- That might've even been like one frame per second.
In this box is a graphics card.
A graphics card that goes into an M.2 slot.
Over the years, we have covered a lot
of weird, obscure
and downright puzzling computer hardware
and it's pretty safe to say this is no exception.
Now, I'm sure that ASRock Rack here didn't intend
for this to be used for gaming.
But I'm equally sure
that we're going to do it anyway
or die trying.
Just like I'd die if I didn't tell you about our sponsor.
War Thunder is an online military vehicle combat game
that's free to play and lots of fun.
Try it for free down below
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(upbeat music)
Now, on the surface, you might look at these two and go,
"What could they possibly have in common?
"They look nothing alike."
But if we dig a little deeper,
they're not so dissimilar after all.
This is an RTX 2080 Ti
and its core ingredients are a GPU,
memory, power delivery,
a PCI Express interface with your computer
and, of course, output
so you can connect a monitor
like HDMI and display port.
As for the ASRock Rack M.22 VGA,
well, there's your GPU,
a Silicon Motion SM750.
It's apparently got the memory built-in on package.
A whopping 16 megabytes of DDR1.
There's your power delivery right there.
There's your PCI Express interface.
So M.2 might look a lot wimpier than this
gigantic connection over here
but actually, this is capable of a four-by-link,
whereas that's a 16.
Although this one runs at one-by,
so a little less bandwidth.
And finally, this right here happens to be exactly
the 15 pins you need
for a good old fashioned VGA monitor connection.
That's right.
We're going analog, baby.
Let's go ahead and find our M.2 slot.
Now, the confusing thing about this product is
that everyone seems to be confused
about this product.
It's listed on Silicon Motion's website
as being for gaming machines,
but then it's got a 300 megahertz clock
with no dedicated 3D engine.
So I'm looking at this thing going,
"What are you?"
Looking at the accessory package,
this is curious, there's actually
a second VGA header-to-back panel adapter here
but the only difference seems to be
that it has a different height PCI bracket.
That is an extremely inefficient way to do that.
They could just include a second bracket
and you can swap it yourself
like oh, I don't know,
every other card that includes that.
Also, I missed this before.
Yet another thing that is analogous to our graphics card.
You've got your power input.
Boom, look at this!
It might be a little wimpy, 12 volt one
but you got your little power input over here.
Power in!
Let's go!
Gaming power!
This is one of those times when I really
just have no idea what to expect.
Like, is this just gonna fire up or what?
One thing I do know for sure is
how refreshing this water is,
lttstore.com.
Hello, hello!
Hello, wake up!
The more you hit it,
the more likely it is to start working.
One other idea.
We could plug in the other end of that power connector.
Hello!
Hey, there you go.
We'll never know which was the solution,
hitting it or plugging in the power adapter.
Really straight forward.
I mean, how does this thing even show up, okay?
Microsoft basic display adapter driver
just immediately works.
Okay, it's a little chug-a-lug-ally.
I don't know whether to blame the VGA adapter
or the display but it's been a while
since I've seen a computer monitor
that refreshes so slowly
that you can see the window kind of jello-ing about
with your naked eye.
You see that?
Maybe it'll help if we install the drivers.
Man, I forgot how crappy VGA look...
Oh!
Oh, that's actually a lot sharper.
Okay, Silicon Motion KDOD-SAMP.
KDOD-SAMP.
Oh my God, this driver's from 2017.
I think it's not quite as jello-y either.
No, it's still pretty jello-y.
I lied.
It's bad.
You see that?
Minimizing a window.
You can watch the animation
so that's neat.
Why don't we start with
just watching a YouTube video?
It defaults it to 480p.
On our connection speed, that is not a good sign.
Let's see if it can even handle 1080.
This is 1080 but can you tell
that this looks like absolute dog (bleep)?
There it is.
Look at this.
Our poor Ryzen 3 3300 X is
at like 35-40% usage watching this video.
There's clearly no GPU acceleration whatsoever
and this looks horrible.
Wait, I completely forgot about this
because I haven't dealt with it in so many years.
It's probably that the color depth
in Windows is set so low
that it can't display this properly.
I mean, I still remember back in the day,
downloading certain types of pictures
and having them not look right very good
and be very, you know, color bandy and...
Let me just say that you kids today,
you've got it pretty good.
Oh my God.
It defaulted to 64Hz on the monitor.
What kind of number is that?
I'm a little weirded out here
because it says we're at 8-bit color,
which should be lot for a YouTube video
to playback properly,
but it also says that we're running at a refresh rate
of one Hz.
And then, if we go into the display adapter properties,
it says we're at 64 Hz.
