MSI Graphics Upgrade Solution seeks an ExpressCard slot to call home
By Vlad Savov 
posted May 21st 2010 8:05AM
posted May 21st 2010 8:05AM
posted May 21st 2010 8:05AM
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Interesting idea.
@Slygathor it's like Vidock, but available everywhere and cheaper! plus since MSI is making it, it'll probably have better performance with their own cards. AWESOME.
@Slygathor Would have been better if you could connect external monitor to this card directly and use full PCI-E on pumping info inside, without moving anything outside.
Currently it pumps data to the card and receives picture through the same cable.
Don't know how much it would help though...
Maybe its time for laptops to get PCI-E x4?
@Shinigami
ExpressCard 1.0 can only do 250 MB\sec.
ExpressCard 2.0 can do double that..it's just no one is using it yet.
I would hope that a product like this in 2010 would be expresscard 2.0, but I doubt it. I don't think there are many laptop motherboard chipsets available that offer expresscard 2.0.
@Shinigami u can connect the external monitor directly to this device - click the link
@DoctarPeppar 250MB/s is 5 times that of USB 2.0, and half that of PCI Express 2.0. Quite enough to run a 4X PCI lane most midrange video cards won't choke on.
@Slygathor
Everyone should just check out the DIYVidock Project on the notebookreview forums. I've got an ATI 5770 hooked up to my Studio XPS 13. It's not the prettiest, but I'm getting some crazy performance.
Currently we're investigating the Expresscard's 1 x 2.0 performance since the SXPS 13 does have it, but it seems to be locked by Nvidia's drivers.
Cool! An external graphics card. A great idea.
that's a big power button. IMAO, a power button is not needed as it will be plugged in 24/7 =D
@tommy2468 umm...if it's plugged in 24/7, why don't you have a desktop?
Possibly a daft question:
Would something like this work with Photoshop?
I guess no, though - does anybody know more?
Because if not I stick with my Intel GPU which is perfectly fine :) even if I should decide to waste some time on the odd computer game
(Yes I'm no gamer)
@DetlevCM Why wouldn't it work with Photoshop?
It's a card attached to a (hot-swappable) PCIe x1 slot.
It might not make Photoshop faster (not sure if Photoshop uses any GPU acceleration,) and it won't work with the internal display, but it'll allow you to hook up more external monitors than your GPU would normally allow.
@bhtooefr Photoshop is hardware accelerated. It has been for a while, so it's all good!
@bhtooefr
Yes, like MindStrider said - Photoshop is hardware accelerated.
I was thinking along the lines of using an external GPU to do the hardware acceleration and using my internal laptop monitor for actually seeing what I have - but I guess that wouldn't work?
@DetlevCM
but how much you think is the expected improvement in like a 2 year old laptop with integrated graphics
@acexl
I couldn't tell - but funny that you say that, because my laptop is about 2 years old.
Using a little registry change you can run Photoshop CS4 on the X3100 but that has some problems of its own in Windows - but for tasks that use the GPU its much faster than the CPU.
I've also got that infamous 8400M GS that I'd rather not use (and actually I don't use it at all - except a bit at the start) - so I couldn't tell...
But unless there is a bandwidth problem it should beat any integrated card quite easily.
I'm lovin' it.
Is usb3 quick enough for this sort of thing?
@Wolfticket
It should because the ExpressCard slot has comparable performance to USB3.0. However, USB has more overhead so overall performance might be lower and probably not good enough for game graphics. Normal graphics that already have video adapters that plug into USB2.0.
@Wolfticket
You'd better believe it is. But I suspect Light Peak would be even better.
@Wolfticket not really. Its leagues faster than 2.0, but it would bottleneck the gpu. Hence the expresscard which connects directly to a pcie slot
@Wolfticket I'm guessing if you did get it to run on USB 3.0 it would be laggy as you can buy USB 2.0 cards now and there very laggy. A direct connection would be better despite the lack of bandwidth IMO
@Gasaraki
The way Intel bridges and such are designed, such an idea would be unusual and stupid, simply because of the latency and non-integration. Drivers for it would be incredibly weird, most likely, and coordination with the CPU in things like DirectCompute and such would be ugly, to say the least. The CPU would have to do processing just to figure out where the heck to send its graphics information. Probably not worth it, with all of the overhead. Besides, you're not doing anything with those PCI-E lanes anyway.
This gives a lot of people a reason to buy a laptop with bare video power, that costs 300 less.
@NeatOman
Exactly. I remember when I bought my 15" HP a year ago my main concern was that it used pretty much the fastest GPU available for laptops its size. The HP is a great machine but there were other laptops I liked more for whatever reason but they lacked the GPU punch I needed.
This would help smaller laptops be more viable gaming machines as smaller laptops rarely have advanced GPUs. The only requirement now would be Expresscard which isn't so bad.
Are there actually any notebooks with expresscard 1x v 2.0 ? I've been looking for quite some time but never found anything ...
Since expresscard 1x v1.0 can only do 250 mb per sec it is way to slow. The upgraded 1x v2.0 can do 500mb per sec which is twice as much and could therefore be barely sufficient for a decent graphics card.
