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.]
posted July 28th 2006 9:51PM
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.
Hmm, if this is true, and looking at the ASUS EAX1800XT that a previous person pointed out, an external video card would be 1.) impractical and too unwieldy for typical PC users and 2.) require its own power supply thus making this its own mini PC. However, the concept is rather intriguing and cool. It'll be great for hardcore PC users that stay in one place or mobile laptop users wanting to go over-the-edge. As someone pointed out, the problem is the bandwidth and interference in an external cable. Would a fiber-optic cable work? It has both the bandwidth and being almost interference free.
I'm stuck paying a HECK of a lot of money for a high end laptop, because of the videocard.
http://www.laptopbatteryclub.com/
As an external PCI Video Card check out http://www.magma.com/products/pciexpress/expressbox1/index.html
you can fit any PCI card of your choosing into their box.
Has anybody found something similar or better? Cheaper?
Why not have everything in a stackable external configuration, like lets say you buy a processor have it housed in a case similar to this gpu think about all the heating problems that it would get rid of since there wouldn't be other components feeding off of each others hot air exhaust they would also get the most fresh cool and direct air have the case be like a AMP for cars basically a large heat sink to help dissipate the heat, all you would need is a universal port that can handle all of the connections and what not. anyways I think I am just brambling, what are other peoples thought on this?
-b3ck
hey when its coming out this external graphic card?
Is that a FireWire cable? If it is, I would buy one for my Acer Aspire L310. L310 isn't a laptop, but a very small desktop that is completely un-upgradeable, except for the memory. The external GPU would be perfect for my computer, if it is FireWire...
And when will it come out?