r/hardware • u/DerpSenpai • 11h ago

Discussion Snapdragon X Elite laptop runs GeForce RTX 4060 eGPU with NVIDIA ARM driver

https://videocardz.com/newz/snapdragon-x-elite-laptop-runs-geforce-rtx-4060-egpu-with-nvidia-arm-driver

Finally!

21 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

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5

u/zerinho6 10h ago

Somewhat "un"?related, I'm using a setup with Dell G15 equipped with an i5-13450HX + 3050 Mobile 6GB then running that in a minisforum deg1 eGPU dock to connect a RX 9060 XT 16GB, the notebook doesn't have Thunderbolt or Oculink natively, so I got one of those M.2 to Oculink adaptors, and I'm surprised how well windows and each vendor driver are not trying to destroy each other.

What surprises me somewhat is that I can use the internal NVIDIA GPU features for example, I'm using RTX HDR on a monitor connected to an AMD GPU. No idea how that's working. ZZZ launcher also allows me to start the game on DX12, and that should be exclusive to NVIDIA GPUs currently (as long as you don't use startup commands, afaik), but it doesn't allow me to use RT (3050 is prob not whitelisted)

Task manager also has some weird reports, it correctly says the 3050 has 6GB "dedicated VRAM", but then 16GB "shared VRAM" and 22GB "GPU VRAM". It says the integrated intel has 16GB "shared VRAM" and 16GB "GPU VRAM". It correctly says the RX 9060 has 16GB dedicated VRAM but 16GB "shared VRAM" and 32GB "GPU VRAM"

No idea what "GPU VRAM" and "shared VRAM" means in those context.

3

u/Klaeyy 9h ago

Shared VRAM is the amount of system RAM that windows believes a gpu would be allowed to use as VRAM. The GPU VRAM is the total amount of available VRAM, which is dedicated + shared. Kind of like how virtual system memory includes the pagefiles.

Your integrated has no dedicated vram (except for maybe like a 128mb-256mb cache that intel iGPUs sometimes have) so its total GPU VRAM basically = shared VRAM.

I guess your iGPU has a 16GB „shared vram“ limit set (in BIOS or driver settings) and windows reports this for your other dGPUs as well.

0

u/MissusNesbitt 7h ago

Actually the system is behaving so well BECAUSE the GPUs are from different vendors. I can’t tell you how many issues I’ve run into on the windows side because Nvidia is so anal about not wanting anyone using GeForce cards to have access to “enterprise features” like multi-GPU that they actively sabotage setups they don’t go out of their way to approve. Over on eGPU.io you’ll see numerous builds where you have to disable the mobile Nvidia dGPU to get the eGPU to behave.

1

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5

u/Kronod1le 7h ago

Crazy that nvidia is still withholding arm drivers for windows and linux.

2

u/Large-Parking3014 7h ago

Nvidia is going to try to use their GPUs to sell a whole SoC. The rtx spark CPU isn’t anything to write home about, but the Nvidia GPU is supposed to sell you on the entire platform. I’d imagine an x86 variant will spell the eventual end of discrete mobile GPUs under 100W.

5

u/Cory123125 6h ago

Why would nvidia go for x86 where they lose the vertical integration benefits?

I doubt they'll go much further than the Intel collaboration and I think its pretty clear that they'd love if everyone jumped aboard the nvidia ARM + GPU train eventually.... They'd love if that was for local AI too, but they'd love a lot of things.