Hardware Computex 2010 Preview: MSI

We check out some of MSI's upcoming hardware gizmos, including external noteook graphics.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/laptops/2010/05/21/computex-2010-preview-msi/1

 

Why couldn't MSI source the HD5850m for the GT660 laptop?

On a laptop costing £1500 I would expect at least a HD5850m.

 

Regarding 1x PCIE lane, actually earlier today I just read a techpowerup article about how well the 5870 scales with different number of lanes, and it's actually quite surprising, I think the result was you get an average 25% hit to performance when running on 1x lane. Not bad huh?

 

With regards to external laptop graphics, if you need to be near a socket to use it, and you can't use the laptop's screen (as output from the graphics card), and for anything serious you'll need to plug a mouse into the laptop, and laptop keyboards are crap...

Why not just use the money you would have spent on the graphics card and caddy to buy a real computer?

 

I think the external GFX is for those that want to be able to have their lil lappy with them for the menial stuff and when they reach their destination be able to join in with mates when they play games. The reason why I think this is due to a friend bumming his ultra-portable Vaio but slaggin' it off whenever he's unable to play games when sat at a desk in someone's flat (mine).

 

To open the GUS you should try to remove the plastic shroud, which is attached by two clips to the main body.
http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2010/05/computex-2010-preview-msi/gus-2.jpg

 

"Less appealing again though is those bright red cup holders speakers. Maybe we're just getting older, but we found ourselves really wishing MSI designers would keep to a more unified and restrained design."

Your getting older... Your beginning to sound like my Gran who says anything that displays coloured lights is horrible, stupid, pointless. Well we like the shiny shiny ok?!

Also in my opinion the external graphics card option for laptops is stupid. Heck you wanted a laptop why have more to lug around and needing just as many sockets as a desktop? If your buying a gaming laptop, get one, dont get a 'mid-range' or lower and expect it to play crysis. I'd expect anyone in this latter category to have no idea what they are buying, or they are buying the laptop from PC-World.

 

I might buy one GUS with Radeon HD 5670 for my crappy notebook.

 

"It also means that laptops can have up to four simultaneous display outputs: one from the laptop and three from the Radeon HD 5670."

If you have a laptop with an HD5xxx card (such as the new EliteBooks)... you can have 11 screens:

Up to 5 from the laptop: Internal LCD + VGA + Mini-DisplayPort on laptop + 2 DisplayPort on the docking station.

Up to 6 from the eternal card (Eyefinity6).
(If that takes too much power, then instead you can get 4 from a 13-watt "FirePro M2460 Multi-View".)

What I'd use the dock for, if I got one: a nice, real sound card... since nobody makes any really good laptop surround-sound cards.

 

That's alot of cake for a gaming laptop and at that price I could build a Kick ass gaming PC w/ a 25" monitor! Oh well if you got disposible income and alot of laptop batteries I guess go for it.

 

Why didn't you try and dremel the GUS apart, bindi?

 

You can use the laptop screen and the point is that you can remove your laptop and use it elsewhere when you dont need the GUS. You can't do that to a PC. Many people dock their laptops when they get to work, then just use their laptops as laptops when at home.

LightningPete - I dont think you really get it. On the go you want to use your laptop as a laptop - you dont need to bring the GUS everywhere, just leave it at home with your monitor. The GUS needs a monitor, it's not a portable upgrade for your internal notebook graphics and compared to a full PC it's easier to bung in a bag to go to your LAN party.

Ricky - the whole top cover is sealed on. We tried unscrewing it underneath even.

 

yep docking is pretty much how everyone does it.. then you want a little netbook on the side for personal use/remote desktop your home rig and that sort of thing

or if your a apple stooge.. ipad and you can't do anything

 

The article author has made a serious mistake on the current state of expresscard ports in notebooks. They are ALL expresscard 1.0 (2.5Gbps). Expresscard 2.0 (5GBps) will be released later this year. So a HD5870 would see more closer to 50% performance drop and more when doing texture heavy rendering requiring vram<->system ram transfers.

I like the GUS and the price and no doubt they will have many users interested. Please be aware of pre-boot PCI configuration requirements to overcome "error 12: cannot allocate resources". I hope MSI provide some software to do that.

If a HD5670 is not enough, consider a hwtools PE4L or PE4H in the DIY ViDock Experiences thread. No chassis limits, can take ATX PSU input and PE4H can link 2 ports to give a x2 link if you have the right port layout. x2 is where the solution can offer performance more in line with a desktop.

 

Whoo, they must really want to protect their secret juice!

 

Well you know more than I do about it, clearly! MSI hot plugged it in and out all and it worked fine all while the laptop was powered up.

Looks like a quite cheap solution, just needs a nice case. MSI's is a little plasticy, but it works.

 

I love the concept of the msi external graphics card however wouldn't it be easier to just have a connector to an e-sata port? Or if msi were really wanting to push the concept they could introduce a new standard that would have more bandwidth then the pci-express one! Sure it would cost a lot of money for development but if they really want o make a powerful external graphics card then they'll have to spend some money on either a new connection to the new pc or probably using sata 3/ usb 3 if possible!

 

New standard = unlikely for other companies to pick up.

E-sata probably doesn't provide sufficient latency and bandwidth, I guess...

 

It might be possible to wrangle an IO interface to something like a graphics card using SATA and an MMIO interface like AHCI, but it's really not good for that sort of thing.

As for external PCIe, look up something called non transparent bridging. It's used to connect two systems together via PCIe, but AFAIK there is no reason it couldn't serve to act as an external interface to a card. But the connector is bulky, as is the cabling. I suspect a lot of companies are waiting to see what happens with lightpeak first.

As for an external graphics solution, it is something I think the laptop market desperately needs. I would like a nice, portable laptop that I can dock later and get a full fledged gaming PC. The external box really doesn't need to be something I carry with me on a regular basis, I can put into my checked luggage, and helps keep the power consumption of my laptop down. Feeding back to the laptop's screen would be the only other thing I'd want. The H5x may be capable of this via the FDI interface, but I don't know enough about it to do more than just guess.