diy egpu_什么是eGPU，为什么我要一个？

diy egpu

Imagine a perfect world, where you can buy the thinnest, lightest, and sleekest laptop around, but still get the same amount of gaming horsepower out of it that you’d expect out of a full-tower desktop. For years, the idea of supercharging a regular old laptop by plugging in an external graphics card was stuck in the realm of fantasy, a task that only the most hardcore DIY-ers would take on after a weekend in their garage and enough circuit board soldering to make anyone’s head spin.

想象一个完美的世界，您可以在其中购买最薄，最轻和最时尚的笔记本电脑，但仍然可以从全塔式台式机获得相同的游戏功能。 多年以来，通过插入外部图形卡为普通的旧笔记本电脑充电的想法一直停留在幻想领域，这一任务只有最顽固的DIY用户在周末车库里进行足够的电路板焊接后才能承担使任何人的头旋转。

Lately however, as connection standards get speedier and PC games continue to demand more and more from the machines we play them on, both computer manufacturers and gaming hobbyists have realized that the reality of an eGPU on everyone’s desk may be a lot closer than everyone thinks.

但是，最近，随着连接标准的提高以及PC游戏对我们所使用的机器的要求越来越高，计算机制造商和游戏爱好者都意识到，每个人桌上的eGPU现实可能比每个人想象的要近得多。 。

So what is an eGPU, and why should you care? Read on to find out.

那么什么是eGPU，为什么要关心它？ 请仔细阅读，找出答案。

Update: The eGPU landscape has changed a lot since we originally published this article back in 2015, especially with the advent of Thunderbolt 3. Here are our picks for the best eGPUs in 2020.

更新 ：自从我们于2015年最初发布此文章以来，eGPU的格局发生了很大变化，尤其是在Thunderbolt 3出现之后。以下是2020年最佳eGPU的精选 。

首字母缩略词 (Acronyms Everywhere)

An eGPU, short for (you guessed it) “External Graphics Processing Unit” is an idea that has been floating around the ether of the Internet for years, and in the R&D departments of video card manufacturers for even longer. Without getting too technical about it, the general concept involves hooking up a regular laptop to an external graphics card through a single cable, which can then take all of the load off your laptop’s internal GPU and put it on the more powerful extension instead.

eGPU的缩写(您猜对了)是“外部图形处理单元”(External Graphics Processing Unit)的一种想法，这种想法已经在Internet的以太网中流传了多年，并且在视频卡制造商的研发部门中使用的时间甚至更长。 无需太过技术，一般概念涉及通过一根电缆将普通笔记本电脑连接到外部图形卡，然后可以将笔记本电脑内部GPU上的所有负载转移到功能更强大的扩展上。

The tech is predicated on the idea that even though most of the gaming laptops we love can handle simple games like League of Legends or Dota 2 on medium settings without losing a frame, when you really want to break out the AAA titles like Tomb Raider or Batman: Arkham Knight on ultra 4K resolution, that’s when you’ll start to hear the sound of cooling fans straining to keep up and see your graphics card drivers crashing for the fifth time in a row.

该技术基于这样的想法：即使您真的想突破诸如Tomb Raider或AAA之类的游戏，即使我们喜欢的大多数游戏笔记本电脑都可以在中等设置下处理英雄联盟或Dota 2之类的简单游戏而又不会丢帧。蝙蝠侠：超4K分辨率的Arkham Knight，这时您将开始听到冷却风扇的声音不断跟上，并连续第五次看到显卡驱动程序崩溃。

What an external graphics card does is act as a sort of surrogate powerhouse, one that you plug into while you’re at home and in the mood for a good gaming session, but leave behind when you and your laptop need to get on the road. The problem with this dream scenario, however, lies in the details of the technology that’s necessary to make it work, which until recently has been hampered by the speed limitations present in older connection standards like USB 2.0, Thunderbolt 2, and FireWire.

