External Graphics Over PCIe 3.0? Netstor's NA255A, Reviewed

[cleeve]

Netstor sent over its TurboBox NA255A, an external enclosure capable of accommodating four dual-slot graphics cards across one 16-lane PCI Express 3.0 connection. Is this thing fast enough for general-purpose GPU compute workloads? How about gaming?

External Graphics Over PCIe 3.0? Netstor's NA255A, Reviewed : Read more

 

[ohyouknow]

Interesting

 

[MasterMace]

This is a nice article. I wonder if Tom's can do a multi-cpu article as well.

 

[dagamer34]

Now if only we could get external GPUs via Thunderbolt (or it's future iterations) so that laptops wouldn't be forever gimped, we'd be in business!

 

[Guest]

Whooo whoo, if i had the money to burn, i would get this NA255A, remove the PSU bundle, replace it with a Seasonic 1000 Platinum, slap four GTX Titans, add a custom water-cooling loop, connect it to my main PC and have (if it works) three more NA255A's for each of the PCIe for the main PC with a grand total of 16 GTX Titans for massive GPU computation. All for a grand total of $13,800. Massive electric bill, here i come!

 

[mayankleoboy1]

PCIE signals scale poorly to long wires. So it is a technical achievement to have these signals travel over a meter of wire.

 

[A Bad Day]

[citation][nom]dagamer34[/nom]Now if only we could get external GPUs via Thunderbolt (or it's future iterations) so that laptops wouldn't be forever gimped, we'd be in business![/citation]

There are some external GPU cases.

The only issue is that the cheapest is somewhere slightly less than $400.

Please explain to me how an aluminum box, a micro-PSU, and a Thunderbolt-to-PCIE adapter adds up to even $200...

 

[A Bad Day]

EDIT: And when I meant the cheapest, I meant the ones that are only sufficient for a 7750. Want to pair a 7970 with a ultrabook?

$400-$500 for a slightly longer box with a slightly more capable PSU.

 

[slomo4sho]

An expensive solution to inferior Mac hardware...

 

[Vatharian]

Good X79 workstation mobo with 7 PCI-e slots, and 4 K20x-s on each of them. That's a TON of computing power, and if you don't want to deal with high-speed networking multiple boxes, that's nice. Of course only if this thing can actuallty work in pairs or more and in some way circumvent the 15 gpu limit in bios memory mapping. Can this thing be turned on with working machine?

 

[adgjlsfhk]

But what about someone working on a Mac Pro? Apple's more limited ecosystem means there is no such thing as a three- or four-way graphics array. This could be one of the only options for enabling multiple GPUs. If massive compute potential is important, you might need to swallow hard and consider Netstor's solution the cost of doing business in Apple's world.

Or you could use the $2000 to ditch your mac pro that is years out of date and use the money to buy a pc that is better in pretty much every way.

 

[abbadon_34]

[citation][nom]slomo4sho[/nom]An expensive solution to inferior Mac hardware...[/citation]
Mac/Apple users either don't care about or don't under price/performance . My guess, they won't care about the price, just that it doesn't come in pretty colors.

 

[cozmium]

Would have been nice to see some Nvidia hardware thrown in to see how they get on.

 

[bjaminnyc]

[citation][nom]cozmium[/nom]Would have been nice to see some Nvidia hardware thrown in to see how they get on.[/citation]

What additional conclusions could be drawn concerning internal vs external throughput?

 

[bunz_of_steel]

imho
Apple users are a select group of users, alot of high school kids and girls use them. Not trying to be funny just an observation. If you buy into the Apple thing you have to do things their way and on their terms. Apple has always been cost prohibitive and too restrictive for me personally.

 

[A Bad Day]

[citation][nom]bunz_of_steel[/nom]imhoApple users are a select group of users, alot of high school kids and girls use them. Not trying to be funny just an observation. If you buy into the Apple thing you have to do things their way and on their terms. Apple has always been cost prohibitive and too restrictive for me personally.[/citation]

My sister's thoughts when buying a 13" Macbook:

"If it's light, not battery draining, durable, and works, then it's good enough."

 

[downhill911]

Tomshardware Please please review this one! Thanks

ViDock 4 Plus Overdrive (Two 6-Pin/320W/329mm) $279US Plus $30US Worldwide Shipping
http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock
Unboxing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymYbE3JawLk

 

[loops]

2k?

7990 x 2?

Still have one PCI slot open for my phone modem card _

 

[basketcase87]

[citation][nom]jupiter optimus maximus[/nom]Whooo whoo, if i had the money to burn, i would get this NA255A, remove the PSU bundle, replace it with a Seasonic 1000 Platinum, slap four GTX Titans, add a custom water-cooling loop, connect it to my main PC and have (if it works) three more NA255A's for each of the PCIe for the main PC with a grand total of 16 GTX Titans for massive GPU computation. All for a grand total of $13,800. Massive electric bill, here i come![/citation]
$13,800? Check your math- I think you forgot a few titans.
4x NA255A @ $2200 = $8800
16x Titan @ $1000 = $16000
4x Seasonic 1000 @ $230 = $920
Total of $25,720 before adding the custom water loops.

 

[kylerg]

Three Radeon HD 7970's and Nvidia 310.70 beta drivers? Am I missing something here?

 

[sna]

this box should be 200$ max

the PLX chips are being used in motherboards long ago , and the whole motherboard with PLX chip is 300$ only .. as a matter of fact the PLX chip is 50$ only

add 50$ for case and power and 50$ for board and cables and 50$ profit

what 2200$ ?

I hope Asrock or Asus make such boxs soon for 200$ and with SLI option as well. ...

who needs a stupid useless Thunderbolt when u can have native external PCIe 16 ?

next stop add that port to a notebook .. one to one PCI 16 x no PLX chip... and notebooks will be desktops

 

[xomm]

I'm curious as to what that port is on the back of the expansion cards. Proprietary?
That could be some serious money right there if they managed to externalize a native x16 port...

 

[cypeq]

With the growing size of GPU components it was bound to happen two cases are easier to cool and provide suitable power. The option to place rendering in other room can provide that much wanted silent PC with big power. It's nice to see some workstation solutions hit desktop market.

 

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

Comes with a 1000w PSU, can hold 4 dual-slot GPUs, and 3x 7970's consume over 900w...

Perhaps Tom's were actually lucky that they didn't have a compatible 4th 7970, for it surely would have been too much for the PSU.

 

[Vlad Razvan]

I'd like to see something like this for notebooks. I never use the dedicated GPU in my laptop when on battery power, the on-board HD4000 is just fine. If someone were to create a standard interface and connector for this GPU-box provided by most manufacturers, i'd buy it in an instant.