Why are there no mobile (MXM) external GPUs?

[Valantar]

I've been wondering about this since before TB3 eGPUs were a thing (I think I even discussed it here before, but can't find the thread), but ever more since: why are all the external GPUs and enclosures for desktop GPUs?

Of course, I understand the arguments for using desktop GPUs. They're

• Far cheaper
• Faster (not thermally/power limited)
• Available
• Replaceable
• Self-contained (i.e. have their own cooling)
• Based on open and accessible standards
• You can BYO GPU

However, they're also

• Big, bulky
• Very varying in size, leading to oversized enclosures (most GPUs are tiny compared to what there's room for in most eGPU enclosures)
• Not at all portable
• Power hungry
• Dependent on PCIe power cabling, leading to the use of huge PSUs
• Very expensive, and thus only relevant to the scant few people who have money to spare, a spare GPU lying around, and then buy a PC with TB3. A Razer Core with a GTX 1060 is a $700+ proposition.

Especially with the advent of thin-and-light PCs, I definitely see a market for small, lightweight, semi-portable eGPUs with decent performance that don't break the bank. To be specific: sticking an MXM 1070 or 1080 into something like this would be beyond silly, even if you'd have more space to cool them than inside of a laptop, thus reducing the cost somewhat. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about ~$300-500 (in my mind, at least) devices with GTX 1050 (Ti) - 1060 level GPUs, bringing good 1080p gaming even to ultrabooks. Of course you'd have the same issues as eGPUs have today, with reduced performance when using internal displays, but that doesn't really take away from the fact that this would trounce any iGPU (nor is that really fixable until TB4, which I guess won't arrive until PCIe 4.0 does - unless later revisions of TB3 support teaming of multiple connections or some such horribly problematic and latency-ridden solution).

SFF PC makers like Zotac manage to build not-overly expensive PCs with decent GPUs in very small cases using external PSUs. Why not build something similar that's just a GPU? Say you make a case that's 5cm*15cm*15cm (2" * 6" * 6").

Arguments clearly in favor of this:

• Portability
• Size (doesn't require loads of desk space)
• Performance would still be good
• All-in-one solution, not requiring users to buy/own a separate GPU

As for cost, MXM GPUs are expensive in the rare cases that they're sold to end users simply because there's no sales volume at all. They're not that much more expensive than retail GPUs for OEMs that buy thousands in bulk. The cases would be significantly cheaper to design and manufacture simply because they're smaller and inherently less complex.

While designing and manufacturing a cooling system wouldn't be free, MXM is standardized enough that one cooling system could fit all GPUs (below its power/thermal limits, of course). Laptop makers and SFF PC makers design compact custom cooling solutions all the time, without this bankrupting them. And again, this would be less space constrained than a laptop or even SFF PC that also needs to cool a CPU (heck, in my proposed case you could fit a slim 120mm or 140mm fan and a heatsink and call it a day).

MXM also has standardized power delivery, and given that you can buy 120W pico PSUs (12V DC - ATX power adapters) for $35 at retail, integrating power delivery on the board (wether from a 12V source or a ~20V laptop brick) should be a negligible cost. Designing a TB3-to-MXM PCB isn't that much of a challenge - it's all PCIe, after all. Even adding in features like additional USB ports or ethernet (either through a separate USB connection, TB3, or both with muxing to allow for flexibility) wouldn't add that much cost. Some, sure, but not a lot.

90W external power bricks are cheap (unless you look at name-brand replacement parts, which are massively overpriced). Considering how cheap they are at retail, imagine how little OEMs pay for them. And remember, external power bricks are rated for continuous power, not peak, so a 90W power brick should be able to power a 90W eGPU setup just fine, even if it spikes to 100W+ from time to time. It would definitely power a <75W GTX 1050/1050Ti + whatever controllers are needed with zero issues. 120W power bricks aren't that much more expensive. Even 220W power bricks aren't that expensive, if you want this thing to power your laptop while you're at it.

All of this is wild speculation, of course. But I don't see any compelling arguments for me being wrong in any of my assumptions. Selling an external mobile GTX 1050 in a compact enclosure with a 90W power brick bundled for $300 should be very doable. And I'm quite convinced that the size, ease of use and all-in-one nature of this could increase the adoption rate of external GPU systems dramatically.

 

[cbn]

MXM is a good form factor.

I wish they were more common, specifically unlocked (ie, not locked to a specfic vendor) versions. These so we could also upgrade old mobile workstations like the Dell M6600 and M6700 (hardware that doesn't whitelist MXM cards).

Perhaps with the coming of ASRock Deskmini GTX and RX this (increased supply of unlocked MXM) could happen?

P.S. Thunderbolt III supplies up to 100W power---> https://thunderbolttechnology.net/tech/faq

 

[Valantar]

MXM is a good form factor.

