ADT-Link shared the good news with @nando4 and I about their latest M.2 product, the R43SG 4.0. It took about 10 days to the US from China. All components arrived safely. I'm waiting on a few more components in order to test this adapter through a proper x4 PCIe 4.0 connection. Here are some photos:
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I also got this Gigabyte Z590i Vision D ITX motherboard. With two Thunderbolt 4 ports, it's a great little board which will eventually go into an InWin Chopin.
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In the meantime, it's installed in a CoolerMaster NR200P awaiting an i5-11600K and Noctua NH-L9i chromax.black cooler. I like this case for eGPU testing because of the horizontal and vertical GPU mounts. The rear M.2 slot is also handy to switch a boot drive from front to rear to free up the PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot for the ADT-Link R43SG 4.0 adapter. The NR200P is also great with access from all sides.
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I will attempt using a 24-pin Y adapter to power both the motherboard and ADT-Link R43SG 4.0 mainboard with the 650W SFX power supply.
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2021 14" Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio [11th,4C,H] + RTX 2080 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB4 (WD_Black D50) + Win11 [build link]
While waiting for more components to arrive I got spare time to do something I have never done before, custom loop using rigid tubing. The card for testing is RTX 2080 Ti Hydro Copper. This was an amazing find at the local MicroCenter a month ago. Apparently it was returned many times and the store GM did not want it see it around anymore. It was sold as is. I talked him into final price and it came to $239.96 with the fun notes on the sticker. 
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I immediately tore it down to investigate what was wrong with it. Some red dye in the block was all I could see. To play it safe, I took the EVGA Hydro Copper GPU block off and mounted a cheap IDCooling GPU AIO on it. The card was stress-tested for 4 weeks mining, with great results and cool temps. So it was time to get it back to the original GPU block.
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Building a rigid loop is not an easy process. I wasted an entire 1m PETG tube to make two short connections with 90-degree bends. You can see the red dye in the GPU block starting to dissolve when it's filled. The loop is far from perfect and I still need to do leak test before I dare powering it on.
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LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Youtube | Instagram
• external graphics card builds
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2021 14" Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio [11th,4C,H] + RTX 2080 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB4 (WD_Black D50) + Win11 [build link]
It's about time they got their PCIe 4.0 versions out.
The leak test was successful so I went ahead with powering this thing up. The easy path was to connect the Wavelink TB3 mainboard to this ADT-Link R43SG and run it with my 2018 Mac mini in Boot Camp. I'm using a push and pull fan arrangement on the radiator so I connected a Lamptron CFP30 fan controller.
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Everything worked first try with Windows 11 on this Mac mini. The RTX 2080 Ti eGPU actually worked through both cold-plug and hot-plug. The hot-plug behavior is similar to my experience in Windows 10. When the system detects a new PCIe device/s through Thunderbolt connection, WiFi and keyboard/mouse get disabled for about 2 minutes. Once The eGPU is initialized and starts working, everything resumes working.
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I did not consider adding a drain plug so it will not be fun taking this thing apart. Right now it's sitting on my dinning table for the foreseable future because I can't really move it.
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• external graphics card builds
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2021 14" Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio [11th,4C,H] + RTX 2080 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB4 (WD_Black D50) + Win11 [build link]
"Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed." — Seneca
Author: kryptonite ✧ purge-wrangler ✧ tbt-flash ✧ purge-nvda ✧ set-eGPU
Insights Into macOS Video Editing Performance
Launching Apps on Specific (e)GPUs on macOS
Master Threads:
2014 15-inch MacBook Pro 750M
2018 15-inch MacBook Pro
2019 13" MacBook Pro [8th,4C,U] + RX Vega 64 @ 32Gbps-TB3 (Mantiz Venus) + macOS 10.14.6 & Win10 [build link]
@mac_editor, Thank you! I haven't had this much fun learning/trying new stuff in a while. I'm sure my wife will love seeing this mess remains on our dining room until the holidays.
LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Youtube | Instagram
• external graphics card builds
• best laptops for external GPU
• eGPU enclosure buyer's guide
2021 14" Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio [11th,4C,H] + RTX 2080 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB4 (WD_Black D50) + Win11 [build link]
@itsage, and you scored a great deal too imo. Here you’re salvaging GPUs while the world faces shortages. Legend 🔥.
"Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed." — Seneca
Author: kryptonite ✧ purge-wrangler ✧ tbt-flash ✧ purge-nvda ✧ set-eGPU
Insights Into macOS Video Editing Performance
Launching Apps on Specific (e)GPUs on macOS
Master Threads:
2014 15-inch MacBook Pro 750M
2018 15-inch MacBook Pro
2019 13" MacBook Pro [8th,4C,U] + RX Vega 64 @ 32Gbps-TB3 (Mantiz Venus) + macOS 10.14.6 & Win10 [build link]
Got all the parts yesterday so I put everything together. Unfortunately, the RX 6900 XT fans were rubbing against the intake cooling fans at the bottom of the case. I switched it out for RTX 3070 Ti which looks like a better match in terms of color scheme.
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I also test-fitted the ADT-Link R43SG into the PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 slot. One thing I realized while doing this fitment is that I received a 25cm cable version instead of 50cm. It's just short to let the base sits flat.
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LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Youtube | Instagram
• external graphics card builds
• best laptops for external GPU
• eGPU enclosure buyer's guide
2021 14" Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio [11th,4C,H] + RTX 2080 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB4 (WD_Black D50) + Win11 [build link]