1 00:00:00,180 --> 00:00:03,480 I love the idea of external graphics cards. 2 00:00:03,480 --> 00:00:05,940 At their best, they allow you to have a super light 3 00:00:05,940 --> 00:00:08,940 and portable laptop that you can easily convert 4 00:00:08,940 --> 00:00:11,860 into a shockingly potent gaming system 5 00:00:11,860 --> 00:00:13,520 when you have time to sit down 6 00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:16,100 and you happen to have an outlet nearby. 7 00:00:16,100 --> 00:00:19,820 But the main complaint we hear about them is, 8 00:00:19,820 --> 00:00:24,240 come on you guys, you can get the same level of performance 9 00:00:24,240 --> 00:00:28,640 with a PCI Express card for way less. 10 00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:33,640 But how do you put one of these in one of these? 11 00:00:33,660 --> 00:00:38,350 Ha, the answer is with one of these. 12 00:00:38,350 --> 00:00:42,830 Meet the EXP-GDC or The Beast, 13 00:00:42,830 --> 00:00:48,340 the cheap and dirty way to boost your laptop's gaming power. 14 00:00:48,660 --> 00:00:51,340 Today's video is brought to you by PIA, 15 00:00:51,340 --> 00:00:54,020 the VPN service that encrypts all your internet traffic 16 00:00:54,020 --> 00:00:56,140 and uses a safe, protected IP. 17 00:00:56,140 --> 00:00:58,200 It's got a ton of other useful features as well. 18 00:00:58,200 --> 00:00:59,320 You can check it out at the link 19 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:09,680 below. 20 00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:12,300 So there have actually been quite a few iterations 21 00:01:12,300 --> 00:01:15,100 of The Beast, but the previous ones 22 00:01:15,100 --> 00:01:18,060 never really appealed to us, 23 00:01:18,060 --> 00:01:21,440 mostly because they connected to the system, 24 00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:25,000 either to external ports like Express Card, 25 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,000 a dying, if not completely dead standard, 26 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:31,920 or to internal ports that couldn't be spared. 27 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:36,280 Most laptops only have a single mini PCIe slot 28 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:38,420 that is usually taken up by the Wi-Fi, 29 00:01:38,420 --> 00:01:43,420 a fairly essential component of the mobile experience. 30 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:48,520 But thanks to NVMe, version 9.5 here has some big advantages. 31 00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:56,400 So first, it gets four times the number of PCI Express lanes, 32 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:01,320 four of them here running at Gen 3 speeds. 33 00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:05,560 And second, some mobile devices actually have 34 00:02:05,560 --> 00:02:07,800 more than one M.2 slot, like this. 35 00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:09,480 Like this one. 36 00:02:09,480 --> 00:02:14,080 So you should be able to have both a high-speed boot drive 37 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:18,660 and an external GPU connected at the same time. 38 00:02:18,660 --> 00:02:21,860 Furthermore, because there's no protocol overhead, 39 00:02:21,860 --> 00:02:24,440 it should actually perform better 40 00:02:24,440 --> 00:02:27,520 than Thunderbolt 3 enclosures like this one 41 00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:32,240 at a significantly lower cost, in theory. 42 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:36,180 So, to put that to the test, we are hooking our Beast up 43 00:02:36,180 --> 00:02:37,780 to the de-bottlenecker feature. 44 00:02:37,780 --> 00:02:41,260 We've got a GTX 5,000 here, a powerful desktop 45 00:02:41,260 --> 00:02:43,900 with all three of the connectivity methods 46 00:02:43,900 --> 00:02:45,680 that we want to evaluate. 47 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:47,560 We also grabbed a GTX 1080. 48 00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:51,960 So, this thing is obviously much more powerful 49 00:02:51,960 --> 00:02:54,000 than any laptop on the market, 50 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:58,160 but we need this combination of a fast CPU 51 00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:02,160 and a high-performance GPU to help us identify 52 00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:06,280 which interfaces, if any, are causing a bottleneck 53 00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:07,620 that will adversely affect 54 00:03:07,620 --> 00:03:10,700 the performance of our overall system. 55 00:03:10,700 --> 00:03:11,800 This is pretty trippy. 