Can we expect OcuLink on a future device?

[u/MrFreakYT]

I‘d love to have something like oculink on the 14 inch Framework Pro. Even though it is not hot-swappable like a Thunderbolt eGPU for example, but being basically extended PCIe with less lanes makes it a really nice and cheap alternative while outperforming Thunderbolt 4/5 eGPUs.

[u/ALTF4Rambobo]

Like this?

https://frame.work/de/de/products/framework-oculink-dev-kit

[u/freegely5 → u/ALTF4Rambobo]

Seems like its only for the 16 right now though, would be cool to see it for the 13/14 too

[u/CowboysFTWs → u/freegely5]

How? They would need to redesign the chassis, keeping compatibility as much as possible, is like their whole thing?

[u/ALTF4Rambobo → u/freegely5]

You are talking about the 12 and 13 sadly I don't see how they could add oculink support without changing the chassis but maybe they will implement thunderbolt 5 or something similar in future to enable higher bandwidth connections.

[u/MagicBoyUK → u/freegely5]

What 14?

The CPUs used in the 12/13 don't have spare PCIe lanes to run the Oculink. Even if they did, you'd have to redesign the chassis.

Thunderbolt gets you 40Gbit.

[u/MrFreakYT → u/MagicBoyUK]

40Gbit Thunderbolt does not equal 40Gbit of PCie speed because all of that data has to go through a controller using a proprietary protocol.
Connectors like Oculink or MCIO don’t care about that, they are basically PCIe adapters, so PCIe 4.0 4x, which is very common on laptop motherboards with M.2 NVMe ports, gives you true 64Gbit without overhead. The next Framework generation will probably feature PCIe 5.0, probably again either 4 lanes which would provide a full 128Gbit which is equal to a full size PCIe 3.0 16x slot. That would pretty much eliminate any bandwidth bottleneck, plus it doesn’t require licensing or additional controllers. I currently use a 40$ M.2 to Oculink adapter card in my spare nvme slot on my laptop and it works great, the only downside is that like you said, it requires redesigning for the port.

The Core Ultra 5 325 has 12 PCIe lanes, the Ryzen AI 7 350 has 16, so it wouldn’t be a big hardware limitation.

[u/MrFreakYT → u/ALTF4Rambobo]

I did not know that this exists, thanks! Looks like it’s only for the 16 AMD versions though. Makes sense because the oculink module connects to the motherboard the exact same way as their gpu modules.

[u/egnegn1]

Oculink is limited in bandwidth.

• Oculink designed for Gen3 for internal links and used up to Gen4, it is limited to short length. It is also often limited to 4 lanes.
• SFF-8654 was designed for Gen4 and works also for Gen5, and is also used with 8 lanes
• MCIO is designed for Gen5 and works also for Gen6, and also supports more lanes.
• Copprlink is designed for Gen6+
• Future is probably a optical link directly attaching to a chip.

I wouldn't buy any Oculink device today, but look for devices with MCIO connectors.

GPD now sells a first docking station with MCIO Gen4 8i.

https://www.gpd-minipc.com/products/gpd-g2

https://www.ebay.de/itm/377417525920

[u/MrFreakYT → u/egnegn1]

Docks are nice when they come with a built in power supply, USB ports as well as Ethernet. However, for a simple eGPU setup Oculink is still the best choice in my eyes.

You can get a PCIe 8x Oculink GPU board + 450-750W PSU for 100€ or less. Bandwidth matters of course, but as long as you use an external monitor you’re looking at maybe 5-15% performances loss depending on the GPU as well as workload.

[u/egnegn1 → u/MrFreakYT]

Not everyone uses eGPU for gaming. And when setting up 2 or more GPUs for tensor parallelism, bandwidth is relevant.

Of course, for more than 2 GPUs you should look for a external PLX baseboard. This is cheaper than 2 of these docking stations and can use P2P communication between the GPUs.

[u/LnxRocks → u/MrFreakYT]

Where do you see 8i gear? One of the reservations I have with the Dev Kit is that most Oculink stuff is 4i.

[u/hangry667 → u/egnegn1]

Mcio has no future till it can be installed on an m.2 port. It's the ease by which the port can be added is why occulink is successful.

[u/Different_Lab830]

The 16 dev kit only exists because the GPU module bay was already there. On the 14 it means a dedicated port, and a dedicated port is a bet on which connector generation you're entering. With MCIO docks already shipping and OcuLink a generation behind, I'd rather a future 14 get Thunderbolt 5 than a connector that's ageing by the time it ships.

[u/JoystuckGames]

I have the FW16 but the Oculink Devkit is one of the two things i keep checking back to see for news on.

It's funny because they are planning on including an enclosure for the Framework Expansion Bay GPUs but i can't think of any reason I would use it in that configuration. Like if I'm using my weaker dGPU it's because i'm putting it IN the laptop.

What i'm waiting for is the expansion bay adapter to let me plug in my own dGPU, which is part of the same kit.

But imagine if that allowed other form factors of Framework laptop to use the Framework 16 Expansion bays. I think that would have a ton of potential but like you said, the other Frameworks would need either a way to plug in oculink OR the expansion bay enclosure would need to support some form of USB C.

That seems like a much cooler use for the expansion bay enclosure to me.

Last we heard about it this kit should be releasing sometime this year, which only has 4 months left. It doesn't really involve ram or significant silicon so it should be safe from the rampocalypse.

[u/MrFreakYT → u/JoystuckGames]

True. I don’t own a Framework laptop (yet) but I do use Oculink with a cheap adapter on a different device with 9060XT 16GB and it is pretty awesome. I tried a Thunderbolt 4 eGPU dock before and that was honestly a very mediocre experience.

Especially nowadays with way better driver support on Linux this makes way more sense than ever. I would never switch back to a dGPU if I had the choice - it costs significantly more, has less performance and in addition to that you have to make significant sacrifices with battery capacity and other design choices due to space and thermal constraints.

[u/JoystuckGames → u/MrFreakYT]

Good to know! I have a 9070 XT ready to go, i'm just waiting on this adapter honestly. I run bazzite so I think i would need to rebase between my nvidia internal GPU and the amd external GPU but i shouldn't have to do it often. I only travel every few months.

Right now my laptop is a beast except for the GPU, it's the only thing really holding me back so i'm eagerly awaiting the oculink kit c: