Echo Express Pro: Desktop Graphics In A Thunderbolt Chassis
Benchmark Setup And Software
Testing Notes:
Only a handful of Thunderbolt-enabled motherboards are available today, aside from Apple's Macs. However, in order to compare the native performance of a high-end PCI Express device to the Echo Express Pro operating over Thunderbolt, we require a desktop machine. The same comparison wouldn't be possible on a notebook. Naturally, you can expect similar results from a mobile platform.
MSI's Z77A-GD80 with built-in Thunderbolt support gives us the connectivity we need to create a performance-oriented head-to-head.
Test Hardware | |
---|---|
Processor | Intel Core i5-2400 (Sandy Bridge), 32 nm, 3.1 GHz, LGA 1155, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost Enabled |
Motherboard | MSI Z77A-GD80 v1.1 |
Memory | Kingston Hyper-X 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1333 @ DDR3-1333, 1.5 V |
System Drive | OCZ Vertex 4 64 GB SATA 6Gb/s, Firmware: 1.5 |
Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 3000Palit GeForce GTX 460 1 GBAMD Radeon HD 6970 2 GB |
Power Supply | Seasonic 760 W, 80 PLUS Gold |
System Software and Drivers | |
Operating System | Windows 7 x64 Ultimate |
DirectX | DirectX 11 |
Driver | Graphics: Nvidia 301.42, Catalyst 12.6 RST: 10.6.0.1002 Virtu: 1.2.114 |
Benchmarks | |
---|---|
ATTO Benchmark | v2.46 |
Battlefield 3 | 1920x1080, Thunder Run intro, Ultra Quality |
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm | 1920x1080, Crushblow to The Krazzworks, Ultra Quality, DX11 |
CLBenchmark | v1.1 |
LuxMark | v1.0 |
3DMark11 | v1.03, Performance, Extreme |
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amuffin Well, getting a laptop that supports thunderbolt is already pretty expensive. Then, you have to get one of these which ranges from $400-$800. THEN you have to buy a dedicated card....Reply
It's pretty expensive once you add it all up :/ -
yobobjm I like it, but I see limited use for it, especially for those of us who already have large towers, and don't really want another small tower added on to that. That being said, this would make a pretty awesome home dock for a laptop, and good for those tiny desktops that intel, apple, asrock, zotac and many others make (once all of those get thunderbolt).Reply -
acku Prices will go down. Remember that.Reply
Second, it's about the cost you'd have to pay anyways for a desktop (which you need if you want to game since you can't on a vanilla ultrabook), so its more like an alternative solution for those who want a single system setup.
Cheers,
Andrew Ku
Tom's Hardware -
mayankleoboy1 any controller + the surrounding ecosystem that is this expensive cant survive much. Not being a hater, but being a realist.Reply -
acku You don't know that :). USB 3.0 was expensive when it first came out. Look at things now. Wow things have changed. Prices are substantially lower now.Reply -
Vorador2 Needs to be cheaper. That's my only serious gripe.Reply
And well, for this purpose Thunderbolt still needs to be faster to fully take advantage of the external GPU, best around 16 Gb/s since it's the speed of a 16x PCIE 3.0 slot.
Although you could potentially sidestep this issue if you use two linked thunderbolt interfaces, but then there's the problem of synchronizing data transfers (and finding a laptop with two thunderbolt interfaces...if there's any) -
Menigmand If they can make this much cheaper, I would be very interested. I prefer to game on a laptop so I can easily stow it away when I have guests over and need the dining table. An extra box would be ok, as long as it doesn't need an external display.Reply -
assasin32 Well this makes things more interesting, when the price goes down and becomes resonable within probably the next few years it may give us the ability to buy laptops and attach some reasonble GPU's to them so we can play games on them a lot better.Reply
If this was around 8 years ago I would have been all over it and had it for my laptop since I used to use that for gaming.