Reddit mentions of Akitio 131385 Node Pro (Thunderbolt3 MacOS and Windows Certified)

Sorry for my delayed response too - this got lost in the pile so to speak. I loaded my Amazon cart up with $4,200 worth of goodies to save so I can link some options for you. Now, you're not going to get around having both the AGA cable and a TB3 cable going to your laptop. What you can do, however, is combine the electronics of the TB3 enclosure and the AGA into a small to mid size tower chassis if you don't want two separate boxes on your desk. There's pros and cons to that and it's a lot of work and takes a bit of skill but it's been done.

​

I'll break these down into two categories: enclosures that support a GPU and those that do not. The main difference is a) size and b) PSU capacity. If you went the route of hacking both the AGA and TB3 into the same enclosure you'd negate both of those and gain some extra flexibility.

​

GPU Capable:

1. HP Omen Accelerator. This is a fantastic device with unique styling. Not only does it support a larger than typical GPU but it has a slot for a 2.5" SATA drive, onboard gigabit NIC, 4x USB 3.1 Type A, 1x USB 3.1 Type-C, 500W power supply. This is a personal favorite of mine but tends to be pricy - currently on sale for $230 from $300 HP Omen Accelerator
   
2. Asus ROG XG Station 2. This also has unique styling but has a smaller footprint than the HP Offering. 600W power supply, onboard gigabit NIC, 4x USB 3.0. Way overprice at current listing for $549 Amazon
   
3. Razer Core X. 650W PSU, No extra connectivity $299 on Amazon
   
4. Akitio Node Pro- Compact size designed for portability - it has a carry handle on top. 500W PSU, Display Port for adding an extra monitor, and extra TB3 port for daisy chaining. $321 on Amazon
   
   Not GPU Capable - these are all much smaller in size
   
   
5. Akitio Node Lite - Display Port for adding an extra monitor, and extra TB3 port for daisy chaining $210 on Amazon
   
6. Startech TB3 Expansion Chassis - Display Port for adding an extra monitor, and extra TB3 port for daisy chaining $237 Amazon
   
7. OWC Mercury Helios 3 - Display Port for adding an extra monitor, and extra TB3 port for daisy chaining $199 Amazon plus 15% off coupon
   
8. Sonnet Echo Express - extra TB3 for daisy chaining, $199 Amazon
   
9. Sonnet Echo Express-III-D - This is a beast! It has 3 PCIe 3.0 slots which offers some pretty interesting possibilities especially for someone that works with lots of large video files. This one might also support a GPU. Has extra TB3 for daisy chaining, $899 on Amazon
   
10. Magma ExpressBox 3T - This also has 3 PCIe slots $999 OneStopSystems or $1099 Amazon
    
    ​
    
    I don't have any of these but I sure wish I did. Hope this helps...took a while to put together this list! The expensive units with the 3 extra PCI slots would allow you to add in extra NVME drives - either Intel's PCIe slot based drives or standard M.2 PCIe drives on a riser card. EIther would do the trick. I don't know how much data you work with but this would also allow you to add in 10gig ethernet to high speed data transfer to network attached storage or to add in a SAS / SATA controller and have an external storage array. This would allow you to have dozens of terabytes of high speed and data redundant storage.

Here was my shopping list,

-PCIe eGPU enclosure for the WiGig card

-Thunderbolt3 (active) cable

-Vive Wireless Adapter with Vive Pro addon

-Spare battery with 20000mAh Qualcomm QC 3.0


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077YCR5LC

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H5QF1GO

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N0X3NL5

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GKHNBCT

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GY7JZP4



I read about 2 dozen posts around the internet covering the topic of using the wireless adapter with external configurations for laptops. Many people had mixed results and I was hesitant to try it myself but I needed to figure out if it was possible regardless since there wasn't any clear answers.


I ordered the items that made the most sense to me in terms of price and quality. The eGPU enclosure I got was the most attractive and had a carry handle which I liked considering my intended use for this setup was going to be mobile. I went with an active Thunderbolt 3 cable due to the fact that it "should" in theory provide a better signal from the eGPU to the laptop. Finally, I got a spare battery based on the reviews that said the included HTC battery didn't last long and took forever to recharge. The battery I got was recommended by others in the reviews who said they had a Vive Wireless kit.


Once I got all the items I did the setup and fired up the Vive. Right off the bat it worked perfectly. With that said, some of the mixed reviews I was seeing from others trying the eGPU setup had commented on FPS stuttering/lag when moving your head and I did experience this slightly although it was intermittent at times. I also had a brief random moment where everything pixelated pretty bad as if the graphics suddenly got toggled to 1990 Nintendo mode.


In the end I was able to determine the following,

1. It is possible to run the Vive Wireless Adapter on a laptop.
   
   
2. The hardware of the laptop is an important factor in having a smooth experience with this setup.
   
   
3. Some tweaking and configuration work will need to be done to get a smooth FPS. Still a WIP for me to get the level I'm happy with.
   
   
4. Some games may not be optimized enough to offer crisp visuals.
   
   
   My testing of this setup was with an Alienware M15 and M17 both with i9 CPU, 2080 RTX, 32GB RAM, and x2 NVME M.2 SSD. I have an older Alienware 17 R5 I plan to test with soon to compare results.
   
   
   Most importantly, what I noticed in my testing was that there's some graphical loads that will bog down the FPS and cause slight stuttering and it's not yet fully clear why. For example, while in SteamVR home room area there was a few key spots that when I looked directly at them it would cause stutter if I moved my head left and right slowly but if I opened the Steam menu which added a transparent overlay on top of what I was looking at the stutter would go away completely even though I could still see the same thing behind the overlay. I read a lot of people tweaking SteamVR settings to smooth out the FPS and I have yet to get the time to fully dive into that part but I suspect it will likely work out to resolve the issue.
   
   
   The alternative setup I was wanting to test was getting the Alienware AGA enclosure and testing to see if that provided a better out of the box solution without tweaking settings. I found some people saying it didn't work at all and others saying it did. Considering the cable connection is different it still has me curious, as I believe the cable connection over the AGA is using an identical pipeline/bandwidth as Dell docking stations.

I wish I did that before I purchased this. It still randomly disconnects, so I'm going to return it. I highly recommend this site and I ended up settling on this eGPU enclosure which is $40 cheaper than the Lenovo Graphics Dock and will accommodate my 980TI nicely.

Occasionally, the Akitio Node Pro pops back in stock on Amazon. It might be a good enclosure to drop your 1070 in.

As for a laptop, you'll want to pick one out with Thunderbolt 3 as a necessity. What other uses do you want to use your laptop for besides gaming? Have you checked out or asked on /r/SuggestALaptop/?