ATI to release power-hungry external video card?

As microprocessors increase in efficiency and semiconductors diminish in size, the power required for them to function would also decrease -- in an ideal world, anyway. Unfortunately, this hasn't exactly been the case. If we're to believe the rumors, ATI's next major graphics core, dubbed the R600, will be packed to the brim with pixel pipelines and shader processors to handle the tasks that lie ahead in Windows Vista (if it ever comes out, of course), and, you know, games. But the crazy part here is that the chipset will supposedly require so much power that only an external implementation could provide the level of power necessary to satisfy those demands. An outboard graphics card, however, would one-up internal boards by providing a new level of flexibility. For starters, the same board could power your notebook and desktop, and laptop gamers would have access to bleeding-edge graphics that could turn a relatively weak notebook into a suitable LAN-party machine without the expense of an entirely new rig. Of course, there's still the issue of an external interface that could handle the multi-gigabit bandwidth required to make this system feasible not yet existing, but who knows, maybe those microchip wizards from AMD can give ATI a hand in bringing this to fruition without kicking our kilowatt meters into overdrive -- for now though, our quad-SLI setups are doing just fine, thanks.

[Thanks, Mack S.]

[Luis @ Jul 28th 2006 10:12PM]

It would seem rather unlikely that this is true.

As for the "external interface", in case this is real it'll most likely include a card that connects to PCIe16x and has a special cable input which would have lots of bandwith. Still I don't see how this could be done without massive electromagnetic interference (for such high speeds)

[Revrant @ Jul 28th 2006 10:15PM]

Really? That's a fascinating idea...Though I'd never bring one of thse to a LAN(Thieving Dutch), it could open up a few pathways, some interesting options, it could be inconvenient though, having it seperate from the PC, it would have to be very well protected, the seperation of the card from the direct interface is the biggest problem with this idea, I'm curious as to how they intend to solve it without a ten pound monster of a cord.

[Theitnguy @ Jul 28th 2006 10:15PM]

I don't think so. I read the article on Tom's Hardware about the future of grahpics cards which talked about external cards. I just someone read that and made up a rumor about it.

[Onihanju @ Jul 28th 2006 10:40PM]

The serial nature or PCIe does help reduce the number of traces between the Video Card and the CPU but only by 1/4 or so. (128 vs 32~16) But, to do that they had to ramp-up the bandwidth 4x AGP to do that. Thats still one hell of a cord and you'll need two no less! One Input (PC-to-VideoCard) and one Output (VideoCard-to-PC). Unless the the VGA out is on the card. Mind you, if one of those four connectors is mis-aligned/damaged/etc the machine will refuse to boot or worse. I doubt you can make such an interface hot-swappable either. God knows what sorta damage you'll do to the bus if the external card gets disconnected. *shivers thinking about it* There goes this months paycheck.

[Brian James @ Jul 28th 2006 10:40PM]

WOW, this would be a SERIOUS convenience!

I'm stuck paying a HECK of a lot of money for a high end laptop, because of the videocard.

If I could buy a midrange desktop and a midrange laptop, I wouldn't mind buying ONE external videocard for $400-500. I don't game on the go often enough to justify the $400-500 for another highend videocard in my laptop.

This would rock the laptop world.

[Alex @ Jul 28th 2006 10:48PM]

This is stupid. Let's try keeping everything inside the case...

[Rusty Shackleford @ Jul 28th 2006 10:53PM]

Would this work on Linux?

[Mike Meyers @ Jul 28th 2006 10:56PM]

Gentlemen, it all starts making sense - forget PCIe!

AMD = Hypertransport
ATI = External Video

External Hypertransport! Why not?

[jnasato @ Jul 28th 2006 10:58PM]

This is like the external video card option (third-party) a few years ago that was advertised for the PowerBook G4, which was basically an external PCI card adapter box. I really wanted it, but it was overpriced; I think like $800 or thousand something.

[...Jan... Medi @ Jul 28th 2006 11:02PM]

That's a good idea for people like me. I own a laptop with only a 32mb graphics card. Since my graphics card is non-upgradable, I would be able to use this. I assume it'll be similar to an external hard drive. But where would it connect? My VGA port?

[bb @ Jul 28th 2006 11:23PM]

No thanks, I got enough junk on my desk.

[_man1c_ @ Jul 28th 2006 11:47PM]

hmm. so in theory you could buy a cheapo laptop, and buy this bad boy, and have a premo laptop. kewl.

[Brandon @ Jul 29th 2006 12:07AM]

So how exactly might this hook up. An ExpressCard slot only has access to 1x lane if I'm not mistaken. I really love this idea, I would without doubt buy one for my MBPro if the inputs matched up. I have a feeling this might be a few generations in the future though.

