eGPU - anyone try this or know about them?
daveso
Posts: 7,784
I've been pricing systems but am having a really hard time holding cost under $1500. Lower would be great. Older compnents, like 17-8700k processor coupled with Nividia RTX 2070 end up being close to AMD 3800/3900X with same card ... but when I go to 32gig ram, large SSD and a 3T HDD , it always goes around 1600 ... i had one at $1520, but the shipping was 75 and taxes..brought it to nearly 1700.
So then, I thought about eGPU, but are they even compatible with my 3 year old system. They are not cheap in price either ...
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Does your current system have Thunderbolt ports? And if so, are they the same generation as the eGPU enclosure? Those are the sticking points with eGPUs.
You don't need thunderbolt for eGPU just USB 3 type C.
However you want a Iray rendering system for less than $1500?
This is $1400. If you really want an R7 you could got to a cheaper B450 or X470 motherboard and go down to a 512Gb M.s rather than the 1 Tb one. That should save you enough for a 3800X.
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/kbs666/saved/#view=YPfgwP
that sounds pretty decent ... looks good ... Win10 pro would need to buy ..and a cooler for cpu.
i would think the GPU is mor eimportant than CPU for DS? also, that 3600 is pretty decent overall.
The 3600 comes with a decent enough cooler unless you plan to overclock it. Yes, the GPU is more important. But you mentioned wanting a 3800 or 3900 in your op so I madeallowances.
Win 10 will set you back over $100 retail but if you Google for it you can get a license for far less. Also Win 10 is nag wear but worksd normally except it displays that the copy is unregistered on screen till you register and makes changing your wallpaper more difficult.
I've looked into those eGPUs too as it's a way to make my laptop mostly irrelevant but you need a fast data connection and if you buy quality houseing and components to build your eGPU you're paying over $1000 anyway.
Given that multicore CPUs, GPUs, and memory is getting so improved on the last couple of years with the trend likely to accelerate it seems a colossal waste of money to invest in a eGPU. Those made sense 5 years ago for some laptop and locked down Apple HW owners but for nobody else did they ever make sense.
There are actual reasons to get them.
If you really need a laptop for the portability then you'd likely be far better off with a thin and light. I have carried a laptop every workday for the last 15 years or so and For most of that time I had to carry a laptop bag which carried little else. That meant carrying an additional bag for tools and testing gear. I hated it.
A while back I got a XPS 13 and I can put it in the same bag as my tools and other gear. I'm much happier now.
If that was my only computer or if I wanted to game/render on it (while traveling maybe?) then an eGPU would make sense. I wouldn't need to carry it everywhere with the laptop.
You can get an enclosure for as little as $200 and then put in whatever GPU you want/can afford.
If you are willing to take a hit to laptop portability, you may also be able to cable an extrnal card into the mini PCIe slot that the Wi-Fi card is usally attached to (so you'd need a wired connect or get a USB Wi-Fi adapter). At that point, a new system probably makes more sense, but it is an option.
CPU is somewhat useful while you're setting up a scene, not for the actual rendering (assuming you're doing iRay renders), so a 3600 is more than plenty for DS already. Don't fall for the overclocking trap, the benefit of overclocking is not really big for rendering. Even for gaming it's hardly beneficial. The most noticable effect of overclocking, is that your CPU will generate more heat, which means you will need to spend money on a better cooler. And that's quite a shame, since the stock cooler on Ryzen CPUs is more than enough to keep its temperature in check on the factory setting.
You should also be able to get a way cheaper case than that $146 Cooler Master one. For about $80 you can get a Sharkoon case with very decent airflow.
Ofcourse, prices do vary by country, but do try to find someone reliable and capable in your own country to assemble a rig. Some people do so for their daily job, others for their weekend hobby. What they do have in common though, is that they usually have better connections with suppliers within your country, which cuts a lot in the shipping and tax expenses. Don't look at the big store chains for this, look at the hobbyists and small local computer stores.
