that looks like that. That would be awesome.
Better idea: have the motherboard manufacturers make laptop boards that can interchange the GPU. It's the one major chip left that's still soldered into the board, which is why companies like AMD and NVIDIA even need to make these silly things.
@Dante of the Inferno http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_PCI_Express_Module
@Dante of the Inferno That's silly... usually high performance internal GPUs require lots of power, space, and cooling, limiting theirselves to only much larger laptops. And even then, those internal cards don't have the price/perfomance of their desktop counterparts. You can find all sorts of powerful CPUs in even thin and light laptops now, an external gpu would be perfect and help those who dont want to invest in both a desktop and laptop
Ultraportable laptop plugs into a unit like this to get a desktop GPU. Want. Really want.
Anyone who wants Google Wave invites reply with their email address - I have 25 invites.
@qwerty58 ok
Hope so, it would be amazing If you could have one of those thin and lights with a fairly powerful cpu, but low powered integrated gpu for out and about, that when you get home could be docked with an external GTX295 say, for a slice of gaming nirvana.