WEBVTT 00:00:00.180 --> 00:00:03.480 I love the idea of external graphics cards. 00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:05.940 At their best, they allow you to have a super light 00:00:05.940 --> 00:00:08.940 and portable laptop that you can easily convert 00:00:08.940 --> 00:00:11.860 into a shockingly potent gaming system 00:00:11.860 --> 00:00:13.520 when you have time to sit down 00:00:13.520 --> 00:00:16.100 and you happen to have an outlet nearby. 00:00:16.100 --> 00:00:19.820 But the main complaint we hear about them is, 00:00:19.820 --> 00:00:24.240 come on you guys, you can get the same level of performance 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:28.640 with a PCI Express card for way less. 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:33.640 But how do you put one of these in one of these? 00:00:33.660 --> 00:00:38.350 Ha, the answer is with one of these. 00:00:38.350 --> 00:00:42.830 Meet the EXP-GDC or The Beast, 00:00:42.830 --> 00:00:48.340 the cheap and dirty way to boost your laptop's gaming power. 00:00:48.660 --> 00:00:51.340 Today's video is brought to you by PIA, 00:00:51.340 --> 00:00:54.020 the VPN service that encrypts all your internet traffic 00:00:54.020 --> 00:00:56.140 and uses a safe, protected IP. 00:00:56.140 --> 00:00:58.200 It's got a ton of other useful features as well. 00:00:58.200 --> 00:00:59.320 You can check it out at the link 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:09.680 below. 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:12.300 So there have actually been quite a few iterations 00:01:12.300 --> 00:01:15.100 of The Beast, but the previous ones 00:01:15.100 --> 00:01:18.060 never really appealed to us, 00:01:18.060 --> 00:01:21.440 mostly because they connected to the system, 00:01:21.440 --> 00:01:25.000 either to external ports like Express Card, 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:28.000 a dying, if not completely dead standard, 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:31.920 or to internal ports that couldn't be spared. 00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:36.280 Most laptops only have a single mini PCIe slot 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:38.420 that is usually taken up by the Wi-Fi, 00:01:38.420 --> 00:01:43.420 a fairly essential component of the mobile experience. 00:01:43.520 --> 00:01:48.520 But thanks to NVMe, version 9.5 here has some big advantages. 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:56.400 So first, it gets four times the number of PCI Express lanes, 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:01.320 four of them here running at Gen 3 speeds. 00:02:01.320 --> 00:02:05.560 And second, some mobile devices actually have 00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:07.800 more than one M.2 slot, like this. 00:02:07.800 --> 00:02:09.480 Like this one. 00:02:09.480 --> 00:02:14.080 So you should be able to have both a high-speed boot drive 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:18.660 and an external GPU connected at the same time. 00:02:18.660 --> 00:02:21.860 Furthermore, because there's no protocol overhead, 00:02:21.860 --> 00:02:24.440 it should actually perform better 00:02:24.440 --> 00:02:27.520 than Thunderbolt 3 enclosures like this one 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:32.240 at a significantly lower cost, in theory. 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:36.180 So, to put that to the test, we are hooking our Beast up 00:02:36.180 --> 00:02:37.780 to the de-bottlenecker feature. 00:02:37.780 --> 00:02:41.260 We've got a GTX 5,000 here, a powerful desktop 00:02:41.260 --> 00:02:43.900 with all three of the connectivity methods 00:02:43.900 --> 00:02:45.680 that we want to evaluate. 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:47.560 We also grabbed a GTX 1080. 00:02:47.560 --> 00:02:51.960 So, this thing is obviously much more powerful 00:02:51.960 --> 00:02:54.000 than any laptop on the market, 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:58.160 but we need this combination of a fast CPU 00:02:58.160 --> 00:03:02.160 and a high-performance GPU to help us identify 00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:06.280 which interfaces, if any, are causing a bottleneck 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:07.620 that will adversely affect 00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:10.700 the performance of our overall system. 00:03:10.700 --> 00:03:11.800 This is pretty trippy. 00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:14.140 This is like, I don't know, 00:03:14.140 --> 00:03:15.940 just having your graphics card like out here. 00:03:15.940 --> 00:03:18.900 It's kind of like, it's like if you had like a human body 00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:22.020 that's totally normal and then the heart is on the table 00:03:22.020 --> 00:03:23.460 next to it and it's just connected 00:03:23.460 --> 00:03:29.610 with tubes and wires and stuff, but it works. 