There are lots of cheaper cases. Few if any have the sort of airflow of the H500. But I chose it for one other reason, it is very easy to build in it. I build PC's as a side gig and servers in my "real" job. I've spent more time than I care to think about struggling to assemble computers in poorly designed cases. I would never saddle an inexperienced builder with a cheap case which will pretty much always have various issues: cramped, unrolled edges (which means a high chance of getting cut), no USB 3 on the front panel, external drive bays (unless you really want a DVD player why have one? It interferes with pretty much everything else in the case) and lack of cable management features.
I have a desktop rig for rendering. It's fine.
I'm coming to end of life on my laptop, and have been looking into Razer Blade 15 (with dGPU). Then, I learned about their eGPU product. However, the reviews are all from gamers, and I am not a gamer. I don't care about displayed frame rates, etc. I want to know if it would make my laptop a viable rendering machine. When I put an RTX in my desktop rig, I pulled my two GTX 980Ti's expecting to sell them but haven't sold them yet.
The Razer Core X eGPU looks like it takes only one GTX 980Ti.
So, I'm just learning about eGPU but have the following basic questions (assume NVIDIA):
1. Can you use them for rendering in a system with dGPU?
2. Can I use both the dGPU and the eGPU for rendering if they are different?
3. Has anyone done this with a Razer Blade 15?
1) Yes
2) Yes
3) Not me but the 2 GPU's should show up just like they were both installed in the computer.
I'm using an eGPU (Sonnet Breakaway Box 550 with a MSI 1070ti inside) attached to a NUC for rendering and I'm pretty happy with the setup. It allows me to use my laptop to setup the scenes, sync them to my NUC and start a batch job there to render them there while I make other scenes and/or do other stuff. If you plan to use the eGPU attached to your laptop, keep in mind that this thing is bulky, the thunderbolt3 cables are really, REALLY short (they have to transfer insane bitrates), and it basically transforms your laptop into a desktop, loosing all versatility. Also the thing is heavy, which means that you (probably) won't be able to take it with you when you travel, so you won't be able to make any renders during that time. Being attached to a NUC gives you the options to upgrade pretty easily not having to worry about power supply, box dimensions, motherborad confiurations, etc.
The bad... well, as weird as that sounds, it's not big enough. They've released it before the release of the RTX 20xx series and it turns out that most of the 2080ti cards don't fit for half of a centimeter or so. Which leaves you with just a handful of choices if you decide to put those monsters inside. The PSU can handle them easily, because it's 375W dedicated for the GPU only, but they just don't fit inside.
375W can power any graphics card, that's 75W from the PCIE slot and 150W for each of the two 8 pin PCIE power cables (as far as I'm aware there has never been a 3 8 pin card).
Is the box too short or not long enough? If it's a height issue can't you just leave the top off the box? If it's a length issue there are shorter 20xx cards out there (the reference model from Nvidia is 266mm which isn't unusually long for a 10xx card). Zotac makes some smallish cards for the Turing cards as well.
It's the lenght. And yeah - there are cards that fit, but they are like 10-15% of what's on the market and it limits your options in terms of cooling. All three fan cards are too big to fit and not all of the two fan ones fit (e.g. MSI's GamingX series doesn't fit, but the Ventus series does fit).
Don't get me wrong, I like it a lot because it fits my use case - I'm loving the versatility of the laptop, I travel a lot and can work from wherever just as easily like I'm home and also I prefer the split system of NUC - eGPU to the uniform of the desktop because I don't worry about the power supply, I can upgrade easily (I switched from NUC7 to NUC8 in 5 minutes - just move the RAM and the SSD and Windows boots from the 'new' machine and transfers your license). Also the setup is pretty small and quiet compared to the traditional desktops.
There is even a small perk - because the NUC uses a mobile processor with integrated graphics, if you connect the monitor to the NUC instead of the eGPU (it's hooked up to my TV for occasional gaming, but the same principle applies), Windows eats up the shared video RAM instead of the dedicated 8GB VRAM of the eGPU card, meaning more stuff that can fit in the scene ;)
EDIT: Actually the 2080ti MSI Gaming card is a three-fan. I somehow messed it up since my 1070ti Gaming is a double-fan.