So, I finally got everything working! I hit a few dead ends, so documenting my experience here for others.
Like many, I was waiting for Josh Cook’s 8i bay. So, the first batch of items I bought was:
- a case (I wanted the whole setup to be enclosed)
- that one 8i dock everybody seems to get
- an 8i cable (1m long; this was needed as you need quite a bit of cable length just to get the cable out of the case)
- The graphics module interposer
Basically, this setup:
When this thread popped up, I figured I might as well buy a GPU since I could use the nvme expansion bay if Josh Cook’s board did not materialize. I went with an RX9070XT (I’m on linux and don’t want to deal with nvidia).
Since some people in this thread mentioned that they got this chip working with a 8i → 2x4i cable, and since Josh’s board did not materialize, I figured I might as well give it a go.
The second batch of items I got:
- The NVME expansion bay module
- An M2 to oculink ribbon cable
- An 8i → 2x4i cable.
I also 3D printed the IO cover (I needed the one with 4 holes) and the plugs.
Unfortunately, this set up did not work. The GPU got power through the board, but nothing happened when I booted my laptop. I could also not see the GPU using lspci.
I was tempted to get the DEG-1 people in this thread keep recommending, but I don’t like the gpu being out in the open and I liked the aesthetics of the case I got. Thus, I ordered this dock (linked earlier in this thread and just happened to work with my case) instead. It came with a 50cm cable, which sort of works since the dock’s oculink port is in a better location. I would have preferred a longer cable for my desk, but signal integrity might be the reason that my previous set up did not work, so I didn’t want to risk it.
Some messing around with screws later, a little hail Mary and … it works! The GPU was detected and can now be used with no issues. I ran the UNIGINE Superposition benchmark and got >150fps average at 4K. Performance in cyberpunk was less good, but that might have been me being a bit too ambitious with the settings.
While the performance seems to be nice, I would prefer to have a complete solution that allows me to plug the integrated display of the laptop into my eGPU. But for now, I have a workable solution; after months of waiting, I only need to figure out which games I want to play :).
Summary of the complete working setup:
- On the laptop side:
- An oculink 4i cable (50cm)
- On the GPU side
- Oculink → PCIe Dock
- Case
- RX9070XT
- An old power supply from my desktop
What ended up not working:
- The 8i dock
- 8i→2x4i cable (1m)
I’m not sure if the dock, the cable, or some combination of both is to blame here.