After getting my GTX 970 to work with the Aorus Gaming Box (see previous topic) I tried a MSI GTX 1050 card that could be directly installed instead of using a riser cable. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the box to power on with the 1050 (related post), so I picked up an EVGA GTX 1060 based on having seen reviews of the Box with this card functioning. The 1060 worked so I am adding another build guide in the hopes that it will help others trying to use the Gaming Box with a different GPU.
System specs
2017 13" Dell XPS 9365 (2-in-1)
Win10 Pro 64-bit
No dGPU
eGPU hardware
EVGA GTX 1060 3GB SC (model 03G-P4-6162-KR)
CableCreations 2m Thunderbolt 3 cable
Aorus Gaming Box (minus GTX 1070)
Installation steps
Installed GTX 1060 in box
Installed new Nvidia drivers
Benchmarks
Internal LCD benchmark CUDA-Z: ~1600MiB/s
The Host to Device Bandwidth is still not reaching 2200Mib/s even after applying the firmware update from Gigabyte. I have not done any testing with an external monitor.
Thank you for your build guide.
With regards to your decreased H2D CUDA-Z result, @itsage found the XPS 9365 has a 4-lane TB3 controller here. Then following the footnote here, it looks like your result most closely match those seen here. Ie: a 20Gbps rather than 40Gbps TB3 cable is being used.
eGPU Setup 1.35 • eGPU Port Bandwidth Reference Table
2015 15" Dell Precision 7510 (Q M1000M) [6th,4C,H] + GTX 1080 Ti @32Gbps-M2 (ADT-Link R43SG) + Win10 1803 [build link]
The CUDA-Z result is limited at the numbers you see due to OPI 2 GT/s in the XPS 9365.
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2020 13" MacBook Pro [10th,4C,G] + RTX 2080 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB3 (AORUS Gaming Box) + Win10 2004 [build link]
@itsage , is 2GT/s OPI for the XPS 9365 confirmed from your testing? If so, would you mind making a note here and we'll change all XPS 9365 builds to be 16Gbps-TB3. We were only just uncovering OPI as a bandwidth factor when you did your XPS 9365 testing in Jul-2017.
eGPU Setup 1.35 • eGPU Port Bandwidth Reference Table
2015 15" Dell Precision 7510 (Q M1000M) [6th,4C,H] + GTX 1080 Ti @32Gbps-M2 (ADT-Link R43SG) + Win10 1803 [build link]
Hi @nando4. I looked through my archived folders and found some CUDA-Z screen captures. I ran the XPS 9365 with three eGPU enclosure I had at the time: AKiTiO Node, Sonnet Breakaway 350, and Mantiz Venus. The Memory speed hovering right at 1,600MiB/s.
I'm very confident the XPS 9365 is running 2GT/s OPI. The XPS 9250 is configured very similar in that it has 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports running through a x4 PCIe connection. It too suffers from 2GT/s OPI. The CUDA-Z result in my build guide of the XPS 9250 is identical as what we're seeing here for XPS 9365.
• external graphics card builds
• best laptops for external GPU
• eGPU enclosure buyer's guide
2020 13" MacBook Pro [10th,4C,G] + RTX 2080 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB3 (AORUS Gaming Box) + Win10 2004 [build link]
It seems like the 9365 doesn't have 4GT/s based on the CUDA Z results which is unfortunate because it was one of the factors I chose the 9365 over other 2-in1s. For 2GT/s the numbers I am getting seem appropriate. There is still a major performance boost, which is nice.