AMD's XConnect Brings Native Driver Support For Thunderbolt 3 Graphics Cards

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Friday March 11, 2016 @04:21AM from the we-want-better-external-GPU-in-laptops dept.

AnandTech writes about AMD's XConnect technology: Last night AMD issued a driver update that brought support for a new technology, XConnect. In a nutshell, XConnect is AMD's trade name for running external video cards via Thunderbolt 3, a long-awaited development that Thunderbolt owner Intel is finally getting behind and allowing. [...] AMD is also laying out the technical requirements for supporting XConnect. Not just any laptop/desktop with Thunderbolt 3 can support an external GPU, as there are specific hardware and software requirements, which is why the Blade Stealth is the first qualified laptop. In particular, laptops need to support what is being called the Thunderbolt 3 external graphics standard, or eGFX for short.

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Re:Why not work on real pci-e ext cables / buses by DRJlaw · 2016-03-11 08:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why not work on real pci-e ext cables / buses that does not need bios or bridge chips and is not capped at pci-e 3.0 X4 (at best)
Something about high bandwidth signals being more difficult to transport as conductor length increases, blah blah blah, more power/error correction/signal shenanigans (differential versus single-ended), and most users not wanting to pay so that Joe_Dragon can run a high end video card off of his laptop.
I.e., physics, engineering, and economics.