Exploring Thunderbolt 3 eGFX Performance, Feat. PowerColor's Gaming Station & Radeon RX Vega 56 Nano
by Ganesh T S on February 13, 2019 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- PowerColor
- Thunderbolt 3
- eGFX
- RX Vega 56 Nano Edition
Workstation Workloads - SPECviewperf 13
The SPECviewperf benchmark from SPEC provides an idea of the capabilities of the GPU in a workstation from the perspective of different CAD, content creation, and visual data analysis tools. It makes more sense to process these benchmarks on workstations with professional GPUs, but, consumer GPUs are often the choice for machines that need to handle both gaming and professional workloads.
SPECviewperf 13 includes nine different workloads representative of graphics content and behavior of actual applications. They make use of the OpenGL 4.0 and DirectX 12 APIs under Windows. SPECviewperf 13's workloads (termed viewsets) can officially be run only at two desktop resolutions (1920 x 1080, and 3840 x 2160), and need the dsplay scaling to be set to 100% (DPI of 96). The available viewsets are listed below.
- 3ds Max (3dsmax-06)
- CATIA (catia-05)
- Creo (creo-02)
- Energy (energy-02)
- Maya (maya-05)
- Medical (medical-02)
- Showcase (showcase-02)
- Siemens NX (snx-03)
- Solidworks (sw-04)
The 3ds Max and Showcase viewsets are available only when processing at 1920 x 1080. The rest are available at both resolutions.
We processed SPECviewperf 13 at both resolutions on all the systems. The benchmark measures the frame rate at which the GPU renders the scenes in a viewset. Each viewset is composed of different scenes and rendering modes, and the composite score for the viewset is a weighted geometric mean of the FPS measured for the different scenes. In this section, we take a look at how its composite scores stack up against other systems targeting this market segment.
3ds Max (3dsmax-06)
The 3dsmax-06 viewset comprises of 11 different scenes. They have been created from traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk 3ds Max 2016 using the default Nitrous DX11 driver. Additional details are available here.
The host - GPU bandwidth seems to have a significant impact in this workload, as the x16 configuration outperforms the x4 eGPU performance by more than a factor of 3.
CATIA (catia-05)
The catia-05 viewset comprises of 14 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the CATIA V6 R2012 application from Dassault Systemes. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: CATIA Viewset Composite Scores | |||
Unlike 3ds Max, CATIA doesn't seem to be influenced by the host - GPU bandwidth. The CPU power in terms of burst frequencies and number of threads appear to have more of an impact.
Creo (creo-02)
The creo-02 viewset comprises of 16 different tests created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the Creo 3 and Creo 4 applications from PTC. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Creo Viewset Composite Scores | |||
Creo shows sensitivity to the host - GPU bandwidth, just like 3ds Max.
Energy (energy-02)
The energy-02 viewset comprises of 6 different tests based on techniques used by the OpendTect seismic visualization application. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Energy Viewset Composite Scores | |||
The energy viewset doesn't show much of a performance difference across the different systems, showing that the workload is likely fully limited by GPU capabilities.
Maya (maya-05)
The maya-05 viewset comprises of 10 different tests based on traces of the graphics workload generated by Autodesk Maya 2017. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Maya Viewset Composite Scores | |||
Like 3ds Max, Maya is sensitive to the host - GPU bandwidth, but, we don't see as much of a difference in the relative numbers with this workload.
Medical (medical-02)
The medical-02 viewset comprises of 8 different tests derived from 4 distinct datasets. Each test uses the ImageVis3D volume visualization program's Tuvok rendering core for 2D projections of 3D volumetric grids. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Medical Viewset Composite Scores | |||
For some unexplained reason, the medical viewset seems to perform better with the eGPU configurations.
Showcase (showcase-02)
The showcase-02 viewset comprises of 4 tests created from traces of the Autodesk Showcase 2013 application rendering a racecar model with 8 million vertices using different modes. Additional details are available here.
This workload is again sensitive to the host - GPU bandwidth - not as much as 3ds Max, but, more than Maya.
Siemens NX (snx-03)
The snx-03 viewset comprises of 10 tests created with traces from the graphics workload generated by the NX 8.0 application from Siemens PLM. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Siemens NX Viewset Composite Scores | |||
snx-03 shows almost a 5x performance difference in favor of the internal GPU solutions.
Solidworks (sw-04)
The sw-04 viewset comprises of 11 tests created from traces of Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks 2013 SP1 application. Additional details are available here.
| SPECviewperf 13: Solidworks Viewset Composite Scores | |||
Solidworks appears to be CPU-limited, with the Bean Canyon eGPU solution performing almost as well as the two internal GPU solutions.
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OolonCaluphid - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
As a Dan A4 owner, I'm absolutely crying at the size and emptyness of that box!! What an utter waste of space. You can get a whole PC in there, negating the need for an external GPU in the first place.(yeah yeah, I get it, it's for laptops... just build an SFF PC)
Reflex - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
I also have a Dan A4-SFX and that was exactly my first thought! And for about the same price no less!hansmuff - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
I wonder if you could hook up a laptop to a gaming PC. Then, use Laptop keyboard, mouse and display as peripherals. I suppose the laptop would have to accept HDMI or DP as input, and I also suppose few if any do that?DanNeely - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
You're making it too complicated. No need for special hardware functions, when you could remote desktop/etc into a desktop from your laptop.PeachNCream - Thursday, February 14, 2019 - link
Remote Desktop has a bit of trouble with DirectX and though the latency is a lot lower than something like VNC, it isn't intended as a solution for pushing a game's graphics over a network. Steam in-home streaming is a much better option for a local situation like that and you can use it rather effectively with non-Steam games by just adding them to Steam manually. You can also toss in programs like Windows Explorer or the components of an office suite to do something productive via Steam as well. In the end though, I do agree that remote access to a gaming PC from another PC is a layer of complexity that isn't typically necessary although you can, at least in theory, run a headless gaming desktop that way.WinterCharm - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
Steam has a built in game streaming solution that works perfectly for this. You don't need Windows Remote Desktop. You just use Steam's game streaming.29a - Thursday, February 14, 2019 - link
Steam does what you want.JoeTheDestroyr - Thursday, February 14, 2019 - link
I wanted such a thing and couldn't find it. I enjoy the laptop form-factor for playing games in my comfy chair in my living room (and no, for the last time, I don't want to use my tv, I use that for other things).In the end, I had to make it myself. Grabbed a dead laptop off ebay, ripped out the guts, and replaced it w/ a Chinese board off ebay that could drive laptop lcd panels from a DP connection. Made my own usb keyboard controller using a Teensy. Even added a class D amp + USB audio to drive the laptop speakers (which sounded like garbage until I used a calibration mic + Equalizer APO to clean it up).
JoeTheDestroyr - Thursday, February 14, 2019 - link
Stupid no edit:...enjoy the laptop form-factor for playing games in my comfy chair in my living room, but got tired of the ridiculous markup (and simultaneous lack of performance) on gaming laptops. And I don't care about portability, just "lap-ability" (moving it from a table to my lap, and back).
watersb - Friday, February 15, 2019 - link
Dang. That sounds like my kind of game. :-)