I wish they were more common, specifically unlocked (ie, not locked to a specfic vendor) versions. These so we could also upgrade old mobile workstations like the Dell M6600 and M6700 (hardware that doesn't whitelist MXM cards).

Perhaps with the coming of ASRock Deskmini GTX and RX this (increased supply of unlocked MXM) could happen?

P.S. Thunderbolt III supplies up to 100W power---> https://thunderbolttechnology.net/tech/faq

Yeah, I'm hoping so too. Miniturization of PCs is well on its way, yet this doesn't have to mean less repairability or upgradeability. We know that a very good GPU can fit in an MXM form factor (or a slightly expanded one for the highest end ones). MXM is inherently just as modular as PCIe - possibly even more, due to standardized chip placements/cooler mounts. Why not take advantage of this? It sure feels like the PC industry is missing out on an opportunity here. An expanded mini-STX or ITX standard with integrated display outputs and MXM slots on the back of the board could make for some very interesting compact gaming PCs. This would be good for OEMs too - if Zotac/Gigabyte/whoever is already buying MXM GPUs for SFF PCs, buying some more for eGPUs or laptops would only make them cheaper per unit.

 

[nathanddrews]

I expect there to a market for this eventually, but it's going to be niche, it will be expensive, and it won't perform that great. Just looking at my current laptop with its tiny 940MX GPU, it still gets hot and throttles like crazy even when cooled with heat pipes that are easily 3X the length and venting with 4X the surface area of any given NUC or BRIX unit. Even the tiny low-profile PCIe GPUs like the 1050 either have aggressive fans or like 3 lbs of copper/aluminum strapped to them.

It would be neat to see a MXM package in a NUC box... but then have like a EVO212 or Scythe tower cooling it. LOL

 

[MarkizSchnitzel]

There are some such devices, like this ACER GRAPHICS DOCK. It's 960M for ~300€.

Though, I don't see it nowhere for sale now. Probably time is STILL not right for eGPUs :/

 

[Bouowmx]

Just looking at my current laptop with its tiny 940MX GPU, it still gets hot and throttles like crazy even when cooled with heat pipes that are easily 3X the length and venting with 4X the surface area of any given NUC or BRIX unit.

What is your criteria for hot and throttles like crazy?
Acer E5-575G-55KK: Nvidia GeForce 940MX 512 shaders (+135 MHz offset to 997.5 MHz).
Next is FurMark, which triggers power limit.
Next is PrimeGrid PPS sieve, which, power-wise, behaves like a less-intensive FurMark.
Next is a Unity 3D game.
The temperatures are fairly normal.

 

[nathanddrews]

What is your criteria for hot and throttles like crazy?

80C, core drops to 650-750MHz.

 

[Blue_Max]

Heck, I'd settle for being able to find MXM modules for a decent price! e-Pay is the only place I can find them and cha-chinnngg are they expensive!

I have a Quadro 3000M and 4000M to sell to get something faster.

 

[Valantar]

I expect there to a market for this eventually, but it's going to be niche, it will be expensive, and it won't perform that great. Just looking at my current laptop with its tiny 940MX GPU, it still gets hot and throttles like crazy even when cooled with heat pipes that are easily 3X the length and venting with 4X the surface area of any given NUC or BRIX unit. Even the tiny low-profile PCIe GPUs like the 1050 either have aggressive fans or like 3 lbs of copper/aluminum strapped to them.

It would be neat to see a MXM package in a NUC box... but then have like a EVO212 or Scythe tower cooling it. LOL

From my experience with Acer laptops, I wouldn't put it past that to have a grossly underspecced cooling solution.

***Edit: Yep (scroll down and look at the pic of the cooling solution). Roughly measured with the adjacent USB type-c connector next to it as a reference, that heatsink is ~60mm*22.5mm. No idea about the thickness, but I'd be surprised if it's above 10mm on average. I counted 49 fins (which adds up to slightly more than 8 fins/cm). Which leaves this heatsink at a total area of 110.25cm2. And that's for the CPU and GPU combined. I'm not surprised if that thing throttles at all.***

Also, I'm not talking about something ridiculously thin like a standard NUC or Brix. My proposed measurements are significantly larger than that, if still tiny. Also, those are specced for 15W CPUs with integrated GPUs. Added thickness = easy and cheap added cooling capacity. Most non-gaming (i.e. ~940MX) laptop dGPU heatsinks are ~1cm tall and perhaps 2cm deep, with width varying by the model, and a single heatpipe. Let's say it has an 8cm wide heatsink with 1mm fin spacing. That's then 80 fins of 200mm2 each - 16 000 mm2 or 160 cm2 of fin area. Now take my proposed 15x15x5cm case, take 1cm off the width to allow for case side panels and mounting, and halve the height to allow for connectivity. Inside that case, there would be massive room for a deep heatsink - 5+cm easily. With the same fin pitch of 1mm, that's 140 5x2.5cm fins, or 1750cm2 of cooling area. Now let's give it 2-3 heatpipes since we're not constrained on space anyway. And you could still fit a pretty beefy blower fan inside with room to spare. Given that airflow and heat transfer per fin area is equal, that's a cooling system with 11x the cooling capacity of your laptop. Of course, it's unlikely that the heatsink would fill the entire width of the case (making a blower fan efficiently provide airflow through a 140mm wide heatsink would be nigh on impossible), and you'd need a horribly noisy fan to achieve equal airflow per fin area to your laptop, but even halving the size of this would make for a vastly superior cooling solution to most laptops. And a quieter one to boot.

