System specs
13.5" Framework Laptop
Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7
64GB DDR4 3200MHz (G.Skill 2x 32GB)
Intel Iris Xe Graphics (iGPU)
Windows 10 Pro 21H1
eGPU hardware
Razer Core X: Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 3090
Razer Core X: MSI GTX 1080Ti
Gigabyte Aorus Gaming Box RTX 3090
Gigabyte Aorus Gaming Box RTX 2070
Hardware pictures
Installation steps
I got the DIY version of this laptop and installed my own RAM, SSD, and WiFi card, all of which I already had lying around. Once Windows was installed, I simply plugged in the eGPU's and after a minute or so, it automagically setup and was working! This laptop has 4x configurable I/O ports which are basically TB4(?) USB-c ports with various options for slide in dongles/adapters (displayport, HDMI, thunderbolt or USB-c, USB-A). If you look underneath, you can see that these dongles/adapters are just plugging into USB-c ports. I plugged 2 of the eGPU's directly into these ports demonstrating that the dongles aren't necessary although they probably provide some protection for the laptop (you can easily replace the dongle if someone trips over the cord) plus it's a little more aesthetically pleasing.
Benchmarks
Here's some CUA-z, whatever this tells us. I took these while they were running full blast at cryptomining, FWIW. I'll try to run some benchmarks, but most of the usual benchmarks require some manual adjusting to force them to run on particular GPU's/monitors.
Comments
I'm currently just using this for cryptocurrency mining, mainly to see if this laptop really can accept 4x eGPU's. After I run some benchmarks, I'm going to compare some deep-learning algorithm training.
@dregpu, Very cool to see all 4x eGPUs running in Windows. Thank you for sharing this build!
This is much cooler and safer way to put a mining rig together.
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2021 Gigabyte Z590i Vision D [11th,6C] + RTX 3060 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB4 (Gigabyte Gaming Box) + Win11 [build link]
@itsage Thanks! I'm still undecided if it looks more or less sketchy than a wireframe rack full GPU's and wires!
I'm very much interested in eGPU on framework laptop. Could you please test some linux on it? I'm going to buy framework and would like to know if it's painless on linux to play with it.
My Macbook Pro 2017 has issues with eGPU on linux but on Windows it works good. ;/
Another question: Does framework charge using eGPU case? On every USB-C port?
To do: Create my signature with system and expected eGPU configuration information to give context to my posts. I have no builds.
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@juniorjpdj, it does charge on every port. I'm very interested in getting eGPU to work on Fedora Silverblue, so I'll let you know what I come up with. As of now it's recognized by GNOME's thunderbolt 3 settings (and enabled automatically), but I don't get any video output. It's been a while since I've used this card though (Gigabyte R9 280), but I'm about to test it on Windows 10/11 to see if it's simply a linux problem or a hardware problem.
To do: Create my signature with system and expected eGPU configuration information to give context to my posts. I have no builds.
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