Studio 1749 - need some advice :)

Hey guys,

I'm looking to get a eGPU for my Dell Studio 1749;
( Review Dell Studio 1749 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews)

I'v been browsing the DIY sticky and Experiances thread and tbh, im quite lost!

From what i gathered i need a special cable , a power supply and a graphics card. (im looking at a budget of 300~euro)

Im finding it tricky to figure out what an ideal set up for my money would be so I'm asking for some advice!

 

Alright, you'll use your expresscard interface to create a eGPU
You'll need PE4H v2.4 EC2C: PE4H ( PCIe passive adapter ver2.4 )
Remember that PE4H has bandwidth limit of PCIe 2.0 x1
The best card you put there is a GTX 660 TI I believe... higher than that is a waste of money, you'll lose a lot of performance on your eGPU
After that you'll need to see your TOLUD. It allows you to see If your laptop delivers the amount of memory you need to have an eGPU. That's something I still don't know how to calculate.
TOLUD is in the discussion DIY eGPU experiences

 

alright, so i need to buy :

1) PE4H-EC2C ver2.4 Package
2) Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660TI OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Borderlands 2 PC Game [GV-N66TOC-2GD-EU]

This is my dxdiag: filehosting.org - download page for DxDiag.txt

What should i pick up for the power supply?

EDIT: will this setup allow me to use my laptop's screen?

 

Before that you need to check your TOLUD

 

Alright so my memory by resources looks like this:

[00000000000A0000 - 00000000000BFFFF] PCI bus
[00000000000D0000 - 00000000000D3FFF] PCI bus
[00000000000D4000 - 00000000000D7FFF] PCI bus
[00000000000D8000 - 00000000000DBFFF] PCI bus
[00000000C0000000 - 00000000DFFFFFFF] PCI bus
...
..
theres quite a few more enteries, one more under PCI bus and the rest motherboard resuourves and High precision event timer

so i think this means my systems TOLUD is 3GB?

 

Yes, I believe so, I'm not an expert on TOLUD

As long as TOLUD is equal or lower than 3.25GB your notebook will have enough 32-bit PCI space for a eGPU to work with 4GB or more of system RAM.
So yeah, you have green light for eGPU
At least without the error 12 problem

 

Sadly, your system does not have an intel hdxxxx card meaning you won't be able to use your internal display. And given your limited to pcie 1.0, a 660ti would be a bit too high of a card. Buying a 560 or 660 should be more than plenty given your bandwidth.

 

Cool, learned another thing... didn't know you needed a motherboard with HDXXXX to use your eGPU with your internal display

 

Yeah it kinda sucks . And to take advantage of the pe4l pcie 2.0 interface, a sandy bridge processor or higher is needed as before those, express card slots were limited to pcie 1.0.

 

So many exceptions... that's terrible.. at least all the new pcs won't have that problem

 

ah ok, and if i opted to go for an external monitor would it still make sense to go for a 660ti?

 

No because de bandwidth of the connection between pc and eGPU is the same
What we are saying is that with an eGPU your laptop won't be able to use the screen of your laptop

 

could i plug the egpu into an external monitor?

would that give me the best value for money?

this stuff is so complex!

 

Yes. Your e-gpu would be plugged into your laptop while the monitor would be plugged into the actual graphics card. Thats currently how my setup is working.

 

i can live with that;

lastly , the power requirement of the 660ti is 450W.

could i just use this? ( OcUK Battle 450W Dual Rail High Efficiency Modular '80 Plus' Power Supply [CA-035-OP])

would this power supply be reusable or will it only be able to power the card by itself?

 

It will only be able to use the card.
But if I were you I would get a better PSU for your card... just to be sure it doesn't spike above 450W. I would use one with 550 in your case

My card uses 550W, but I'll use a PSU with 750W

 

good point, ill opt for this one : OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply [OCZ-ZS550W-UK]

so, with three purchases:
1) PE4H-EC2C ver2.4 Package
2) Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660TI OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Borderlands 2 PC Game [GV-N66TOC-2GD-EU]
3) OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply [OCZ-ZS550W-UK]

totaling at 479 euro ill pimp my gaming rig. worth it?

 

The 660ti doesn't use even close to 450w of power You could easily be good with an efficient 450w or 400w power supply (even that is playing it safe, the graphics card uses a maximum of 150w of continuos power). Heck, a 300w power supply would be fine. If you wanted to though, modding an xbox 360 psu would work fine as it is a high rated 200w supply.

And not to sway you away, but the 660ti is just too powerful of a card for you to benefit the extra power under a non-optimus 1.0 connection. You could easily be sufficient with a NVidia 560 which would bring your total closer to 300 euro. But hey, if you do end up upgrading your system later down the road with a laptop capable of a better speed, buying the 660ti now will make future-you like you that much more

 

GTX 680:
Thermal and Power Specs:
98 CMaximum GPU Tempurature (in C)
195 WMaximum Graphics Card Power (W)
550 WMinimum System Power Requirement (W)

So this actually means it uses 195W max? so what's the minimum system power requirement for?

 

System requirement doesn't pertain to external graphics cards. For the 680, as long as your power supply can give a constant 200w of power without dipping, it'll be fine (Though you usually want more than 5w of free power).

Edit: lol i need to read the question

The minimum system requirement is when you use the card in a desktop (takes cpu, gpu, motherboard, etc. into power consideration).

 

Measured power consumption one card (GTX 680)

System in IDLE = 144W
System Wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 307W
Difference (GPU load) = 163W
Add average IDLE wattage ~10W
Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 173 Watts

Measured power consumption two cards in SLI

System in IDLE = 155W
System Wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 473W
Difference (GPU load) = 318W
Add average IDLE wattage ~20W
Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 338 Watts

Alright, just found this
So if 1 day I want to use SLI GTX 680 I need a PSU with more than 473W... likely a 550W?

 

You don't have to worry about system requirements; just your GPU load. The system based power consumption only applies to Desktop computers.

And no one has tested it, but SLI external graphics is probably not possible. Even with two thunderbolt ports, that is a ton of resources for a laptop. And most just don't have that much free memory.

 

Alright
The SLI will be a test, something that I'll do in the future. Probably Im gonna need all the help I can get ^^

 

how does this sound then?

KFA2 GeForce GTX 560Ti 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Battlefield 3 PC Game [56NGH6X4TTZ] GPU
and
OcUK Swift 500W V2 Silent Power Supply [CA-062-OP] Power supply ( i know its a 500W but its cheap as chips? )

with these two and the PE4H-EC2C ver2.4 Package am i good to go?

 

I believe so, you can still have problems installing but you have the best case scenario
Even in the best case scenarios it's a bet... you have 90% os certainty it will work

 

also - will my i5 m520 be enough in junction with the new eGPU and 8gb RAM to run say planetside 2 and planetside 3 in a high pop area well?

 

I'm not an expert on the influence of processors over games, but I believe so.
see on youtube what your GPU can do

 

Really depends on how cpu or gpu demanding the game is. Since I have a dual core i5, my cpu is the bottleneck in demanding games such as battlefield 3.

Your egpu is give a HUGE boost to performance (bf3 single player went from 3 fps on ultra single player to 30 fps on same settings). You won't be able to play every game at max super hd settings, but for many you can get close

 

alright guys , im going to look into other people who have done an egpu for my laptop model and then make a decision

thanks a million for the advice!