I think usb 3.0 can do 625mb per sec but I am not sure about how efficient the protocol is. Usb 2.0 is horrible but I heard the protocol got streamlined and improved for 3.0 so that might also be an option for future external graphics cards.
Anyway any possibility that I can use a great business notebook with a decent screen (no glare ips panel), low weight, long running-time and the option to add a decent external graphics card (and no, thats not a 5670) for gaming whenever I want to would be absolutely frickin' awesome.
@Avaron
I've been wondering the same thing!!
PCIe 2.0 has been out for what seems like forever now...ExpressCard 2.0 is basically just a 1 lane PCIe2 slot in a laptop -- so what is the deal? Why is no one using this yet? No chipsets available?
@DoctarPeppar
I have really no idea. The specification for the technology is over 1 year old and I still see no implementations of it anywhere...
I only hope the theoretically faster usb 3.0 will make decent external gpus feasible...
I've been waiting for a long time... awesome!
ExpressCard - another useful interface appleseems to be dropping for no apparent reason. I like how engadget says oft neglected - but most decent machines have it
@ajwoodhouse They mean oft neglected in that no one really has any cards to slide into them. And Apple has LONG neglected to put any kind of slot in their laptops. No PCMCIA, no Express Cards, hell it took how long to get them to put an SD card slot in them?
@icase81 Long neglected? Obvious troll is obvious. Powerbook G3s and G4s had PCMCIA slots, MacBook Pros had ExpressCard slots (up until the mid-2009 refresh when the 13-inch and 15-inch got SD slots instead-- the 17-inch still has them).
@slab How are they trolling? Good luck getting external connectivity on with your SD reader. Hmmm given the choice you prefer a card reader over expansion slot? Btw my vaio has card readers - two - and expresscard 34. Wow ain't that amazing.
@slab Don't get so defensive. I'm not trolling. I'm an admitted Apple fanboy. My MacBooks and iBooks never had any kind of slots. If you have any doubts, I'm posting from my iPad.
@slab
Apple friggen sucks, who wants a 17" laptop just to get an expresscard slot? It's funny how nowadays how Apple's laptops have become LESS powerful than their predecessors. I guess they are just catering to the whole fanboi cult who doesn't even know what that big hole on the side of their machine is.
@ajwoodhouse Because Apple has not, in fact, long neglected to have PCMCIA/PC Card slots. Only recently have they started to remove them-- and you'll see that more and more with newer laptops from other manufacturers, not just Apple.
Why? There is little perceived value in having an expresscard port-- 3G WWAN cards come in mini-PCIe form factors to be integrated into laptop motherboards, SD card readers just get built-in to the motherboard (often where an expresscard port would go), everything else a normal consumer would attach can connect to USB 2.0.
Don't misunderstand-- I like expresscard. But the industry is going a different direction.
I find it real useful - for usb3 and an extra FireWire port. I guess apple just wants people to upgrade
Hmm, I remember seeing some kind of external GPU enclosure marketed a while back but it required an internal GPU from the same vendor as the external one. I take it they've got round this, then.
@Javaguy
It was a driver issue that conflicted in Vista. Windows XP and Windows 7 Machines can operate separate drivers.
So would it be worth it to buy this for my Dell D820? Because for some reason the onboard video wont play any games that rely on Direct X. Only game that works is portal. Will the run Counter Strike source well?
I wonder if this would be usable on mac and let me play steam games?
@Stepup Probably not. Mac doesnt exactly support alot of 3rd party things. So dont get your hopes up..
Oh please. If you need this, just get a desktop. After all, what if you need to use another ExpressCard slot device?
@MAS Well i do have a pimped out desktop but it would be nice to be able to not have to buy a brand new laptop just to play games at other peoples houses without having to carry over my desktop.
With all the attention that switchable graphics (Nvidia's Optimus for example) have been getting lately, this seems like the next logical step. You can combine the best of both worlds in both desktops and laptops, with desktops shrinking in size and power draw to more resemble nettops and laptops running all day on a charge yet still able to play games or render 3D effectively. Sure it compromises portability somewhat for laptops, but have you ever tried to carry around a 17" Alienware gaming rig? Portability is relative here.
very cool - my one year old vaio already needs this
question - would this help using video editors like Pinnacle Studio 14?
it's sometimes processor intensive - not sure if this would help
@Gabe
Nope, it wouldn't. GPU's work with direct manipulation of 3D media. Unless some software (Photoshop CS3+) uses hardware acceleration. This wouldn't help video production at all. That's all processor heavy stuff.
Hmm, anyone know if the bandwidth limit on the ExpressCard 1.0 slot would prevent this from being an upgrade to the Go 7950gtx 512MB in my laptop?
The 7950gtx worked great when I bought the laptop but obviously it is starting to run into games now that it can only run on low settings =\ Being a college student a laptop for gaming is really my best option but I can't quite afford to buy a new one at the moment.
Would I be able to use this on my Macbook Pro?
@Brando No real need to even if you could. Macbooks have pretty beefy video cards. I'm assuming you ave a Geforce 9400 in there.