Using a GPU externally

themediaman

My nephew has one of these all in one PCs where it's just a screen with all the stuff built in to the back of it...

He want to add better graphics to it and I suggested he could get a GPU and connect it externally...

Has anyone got any experience of this...

Is there enclosures a ailable so the card is protected?

I've seen usb 3.0 adapters so I know in theory it's possible ...

Any thought guys...?

Greg Hook

I’ve not seen any external solutions for a desktop. They are all for laptops and use a thunderbolt connection. They are very expensive.

What’s the spec of the pc?

themediaman

Its a Samsung DP700a3d, so a core i5, 6gb ram, 1tb hard drive....

I was thinking about usb 3.0 connection but it seems that you really want to connect it to a mini PCI, so essentially taking out the wireless card and plugging in the adaptor...

Was thinking about a gtx 1050ti, which as far as I know doesn't need a PSU power supply...

EndlessWaves

What do you mean by 'better graphics'?

If you're talking about more graphics processing power for gaming then you can essentially forget it. USB 3 is far, far too low bandwidth. The latest wave of Thunderbolt 3 enclosures are just about making it practical, and even they come with caveats like stuttering in some games:
External GPU Testing: GTX 1080 in a Box   Core i7-8550U Ultraportable

noiseboy72

The only USB 3PCI card adapters I have seen are aimed at mining, not graphics as such.

I think that any gains even using the mini PCI are going to be minimal. That system will have so many bottlenecks that the card will be throttled anyway.

themediaman

Sounds like a no go then ...

EndlessWaves

You could always sell the system and replace it with a small tower of a similar age, that should have no bigger footprint than an external GPU.

A 3.3Ghz Dual Core Ivy Bridge CPU like the current one, with 8GB of RAM and 1TB of storage can be picked up for £100 or less.

All in ones are generally more valuable second hand, so you might even come out ahead

next010

Yeah buying something newer second hand would be less hassle.

You can go the mini-PCIe route but it is a lot of hoops to jump through,
* your going to have to cut a hole in the casing as the mini-PCI-e slot is dead center on the machine, the entire back casing must be removed to access it on that (see Youtube)
* then you need a mini-PCIe kit, eGPU covers all this, see build guides (change sys eport to mini PCI) and their mini-PCIe setup guide.
* You may or may not also need an external monitor.

Basically modern thunderbolt enclosures take care of all the nasty stuff.

As an alternative try cloud gaming service like Shadow or Liquidsky which are some of the better regarded ones from what I've read.