1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,753 - eGPUs. Are they going to power your next gaming rig? Probably not. 2 00:00:03,753 --> 00:00:07,870 They're limited to four PCI express lanes, but, that is pretty cool all the same, 3 00:00:07,870 --> 00:00:11,680 thanks to Thunderbolt. But they're are a dime a dozen aren't they? 4 00:00:11,680 --> 00:00:18,940 Except for this guy. This is what Aorus calls the world's first water cooling, external GPU. 5 00:00:18,940 --> 00:00:23,700 I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure why it needs water cooling since it's in its own enclosure. 6 00:00:23,700 --> 00:00:27,070 But I guess we'll find out today. As for what's in the box, 7 00:00:27,070 --> 00:00:31,270 I mean, presumably there's going to be the box, but, according to the package contents here, 8 00:00:31,270 --> 00:00:34,640 we've got a Aorus RTX 2080 Ti gaming box, 9 00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:38,670 which includes Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 10 00:00:38,670 --> 00:00:42,330 11 Gigabyte graphics card, Thunderbolt 3 Cable, oh, that's nice, 11 00:00:42,330 --> 00:00:47,353 power cord, also nice, installation guide. Driver CD, really guys? 12 00:00:48,190 --> 00:00:53,630 Okay, and it comes with a carry bag, okay. Quiet, water forest cooling system, 13 00:00:53,630 --> 00:00:57,670 for deep learning and AI, for real-time ray tracing game. 14 00:00:57,670 --> 00:01:01,490 Did they proofread this? Let's not get too negative on it so far. 15 00:01:01,490 --> 00:01:04,780 On the side here, they tell you how fast Thunderbolt is, 16 00:01:04,780 --> 00:01:08,659 which is nice. We've got our list of outputs here. 17 00:01:08,659 --> 00:01:12,990 HDMI, three DisplayPort, and one USB type C, 18 00:01:12,990 --> 00:01:17,030 which is the virtual link connector that NVIDIA introduced in, and as far as I know, 19 00:01:17,030 --> 00:01:21,030 haven't really done much with. Also, it has a USB 3.0 port on the front. 20 00:01:21,030 --> 00:01:25,970 That's a type A, which is a nice touch, although I would have preferred type C at this point. 21 00:01:25,970 --> 00:01:29,330 The power supplies a 450 watt. Interesting. 22 00:01:29,330 --> 00:01:32,660 I'm going to open that up and see exactly what power supply that is. 23 00:01:32,660 --> 00:01:37,070 But yeah, apparently it's just a Gigabyte Waterforce RTX 2080 Ti. 24 00:01:37,070 --> 00:01:40,980 So yeah, it does do power delivery, so I can free up an outlet right now if I want to. 25 00:01:40,980 --> 00:01:44,603 Well, let's open it up. It's a wee bit heavy. 26 00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:52,883 All right, there's that carrying bag. Presumably, it's already inside, nice. 27 00:01:53,850 --> 00:01:57,720 I guess it's all self-contained in the bag, so there's two extraneous boxes, they could have just sold this. 28 00:01:57,720 --> 00:02:02,090 Carrying strap for our bag, Thunderbolt cable, standard, run-of-the-mill, 29 00:02:02,090 --> 00:02:06,660 it's the C13, whatever it's called plug. This guy here is only about a foot. 30 00:02:06,660 --> 00:02:09,923 So I guess they expect you to have this on the desk, next to your laptop. 31 00:02:09,923 --> 00:02:13,230 And, the main event. 32 00:02:13,230 --> 00:02:15,380 It's not a bad looking little box actually. 33 00:02:17,790 --> 00:02:22,130 I didn't notice before, but there's actually a Ethernet port here, 34 00:02:22,130 --> 00:02:28,960 along with two more USB type As. That's quite a lot better, that makes this more of a dock, 35 00:02:28,960 --> 00:02:32,230 which I mean, realistically an eGPU should be 36 00:02:32,230 --> 00:02:36,260 if you've got a laptop like this guy here. 37 00:02:36,260 --> 00:02:42,120 It looks like the screws are very proprietary. In fact, I'm not sure if I would be able to get these off. 38 00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:45,700 The outer screws however, are, just the standard Phillips. 39 00:02:45,700 --> 00:02:48,300 So let's see if I can see what that power supply is. 40 00:02:50,470 --> 00:02:53,900 Yeah, as expected, that's our 280 millimeter rad. 41 00:02:53,900 --> 00:03:00,310 I can kind of see the power supply through this panel, but I don't think it has any markings on it that I can see. 42 00:03:00,310 --> 00:03:04,597 It also looks like there's a bit of a mesh behind the panel as well. 43 00:03:04,597 --> 00:03:11,880 And that should hopefully help with dust and sound, but it is a little bit too open, for like, proper seal. 44 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:15,040 So hopefully it's got decent air flow with that cooler. 45 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:19,010 Same thing on the other side, except this seems to be basically a solid piece, 46 00:03:19,010 --> 00:03:23,780 I think it's the, whatever they're using for Ethernet and USB. 47 00:03:23,780 --> 00:03:29,440 Let me just quickly crack this open and take a look. Oh, it's actually a removable dust filter. 48 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:34,410 How about that? The holes are pretty big though, all the same. So I guess this is what's on the other side as well, 49 00:03:34,410 --> 00:03:41,180 but I was right, it seems like this here, is a power distribution, and I guess hub board 50 00:03:41,180 --> 00:03:44,490 where we have the USB controller and the Ethernet controller inside. 