外部图形卡的作用就像是一种替代动力，可以在您在家中或心情良好的游戏会话时插入，而在您和笔记本电脑需要上路时就抛在脑后。 但是，这种理想情况的问题在于使之起作用所必需的技术细节，直到最近，诸如USB 2.0，Thunderbolt 2和FireWire之类的较旧连接标准中的速度限制仍然阻碍了该技术的发展。

2015年eGPU的现状 (The State of eGPUs in 2015)

This could all change very soon though, thanks to the advent of Thunderbolt 3.0. 

由于Thunderbolt 3.0的出现，这一切都可能很快改变。

Long seen as the Holy Grail of universal connection capabilities, engineers at companies like AMD, Nvidia, and Intel have been working feverishly for years to find a cable that was both fast and small enough to handle the type of bandwidth that a graphics card needs to communicate with a standalone system. See, in desktop graphics card setups, the GPU is connected to the motherboard through what’s known as a “PCIe x16” slot, which at its most current iteration (v 3.0) is capable of transmitting upwards of 15.75 gigabytes every single second.

长期以来，AMD，Nvidia和Intel等公司的工程师一直被视为通用连接功能的圣杯，多年来他们一直在热情地寻找能够既快又细的电缆来处理图形卡所需的带宽类型。与独立系统通信。 请参阅，在台式机图形卡设置中，GPU通过称为“ PCIe x16”插槽的主板连接到主板，该插槽在其最新版本(v 3.0)下能够每秒传输高达15.75 GB的数据。

Currently, the great white hope for a truly plug-and-play external GPU lies in Thunderbolt 3, a part of the USB-C family that’s due to start rolling out on laptops from Acer and Lenovo sometime later this year. Several proof of concept eGPUs using Thunderbolt 3 have been on display at tradeshows lately, but these are still rehearsed tech demos that don’t push the technology past where it could theoretically go. The problem here is that even though the connection is twice as fast as its predecessor (20Gbps in TB2 compared to 40Gbps in TB3), it still doesn’t come close to measuring up to a standard PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (128Gbps), which could prove to be an issue for games that need all the power they can get out of the graphics card and then some.

目前，真正的即插即用外部GPU的巨大希望在于Thunderbolt 3，它是USB-C系列的一部分，该系列产品将于今年晚些时候开始在宏cer和联想的笔记本电脑上推出。 近期在贸易展览会上展示了使用Thunderbolt 3的几种概念证明eGPU，但这些仍是经过预演的技术演示，不会将技术推到理论上可以超越的水平。 这里的问题是，即使连接速度是其先前版本的两倍(TB2中为20Gbps，而TB3中为40Gbps)，它仍然无法接近标准PCIe 3.0 x16插槽(128Gbps)，这可以对于需要从图形卡中取出所有力量的游戏来说，这是一个问题。

This in mind, early reports from basement tinkerers have posted that cards like the Nvidia 750Ti are still able to utilize about 80-90 percent of their performance over TB3, despite the bottleneck. This output varies depending on the game and the amount of power your laptop’s processor has, but if products like MSI’s Thunderbolt Gaming Dock are any indication of the industry’s confidence in the new technology, the era of true plug-and-play external GPUs may finally be upon us.

考虑到这一点，地下修补匠的早期报告指出，尽管存在瓶颈，诸如Nvidia 750Ti之类的显卡仍然能够在TB3上利用其80％至90％的性能。 输出结果取决于游戏和笔记本电脑处理器的电量，但是如果MSI的Thunderbolt Gaming Dock之类的产品表明业界对新技术充满信心，那么真正的即插即用外部GPU时代可能最终会出现。在我们身上。

为什么我需要一个？ (Why Would I Need One?)

For right now, eGPUs are still basically a fringe project. Something that’s only cut out for gamers who are confident enough in their ability to take a laptop apart from the back to find the hidden mPCIe slot, but Alienware and MSI are looking to broaden that market very soon.

