External graphics cards that are connected to notebooks when they more performance have been a hot topic, with many different solutions. AMD tried it with its XGP, but it hasn’t caught on or even got a minor break on the market. NVIDIA on the other hand believes in such a solution and Rene Haas says this is something it is working on.
The market for notebooks continues to grow, but the major drawback is that you can’t upgrade it as easily as a desktop computer. Fewer ship with a discrete graphics card and rely on the integrated GPU, but NVIDIA is still doing well .
Haas says it has more than 200 design wins together with Intel’s Sandy Bridge platform and its Optimus technology is at the very heart of that. But the idea of an external graphics card that can be connected when needed, or upgraded in the future, is something that lures many, and Haas says this is something NVIDIA is working on.
Can we expect something like ViDock from NVIDIA?
Exactly how it will do it is unclear, but but it is a tailored solution from NVIDIA, where graphics cards will be sold separetely in their own little case you connect when needed. There were talk about using Thunderbolt, but this has not been confirmed since it may just as well be a proprietary solution.
When this solution may appear is still very foggy, but the only thing we know is that NVIDIA is doing something in this area. A discrete graphics cards takes extra room inside the case and needs extra cooling. With manufacturers trying to shed every millimeter and increase battery times it is not unlikely that discrete graphics cards are fading for notebooks – especially when both Intel and AMD are offering competent graphics inside the processors.
Source: Fudzilla