56 00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:14,140 This is like, I don't know, 57 00:03:14,140 --> 00:03:15,940 just having your graphics card like out here. 58 00:03:15,940 --> 00:03:18,900 It's kind of like, it's like if you had like a human body 59 00:03:18,900 --> 00:03:22,020 that's totally normal and then the heart is on the table 60 00:03:22,020 --> 00:03:23,460 next to it and it's just connected 61 00:03:23,460 --> 00:03:29,610 with tubes and wires and stuff, but it works. 62 00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:33,480 So, in graphically intense games, 63 00:03:33,480 --> 00:03:36,180 you can see the performance of the Beast 64 00:03:36,180 --> 00:03:38,640 ends up about where we would expect, 65 00:03:39,320 --> 00:03:42,140 between the Razer Core with Thunderbolt 3 66 00:03:42,140 --> 00:03:44,840 and a graphics card running at full 16X speed 67 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:47,100 plugged directly into the motherboard. 68 00:03:47,100 --> 00:03:50,520 Although it should be noted that in older CPU-bound games 69 00:03:50,520 --> 00:03:54,580 like CSGO, the FPS was comparable for all three. 70 00:03:54,580 --> 00:03:59,540 Okay, so that all sounds pretty great. 71 00:03:59,540 --> 00:04:04,540 If you've got a laptop then with a spare M.2 NVMe slot, 72 00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:06,860 like this one that we mentioned before, 73 00:04:06,860 --> 00:04:08,500 you could get better than Thunderbolt 3, like I said, 74 00:04:08,500 --> 00:04:10,740 and you could get a Thunderbolt 3 levels of performance 75 00:04:10,740 --> 00:04:14,560 on the cheap-ish. 76 00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:17,600 However, I still find myself asking, 77 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:19,420 who is this actually useful for? 78 00:04:19,420 --> 00:04:23,520 Like, are you really gonna go out and buy a brand new laptop 79 00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:27,660 then literally cut a hole in the bottom of it 80 00:04:27,660 --> 00:04:31,440 for the Beast's cabling that will still need to be run? 81 00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:36,440 But, consider something a little older, like this MSI GL62. 82 00:04:37,580 --> 00:04:39,280 It packs a GTX 960. 83 00:04:39,420 --> 00:04:43,420 It's got a 740 M which, I mean, is better than nothing, 84 00:04:43,420 --> 00:04:45,420 but barely. 85 00:04:45,420 --> 00:04:50,140 So, if you're looking to play modern games, 86 00:04:50,140 --> 00:04:52,300 you're basically plum out of luck, 87 00:04:52,300 --> 00:04:57,430 even though your CPU is still decent, unless... 88 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:02,340 Ah, yes, there it is. 89 00:05:02,340 --> 00:05:04,820 Even though this is a couple of years old 90 00:05:04,820 --> 00:05:09,820 and our config of it actually used a slow mechanical hard drive 91 00:05:10,540 --> 00:05:15,540 the GL62 does feature an NVMe-capable M.2 slot, 92 00:05:16,340 --> 00:05:19,200 which means that, thanks to that still-decent 93 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:23,140 quad-core CPU I mentioned, and the upgradable RAM, 94 00:05:23,140 --> 00:05:25,220 remember upgradable RAM, you guys? 95 00:05:25,220 --> 00:05:29,380 With a beast and something like a GTX 960, 96 00:05:29,380 --> 00:05:34,340 you could turn the GL62 into a gaming-ready machine again 97 00:05:34,340 --> 00:05:38,980 for just a couple hundred bucks, at least in theory. 98 00:05:38,980 --> 00:05:42,880 We have tried everything with this machine. 99 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:46,160 BIOS updates, disabling the integrated graphics, 100 00:05:46,160 --> 00:05:49,220 disabling the dedicated graphics, 101 00:05:49,220 --> 00:05:52,580 newer drivers, older drivers, 102 00:05:52,580 --> 00:05:55,480 older cards, newer cards. 103 00:05:55,480 --> 00:05:58,720 It just won't work. 104 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:01,620 So the working theory, based on some discussion 105 00:06:01,620 --> 00:06:03,140 over on the eGPU forums, 106 00:06:03,140 --> 00:06:04,740 those guys are awesome, by the way, 107 00:06:04,740 --> 00:06:08,660 is that passing a PCI Express signal 108 00:06:08,660 --> 00:06:13,600 over a fairly long couple of HDMI cables here 109 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:16,200 leads to a fair bit of signal degradation, 110 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:19,640 which was fine on our X299 motherboard 111 00:06:19,640 --> 00:06:23,780 because the M.2 slot is physically close to the CPU socket 112 00:06:23,780 --> 00:06:25,580 and has a strong signal, 113 00:06:25,580 --> 00:06:29,480 but might cause problems in laptops 114 00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:33,600 where the PCI Express signal might be within spec, 115 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:34,860 but a little bit lower. 