00:03:30.600 --> 00:03:33.480 So, in graphically intense games, 00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:36.180 you can see the performance of the Beast 00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:38.640 ends up about where we would expect, 00:03:39.320 --> 00:03:42.140 between the Razer Core with Thunderbolt 3 00:03:42.140 --> 00:03:44.840 and a graphics card running at full 16X speed 00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:47.100 plugged directly into the motherboard. 00:03:47.100 --> 00:03:50.520 Although it should be noted that in older CPU-bound games 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:54.580 like CSGO, the FPS was comparable for all three. 00:03:54.580 --> 00:03:59.540 Okay, so that all sounds pretty great. 00:03:59.540 --> 00:04:04.540 If you've got a laptop then with a spare M.2 NVMe slot, 00:04:04.640 --> 00:04:06.860 like this one that we mentioned before, 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:08.500 you could get better than Thunderbolt 3, like I said, 00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:10.740 and you could get a Thunderbolt 3 levels of performance 00:04:10.740 --> 00:04:14.560 on the cheap-ish. 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:17.600 However, I still find myself asking, 00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:19.420 who is this actually useful for? 00:04:19.420 --> 00:04:23.520 Like, are you really gonna go out and buy a brand new laptop 00:04:23.520 --> 00:04:27.660 then literally cut a hole in the bottom of it 00:04:27.660 --> 00:04:31.440 for the Beast's cabling that will still need to be run? 00:04:31.440 --> 00:04:36.440 But, consider something a little older, like this MSI GL62. 00:04:37.580 --> 00:04:39.280 It packs a GTX 960. 00:04:39.420 --> 00:04:43.420 It's got a 740 M which, I mean, is better than nothing, 00:04:43.420 --> 00:04:45.420 but barely. 00:04:45.420 --> 00:04:50.140 So, if you're looking to play modern games, 00:04:50.140 --> 00:04:52.300 you're basically plum out of luck, 00:04:52.300 --> 00:04:57.430 even though your CPU is still decent, unless... 00:04:59.080 --> 00:05:02.340 Ah, yes, there it is. 00:05:02.340 --> 00:05:04.820 Even though this is a couple of years old 00:05:04.820 --> 00:05:09.820 and our config of it actually used a slow mechanical hard drive 00:05:10.540 --> 00:05:15.540 the GL62 does feature an NVMe-capable M.2 slot, 00:05:16.340 --> 00:05:19.200 which means that, thanks to that still-decent 00:05:19.200 --> 00:05:23.140 quad-core CPU I mentioned, and the upgradable RAM, 00:05:23.140 --> 00:05:25.220 remember upgradable RAM, you guys? 00:05:25.220 --> 00:05:29.380 With a beast and something like a GTX 960, 00:05:29.380 --> 00:05:34.340 you could turn the GL62 into a gaming-ready machine again 00:05:34.340 --> 00:05:38.980 for just a couple hundred bucks, at least in theory. 00:05:38.980 --> 00:05:42.880 We have tried everything with this machine. 00:05:42.880 --> 00:05:46.160 BIOS updates, disabling the integrated graphics, 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:49.220 disabling the dedicated graphics, 00:05:49.220 --> 00:05:52.580 newer drivers, older drivers, 00:05:52.580 --> 00:05:55.480 older cards, newer cards. 00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:58.720 It just won't work. 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:01.620 So the working theory, based on some discussion 00:06:01.620 --> 00:06:03.140 over on the eGPU forums, 00:06:03.140 --> 00:06:04.740 those guys are awesome, by the way, 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:08.660 is that passing a PCI Express signal 00:06:08.660 --> 00:06:13.600 over a fairly long couple of HDMI cables here 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:16.200 leads to a fair bit of signal degradation, 00:06:16.200 --> 00:06:19.640 which was fine on our X299 motherboard 00:06:19.640 --> 00:06:23.780 because the M.2 slot is physically close to the CPU socket 00:06:23.780 --> 00:06:25.580 and has a strong signal, 00:06:25.580 --> 00:06:29.480 but might cause problems in laptops 00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:33.600 where the PCI Express signal might be within spec, 00:06:33.600 --> 00:06:34.860 but a little bit lower. 