External Thunderbolt Graphics Adapter in the Works
Village Instruments is currently working on a Thunderbolt version of its ViDock external graphics card chassis.
Last week Village Instruments used its Facebook page to poll customers about a Thunderbolt version of its ViDock expansion for the PC and Mac platforms. The post claimed that if more than fifty people posted a comment in favor of the device, then development would commence. So far 509 people have responded.
"ViDock Thunderbolt is a go!" said CEO Hubert Chen last week. "Thank you to everybody in this wonderful community! Special thanks to Manu Marea, Nino Ri and Jim Atchue! My in boxes are flooded. Please allow me a day or two to get back to everybody and to work with engineering and production to make a project schedule for ViDock Thunderbolt."
For the uninitiated, ViDock could likely be the answer for many laptop gamers who simply can't afford to purchase the more expensive gamer-oriented configurations. ViDock is essentially an extension chassis that connects to a laptop via an ExpressCard slot and allows the consumer to use a discrete PCI Express-graphics card. Of course, this doesn't help in dealing with upgrading the CPU at a later date, but at least the current laptop can be extended a few more years simply by swapping out the external graphics card for something newer.
"ViDock is not only compatible with Windows 7 but takes full advantage of its latest features," reads the product description. "Windows 7 instantly remembers and restores your display configurations when you hot plug your ViDock then again when you gracefully remove ViDock. No need to go into the display set-up dialog box to configure your displays. Also, with Windows 7, the graphics card in ViDock will show up in the eject tray as a removable device. ViDock also works with Vista, Windows XP, and Mac OS X."
According to the company, a laptop can connect to a large format display (or two), keyboard, and mouse with just one cable. The chassis also features a 2-port USB hub that allows the user to add more devices to the one-step plug-in such as a printer, external hard drive, USB headset, and more.
Currently Village Instruments is offering three versions of its ViDock device: the ViDock 3 for cards that consume up to 75W of power, the ViDock 4 for higher performance cards requiring up to 150W of power and use a 6-pin power connector, and the ViDock 4 Plus which includes a second 2 x 3 pin power connector for cards that leech up to 225W of power.
But with the launch of a Thunderbolt version, the Mac community will receive the benefits of what ViDock offers at a much faster rate first – PC gamers won't see this version until 2012 when Thunderbolt ports eventually become standard for Windows-powered PCs. The current ExpressCard version is only capable of around 2.5 Gb/s whereas the Thunderbolt should shoot graphics into a connected laptop or desktop using a 10 Gb/s bandwidth.
So far there's no indication of when the Thunderbolt version will be available, nor have there been any hints of pricing. The current ExpressCard models aren't exactly cheap: $199 USD for the ViDock 3, $239 for the ViDock 4 and $279 for the ViDock 4 Plus. Throw in an additional $240 GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card, and you've spent up to $520 to get decent gaming up and running on a mid-level laptop.
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On the go and powerful graphics card are now a real possibility. Now if only the CPU could be this easily upgradeable then people could drop the desktop and heft the laptop and these components around instead. not that I expect this setup would be too far from a power plug.
10Gb/s that's not even 4 lane in PCIe 2.0/2.1! Not ready for mainstream gaming yet. Need at least 4 lane 16Gb/s before I will consider using it as a GPU interface and need 8 lane 32Gb/s to be sufficient for now.
10Gb/s that's not even 4 lane in PCIe 2.0/2.1! Not ready for mainstream gaming yet. Need at least 4 lane 16Gb/s before I will consider using it as a GPU interface and need 8 lane 32Gb/s to be sufficient for now.
Agreed. At this point I'd say get Llano for a budget/mid-range laptop, or an Intel SB + AMD discrete setup for higher end.
That's if you really need a laptop at all. A lot of people just use laptops like desktops, never move em, plugged in all the time. Cracks me up. By the time they take it on the road, the battery will be so shot it might as well be a desktop.
Now a MacMini or macbook will have powerfulll gaming performance...Mac users will no longer need a desktop windows gaming machine, bootcamp will rule
Cool..
Does the gpu get power from a wall socket.
Now I can play Angry Birds on my MBP without all that annoying lag....
Why
Now a MacMini or macbook will have powerfulll gaming performance...Mac users will no longer need a desktop windows gaming machine, bootcamp will rule
except for the fact that most games are only for the PC
All Macs have been able to run Windows natively for 5 years now. My 3 Macs all have Windows 7 and running plenty of vWindows only games.
All Macs come with Bootcamp, which installs a Windows partition in less than a minute. Putting windows on your Mac is as easy as installing a video game now.