116 00:06:34,860 --> 00:06:38,600 Now, some folks suggested that a shielded, 117 00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:43,600 M.2 to PCIe 4X adapter might actually do better in this case, 118 00:06:44,060 --> 00:06:45,760 and they might be right, 119 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:50,760 but at 70 US dollars plus the cost of power 120 00:06:50,820 --> 00:06:53,180 and some kind of a mounting mechanism, 121 00:06:53,180 --> 00:06:55,480 we don't consider that a viable solution 122 00:06:55,480 --> 00:06:57,780 outside of rare edge cases, 123 00:06:57,780 --> 00:07:00,040 like recycling an old laptop 124 00:07:00,040 --> 00:07:05,080 as a no longer portable ghetto gaming desktop either. 125 00:07:06,430 --> 00:07:07,550 With that said, 126 00:07:07,550 --> 00:07:08,990 let's say that you were trying to do that. 127 00:07:08,990 --> 00:07:12,190 What kind of compatibility could you expect? 128 00:07:12,190 --> 00:07:15,590 As it turns out, not that great. 129 00:07:15,590 --> 00:07:17,310 Even the Dell Inspiron Gaming, 130 00:07:17,310 --> 00:07:20,050 a machine that this approach could make sense for, 131 00:07:20,050 --> 00:07:22,350 requires a custom BIOS, 132 00:07:22,350 --> 00:07:25,550 and the rest of our efforts basically went 133 00:07:25,550 --> 00:07:43,890 a little something like this. 134 00:07:43,890 --> 00:07:48,030 So yeah, we gave up because to get the beast to work 135 00:07:48,030 --> 00:07:50,170 with the Triton 700, for example, 136 00:07:50,170 --> 00:07:54,210 we'd need a custom BIOS with RAID disabled, 137 00:07:54,210 --> 00:07:57,970 and PCI Express hot swap enabled 138 00:07:57,970 --> 00:07:59,490 in order to get compatibility 139 00:07:59,490 --> 00:08:00,810 with anything that would be faster 140 00:08:00,810 --> 00:08:02,390 than what's already built into it. 141 00:08:02,390 --> 00:08:05,090 So a 10th gen NVIDIA card. 142 00:08:05,090 --> 00:08:08,820 So there are people out there 143 00:08:08,820 --> 00:08:13,820 who will happily fork over 100 to 150 bucks, 144 00:08:14,400 --> 00:08:18,040 like the owners of the aging laptops 145 00:08:18,040 --> 00:08:19,960 that we alluded to before, 146 00:08:19,960 --> 00:08:22,240 or I mean, another good example would be someone 147 00:08:22,240 --> 00:08:22,700 with like a mini ITX desktop, 148 00:08:22,700 --> 00:08:23,380 like a mini ITX desktop, 149 00:08:23,380 --> 00:08:24,220 like a mini ITX desktop, 150 00:08:24,220 --> 00:08:24,260 like a mini ITX desktop, 151 00:08:24,260 --> 00:08:24,280 like a mini ITX desktop, 152 00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:24,300 like a mini ITX desktop, 153 00:08:24,300 --> 00:08:24,800 like a mini ITX desktop, 154 00:08:24,800 --> 00:08:26,960 who wants to add 10 gig networking 155 00:08:26,960 --> 00:08:28,780 or something along those lines. 156 00:08:28,780 --> 00:08:33,080 But for everyone else, the compatibility, 157 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:35,560 both physical and in firmware, 158 00:08:35,560 --> 00:08:38,580 the user unfriendliness, the general flakiness, 159 00:08:38,580 --> 00:08:40,000 the lack of documentation, 160 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:42,340 the fact that you need to reboot 161 00:08:42,340 --> 00:08:45,400 to plug and unplug it from the system, 162 00:08:45,400 --> 00:08:47,140 and the fact that you'll probably end up 163 00:08:47,140 --> 00:08:50,620 voiding your warranty are going to confine this product 164 00:08:50,620 --> 00:08:54,390 to a niche within a niche within a niche forever. 165 00:08:54,390 --> 00:08:58,190 It's been forever since we've done a spot for Corsair. 166 00:08:58,190 --> 00:09:01,350 Introducing Corsair's unplug and play series. 167 00:09:01,350 --> 00:09:03,910 The dark core RGB SE mouse is quick, 168 00:09:03,910 --> 00:09:06,250 features one millisecond, 2.4 gigahertz, 169 00:09:06,250 --> 00:09:08,530 and low latency Bluetooth connectivity. 170 00:09:08,530 --> 00:09:10,410 If you opt for the wireless charging model, 171 00:09:10,410 --> 00:09:12,970 you can charge with Corsair's NM-1000 172 00:09:12,970 --> 00:09:15,690 or any compatible Qi wireless charging pad, 173 00:09:15,690 --> 00:09:18,510 and their K63 wireless gaming keyboard 174 00:09:18,510 --> 00:09:20,990 features the same low latency connection options, 175 00:09:20,990 --> 00:09:24,370 as well as cherry MX red switches and a blue LED backlight. 176 00:09:24,370 --> 00:09:29,260 Check out their entire lineup through the links below. 177 00:09:29,260 --> 00:09:30,240 So thanks for watching guys. 178 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:31,600 If this video sucked, you know what to do, 179 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:33,100 but if it was awesome, get subscribed, 180 00:09:33,100 --> 00:09:34,540 hit that like button or check out the link 181 00:09:34,540 --> 00:09:36,160 to where to buy the stuff we featured 182 00:09:36,160 --> 00:09:37,680 in the video description. 183 00:09:37,680 --> 00:09:39,380 Also linked down there is our merch store, 184 00:09:39,380 --> 00:09:40,820 which has cool shirts like this one, 185 00:09:40,820 --> 00:09:43,520 and our community forum, which you should totally join.