I read awhile ago about a modular PC. I think this is a great idea in general.

[bazald @ Jul 29th 2006 12:11AM]

This is one of those brilliant ideas, that must go floating around the internet every so often. One could have an ultralight, high battery life notebook, that could be converted into a gaming rig in no time, with a truly upgradable GPU to boot. I'll be thrilled if I ever see such a product actually hit the shelves.

[Toxico @ Jul 29th 2006 12:17AM]

Such a peripheral was actually marketed by 3dfx a few years ago. It packed 128mb when no one else yet did so. There was zero interest and it flopped quickly.

This from a former 3dfx employee, if you doubt my source.

[Juaquin @ Jul 29th 2006 12:49AM]

I'm skeptical, even if this comes to fruition. External means lag times as the video card tries to send massive amounts of information back and forth to the computer. There aren't any conventional ways to do that at the bandwidth required, and I doubt an external card could ever match the performance of an internal.

If they need more power they can always have their own power brick externally which plugs into the back on an internal card, although with 1KW power supplies nowadays I don't see how much more power they could need.

My money's on internal cards. Just like external sound cards and external hard drives, an external videocard will never match the performance of it's internal countpart.

[Taylor @ Jul 29th 2006 1:12AM]

I'm still busy thinking about how on EARTH they would manage to get PCIe-comparable speed from an external box. The most logical so far seems like a PCIe card in-the-box with some kind of high-bandiwdth interface to the external card, but this would mean that laptop users couldn't do it. The VGA port might work, but some of the crappy laptops don't have them. In an ideal world it would be USB ;)

[Terry @ Jul 29th 2006 1:42AM]

Sounds like the makings for an Onion.com story.

[Richard @ Jul 29th 2006 2:05AM]

I really can't see most notebook users dragging around a big external video card. It would be great for lan parties, but that's about it.

I suspect that the card itself will remain in the tower, attached to the motherboard in the same way it is today.

For the external rumour... I can see a power port on the outside of the card, similar to the SVIDEO port on a lot of cards today, hooked up to the same kind of power brick notebooks use (or xbox360, usb enclosure etc). To keep it from being unplugged by accident and crashing the system, it will probably screw in place the same as serial/vga/dvi/parallel cables connect.

The only advantage to this would be that graphic card manufacturers wouldn't have to worry about under-powered PSUs in desktops, or have to create a new PSU connector inside the PC.

Remember back when the ATI 9800 series was introduced and you had to start plugging in your floppy connector to the video card? Then they introduced specific PCI-E video card connectors, but had to wait for PSU makers to bring out models that featured these, and everyone had to upgrade.

A dedicated external video PSU would eliminate this need to wait for a new PSU spec, and let them change the power requirements as needed. Faster to market with next gen chips is a huge bonus in the market share war.

Of course, it also means 1 more thing to plug into that firetrap of a powerbar we all have behind our desks...

[Thomas Goddard @ Jul 29th 2006 2:26AM]

Power hungry?! Haha... I would say it needs its own cooling since ATI cards are like red hot glowing embers on your lap. Seen the Mac ATI card sporting waffle cookers lately? Seen the DELLs that make a good firecracker? Oh, and my gateway convertable laptop that reboots because it gets too hot?

ATI - Maker of the finest convection ovens.

[Friendly Peruser @ Jul 29th 2006 2:31AM]

Speaking on the idea of an external power supply, didn't the Voodoo series many moons ago try to do that very same thing with the Voodoo 5's in SLI? Of course it's been sometime ago but I do astoundingly recall the horrific thud and crater left behind by the failure in that concept.

I'm still with everyone else and am very curious as to how the interface hook up would look. I'm not very geeky in that department but with the mention of USB coming up earlier would firewire be a viable option as it is commonly available on most machines and consistently faster by my understanding?

Anyway, just my two brownies.

Another Troller

[Black Dwarf @ Jul 29th 2006 5:09AM]

This would go great with my iMac... would take over the job of the pathetic mobile x1600...

[AXT @ Jul 29th 2006 5:24AM]

I've been trawling the net for something like this for a while now, and I think it would be great. The only problem, connectivity, the data has to be onto the motherboard in time to display it properly, what's the point of great graphics capabilities if it's all out of synch? Anyway I was thinking either VGA direct input, coupled with either USB 2.0 (or even 3.0), 1394 Connection or ethernet/gigabit ethernet.

Still, fantastic concept, hope it doesn't cost a bomb.

[Scott @ Jul 29th 2006 5:40AM]

The only I could see it working in a laptop is if you use an external monitor. Otherwise, you'll need a nice big cable to send the data out, and one to pipe it back in to be displayed.

