[GUIDE] [Ubuntu] Razer Core X Chroma eGPU + AMD RX 7900 XTX

Framework Laptop 13
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Following up on my previous post, I’d like to give a little update with the latest AMD GPUs.

I recently purchased a Gigabyte RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC 24GB. And I am happy to report it works flawlessly with the Framework!

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I was a bit worried because the dimensions of the card say it’s 1mm longer than what’s officially supported by the Razer Core X Chroma (331mm vs 330mm). But it works just fine and the eGPU enclosure closes just fine.

Setup on Ubuntu 22.04

  • Install a 6.0+ kernel (using mainline for example), 6.1.4 in my case.
  • Install Mesa 22+ (using the oibaf ppa for example)
  • Install the missing amdgpu firmware from linux-firmware.git
    • Download the latest tag (for example 20221214)
    • Extract: tar xf linux-firmware-20221214.tar.gz
    • Copy the amdgpu firmwares: cp amdgpu/* /lib/firmware/amdgpu/
  • Install & configure egpu-switcher
  • Reboot and voila!

As far as I can tell, the overall experience is much better than with my previous GPU (NVIDIA RTX 2080):

  • No complex NVIDIA driver install.
  • No “plug the eGPU after boot” trick: you can have the eGPU plugged when the laptop boots, or at the grub screen. It just works.

So far, I have tested only on Ubuntu 22.04 + 11th gen. I’ll post an update soon for Windows and 12th gen (my 12th gen mainboard is undergoing RMA, awesome support/response time from the Framework team by the way!).

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A bit of a bottleneck but nice !!! I’m happy to hear it works!!

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Nice! Xorg I assume, based on egpu-switcher?

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I was planning to get an

https://www.amd.com/de/products/graphics/amd-radeon-rx-6500-xt

As my eGPU, has anybody tested it with recent firmware and linux kernel?

I am not planning to do heavy gaming, just some raw image editing and video transcoding.

Also, thanks for all the tests you’ve done so far!

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Is the usb functioning now? I’ve been waiting for things to get ironed out so I can get off windows.

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I got a spare external driver to test. On 12th gen 3.0.6 beta with the latest 22.10 ubuntu running tkg 6.1.6 kernel with a 5700xt. Currently is not plug and play. It still needs the startup trick mentioned before. However usb seems to function consistently now!

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Haven’t tested that yet: I’m using a separate hub to maximize the eGPU bandwidth.

I made a benchmark with 3DMark’s Speed Way after overclocking the card (12th gen i7-1280P):

Score: 4895 vs 6003 average, so it’s ~80% of the card’s actual score. Not too bad.

Here are the OC settings:

  • Core clock: 3050Mhz
  • VRAM clock: 2750
  • Voltage: 1025mV
  • Power limit: +15%

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After replacing the PSU of the Razer Core with a Corsair SF750 (using this mod) and using two different PCIe power connectors, I now get 5220 at the 3DMark Speed Way benchmark.

The only overclock I used is the Adrenaline “Overclock GPU” mode that automagically set a GPU clock to 3043Mhz. No other changes.

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@Jean-Marc_Le_Roux And it looks like amdgpu drivers support some kind of hotplug with Xorg, could you confirm or deny?

So e.g. if you are already using Xorg in a session, and you hotplug the eGPU, it should enable an additional “provider” as seen in xrandr --listproviders. Without restarting Xorg.

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Yeah I saw that there are some solution to unbind PCIE-devices from the kernel and connect that with some module-unload commands. But I’d also be very interested to hear if hot-plugging an amdpro gpu works without restarting X.

Thanks a lot!

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I have the same enclosure + gpu, but I’m struggling to get everything working. Followed your steps, but it seems that Ubuntu just doesn’t know how to use the graphics card over thunderbolt.
Would appreciate any advice that can be offered!

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Are you using Wayland or X11?

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Are you using Wayland or X11

X11 for egpu-switcher. Though I suppose Wayland and all-ways-egpu is an alternative

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Managed to get my best score yet with the following settings (v23.3.1):

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Marking this as a guide due to the outstanding results: [RESPONDED] Starfield running on the Framework 13 - nicely done!

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I can confirm on my Setup Arch Linux + Wayland that my egpu(in my case a rx 6600) is working with all-ways-egpu.

You can hotplug the egpu under wayland, but as soon as all-ways-egpu switches to the egpu for rendering using the integrated graphics card is not possible until reboot.

Still decent results and a working system :slight_smile:

I also tested a Nvidia gpu, with no real success.

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egpu enclosures are getting pricey these days they are like 400< aud
idk if i will get one

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Hi, new to Linux on my AMD Framework 13 and I’ve got the same egpu setup and trying to get Ubuntu 22.04 running. I’m confused on how to install the missing amdgpu firmware. Downloading and extracting makes sense, but how do I copy the amdgpu firmwares? That command doesn’t seem to work and I feel like I’m missing something obvious. Any help would be great!

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Welcome to the party @Red2_StandingBy - I dig the sn :slight_smile:

This step may not be necessary anymore. It’s my understanding that kernel 6.0+ has full support for this series of graphics card. It’s been a while since I was on Ubuntu but I believe if you enabled there HWE you’d pull down the 6.2 kernel. Anyone, feel free to correct me here!

However, if you really want to grab the latest firmware…

Follow the OP’s link on the 3rd bullet point, download the latest *.tar.gz file. Extract it and move the contents of the tarball into /lib/firmware

That command would look something like this: (assuming you’re in the extracted directory)
sudo mv /path/to/extracted/tarball/* /lib/firmware/

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