I am trying a unique set up and am looking for help. I have a ryzen 5 main board inside a cooler master case (this did not come from a previous laptop, i bought the ryzen kit and placed it in the case as a mini computer). I am now trying to integrate the use of a EGPU (specifically a RX 7600 that came in a few days ago). I am also using a Beast v8.5 exp gdc for an open design. I would like to use the one of the top usb ports( which are usb4.0 to my understanding) to connect to the beast.
so far thing are not yet working. Using an HDMI cord from top left USB (with and HDMI expansion card) tot the HDMI port of the beast, windows will recognize that something is plugged in but device manager sees it as a monitor (non-pnp) rather than a display adapter. i also noticed that if i plug the beast (HDMI to HDMI) without the rx7600 actually mounted to the beast the device manager still sees it as a monitor. The beast also came with an HDMI to mini pcie cord. when attempting to use the mini pcie on the amd main board (where the wifi card would usually go) device manager does not even detect a device.
if anyone has used a beast v8.5 to successfully implement an egpu or even just implemented am egpu using the USB4.0 I would appreciate any advice as to how to do this. my hope is is not to require a full enclosure fort the gpu as they are expensive and i prefer and open design anyway.
I would recommend taking a look at Elevated Systems’ videos on youtube about his eGPU case design and perhaps using that as a jump off point for building your own setup. I don’t believe the CoolerMaster case is conducive to cooling an eGPU setup.
@Alex_S I remember watching this build a few months ago…it was part of my decision to buy the AMD kit and cooler master case. I am keeping the computer and GPU separate in this case so am less worried about cooling of the GPU as it will be all open (just sitting on the pcie adapter(a beast v8.5 exp gdc).
my main issue is getting the computer to recognize the GPU. I found a post stating that the “HDMI” port on the beast is an hdmi in connector only which may explain why the device manager only picked up the beast/graphics card a a generic monitor on my first attempts. using the “hdmi” to mini pcie cord i was eventually able to get device manager to recognize the beast/gpu as “AMD PCI express upstream switch port” but after reading that this device needs to be updated to amd drivers rather than windows drivers i attempted to update them. I was able to see amd driver update for a split second before a blue screen forced a restart. now i do not see the beast/gpu in the device manager at all.
update: changed the setting on the beast v8.5 atx: on delay switch: on. i had alreadu installed the AMD drivers for the rx 7600 card. upon restart the device manager recoginized the new display adapter and video output from the card’s HDMI port was present. the card did crash after about 20 minutes and I am not sure why but this was a step in the correct direction. also note that audio would not come through the 7600 hdmi to my screens speakers but was fine through usb headphones.
Wait do I understand this right, you are connecting the hdmi from the egpu to an actual hdmi port?!
The hdmi in those isn’t actual hdmi, it just abuses the connector to so I am actually kinda impressed it didn’t break anything. For those things you also need an matching m.2 (or something else pcie) to hdmi adabter (since there isn’t a standard for abusing hdmi to transmit pcie).
I asume you mean m.2 and not minipcie there. Did you boot the device with the egpu connected? Pcie is not hotplug so everything you want to use needs to be connected during boot.
If you want a protable setup, get an actual tb/usb4 egpu, something like a " TH3P4G3" for example gets you in the game pretty cheap.
If you want a stationary install get a m.2 to pcie adabter but one that uses the ssd slot not the wifi card (something like the ADT-Link R43SG), the bandwidth of the wifi card is just too low to make sense wit anything this modern.
@Adrian_Joachim thanks for the reply…i too am glad i did not break anything. I have had a bit of success running the rx7600 through port where the wifi card was (you are correct that i meant M.2). I seems to have issues with the “amd pci express upstream switch port”. in most cases when i power on the pc (beast 8.5 connected with HDMI to m.2 wifi position) with a usb screen plugged into the framework (so i can see what is going on) and a HMDI from the rx7600 to my LG monitor, I find that the device manager does not see the rx7600 but sees a the pcie upstream port mentioned above. device manager has yellow exclimation point so i attempt to update the driver (by selecting form the list available). as this is updating i get a message about AMD detected that a display driver has failed to load on my system. when finished devie manager shows the upstream as before but no yellow exclamation mark, a new downstream port, and the rx7600 will show under display adapters. but still no video out of the rx7600. i then try to update the drivers of the rx7600 that is visible in the device manager (again by selecting the driver from the available list). when this driver update completes i will get a message that hardware has changed and a restart is needed. upon restart i am usually back to square 1 with the upstream port only shown with and explanation mark. a few time i have actually had it restart with video to the LG screen from the rx7600 and even managed to try rocket leage for a bit but eventually i get a “amd display driver failed” message and the GPU stop sending video.