This is not difficult to manufacture. Zotac cools a GTX 1070 "mobile" and a CPU very efficiently with two beefy blower coolers inside a 210x203x62mm chassis (the GPU cooler is the HSF on the left of the first picture showing cooling). Does it throttle? A little. But remove the CPU, motherboard, RAM, SSDs and other hardware from in there, and you could very easily cool a 1070 without throttling.

There are some such devices, like this ACER GRAPHICS DOCK. It's 960M for ~300€.

Though, I don't see it nowhere for sale now. Probably time is STILL not right for eGPUs :/

That's intriguing. Although I find the form factor impractical (unnecessary space constraints by making it slab-like), the concept is sound. Of course, we're in a different world now compared to just a year ago in terms of laptop GPU performance. The 960M was roughly a GTX 750, after all.

Edit: see above.

 

[Dribble]

I don't think laptop makers want you to be able to upgrade tbh. I have an aging laptop that other then the gpu (Nvidia 675MX) is still basically high end. I just want to be able to easily buy and drop in a new gpu. I can kind of do it (buy a 970M MXM for huge money, upgrade the motherboard drivers to some special version, stick it all in there and hope it works) but it's a lot of money, quite a lot of hassle and no guarantees.

 

[Valantar]

I don't think laptop makers want you to be able to upgrade tbh. I have an aging laptop that other then the gpu (Nvidia 675MX) is still basically high end. I just want to be able to easily buy and drop in a new gpu. I can kind of do it (buy a 970M MXM for huge money, upgrade the motherboard drivers to some special version, stick it all in there and hope it works) but it's a lot of money, quite a lot of hassle and no guarantees.

That's the age-old argument that "open standards kill sales/business" - which is time and time again proven not to be true. The rate of replacement for laptops is slowing anyway, and laptop makers are having to rethink their business models. Attempting to force people into buying ephemeral junk that needs replacement before you want it to is bad business. It does little more than piss off customers.

All you would need in your case is a BIOS without a GPU whitelist. That's it. The only thing stopping you is something the PC maker implemented specifically to prevent you from upgrading your own PC. Doesn't that piss you off?

PCs already come with mile-long EULAs. As such, PC makers would hold no liability in the case of idiots putting 150W GPUs into a chassis made for 75W ones, or people bricking their PC while upgrading. Would this complicate support services? Not necessarily, as this isn't covered by warranty anyway. On the other hand, they could sell upgrade and reconditioning services, and there would be a far stronger incentive for customers to buy extended service plans ("includes labor costs for any upgrades!"). As for BIOS support, given that PCIe devices are universally compatible through the PCIe standard, all they have to do is remove their hardware whitelists. Compatibility issues only arise if the computers aren't actually built to spec to begin with. Which again, would be the fault of (incompetent/negligent) hardware makers.

It's time the computer hardware industry starts to realize that the age of wholesale PC replacement every ~2 years is coming to an end. 5+ years ago it made sense, as the new PC was bound to be radically improved in several fundamental ways. Today, it makes zero sense. Also, it creates enormous e-waste problems, as well as millions and millions of tons of chemical and material waste (usually dumped in the closest river/landfill) due to production of new components that replace fully functional ones. Of course, you have a**holes like Apple who solve this by soldering every single component to the motherboard so that one failed component requires a full replacement, but that definitely isn't the way to go if this industry is going to survive.

 

[Dribble]

All you would need in your case is a BIOS without a GPU whitelist. That's it. The only thing stopping you is something the PC maker implemented specifically to prevent you from upgrading your own PC. Doesn't that piss you off?

That and the cost. For what is essentially a desktop geforce 960 I have to pay desktop geforce 1080 prices. No reason it needs to be that expensive...

 

[Valantar]

That and the cost. For what is essentially a desktop geforce 960 I have to pay desktop geforce 1080 prices. No reason it needs to be that expensive...

Sure. That's a huge problem, absolutely. But also a problem that would go away if there was a viable market for MXM cards and some actual competition in the field.