00:06:34.860 --> 00:06:38.600 Now, some folks suggested that a shielded, 00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:43.600 M.2 to PCIe 4X adapter might actually do better in this case, 00:06:44.060 --> 00:06:45.760 and they might be right, 00:06:45.760 --> 00:06:50.760 but at 70 US dollars plus the cost of power 00:06:50.820 --> 00:06:53.180 and some kind of a mounting mechanism, 00:06:53.180 --> 00:06:55.480 we don't consider that a viable solution 00:06:55.480 --> 00:06:57.780 outside of rare edge cases, 00:06:57.780 --> 00:07:00.040 like recycling an old laptop 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:05.080 as a no longer portable ghetto gaming desktop either. 00:07:06.430 --> 00:07:07.550 With that said, 00:07:07.550 --> 00:07:08.990 let's say that you were trying to do that. 00:07:08.990 --> 00:07:12.190 What kind of compatibility could you expect? 00:07:12.190 --> 00:07:15.590 As it turns out, not that great. 00:07:15.590 --> 00:07:17.310 Even the Dell Inspiron Gaming, 00:07:17.310 --> 00:07:20.050 a machine that this approach could make sense for, 00:07:20.050 --> 00:07:22.350 requires a custom BIOS, 00:07:22.350 --> 00:07:25.550 and the rest of our efforts basically went 00:07:25.550 --> 00:07:43.890 a little something like this. 00:07:43.890 --> 00:07:48.030 So yeah, we gave up because to get the beast to work 00:07:48.030 --> 00:07:50.170 with the Triton 700, for example, 00:07:50.170 --> 00:07:54.210 we'd need a custom BIOS with RAID disabled, 00:07:54.210 --> 00:07:57.970 and PCI Express hot swap enabled 00:07:57.970 --> 00:07:59.490 in order to get compatibility 00:07:59.490 --> 00:08:00.810 with anything that would be faster 00:08:00.810 --> 00:08:02.390 than what's already built into it. 00:08:02.390 --> 00:08:05.090 So a 10th gen NVIDIA card. 00:08:05.090 --> 00:08:08.820 So there are people out there 00:08:08.820 --> 00:08:13.820 who will happily fork over 100 to 150 bucks, 00:08:14.400 --> 00:08:18.040 like the owners of the aging laptops 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:19.960 that we alluded to before, 00:08:19.960 --> 00:08:22.240 or I mean, another good example would be someone 00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:22.700 with like a mini ITX desktop, 00:08:22.700 --> 00:08:23.380 like a mini ITX desktop, 00:08:23.380 --> 00:08:24.220 like a mini ITX desktop, 00:08:24.220 --> 00:08:24.260 like a mini ITX desktop, 00:08:24.260 --> 00:08:24.280 like a mini ITX desktop, 00:08:24.280 --> 00:08:24.300 like a mini ITX desktop, 00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:24.800 like a mini ITX desktop, 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:26.960 who wants to add 10 gig networking 00:08:26.960 --> 00:08:28.780 or something along those lines. 00:08:28.780 --> 00:08:33.080 But for everyone else, the compatibility, 00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:35.560 both physical and in firmware, 00:08:35.560 --> 00:08:38.580 the user unfriendliness, the general flakiness, 00:08:38.580 --> 00:08:40.000 the lack of documentation, 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:42.340 the fact that you need to reboot 00:08:42.340 --> 00:08:45.400 to plug and unplug it from the system, 00:08:45.400 --> 00:08:47.140 and the fact that you'll probably end up 00:08:47.140 --> 00:08:50.620 voiding your warranty are going to confine this product 00:08:50.620 --> 00:08:54.390 to a niche within a niche within a niche forever. 00:08:54.390 --> 00:08:58.190 It's been forever since we've done a spot for Corsair. 00:08:58.190 --> 00:09:01.350 Introducing Corsair's unplug and play series. 00:09:01.350 --> 00:09:03.910 The dark core RGB SE mouse is quick, 00:09:03.910 --> 00:09:06.250 features one millisecond, 2.4 gigahertz, 00:09:06.250 --> 00:09:08.530 and low latency Bluetooth connectivity. 00:09:08.530 --> 00:09:10.410 If you opt for the wireless charging model, 00:09:10.410 --> 00:09:12.970 you can charge with Corsair's NM-1000 00:09:12.970 --> 00:09:15.690 or any compatible Qi wireless charging pad, 00:09:15.690 --> 00:09:18.510 and their K63 wireless gaming keyboard 00:09:18.510 --> 00:09:20.990 features the same low latency connection options, 00:09:20.990 --> 00:09:24.370 as well as cherry MX red switches and a blue LED backlight. 00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:29.260 Check out their entire lineup through the links below. 00:09:29.260 --> 00:09:30.240 So thanks for watching guys. 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:31.600 If this video sucked, you know what to do, 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:33.100 but if it was awesome, get subscribed, 00:09:33.100 --> 00:09:34.540 hit that like button or check out the link 00:09:34.540 --> 00:09:36.160 to where to buy the stuff we featured 00:09:36.160 --> 00:09:37.680 in the video description. 00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:39.380 Also linked down there is our merch store, 00:09:39.380 --> 00:09:40.820 which has cool shirts like this one, 00:09:40.820 --> 00:09:43.520 and our community forum, which you should totally join.