What is it?
Is it one or 64?
I don't even know how to change
this setting anymore.
Supposedly, we are running at 32-bit color depth,
"true color."
You can especially see it in dark objects
like Dennis' clothes here.
See that?
This is what I'm talking about!
All right, then if it's not good
for watching YouTube videos,
maybe it's good for gaming.
Why don't we kick things off
with some good old fashioned DOOM Eternal?
I mean, Steve from Gamers Nexus is always saying like,
"it can run on a toaster,"
and...
This toaster, it's only good for toast.
That's definitely one-and-a-half watt warm.
Okay, maybe DOOM Eternal was a bit of a stretch
but what about Black Mesa?
Ooh.
City Skylines, maybe?
Did you see that?
Did you see that "failed to install" error
and then it's like, "Oh, by the way,
"you're playing the game"?
We don't got no MSI afterburner for this, boy.
Okay, now hold on a second.
Is this game running?
Holy bananas.
It is actually rendering.
I would describe the performance more in terms
of seconds per frame,
rather than frames per second.
I'm gonna pan the camera.
Let's give it a...
Give it a second here.
(murmurs)
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Look at it go.
That might've even been like one frame per second.
Hmm, no, that was more like two seconds per frame
right there.
This is crazy.
What I want to know is if it's rendering
on CPU or something.
So you can see it's still registering
that I'm moving the mouse around
but it's not getting the clicks.
Change the resolution, 640x480,
let's see how many seconds per frame we can get here
or how few.
Oh my God!
Well, it's awful.
You know what though?
It's way more responsive.
Oh!
I'ma build some roads, ladies and gentlemen.
Like what?
I'ma pave some streets.
I got a bridge, yo!
Now, I wouldn't describe this as a great gaming experience
but it's running.
It's gaming.
I'm a gamer now, boys.
Not that I have much hope
but I do want to try a game
that's a little bit more reliant on
a higher frame rate than a city builder.
Fire up Rocket League.
That is multiple frames every second.
Oh my God, it's running.
Look at this, you guys.
Look at this!
The only GPU in this computer is this one right here.
That's it!
No movie magic.
Wow.
And I'm still counting it,
but can it run Half-Life 2?
You want to play some Half-Life 2?
Holy banaynays.
That's freaking crazy.
Wow, we are actually getting darn near the same FPS
the PlayStation Four gets in Cyberpunk.
Whoa, hold on a second.
We've gotta pump the brakes here.
After doing a little bit more digging,
it's become apparent that what is in fact happening here is
we're using a feature that has been around
since Windows 7 called "WARP."
"WARP" allows any Direct X title
to actually offload the rendering to the CPU,
so effectively enabling software rendering
without us even knowing about it
whenever there isn't a 3D accelerator present.
So, as it turns out,
all the games that ran on this were running
directly off of our processor
rather than the GPU.
This also explains why games
that don't use Direct X,
like DOOM maternal, for example,
which uses Vulcan,
simply didn't open at all.
You learn something everyday, don't ya?
As for what you would actually use a product like this for,
the fact that it's under ASRock's "ASRock Rack" brand,
that would indicate it's intended
mostly for server use.
So maybe you've got a server
that has no onboard graphics
or defective onboard graphics...
Or actually, another great example is
if you were trying to diagnose a broken PCI Express slot,
that would rule out the CPU's PCIE controller,
maybe for mining.
So let's say you wanted all of your GPUs
completely focused on computing or whatever else
or your application runs into bugs
if you try to have it outputting to a 2D display
and also running compute,
well, something like this acts
as a basic 2D display
and doesn't take up one of your PCI Express slots.
So it has a purpose
and actually worked way better than I expected,
but it's still definitely a niche item.
As for the cost, we actually don't know exactly what it is
but if the competition is anything to go by,
we'd expect somewhere in the range of like $65-75,
which, if you've got a use for it,
seems pretty reasonable,
especially given that, well,
it really does actually work
and it doesn't even run warm.
I could hold my finger here all day.
In fact, my hands are kind of cold.
I could warm them up,
just like I'm warming up to the idea of telling you
about our sponsor.
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If you guys enjoyed this video,
you might also enjoy my investigation
into a RAM-slot-to-SSD adapter.
Yes, my friends.
What?
Oh, we actually thought of one more use for it
while we were packing up.
I remember two gamers, one CPU
and couple's PC and stuff like that,
this would be absolutely perfect for allowing us
to just reassign, using Unread,
our gaming GPUs to our virtual machines
and then just use this for our basic output.
It doesn't even take up a PCI Express lot.
Freaking cool.