就目前而言，eGPU基本上仍是一个边缘项目。 只有那些对将笔记本电脑从背面拆开以找到隐藏的mPCIe插槽的能力有足够信心的游戏玩家才可以采用这种方法，但是Alienware和MSI希望很快扩大该市场。

Both companies are currently offering up their own standalone eGPU “game boxes”, however neither of these use Thunderbolt 3 to get the connection linked up. Instead they have their own proprietary cables, which essentially amount to long flexible PCIe x16 slots that achieve about 90 percent of the same throughput. This means if you want to get it working, you have to own one of the company’s already-powerful-enough gaming laptops at $1200 and $1400 a pop.

两家公司目前都在提供自己的独立eGPU“游戏盒”，但是这两家公司都不使用Thunderbolt 3来建立连接。 取而代之的是，它们拥有自己的专有电缆，这些电缆实质上相当于长而灵活的PCIe x16插槽，可实现大约90％的相同吞吐量。 这意味着，如果要使其正常运行，则必须拥有该公司一台功能强大的游戏笔记本电脑，价格分别为1200美元和1400美元。

MSI is currently working on a new Thunderbolt 3-based card chassis that will fit any graphics card outside of an Nvidia Titan X, but they still have yet to show off a version of the product that actually works, let alone plays visually demanding AAA titles without experiencing any kind of framerate loss.

微星 目前正在一个新的基于3-迅雷卡底盘上 ，将适合Nvidia的泰坦X的任何显卡之外，但他们仍然还没有炫耀的一个版本，实际工作的产品，更谈不上戏剧视觉要求苛刻的AAA游戏不会遭受任何帧速率损失。

Until Thunderbolt 3.0 is widely adopted in all laptops and installed on even the lowest-end ultrabooks, the idea of getting an eGPU up and running smoothly on your own simply isn’t worth the hassle. If you’re someone who travels often but spends a lot of time gaming whenever they are home, then it might be worth it to try and rig up a connection through the mPCIe slot and a lot of extra parts, but otherwise the tech still has a ways to go before it’s ready to debut as a general, consumer-friendly product for the masses.

直到Thunderbolt 3.0被所有笔记本电脑广泛采用并安装在最低端的超极本上，让eGPU自行启动并平稳运行的想法简直是不值得的。 如果您是一个经常出差但在家中花费大量时间进行游戏的人，那么尝试通过mPCIe插槽和许多其他部件来建立连接可能是值得的，但除此之外，该技术仍然具有在准备作为大众通用的，对消费者友好的产品推出之前要走的路要走。

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So, do you need an external GPU? In its current form: probably not (yet).

那么，您需要外部GPU吗？ 以目前的形式：可能还没有。

Until more major manufacturers jump on the train and provide a little healthy competition for MSI or Alienware, prices for their external docks will remain in the hundreds, and even thousands to get set up completely. If you’re dropping that much on a laptop/gaming dock combo, at a certain point it’s just smarter to get a full gaming desktop instead.

除非更多的主要制造商加入火车，并为MSI或Alienware提供一些健康的竞争，否则它们的外部扩展坞的价格将保持在数百甚至数千以完全设置。 如果您在笔记本电脑/游戏扩展坞组合上投入了很多钱，那么在某个时候，使用完整的游戏台式机会更明智。

That said, in just a few short years what started out as a hobbyist project for ultra-geeks to mess around with in their spare time has evolved into a brand new industry that tech giants are already revving their engines to dive into, so those price breaks may not be as far off as we all think. As more people begin to see the value of turning their laptops into their main machines to get the gaming bliss they desire, it might not be long before we start to wonder why we even bothered with clunky old desktops in the first place.

就是说，在短短的几年内，最初是一个业余爱好者业余时间玩弄的业余爱好者项目，如今已发展成为一个崭新的行业，技术巨头已经开始研究引擎，因此这些价格休息可能不像我们所有人想象的那么遥远。 随着越来越多的人开始意识到将笔记本电脑转变为主机设备以获取他们所希望的游戏乐趣的价值，不久之后我们就开始怀疑为什么我们甚至会为笨拙的旧台式机而烦恼。

Image Credits: Dell, Intel, MSI, Lab501

图片来源： Dell ， Intel ， MSI ， Lab501

翻译自: https://www.howtogeek.com/232144/what-is-an-egpu-and-why-should-i-want-one/

diy egpu