[hasan @ Jul 29th 2006 7:01AM]

this could be it... no need to stuck with my on-board intel graphic card. Please ati release one

[Eazy @ Jul 29th 2006 7:51AM]

This has alraedy been done. The video cards wont be external. Just external powered.

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=2&l2=8&l3=233&model=968&modelmenu=1

[David @ Jul 29th 2006 8:05AM]

There already are external video cards out now. Matrox makes a few models iirc, one with USB 2.0, and another with some high-performance custom bus (using CAT-5 cables). Its quite possible to do this, graphic cards need high bandwidth, but not realtime latency. a 10ft cord doesnt add enough latency to delay by even half of a frame at 60fps. I'm just wondering when someone starts making all the pc components connected by fiber optics, with some sort of stackable form factor, with standardized cooling practices etc. (imagine stacking 3 or 4 mac mini sized boxes, one with your cpu + ram, one with your video card, one with your harddrive, and one with your cd drive(s), stacked in any order, with simple fyber & power couplers linking them together.

[Karl @ Jul 29th 2006 9:35AM]

well, I wouldn't mind hooking up a GPU to my laptop's gigabit ethernet when gaming. Surely that's enough bandwidth :D

From the reactions though, it seems like a powerful external GPU has a lot of market potential. Perhaps, even if the rumours are untrue, ATI/NVidia will consider doing something like this anyway.

What with Vista requiring DX9 cards for glass, and lots of laptop users out there not having enough beef to satisfy it, I can see that external GPUs surey do have potential.

So even if ATI/NV don't do it, perhaps a 3rd party will? A PCIe interface in a box, connected via gigabit ethernet to your box, with a special driver to redirect calls on the PCIe bus to the ethernet interface. Of course, gigabit ethernet is my suggestion only because it has lots of bandwidth, not because I propose networked GPUs...

[Twist @ Jul 29th 2006 9:44AM]

I actually think this is a great idea. I love having a laptop but the graphics are a bit underpowered. With a high speed/high bandwidth interface port for external GPU's (with an external display connected to the GPU) and an integrated GPU for powering the LCD you could have the best of both worlds. Heck the external GPU's could be integrated into external displays.

An earlier commenter mentions the external PCI chassis for use with PowerBooks (I believe they predate the PowerBook G4). They provided like three PCI slots and they interfaced with your laptop through the PCMCIA slot so the bandwidth was pretty limited. And yes they were very expensive as well.

[furtim @ Jul 29th 2006 10:03AM]

Yeah, because the Voodoo 5 made an absolute killing, right?

[Adrian Graham @ Jul 29th 2006 10:08AM]

Yeah, it's a *great* idea. But what's the bet you could buy an XBox 360 for the price of this.

Like so many great ideas there's usually a catch and this won't come cheap.

[Rick @ Jul 29th 2006 10:52AM]

while we'e all dreaming lets make them daisy-chainable. we should add flickering blue lights, too. cause everything i buy today has a godamn flickering blue light on it. gone are the days of the flickering green light...

[Joshua Cartu @ Jul 29th 2006 12:05PM]

Please stop dreaming about plugging this into your current notebook. There is no interface on your machine even close to capable of supporting the level of bandwidth required. It's possible that some new notebook with an AMD/ATI based chipset will include some kind of interface but in the meantime, wrap your head around the fact that you will need a new notebook.

[Michael @ Jul 29th 2006 2:23PM]

That was just an illustration of what such a beast *might* look like... They were just speculating on the possibility that video cards may go external due to heat and power constraints.

Although it is possible. A fiber optic connection could easilly handle the required data speed. 100Gbit/sec is absolutely no problem for it, although it may be too costly.

[purezerg @ Jul 29th 2006 4:58PM]

laptops now come with expresscards which look like PCMCIA but with PCIe interface.. so it's possible.

[Taylor @ Jul 29th 2006 10:05PM]

I came up with a brilliant idea: how about making an external PCIe/AGP slot that can be plugged into the computer, allowing users to
a. test a gfx card before installing it properly
b. test a game with a variety of gfx cards without the hassle of playing around in the back of the computer
c. use any (yes ANY) kind of gfx card with a laptop
?

As soon as that comes out I'm buying it.

[martin @ Jul 29th 2006 10:48PM]

Would eSATA work? I think it's only at 300MB/s though max.

[Bizzle @ Jul 29th 2006 11:27PM]

drool...R600. I'm really really excited about what AMD and ATI are going to come up with.