One video I found on the beast suggested that I should not used an AMD EGPU while having and AMD integrated card as the drivers will conflict. do you know if there is any truth to that?
also am I just banging my head against a wall going the m.2 route where the wifi card was ( the step to remove that connection is not very difficult if i eve want to move the computer)? for use of the rx 7600 should i be better froma speeds perspective and from portability perspective to just get a usb4 doc rather than the beast?
Might be a problem on windows, never tried that. AMD egpu with amf igpu works pretty well on mine but I use a thunderbolt based solution and linux.
I would not be surprised if the bottleneck caused by the 1x link of the wifi slot keecaps the 7600 to a point where it is worse than the igpu (which is pretty nice btw).
If you don’t need the portability, an m.2 based solution is likely the best solution on a performance and cost perspective but you need to use the m.2 slot for the ssd and a breakout that is actually x4 like the ADT-Link R43SG. Thunderbolt basically just gives you more cost and less bandwith than that in exchange for hotplug and portability which you may not need here.
@Adrian_Joachim thanks you so much for the info. sounds like i need to loose the connection through wifi port (M.2) and make a decision between the a usb4 egpu dock or adt-link style doc for m.2.
if i wanted to go the m.2 route where/ how would i connect my m.2 ssd as that slot it is in now would be used by the eGPU dock. also the adt-link style dock appears to have a fairly short connection cord. do you know if extension ribbon cables exist? and lastly do you know if the M key is the correct connector for the framework side?
do you have any guess of how much performance i might loose between m.2 vs usb 4 (% wise)?
The easiest option of using an usb enclosure may be a bit difficult if you want windows but since you have a newly free m.2 e-key (wifi) connector might as well use that. There are adapter board to connect ssds (m.2 m-key) to the wifi slot (a and/or e-key). An NVME ssd on a 1x link is still a bit faster than the sata ones used to be but you could theoretically get more speed by using a 10gbit usb enclosure.
They do but you’d want to avoid them. pcie4 is hard and not really meant to be used over wires without redrivers. Adt-link makes them with longer cables but they do cost quite a bit more since cables for speeds that high are expensive and fragile.
M-key is the one for nvme ssds on all sane laptops
A pcie4x4 link can effectively do around 60Gbit net, tb3/usb4 solutions tend to max out in the mid 20s and do have more latency. You can calculate the percentages there yourself.
Thunderbolt can do stuff a raw pcie connection can’t but a raw pcie connections is still much better at being a raw pcie connection than thunderbolt. Even tb5 is only going to match a raw pcie4x4 connection at doing pcie, it’ll have an unholy ammount of display bandwith though.
Would the “HDMI” to ngff cord from the beast plug into the nvme slot and provide the full (or close to full) bandwidth of the graphics card? Or is the beast v8.5 not really good application for the rx7600?
For my SSD is the link below what you meant for best SSD connection
No, hdmi doesn’t have enough wires for 4x and is a dirty hack for even for 1x. Plus if it fits in the wifi slot it really should not fit in the nvme one. There is a good chance your current 1x link isn’t even running at pcie4 or maybe even 3 because of the signal quality.
Something like that would work but keep in mind windows really does not want you to run it of of usb. Can be worked around though.
This looks about right but at the price I’d rather get the adt-link one since that costs the same and is from a know-good brand.
Yes the enclosure looks line a usb drive. But windows runs fine off an usb drive, it just refuses to install to one but if you put an ssd with windows already installed in an external enclosure it works just fine.
@Adrian_Joachim while searching adtlink r43sg many of the options say 32Gb/s does that mean the speeds of the GPU on usb4 doc and nvme (r43sg) are actually fairly close?
Another odd question…would it actually be possible to slap a SSD enclosure on the r43sg nvme connection and plug it into a USB 4? I wonder what the speed difference would be
Depends on if you are running pcie4 or 3. You do raise a good point though, I am not sure it is specifically rated for pcie4. Might want to look into something actually intended for pcie4 even if that one can probably handle it.
Tb3 and especially some of the new USB4 chipsets can reach mid 20s Gbit/s which does come close to the net 30Gbit/s a pcie3x4 link can do.
8Gbps is roughly 64Gbit, easy to mix up the units there.
The only significant difference between the r43sg-4.0 and the k43sg is that the k has pcie5 rated wiring which is better but won’t help here. Pretty sure both should be fine.
@Adrian_Joachim before my k43sg come in i tried to test booting my nvme ssd through an external enclosure…on every attempt framework came up as trying to repair the system and would eventually get to a screen where i could restart or advanced windows (the advanced windows just gave me boot options and would always fail). do you have any insight into how to get windows to boot?
