Following our last blog entry, we continue to test Expresii on the Deskmini A300, this time with external graphics cards. We only bought two new items: 1. M.2 to PCI-E x4 Adapter Card (US$2; US$6 at Amazon), 2. PCI-E x1 to x16 ribbon cable (US$4; similar item $17 at Amazon) from taobao. This setup needs an external power supply and we simply use one from our other PC's.
We tried an nvidia GTX 1060 and two lower-end cards GT 640 and GTX 750 Ti. The M.2 adapter slot is not open-ended so in order to insert the graphics cards directly onto it, we need to first cut it open (reference).
1x versus 4x PCI-E
We get 180+ FPS on 4k with the 1060 connected at 4x PCI-E speed. When at 1x (via ribbon cable), we get only 80+ FPS. At Full-HD, we get 180+ FP with 4x; 150+ FPS, 1x. With lower-end cards, we basically only get around 30 FPS, which is even much lower then what we get with the integrated Radeon Vega 11 in the Ryzen 2400G (95+ FPS).
We ordered a 1x, instead of 4x, ribbon cable because we wanted to see how such low-cost setup performs. The 1x cable is actually thin enough to pass through the vents of the Deskmini case, meaning that we might be able to attach or detach the external graphics card from the Deskmini easily. However, after we ran the cable through the vent, we were unable to get the connection to work, probably due to the tiny space of the Deskmini enclosure forced the cable to bend causing e.g. the interface on the M.2 adapter to loosen a bit. FYI, even not physically restricted, the more interfaces you have, the more chance you get connection issues: we experienced e.g. a pink screen, or the card not being detected. We needed to resit the cards a few times before we get it to work.
Conclusion
With adapter and cable totaling a mere US$6, we are able to test out the external GPU setup with either 1x and 4x PCI-E speed. You probably want to use a US$89 riser (similar item US$43 at taobao) instead for easier setup with 4x speed for for proper performance. Or, at least this adapter+cable (US$17 at taobao) to minimize physical interfaces.
We're satisfied by the performance increase from Ryzen APU 2400G's Vega 11 GPU running at 95+ FPS on Full-HD to GTX 1060 running at 180+ FPS on 4k monitor.
See this youtube video for adapter & cable options.
We're satisfied by the performance increase from Ryzen APU 2400G's Vega 11 GPU running at 95+ FPS on Full-HD to GTX 1060 running at 180+ FPS on 4k monitor.
See this youtube video for adapter & cable options.
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