[bot @ Jul 30th 2006 12:35AM]

I was reading all the posts about how there isn't enough bandwidth on a laptop to support this technology if it ever makes it. I had an idea that could work. Don't newer generation laptops have PCI-Express buses for their graphics cards? Maybe laptop manufacturers could create an external plug that routes to the PCI-E connector. So, it'd come with a card of your choosing along with a connector on the outside of the case that leads to the bus. When your embedded card is outdated and you want to upgrade, you get one of these external cards and plug it in to your empty connector, and you can either have it bypass the older card (kind of like when you install a newer graphics card into a mobo that has integrated graphics), or if you want to get fancy you split the bus into an SLI setup.

[Tull @ Jul 30th 2006 1:04AM]

Acer has a product currently out called an ezDock or something similiar to their laptops, and connects through a proprietary connection. I remember reading something about it having PCI express capabilities. It uses an external power brick like this one, but has usb ports and firewire ports on it too.

[Orayn @ Jul 30th 2006 1:54AM]

This could be the beginning of something big. A new connection for external graphics cards would start to change the game. The real question is the interface. If it could be a relatively inexpensive PCI/PCIe card, this could really go places. Dual-cable is likely, but it kind of does defeat the purpose if it needed to be a PCIe card, especially x16.

[yarr @ Jul 30th 2006 7:12AM]

I don't see why there would be a bandwidth problem. I think it is realistic that it would plug into a PCI slot or whatever and have wires up to the video card. That makes sense to me. Not sure if it would still work for laptops then, I have never looked inside mine...

[Oddmanout @ Jul 30th 2006 10:27AM]

Well, if were talking ultra high end here, why not simply REQUIRE a higher capacity power supply and connect the card directly with it's own molex ? I mean serious gaming rigs usually have heavier PSUs anyway, and for a while there it wasn't uncommon for people to have 2 PSUs back when everyone wanted ump-teen fans in their box. What's an extra $25 - $50 spent on power compared to the purchase price of the $500 video card that creates the need for it ? Just state and require. Problem solved...though of course it does nothing for the laptop crowd...

[Teve Torbs @ Jul 30th 2006 2:16PM]

Heck, while you're at it, why not just make *everything* external? Leave the CPU sputtering away in a tiny square box at the heart of it all and attach everything else in a modular, daisy-chained fashion! Sounds really handy and clutter-free, doesn't it?

[Stranger @ Jul 30th 2006 9:05PM]

USB, Firewire, Cardbus and Expresscard are all way to slow. A simple and inexpensive solution would be to design the external card around the PCI-E 16X-connector which chipsets from both Intel and AMD support.

The solution could look something like this.
http://www.tell-it.ch/catalog/images/X-4%20Ultrabase.jpg

[James @ Jul 31st 2006 3:02AM]

I'd buy one in a heart beat - as long as it came with drivers for Mac OS. It would be a great addition to my new Mac notebook which suffers with a lower end ATI video card.

ATI: Make it, people will buy it.

James

[tripdragon @ Jul 31st 2006 9:39AM]

ABOUT F'N! TIME

[AdvidG @ Jul 31st 2006 10:33AM]

Funny...most of the posters here are dreaming about being able to play the latest gfx overload rehash on their 6 year old Dell. Not going to happen people. What you bought is what you got.

Now how about a laptop that could make use of standard Desktop video card?

Yes, it would sport some crappy on-board unit...but with a flick of a switch (after a power down...),and your playing in the big leagues.

Not portable...but Do-able.

Now you could do all the hardcore stuff...Games, Video, Por...ART Images!...and so on.

Anyway you look at it though...you WILL have to BUY a NEW Laptop. There is no quick, easy, $50 upgrade that will allow you to avoid this.

Me: "So...How can I make this car faster? Is there an Upgrade kit or something?"

Machanic: "Get a faster car."

[nikbro @ Jul 31st 2006 9:31PM]

You're all idiots. It means an external power supply like that Voodoo card.

[Brett @ Aug 26th 2006 8:59PM]

I think that the concept is amazing. I recently contacted ATI about this very product, mainly to see what the response would be. I think that the ones sitting there on their asses saying "nope, nope, nope, not going to work" underestimate the power of the human mind and its drive. I hope that ATI pulls this off and revolutionizes mobile gaming. As said before, it would not exactly be "portable" but "Do-able". I have a laptop that is pretty new, a little over a year old, and the only thing that it lacks at all is a powerful GPU. It can be done, because if any of you have done any research at all you see that nVidia came out with an external application called the QuadraPlex, granted its $18,000 but it means it can be done, and a more consumer based application would be awesome, we are also looking at true user upgradeable graphics for laptops.

If ATI produces an external graphics application for normal public they will control the laptop graphics market.