Hey guys, i dont know if its possible but ive been looking at whether i could add a graphics card to my laptop externally (obvoiusly) and found this article HERE which shows a graphics card connected to the laptop via PCI-e card connected to the ExpressCard slot, but my laptop doesnt have an ExpressCard slot So i was wondering if a card like THIS could be used staight from a USB 3 port? Or would i need to use a product like THIS to add an ExpressCard slot with the product above being plugged into it? Would either of these options work? or is there any other way? The laptops an i5 3210M with 8GB ram and 500GB HDD if that matters. Thanks in advance
Short answer is that you can't add an external graphics card to your laptop. Even if you had a PCI-e slot, you'd only be giving your graphics card a single PCI-e lane which would cripple its performance. Most cards want sixteen lanes. As for the technical possiblility of actually doing it when you don't have a PCI-e slot... Good luck. I've heard of it being done with a Thunderbolt port, but that is since Thunderbolt is similar to PCI-e + display port (someone correct me?). To do it over USB 3 you'd need an excellent understanding of the rather complex way USB protocols work and the electronics skills to turn that back to PCI-e. Stick with the integrated GPU. Regards, Birdy
Thanks for the quick reply Birdy, from all the bits ive read they say it limits it to x1 and it probably wouldn't give much benefit (if any), but i thought id ask anyway. Even if i found a mini-PCI-e port inside the laptop thats still limited to x1 aswell isnt it? Looks like ill have to build a small gaming rig to get my DayZ fix, apparently the Intel HD4000 integrated graphics dont have enough video ram for the minimum specs. Thanks
According to http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/ my laptop has 32MB of Dedicated Video RAM, but.... it seems HD4000 can automatically use as much or as little as is required (to a limit), so ill have to look into that, thanks for suggesting that narwen, ill check it out There might be a chance on low settings.
Bit-tech did an article a while back about silverstone creating a powered graphics card box that attached via thunderbolt. I believe it was a concept from computex so it might be worth looking into any new developments!
Can you not get a Thunderbolt card and then use one of those Thunderbolt cases that allow you to install a graphics card in to it? I am sure I saw something like that in a video on youtube a while ago.
What laptop is it? There may be some chance it has an MXM slot for mobile graphics card. If it does that would be the way to go.
Thanks for all the replies so far guys Its an Asus K55A sx376h, not a massive spec but good enough for most things, just maybe not top end gaming Its only got USB 3.0 so i dont quite know how this would work for me?? Also, is the current Custom PC benchmarking suite still a good one to use to see what kind of *cough* performance *cough* its got?
Whilst it's possible to add an external GPU to a laptop using PCI-e, I don't really see why you'd bother. It's not exactly a portable solution, it'll take up loads of space and probably require an ATX PSU in any event, plus an enclosure of some description for the GPU, and the performance will be limited by only having a x1 PCI-e lane (although it'll be a lot better than say HD4000 integrated graphics). Reading up on it, it seems to also be a lottery in terms of compatibility and involves loads of faffing about to get the external GPU recognised. I reckon you're on a hiding to nothing trying to use any sort of PCI-e to USB adaptor too. Just buy a desktop instead
Looking at it's mainboard there is no MXM slot, so there is no way to add a gpu. Depending on what revision you have though, it appears there is 2 mini pci-e slots on some, so there would be one free for a kit like this... though it's only going to be a 1x link so I don't think it's really worthwhile. You would be better off doing a desktop for gaming if you don't have one... or trading in your current laptop for a more mobile gaming oriented model.
Looks like i'll have to Judging by this vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C8fxkChMzs one pci-e slot is used by the wifi card, the other one, i dont know? but if its buried inside ill not bother. I wasnt looking for portable, just...better And after buying all the bits to make it work in one way or another it'd probably be more worthwhile to build/buy something, and id would love something like this...
