Nvidia rolls out external GPU support for Nvidia Quadro
Watch Nvidia's partners for workstation-class USB-C/Thunderbolt enclosures.
Laptops are getting lighter and thinner, which flies in the face of the need for more powerful graphics processing, at least for professionals. Powerful mobile workstations are heavy. They've long been supplemented by external GPUs to deliver extra power when docked, so at least your laptop is up to the job some of the time. But eGPUs traditionally use consumer graphics cards, which tend to be optimized for gaming.
Now Nvidia's delivering support for enclosures with its line of Quadro workstation GPUs, which will deliver not just a much-needed speed boost for graphics professionals, but beef up 10-bit support for their OpenGL-based applications. The timing is unsurprising: Nvidia only recently began offering drivers for the Mac, and Apple added eGPU support to its upcoming MacOS High Sierra operating system update.
And speaking of drivers, Nvidia is also releasing a new driver for the Titan X to deliver better performance. The Quadro workstation enclosures will only be offered through Nvidia's partner resellers, starting with Bizon, Sonnet and One Stop Systems/Magma, starting in September.