Video: Fujitsu Siemens' GraphicBooster plays Crysis, probably blends

Ah yes, one more item to tick off the yes it runs Crysis checklist: Fujitsu Siemens' GraphicBooster hooked up over PCI Express 2.0 to an AMILO Notebook Sa 3650. While ATI's XGP tech is pretty sweet, the Fujitsu Siemens GraphicsBooster implementation only works with the Sa 3650 laptop according to the spec sheet. Shame. For everyone else there's ASUS' ROG XG Station. Peep that 470% performance gain over the Sa 3650's Radeon HD3200 graphics in the video after the break.

[Thanks, Hero_p]

[jay.viz @ Nov 18th 2008 5:29AM]

The xg station is right on track for a 2012 release.

[ArcticFox @ Nov 18th 2008 5:37AM]

Is it just me or are these external GPUs fecking pointless, the whole point of a laptop is portability, youd have to lug around a gpu in a box, its powersupply and another monitor.

Award for the most pointless gadget of the year goes to?

[shimmy shimmy yah @ Nov 18th 2008 5:47AM]

lets sya someone needs a laptop for their business work, but they also like games, they go off to work and deal with also sorts of spreadhseets, emails documents whathaveyou, then they get home and plug in their external graphics booster so they can relax and play some crysis.... not entirely pointless, but understandably wont appeal to everybody.

[loocas @ Nov 18th 2008 5:53AM]

Obviously, you don't see the whole picture here.

While the game demo was fascinating, the portable GPU boost is simply great for other areas of use, such as CAD/CAM/CAE/DCC. I'm a VFX/DCC dude and notebooks are still a bit out of our reach for a really convenient and fluent workflow. I can imagine buying this booster to carry on with me to work where I conveniently plug it in my, reasonably-priced, laptop and outpt the graphics to the external monitor. Besides, even though this is an ATi booster, with nvidia on board you can use it to offload some heavy CUDA calculations = also a big plus!

Sure, it's not that portable, but if you have a laptop as your primary workstation, this is a good solution.

There's never enough GPU power.

[Marti @ Nov 18th 2008 6:04AM]

You are missing the point : you are not supposed to lug around the GPU. You go around with your laptop and play when you come home, without having to own and maintain two different systems.

[ArcticFox @ Nov 18th 2008 6:07AM]

Low Ranked, haha.

I do 'get' what this thing is for, but if you are so desperate to play games buy a gaming PC and leave the laptop for your work, its pointless comprimising on both price and performance, get a machien that is dedicated for whatever function you want it for, sure its bulkier than a laptop but you wont have to comprimise and have to buy external addon devices just to get it up to acceptable levels of performance.

[cg0def @ Nov 18th 2008 6:21AM]

Yeah I 2nd that. This is the most pointless product ever made. The box alone is as big as the 13" notebook that they hooked it up to. Sure you can change the gpu by getting a new external box and you can also share the box with a couple of coworkers provided that you all use the same notebook but does anyone really care in the real world? Also people do not take their business laptop home to play games and this is not really a business computer either. Not is it oriented towards the engineering crowd. Look at some of Dell's and Lenovo's business offerings. The video card is Quatro or maybe a Fire... All radeons are strictly consumer oriented and frankly the only reason that I can come up for building this product is to show off some of ATI's new tech. That's great and all only building a Tesla-like system for notebooks shows a total lack of understanding of what consumers want in a notebook. Not to mention that the DTR market is probably less than 5% of the total notebook market.

[Chin-Poh @ Nov 18th 2008 1:49PM]

The reason for external graphics are to let smaller notebooks like 12/13" notebooks to have the gaming power of 15" and larger notebooks.
You have a 12" notebook thats easy to tote around and when your back home, hook up the external graphics and its just like a gaming computer, excellent idea no? I really want this!

Plus, you can probably overclock the graphics further than if it was internal with no risk of damage to the notebook, there will be much less heat coming from the notebook as the GPU is external, etc.

I think external graphics are an EXCELLENT IDEA. I would love to have a 12 or 13" notebook and be able to hook up powerful external graphics to game at home on my HDTV but be mobile while at college.

[john @ Nov 18th 2008 5:44AM]

sadlly mac still cant run crysis :(.... what am i talking about im a PC!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO

[loocas @ Nov 18th 2008 5:55AM]

MAC is a one big crysis...

[Dean @ Nov 18th 2008 6:20AM]

mac doesnt need crysis, video games is a bag of hurt

[cg0def @ Nov 18th 2008 6:21AM]

last I checked windows runs just fine on apple hardware ,,, oh wait actually it turns out that macbook pro is one of the best notebooks to runs windows on ...

So exactly what will stop you from running Crysis on an Apple computer other than your blatant bias?

[Reader @ Nov 18th 2008 6:32AM]

"it turns out that macbook pro is one of the best notebooks to runs windows on"

That and any similarly specced laptop...

[loocas @ Nov 18th 2008 6:53AM]

"it turns out that macbook pro is one of the best notebooks to runs windows on"

That and any similarly specced mirror...

[balls @ Nov 18th 2008 2:52PM]

@cg0def: Running crysis at 640x480 doesn't count. The shitty graphics cards that come with BRAND SPANKING new macs are old as fuck.