The Sony Vaio Z21 comes with an external GPU unit connected thru lightpeak.
I like the idea, especially since I have a 5770 1GB just laying around. Doesn't everybody?
It costs far too much however. I see no reason to spend on anything better than a ATi 5770 for most laptops, and then the dock costs far more than the GPU. At this price range, you can consider buying a high-end gaming laptop (17" Clevo preferably) instead.
I do however prefer the idea of a $50 dock and a $100 GPU to match on a $400-500 laptop.
Regardless, I'm interested, and I'll be keeping my eye out on this.
this is somewhat not as great as it sounds since the CPU's u get for laptops are going to be the bottleneck as well.
Well, if you buy one of these not only can you use it for your laptop, but say someone comes over for a LANparty with there rubbish low-end laptop. Now you can plug them into this and have a proper session.
I kind of like the idea of having a graphics boosting tool, which is what I consider this to be. Not an installation but a tool that can be used in lots of places.
It's 20Gb/s bi-directional, not 10.
this could work well specially when nvidia graphics cards with optimus technology feature pci-express compression technology causing the 10 gbs to act like a 20gbs conection. as the guys at notebook check have managed to get the optimus drivers to works with full with nvidia on their vidocks which feature the pci-express compression and have shown that it yields more performance and since like the express card it also is based on pci-e it should then have round about enough bandwidth for a mid range card
sounds good
I have never heard of anyone gaming on such a device. I have some art student friends who have similar things that run through esata and firewire 800 that they use for rendering, but the bandwidth is too slow to get a decent frame rate out of for real time apps. It does lower render time dramatically, especially for 5th year students who cannot afford to upgrade their Freshman laptop that the school required them to buy
It's like adding a ground effects package and a tuning package to a Honda Civic to compete with a 911 or Vette.
On the go and powerful graphics card are now a real possibility. Now if only the CPU could be this easily upgradeable then people could drop the desktop and heft the laptop and these components around instead. not that I expect this setup would be too far from a power plug.
sorry dude even with this the desktop will never be replaceable. now go back to hugging you're pink dell laptop
That's rly missed idea no1 with reasonable knowledge will hamper gpu with this agp bandwidths.
On the other hand if this will be cheap enough some old after-market gpu may work wonders for owners of intel gma and such. Im only afraid that device will be more expensive than gpu's it can efficiently use.
Im curious of some benchmarks.
I already looked into these things and found that thier prices were preventatively high. Otherwise if they were cheaper I would already have one. I could just put in my HD 4870 but at $200 for the cheapest one I would be more likely to buy a new laptop.
Oh well I guess I'll have to stick to WoW, N64 emulation, Team Fortress 2 and Left for Dead almost all of which have to run on the lowest settings thanks to the fact that I have onboard (intel) graphics.
I'm having visions of a laptop turning into something that looks like an octopus.
i've been saying for years i wonder when some one is going to do this , it's actually an idea i ahd sicne about 2000. too bad i never thought to get a patent on the idea LOL with US's patent system, i'd be banking right now !!
except for the fact that most games are only for the PC
Don't know what Bootcamp is I see
Build a m-ITX & put it in your backpack with a UPS, gaming keyboard & mouse, 15"LCD, & 4G USB modem for a fraction of the cost of a Mac-Thunderbolt+Thunderbolt-Eternal-GPU+Windows7 or Clevo 30min on battery gamer!
This is a bit of a neat product that most people when they think about it more, would not buy. This will go into the pile of all the ipads/netbooks that are all over craigslist now because people ran out to buy and then realized it's a toy and they now need money for food.
For the $500 this and a video card would cost, you can just get a pretty high-end gaming laptop to begin with and not have to worry about dragging another 10 lbs worth of stuff with you.
I'm seriously intrigued by this idea - as much as I rely on my laptop keeping it around for a couple more years by adding a new graphics card for $200 as opposed to plunking down a thousand or more every two years is definitely worth it, I'm going to be keeping an eye on this product.
The problem with a VI dock is if you look at the price it is very much not cost effective. In most cases with the price of the card and vi dock you could be well on your way to just buying a better laptop with a good mobile GPU and no extra box required lol.
Dear Village Instruments:
Please, when it is convenient, please fork this project and adapt an ARM platform and memory card slot. K, thnx. Bye
Most of the people here just don't get it. This isn't meant to bring with you. It's meant to let you have one computer - a Macbook Air or something similar - that you can take with you everywhere. But when you are at home or when you need a graphics card you just plug it in and you are set.