51 00:03:44,490 --> 00:03:47,710 You can access these without taking the panels off, that's a really nice touch. 52 00:03:47,710 --> 00:03:51,050 So let's get this back together, and I'll fire it up and see how it works. 53 00:03:51,050 --> 00:03:58,070 One thing that may or may not affect your particular use case, is this cable is a little short. 54 00:03:58,070 --> 00:04:03,380 Now it's perfect, if you just have your eGPU right next to your laptop, like this, 55 00:04:03,380 --> 00:04:08,293 no extra cable, no mess. But if your laptop's port is bad, 56 00:04:08,293 --> 00:04:11,830 like this one's is, then chances are it's not long enough. 57 00:04:11,830 --> 00:04:14,920 So we've gone ahead and grabbed a longer cable, 58 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:19,880 and now, we should be good. Okay, so we're sitting here at 1080p, 59 00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:25,470 running Quake II RTX, getting about 30ish FPS with everything maxed out, 60 00:04:25,470 --> 00:04:30,323 and that's actually not bad. This thing is making some noise though. 61 00:04:30,323 --> 00:04:32,906 (fans blowing) 62 00:04:34,450 --> 00:04:37,560 Not sure if that's necessarily quieter 63 00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:40,680 than what a standard air-cooled GPU would do. 64 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:45,040 I'll have to get a point of comparison in a moment just to see what the performance is like 65 00:04:45,040 --> 00:04:49,820 with the integrated GPU, I don't think it would be anywhere close to this. But it is worth noting that we're not getting quite 66 00:04:49,820 --> 00:04:54,890 the full performance out of the 2080 Ti that we would normally get in a desktop computer, 67 00:04:54,890 --> 00:04:58,430 and that is because we're running on the Thunderbolt link, 68 00:04:58,430 --> 00:05:04,940 which is only PCI express four lanes. Whereas we probably need at least eight lanes 69 00:05:04,940 --> 00:05:08,620 to get like really close to normal performance out of the 2080 Ti. 70 00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:16,803 So with that being said, again I'm not entirely sure what the advantages to having the water cooling. 71 00:05:17,780 --> 00:05:22,840 It's kind of louder. It's not necessarily going to perform better, 72 00:05:22,840 --> 00:05:25,743 than a regular 2080 Ti, and an eGPU. 73 00:05:26,730 --> 00:05:30,480 Pretty chilly actually, 49 degrees. I feel like they're a little bit 74 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:35,790 too aggressive on the fan then. Let's let it warm up a little bit more for a second here 75 00:05:35,790 --> 00:05:39,490 and then go back and see what it looks like. Yeah, 52 degrees. 76 00:05:39,490 --> 00:05:43,680 Now, I'm not sure what the ambient temperature is in here right now. It feels a little bit chilly, 77 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:49,850 so that might be helping it. But at the same time, I feel like that fan curve is a little bit too aggressive, 78 00:05:49,850 --> 00:05:54,440 for something with this much cooling. It should really be targeting that 80 degree mark, 79 00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:57,803 where most, you know, desktop GPUs would be targeting. 80 00:05:57,803 --> 00:06:03,320 That being said, maybe that's allowing it to boost more aggressively, but at the same time, 81 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:06,510 that's going to be hindered by the PCI express 4x link. 82 00:06:06,510 --> 00:06:11,510 So, it's a curious choice to have water cooling in an eGPU. 83 00:06:11,930 --> 00:06:15,552 Again, this isn't really for everyone. If you've got a gaming PC, 84 00:06:15,552 --> 00:06:20,637 you're not going to go out and buy this, unless you want to harvest the GPU for some reason. 85 00:06:20,637 --> 00:06:24,540 No, this is more for people, who again, 86 00:06:24,540 --> 00:06:27,840 have something like this, a ultra portable laptop, 87 00:06:27,840 --> 00:06:31,300 like say for example, a college student who doesn't have a whole lot of space, 88 00:06:31,300 --> 00:06:35,926 but who wants to game. And there's no real way to get that 89 00:06:35,926 --> 00:06:39,350 ultra portable experience along with the gaming, 90 00:06:39,350 --> 00:06:43,200 without an eGPU as of today. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't personally go out 91 00:06:43,200 --> 00:06:46,250 and get this unless I had something like this, 92 00:06:46,250 --> 00:06:49,910 but, I can see who it's for. The thing though, is that I again, 93 00:06:49,910 --> 00:06:55,780 I think they really should have gone with just an air cooler or really toned down the fans, 94 00:06:55,780 --> 00:06:58,980 as far as the noise goes, because it is pretty noisy. 95 00:06:58,980 --> 00:07:04,180 Despite the fact that it doesn't get all that hot. It kind of falls short of a pure recommendation. 96 00:07:04,180 --> 00:07:09,023 But, if the allure of carrying around a water-cooled GPU, 97 00:07:10,460 --> 00:07:15,880 in its own carrying bag, speaks to you in a way that it doesn't speak to me, 98 00:07:15,880 --> 00:07:20,293 Well, who's stopping you? Thanks for watching, subscribe to ShortCircuit.