WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.753 - eGPUs. Are they going to power your next gaming rig? Probably not. 00:00:03.753 --> 00:00:07.870 They're limited to four PCI express lanes, but, that is pretty cool all the same, 00:00:07.870 --> 00:00:11.680 thanks to Thunderbolt. But they're are a dime a dozen aren't they? 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. 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. 00:00:23.700 --> 00:00:27.070 But I guess we'll find out today. As for what's in the box, 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, 00:00:31.270 --> 00:00:34.640 we've got a Aorus RTX 2080 Ti gaming box, 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.670 which includes Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 00:00:38.670 --> 00:00:42.330 11 Gigabyte graphics card, Thunderbolt 3 Cable, oh, that's nice, 00:00:42.330 --> 00:00:47.353 power cord, also nice, installation guide. Driver CD, really guys? 00:00:48.190 --> 00:00:53.630 Okay, and it comes with a carry bag, okay. Quiet, water forest cooling system, 00:00:53.630 --> 00:00:57.670 for deep learning and AI, for real-time ray tracing game. 00:00:57.670 --> 00:01:01.490 Did they proofread this? Let's not get too negative on it so far. 00:01:01.490 --> 00:01:04.780 On the side here, they tell you how fast Thunderbolt is, 00:01:04.780 --> 00:01:08.659 which is nice. We've got our list of outputs here. 00:01:08.659 --> 00:01:12.990 HDMI, three DisplayPort, and one USB type C, 00:01:12.990 --> 00:01:17.030 which is the virtual link connector that NVIDIA introduced in, and as far as I know, 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. 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. 00:01:25.970 --> 00:01:29.330 The power supplies a 450 watt. Interesting. 00:01:29.330 --> 00:01:32.660 I'm going to open that up and see exactly what power supply that is. 00:01:32.660 --> 00:01:37.070 But yeah, apparently it's just a Gigabyte Waterforce RTX 2080 Ti. 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. 00:01:40.980 --> 00:01:44.603 Well, let's open it up. It's a wee bit heavy. 00:01:47.880 --> 00:01:52.883 All right, there's that carrying bag. Presumably, it's already inside, nice. 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. 00:01:57.720 --> 00:02:02.090 Carrying strap for our bag, Thunderbolt cable, standard, run-of-the-mill, 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. 00:02:06.660 --> 00:02:09.923 So I guess they expect you to have this on the desk, next to your laptop. 00:02:09.923 --> 00:02:13.230 And, the main event. 00:02:13.230 --> 00:02:15.380 It's not a bad looking little box actually. 00:02:17.790 --> 00:02:22.130 I didn't notice before, but there's actually a Ethernet port here, 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, 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:32.230 which I mean, realistically an eGPU should be 00:02:32.230 --> 00:02:36.260 if you've got a laptop like this guy here. 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. 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:45.700 The outer screws however, are, just the standard Phillips. 00:02:45.700 --> 00:02:48.300 So let's see if I can see what that power supply is. 00:02:50.470 --> 00:02:53.900 Yeah, as expected, that's our 280 millimeter rad. 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. 00:03:00.310 --> 00:03:04.597 It also looks like there's a bit of a mesh behind the panel as well. 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. 00:03:11.880 --> 00:03:15.040 So hopefully it's got decent air flow with that cooler. 00:03:15.040 --> 00:03:19.010 Same thing on the other side, except this seems to be basically a solid piece, 00:03:19.010 --> 00:03:23.780 I think it's the, whatever they're using for Ethernet and USB. 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. 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, 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 00:03:41.180 --> 00:03:44.490 where we have the USB controller and the Ethernet controller inside. 00:03:44.490 --> 00:03:47.710 You can access these without taking the panels off, that's a really nice touch. 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. 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. 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, 00:04:03.380 --> 00:04:08.293 no extra cable, no mess. But if your laptop's port is bad, 00:04:08.293 --> 00:04:11.830 like this one's is, then chances are it's not long enough. 00:04:11.830 --> 00:04:14.920 So we've gone ahead and grabbed a longer cable, 00:04:14.920 --> 00:04:19.880 and now, we should be good. Okay, so we're sitting here at 1080p, 00:04:19.880 --> 00:04:25.470 running Quake II RTX, getting about 30ish FPS with everything maxed out, 00:04:25.470 --> 00:04:30.323 and that's actually not bad. This thing is making some noise though. 00:04:30.323 --> 00:04:32.906 (fans blowing) 00:04:34.450 --> 00:04:37.560 Not sure if that's necessarily quieter 00:04:37.560 --> 00:04:40.680 than what a standard air-cooled GPU would do. 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 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 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, 00:04:54.890 --> 00:04:58.430 and that is because we're running on the Thunderbolt link, 00:04:58.430 --> 00:05:04.940 which is only PCI express four lanes. Whereas we probably need at least eight lanes 00:05:04.940 --> 00:05:08.620 to get like really close to normal performance out of the 2080 Ti. 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. 00:05:17.780 --> 00:05:22.840 It's kind of louder. It's not necessarily going to perform better, 00:05:22.840 --> 00:05:25.743 than a regular 2080 Ti, and an eGPU. 00:05:26.730 --> 00:05:30.480 Pretty chilly actually, 49 degrees. I feel like they're a little bit 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 00:05:35.790 --> 00:05:39.490 and then go back and see what it looks like. Yeah, 52 degrees. 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, 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, 00:05:49.850 --> 00:05:54.440 for something with this much cooling. It should really be targeting that 80 degree mark, 00:05:54.440 --> 00:05:57.803 where most, you know, desktop GPUs would be targeting. 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, 00:06:03.320 --> 00:06:06.510 that's going to be hindered by the PCI express 4x link. 00:06:06.510 --> 00:06:11.510 So, it's a curious choice to have water cooling in an eGPU. 00:06:11.930 --> 00:06:15.552 Again, this isn't really for everyone. If you've got a gaming PC, 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. 00:06:20.637 --> 00:06:24.540 No, this is more for people, who again, 00:06:24.540 --> 00:06:27.840 have something like this, a ultra portable laptop, 00:06:27.840 --> 00:06:31.300 like say for example, a college student who doesn't have a whole lot of space, 00:06:31.300 --> 00:06:35.926 but who wants to game. And there's no real way to get that 00:06:35.926 --> 00:06:39.350 ultra portable experience along with the gaming, 00:06:39.350 --> 00:06:43.200 without an eGPU as of today. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't personally go out 00:06:43.200 --> 00:06:46.250 and get this unless I had something like this, 00:06:46.250 --> 00:06:49.910 but, I can see who it's for. The thing though, is that I again, 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, 00:06:55.780 --> 00:06:58.980 as far as the noise goes, because it is pretty noisy. 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. 00:07:04.180 --> 00:07:09.023 But, if the allure of carrying around a water-cooled GPU, 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, 00:07:15.880 --> 00:07:20.293 Well, who's stopping you? Thanks for watching, subscribe to ShortCircuit.