Lucid Thunderbolt External GPU Demonstrated

[H0urg1ass]

I completley disagree that this will be a niche market item. Portability is becoming a huge factor in modern computing. The ability to play your graphics intensive games with your computer on a desk, but still able to use that same computer comfortably on an airplane is huge. It means less need for multiple devices with specific jobs. You simply plug in whichever externals you need to complete the task at hand.

This would be a big win for the consumer, which means that companies who are trying to sell you multiple products to fulfill multiple needs will try to crush the life out of this as quickly and ruthlessly as possible.

 

[BuckminsterCampione]

@UltimateDeep

Can we have this product in USB form please?????

Sony's previous Z series notebook had this via feature, via USB interface. They called it the Power Media Dock, and it was an external 1 GB Radeon HD 6650M/Blu-Ray/Docking station. It wasn't an ordinary USB port however, Sony claimed that it was 10Gbps like Thunderbolt.

 

[shriganesh]

I don't think this will be niche product! The can become very popular! People can simply call it an gaming upgrade or gamebox! The most useful implementation of thunderbolt's monstrous bandwidth! Keep up the good work Virtu!

 

[dark_lord69]

ViDock...
I remember that, I was so happy when I found out about it until I saw the price.

Unfortunately the cheapest one is a whopping $199 just for the case (no video card).
and that one will only let you use PCIe power not the extra power plugin that most cards need, for that you need to spend $239. AND for the most high powered cards you need to buy the $279 unit.

Lets see $279 + $220 for the video card = $499
For that much money I'd rather put that toward a new laptop.

 

[madrich]

impressed!

 

[Guest]

great , ill take ten if lucid also write and include a virtual "5 Gigabit" Ethernet over thunderbolt generic windows/Linux driver in this package as well, so we can finally get away from the crappy 1GE Ethernet vendors sitting on their profits for years and yet providing nothing better there ether

 

[fwupow]

The traditional expansion slot is having a hard time these days when you're trying to do Quad SLI / X-fire and trying to air-cool monster 200W cards, but having a separate box isn't very water-cooling friendly. It would be kinda nice to see a separate expansion cards board split off from the CPU & memory, so you can upgrade them separately but the link between the two is usually part of what's upgraded in a new gen. of mobos. Whatever the case (pun intended) meta-gamers with 5 monitors on a desk the size of a car, have plenty of space underneath for a whole bunch of extra boxy-thingys.

 

[syrious1]

hmm, so on top of carrying around a laptop, you now have to lug around a box with a videocard and thunderbolt cable?

Just drop the added cash and buy a real gaming laptop, Ultrabooks price point is already $800-1000, what's an extra $200 to you?

 

[clonazepam]

I have mixed feelings. I'm already heavily invested in a desktop graphics powerhouse. I don't have any real need for a laptop, but I want to comment anyway.

It may be too late. We're now in the Facebook Era. You couldn't pull enough people away from Facebook to embrace this product. Let's face it, Facebook has the majority of the population's attention. Maybe that is the key. For anything better than niche market, like going mainstream market, I think they should get in bed with Facebook. Put some amazing 3D web-based hardware accelerated games on Facebook that people will want. Opinions, envy, greed, and excitement all travel fastest through Facebook and Twitter. Get this up and going, start seeding the Facebook nation with product, and watch the posts and tweets fly. Make an optional upgrade to games like Farmville and other popular titles associated with Facebook, and watch the bank account grow. The one drawback is that many people are completely satisfied with a $300 laptop if they are just doing e-mail and Facebook. Obviously, they'd need Thunderbolt tech on nearly every laptop/low end desktop so that's a hurdle too.

 

[Guest]

Recently released tablet from acer tablet w700 has thunderbolt port, I think...
If this lucid's external graphic system launches it could be a perfect pair with thunderbolt port included tablet like w700.

 

[Guest]

This looks like a vaporware, just like MSI Graphics Upgrade Solution (GUS). NEVER RELEASED TO BUY>

 

[qzyxya]

this would be so sick if I could install an external gpu on my laptop (lol a gtx660 on my laptop)

 

[demonhorde665]

pffshh , 6 years ago , i thought of this idea back in 98 , still a viable idea to me , ahve an extermnal vid card hooekd to a lap top for some serious mobile gaming

 

[jaslion]

well just hoping that it is better then hd 4000 witch is useless if you have like an i7 in your ultrabook

 

[06yfz450ridr]

already had stuff similar to this by using a spare mini pcie slot and adapter despite its slower speed compared to a 16x. was thinking of do this till i just decided to sell my laptop and build a desktop. the piece is only 30 bucks if you have a slot lying around which my dv7 didnt

 

[mansfield]

not too excited about the watermark...

 

[shadowfamicom]

Village Instruments has been making external graphics card enclosures for awhile now.

 

[shadowfamicom]

Also, why does someone not just make an external PCI-E standard port? That way you don't need the thunderbolt license.

 

[darkavenger123]

i think this has HIGH POTENTIAL to be a mainstream product!! Imagine...buying one high-end GPU and use on both your ultrabook and desktop!!! And you can share and swap with your friends!! Hell ya!!!

 

[hytecgowthaman]

if integrated gpu not working then this external gpu do the job?

 

[chat0n]

I thought about this idea some years ago too - without having consulted tomshardware - and I found those cards would be a great alternative, not only for laptops users but for everyone. Imagine what power could contain these boxes? Without any lost of power. And that's not all, cooling would be much better inside a boxes right connected to the place you are at, if it's too hot for you, put it in your balcony.

 

[chat0n]

[citation][nom]hytecgowthaman[/nom]if integrated gpu not working then this external gpu do the job?[/citation]

wow, I didn't think about it, this is another great argument.

 

[Robert Collins]

thunderbolt while cool is a huge problem in terms of security - Plug n hack. Or a virus which updates the firmware of a thunderbolt device or even the thunderbolt controller firmware. Then the virus has root level access to the kernal outside of any OS/software protection.

 

[blazorthon]

thunderbolt while cool is a huge problem in terms of security - Plug n hack. Or a virus which updates the firmware of a thunderbolt device or even the thunderbolt controller firmware. Then the virus has root level access to the kernal outside of any OS/software protection.

Can't Firewire devices, USB devices, and more already do this without proper measures being taken Why would it be any different for Thunderbolt and why would that be held specifically against Thunderbolt? I'd understand if what you said was true and there was nothing that we could do about it, but then it still seems to require physical access and that's not necessarily an easy issue for any would-be hacker to solve. As for the issue where physical access is not required, I fail to see how this is any worse than PCIe since it pretty much is PCIe. Is thunderbolt somehow inherently more vulnerable than PCIe for software-based attacks?

 

[ThermalV]

I know this is old but anyone talking about applications on laptops, this will cost the same if not more than your laptop surely?