PC gamers can pick up a 4850 HD with 1Gig of ram for $200.

Dumbass mac gamers gotta spend $400 for the 8800 GT, after buying a $2500 computer.

SWEET DEAL GUYS!

[john @ Nov 18th 2008 5:59AM]

wow i dont see apple fanboy comments they must know to stay away from what they cant have!

[Alex L. @ Nov 18th 2008 9:51AM]

"the Fujitsu Siemens GraphicsBooster implementation only works with the Sa 3650 laptop according to the spec sheet"

99.9% of PC users that don't own a Sa 3650, won't be able to have it, which most likely includes you too.

[ralph @ Nov 18th 2008 10:41AM]

maybe apple fanboys couldn't care less about this thread? maybe they're using their computers to get work done? Oops I guess that's what I should be doing ;)

[john @ Nov 18th 2008 6:53AM]

mac still cant play games with out windows...so ur saying windows is a better os than mac ??? i agree!

[Sam @ Nov 18th 2008 8:40AM]

"oh wait actually it turns out that macbook pro is one of the best notebooks to runs windows on ... "

at that price i'd expect it to.

[Luke @ Nov 18th 2008 8:49AM]

@John. Actually on a Macbook Pro this has been a option for a while now. So if you want to make this a
Windows vs Mac thing you should probably do a bit of research. This has been a option since May of 2007 for Mac's.

[john @ Nov 18th 2008 7:10PM]

what you mean dual booting window's and mac? they just figured that out in 07 man macs further behind than i thought.. windows has been dual booting with ubuntu and other os's for eaons mac really need to catch up

[Frogboy @ Nov 18th 2008 9:09AM]

But will it constantly annoy you by repeatedly telling you that it can indeed play Crysis?

[Shinigami @ Nov 18th 2008 9:21AM]

I really hope you remember that ATI 3200 is a build-in graphics solution, not a discrete graphics card, so its performance is really limited compared to a "normal" laptop card. So having 470% boost says "its great!" from the first sight, but that makes me ask "wow how much did you have before the boost?"

6,2 fps is a 470% boost from 1,32 fps. Does it help playing games with 470% boost? Absolutely. Is 6 fps playable? Absolutely not.

[Alex L. @ Nov 18th 2008 9:54AM]

The video looked pretty smooth, I'm sure it was above 6fps.

[EdMercer @ Nov 18th 2008 11:06AM]

You are right, but then again, dead wrong. I have an HD3200-based HTPC and it runs Crysis with a decent framerate @720p, so a 470% boost over it would make for kickass gaming, no doubt.

[Chin-Poh @ Nov 18th 2008 1:56PM]

HD3200 graphics are the integrated graphics in the Fujitsu notebook, but I'm quite sure when this GraphicBooster ships, it will ship with a Mobility HD3850 which is what is being used in the video.

[cesium @ Nov 18th 2008 10:20AM]

When the fuck is the Asus XG going to come out, that's all I want to know

[roach @ Nov 18th 2008 10:45AM]

This would even be better with the video card in these boxes are replaceable.

[Chin-Poh @ Nov 18th 2008 1:57PM]

Maybe not official, but I'm sure some hacker can do it, should be easier than replacing a GPU in most notebooks anyways.
I hope someone will be able to pop out the HD3850 in the box and put in the Mobility HD4850/HD4870 when they are released.

[colin @ Nov 18th 2008 6:48PM]

I don't know, sounds like something that will really kick off, i would with out a doubt buy one...and yea like Roach said, if you could change the video card in the box, would be just.....truly idea of "next gen"

[Chin-Poh @ Nov 18th 2008 1:46PM]

The ATI XGP only works on that Fujitsu model because it needs a proprietary connector only that Fujitsu has right now. It will pop up on more notebooks but unfortunately for now, the ATI XGP will be exclusive to AMD Puma notebooks.

Reason the XG Station hasn't been released is although it uses the Expresscard port, which is on most notebooks, the current standard's bandwidth is too low to support decent graphics. This is why I'm hoping for the Expresscard 2.0 format that was announced months ago and will hopefully come out soon, though probably not in notebooks by the end of the year as that's when I'd like to buy a new notebook.
: (

Since the Mobility HD4850/HD4870 have been announced, I can't wait to see them used by the ATI XGP, imagine having those hooked up to a 12" AMD Puma notebook like the HP TX2000 tablets for example!

[Ray @ Nov 18th 2008 4:57PM]

Simple and unanswered question... Where/when can i buy?

[Rahabib @ Nov 18th 2008 5:02PM]

dang and I was hoping it would connect to my eee pc.

[Calvin @ Nov 18th 2008 5:33PM]

i'm pretty sure that it says hooked up with usb 2.0

[omnomnom @ Nov 26th 2008 7:52PM]

Yeah, but will it ble- ...oh
Will it play Cry- ...oh
My life is now meaningless...

[NoAndThen @ Nov 18th 2008 7:07PM]

cool, so they actually FINALLY made it work.

1. standardize the damn thing
2. make it all os/hw compatible
3. ????
4. PROFIT! (seriously, a lot... I'd buy)