GL502VM (7th Gen Edition) and eGPU Question

[Jellyfish]

Hello, first time here in the forum.

I bought a GL502VM (7th Gen CPU) a few months back, saw the advertising for Thunderbolt 3 support and was moved to purchase it. Recently I have been thinking about purchasing an eGPU dock to connect a GTX 1080TI, however while browsing through the ROG forums I came upon discussions that the GL502VM may not support full Thunderbolt 3 speeds at 40Gbps, some claimed that the chip only supported up to 20Gbps. Before I spend a large amount of money on the XG Station 2 I need confirmation of whether the GL502VM is capable of completely running at full bandwidth.

Thanks for any help!

[marceloh]

Congratulations!

I hope you have great sessions of gaming and your laptop runs cooler, especially considering your laptop GPU (GTX 1060) will be at idle.
Do not forget to undervolt your CPU, to reach even better temperatures and get a better gaming experience.

Cheers.

[Jellyfish]

marceloh wrote:
Congratulations!

I hope you have great sessions of gaming and your laptop runs cooler, especially considering your laptop GPU (GTX 1060) will be at idle.
Do not forget to undervolt your CPU, to reach even better temperatures and get a better gaming experience.

Cheers.

Thank you for the tips, cheers!

[Jellyfish]

For XG Station 2 owners, the box comes with a really short Active Thunderbolt 3 cable, length approximately 30cm, meaning your XG Station will have to be placed side by side to your laptop.

To avoid the situation of heated winds blasting at me during my gaming sessions (unless it's winter then I don't have to turn on my heater), I have attempted to purchase longer cables. I have selected these for testing:
[Certified] Cable Matters Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) Cable in Black 6.6 ft / 2m (Thunderbolt 3 device co...
Cable Matters SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Type A to B Cable in Black 6 Feet
These cables will allow my XG Station 2 to be placed up to 2 meters from my laptop.





Tests and benchmarks:
Conclusion? It works like a charm!
XG Station 2 and GTX 1080TI were recognised instantly upon plugging the cables in.








Furmark Test: (this program is able to detect the GTX 1080TI inside the eGPU, unlike 3DMark which doesn't)




Scores well above expectations 😮 Looks like the 2M Thunderbolt 3 cable is Active and supports up to 40Gbps transfers.

Have been doing a stress test for 12 hours as of now, and no disconnections have been observed, this is awesome news.

Persisting problems:
Remember when I mention if I disable the internal GPU (GTX 1060) and leave only the eGPU (GTX 1080TI) to output to my laptop monitor, I am unable to access Nvidia Control Panel.



I peered at a forum that has done 3D Mark testing with the XG Station 2, and they mentioned that to get the full functionality of the eGPU, one must connect the GPU to an external display (not feed the visuals back to my laptop monitor like what I am currently doing). Might do a test for that in the future to confirm it.

[StarJack]

Jellyfish wrote:
For XG Station 2 owners, the box comes with a really short Active Thunderbolt 3 cable, length approximately 30cm, meaning your XG Station will have to be placed side by side to your laptop..

Thanks for all this Jelly, it's very much appreciated. ASUS obviously got things right with the VMK even though it can be a bit hot. I was probably too critical in the past with regards to the TB3 issue but I just didn't have the information and could not really find it anywhere. It's nice to know I can squeeze some more life out of the laptop down the road.

Overall, for me, I am very pleased with my GL702VMK. Love it. I have had no issues with it whatsoever other than the well known heat issues but I've learned to deal with that and can keep my rig in the low to mid 70's C in most gaming situations now. I travel with the laptop in a backpack everyday and it's been nothing but a pleasure to use and not one problem since I received it.

Still an ASUS fan,
StarJack

[itags]

Hello

Good day.

I bought a new laptop last July 22, 2017 here in Dubai. To my surprise, I encountered very concerning events as below:

1. When I used my newly bought laptop, it prompted me to register the unit. So when I tried to register it, an error popped up saying something like "..the serial number is already registered" where in fact I have just tried for the first time to register it. Further, when I browse my newly made asus account, i found out under the "my product menu" that the serial number was already there listed but the model number is FX502VM and the date of purchased is on July 21, 2017. I complained it with the store where I bought it and they advised me to contact the service center here. Accordingly, the service center is telling me that there must be some sort of a server error. And they even said that I might entered the wrong date of which I was sure that the system date of the laptop plus the encoded date during my first time registering attempt is July 22, 2017. So, the service center just told me to visit the center in order to check the laptop and assure me that it is not a refurbished one by just scanning the barcode and checking few of the connected parts like hard disk, etc. and comparing it in the actual laptop. So that time I just accepted it but telling them to resolve the issue why it happened that my serial number was already registered and the wrong model number and date of purchased.

2. After a few weeks, my roommate commented that my touchpad is noisy, especially when tapping it (observed August 11, 2017). I have not observed it since I am using always a headset plus I'm frequently using mouse instead of touchpad. So I brought again to the service center for them to check last August 13, 2017. By August 16, 2017, the service center technician called me and informed that he tried to replace the pad but it is still having clunky noise. He even told me that he tried to replace the keyboard as he suspect it might be the cause of the clunky noise/sound but still the issue persists. So I told him that I will just take back the unit. When I reach the center, he showed me two other laptops of the same model to demonstrate that they have quite similar issue. So they told me that if I want, I can choose from the other two laptops which has a minimal noise. But since that is not my goal, I decline. My point here is that, by today, I went to some other malls to check and found out in JUMBO store a similar model to my laptop and have no clunky sound. I have a video of that however, I don't know how to upload.

In view of the above, I would like to know if somebody has similar issues and how you can help me. I invested on this machine because by specs it is very good. however, because of the above issues, it seems that the service center of ASUS is not even that technical competent to solve the problem even the no. 2 issue which only needs to be solved by actually checking a new touchpad not connected yet in a laptop if it has a clunky sound. Plus they are only showing another laptop of which I don't know if it is a brand new since it is already out of the box when they compared it. My point only here is justice for my money. They will not even want to replace me with new unit since the second complaint is already past 7days from the date of purchase. And for the first issue, they are also hesitant to replace that time. They even said that what if I want replacement, but the same thing happened that the serial number is already registered what will I do.

Any help on the above would be highly appreciated.

[Jooze]

Thank you.

[BoutTime]

Congratulations! Would be good to see some Firestrike benchmarks using both the internal GTX 1060 and the external GTX 1080 Ti!?
I gather G-SYNC doesn't work on the laptop screen when using an e-gpu?

[Jellyfish]

BoutTime wrote:
Congratulations! Would be good to see some Firestrike benchmarks using both the internal GTX 1060 and the external GTX 1080 Ti!?
I gather G-SYNC doesn't work on the laptop screen when using an e-gpu?

I can do a 3DMark Firestrike in a short while (have to set it up on the laptop). What I can confirm right now is, with the internal graphics card (GTX1060) disabled and fully relying on the GTX1080TI to output the screen, I am not allowed to access the Nvidia Control Panel. The solution right now is activating both the internal graphics (GTX 1060) and the eGPU (GTX 1080TI) and manually select which programs will utilise which GPU. Also, G-sync does not work on the laptop screen when using an eGPU itself alone.

[BoutTime01]

Wow....I figured it was quirky but not that quirky! Cheers.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[Jellyfish]

I laughed at the results, looks like I need to do more tweaking to get firestrike fully working with the eGPU.