Hey, Nvidia, if you're listening: you wanted to get into the GPU retail market with the Founders Edition cards. Which was a flop both PR-wise ("Nvidia tax") and in terms of OEMs getting pissed off at you. How about you go at it in another way, and start distributing MXM cards for reasonable prices? That would be excellent PR, even if some overly conservative OEMs won't like it. Thousands of gamers worldwide would thank you. It would definitely give me a new outlook on buying Nvidia GPUs.

 

[ZGR]

MXM 3.0 can technically be upgraded down the road, but not for cheap. I would say the primary reason is cost. MXM GPU's cost more and external enclosures are already quite expensive.

@Edgar Eliseo appears to be the founder of this MXM enclosure, but a GTX 1050 is nowhere near as fast as what many gamers need.

 

[LightningZ71]

The problem with going for anything beyond the 1050 is that the TB3 link starts to become a limiting factor. I've seen benchmarks of other TB external enclosures for desktop cards that demonstrate this in a very real way.

The main problem is this: For anything more than 1050/rx560 performance, you'll need a higher performing chip. If you have a higher performing chip, you have a large amount of heat to handle, which will make any solution larger than you'd want. You'll also have to fight with miners for access to it, which will push it's price through the roof. On top of that, you're going to need more bandwidth between the external graphics chip and the laptop. That could THEORETICALLY be solved with multiple TB3 links using some sort of link aggregation, but that makes a big increase in complexity on the laptop side, making it more expensive. For all of the money you'd pour into this, you could have gotten similar performance from Intel's recently released Core CPU with Vega technology that can apparently climb into the 1060 performance range and still have some cash left over.

Going forward, it looks like you'll have four classes of laptops:
1) minimal productivity models with the barest of graphics capabilities
2) Casual gaming laptops with AMD Raven Ridge APUs
3) Highly integrated mid grade gaming devices with CPUs like Intel's mobile core processor with VEGA tech.
4) "High" end gaming laptops that are built with that purpose in mind with large size, massive cooling, and 1070+ level performance.

As solutions in the third category improve, I dare say that the market for the fourth category will shrink to uneconomical levels.

 

[Valantar]

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Until there's more than a single, cropped-off, not-at-all revealing render and some generic specs on the site, I'll hold off on the enthusiasm. After all, Lenovo has all of this (well, minus the OC) baked into a TB3 dock shown at CES. I've got slightly bigger hopes of that actually becoming real inside of a reasonable time frame. Your crowd funding go hasn't even started yet. When are you planning for this to ship? Q4? Yeah, the 1050 probably won't be very relevant by then.

Other than that, are you saying your project is based off of an upgradeable MXM GPU? If so: awesome. Otherwise, what's it doing in this thread?

Running an OC'd 1050 and a laptop with 40W power sharing off a 90W brick also seems ... optimistic. Hopefully the power delivery system will prioritize the GPU when needed, but I wouldn't be surprised to se Ultrabooks lose battery while gaming with this. Are 120W bricks that much bigger and more expensive?

For me, a 1050 would be all I want/need (well, Ti would be nice) for laptop gaming, seeing how I have my desktop for anything else.

 

[MrTeal]

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Buddy, you can't even spell ASIC right. And you have 1.25 million subscribers already?

My question is, do you feel bad you necro'd a nearly year old thread to hawk what at first glance appears to be a poor scam attempt?

 

[ZGR]

Would a 2GB 1050 be a viable mining GPU at this point? I am more interested in underclocking a GTX 1070/1080 in a small enclosure; but as Lightning said above, TB3 is a huge bottleneck.

Even an undervolted and underclocked 1080 ti or even RX 64 can be extremely efficient. But those are not MXM.

 

[LightningZ71]

For mining, which is GENERALLY not sensitive to PCI-E throughput, the TB3 connection won't be an issue. For Gaming, however, which is significantly more sensitive to both bus latency and bandwidth (though rarely strains PCI-E 3.0 X8 or x16 except at the very top end of the market), the latency of signal conversion and limited throughput of the TB3 bus still has a measurable impact.

If you want to game on a laptop with both high quality and high resolution (general terms, not specific to any one game), you'll need a good, built-in GPU. I see products like the Intel CPU with Vega tech to be the future of the bulk of the market (referring to decent laptop video gaming). The low end to be casual players that will be satisfied with AMD APUs and the high end to be purpose built, expensive gaming laptops with high end dGPUs and lots of heat extraction equipment. In the future, I can see future generations of integrated CPU-GPU-HBM packages taking over the top end of that market as smaller lithography nodes enable the packages to shrink further, and total power consumption to further reduce, leading to reduced heat disipation needs. At 7nm, you should be able to get to 4-8GB 1070 / Vega 56 performance from those highly integrated packages.

 

[Tairulahmed]

Hi. I know this thread is 3 years old. But could we reopen this?. Now that we have handheld devices like gpd win 1,2 or max. Mxm based egpu made into small module type style with cooling wouldnt so great?.