| Mobile PCI Express Module | |
Reference design of a first generation MXM-II card for 35 mm GPU | |
| No. of devices | 1 |
|---|---|
| Style | Serial |
| External interface | no |
Feb 08, 2017 ASRock has announced a new mini-STX motherboard with an interesting twist, as the H110-STX MXM motherboard offers support for current MXM (version 3.0b, up to 120W) mobile graphics cards.
A Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM) is an interconnect standard for GPUs (MXM Graphics Modules) in laptops using PCI Express created by MXM-SIG. The goal was to create a non-proprietary, industry standard socket, so one could easily upgrade the graphics processor in a laptop, without having to buy a whole new system or relying on proprietary vendor upgrades.
- 7List of MXM cards
Implementations[edit]
- Clevo has been utilizing fully standardized MXM cards on most of its high-end notebooks for over a decade.
- MSI uses standard MXM on almost all recent GX and GT series laptops. They provide excellent BIOS support with MXM structure and have had the largest number cases in which a laptop was upgraded beyond specification.[citation needed]
- Alienware has been using MXM on almost all notebooks. Since being bought out by Dell, they use MXM (3.0) on all of their notebooks excluding the M11x and the M14x.
- Dell has used MXM on its Precision series starting from the M6600 and M4600. Before that, starting all the way from the Precision M40 in 2001 the modules were Dell proprietary. Starting from the Precision xx30 series the MXM slot was dropped again in favor for the proprietary Dell Graphics Form Factor (DGFF) slot.
- HP uses MXM for most of its Elitebook Workstation notebooks (15–17.3') and workstation blades with a Q3000M GPU, with a K3100M due in February 2014 (outdated information 2018-04-16). Modern Elitebooks are using completely standardized cards, while in the past they were proprietary. HP also used MXM on the Firebird HTPC and HDX Dragon.
- Lenovo uses MXM 3.0 based Nvidia Quadro cards (the M620, P3000, P4000, and P5000) on its current ThinkPad P71 17' workstation notebook. They also used MXM on the ThinkPad P70, their discontinued 17' workstation line (the W700(ds) and W701(ds)), and some IdeaPad series notebooks. None of their implementations are compatible with other cards due to BIOS/vBIOS and possible electrical routing issues[1]).
- Apple used MXM cards for their 20' and 24' iMac desktop computers. As with full-sized PCIe GPUs, the cards must be capable of accepting the installation of Macintosh firmware in order to work with Macintosh drivers.
- Most AcerCore 2 Duo era notebooks with discrete graphics cards support MXM. Since the i5/i7 chipset, only 1 Acer model has been released with MXM.
- Quanta has a number of MXM notebooks, but compatibility with other MXM cards is questionable.
- Shuttle has an MXM SFC, the x100, that is MXM compatible.
- Asus utilizes non standard MXM modules in most of their laptops, with a reversed pin on configuration on most MXM 2.1 models (since MXM 3.0 they are no longer reversed) and nonstandard PCB shape and mounting.
- Compal Electronics' (I)FL90 series uses replaceable MXM. Compal is also the original design manufacturer of many Acer laptops.
- Toshiba uses non standard (i.e. proprietary) MXM on many of their laptops, but have produced some standard cards.
1st generation configurations[edit]
What Is An Mxm Slot
Smaller graphics modules can be inserted into larger slots, but type I and II heatsinks will not fit type III and above or vice versa.The Alienware m5700 platform uses a heatsink that will fit Type I, II, & III cards without modification.
| MXM Type | Width | Length | Pins | Module Compatibility | Thermal Compatibility | Max. Power | Max. GPU size [2] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MXM-I | 70mm | 68mm | 230 | I | I | 18W | 35 mm² |
| MXM-II | 73mm | 78mm | 230 | I, II | II | 35W | 35 mm² |
| MXM-III (HE) | 82mm | 100mm | 230(232) | I, II, III | I, II, III | 75W | 40 mm² |
| MXM-IV (Deprecated) | 82mm | 117mm | 230 | I, II, III, IV | I, II, III, IV |
2nd generation configurations (MXM 3)[edit]
Smaller graphics modules can be inserted into larger slots. Heatsink mounting remains the same for type A and B modules.
| MXM Type | Width | Length | Module Compatibility | Thermal Compatibility | Max. Power | GPU memory bus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MXM-A | 82mm | 70mm | A | A | 55W | 64-bit or 128-bit |
| MXM-B | 82mm | 105mm | A, B | A, B | 200W | 256-bit |
MXM 3.1 was released in March 2012 and added PCIe 3.0 support.[3][4]
Module compatibility[edit]
First generation modules are not compatible with second generation modules and vice versa.First generation modules are fully backwards compatible.
Standard availability[edit]
MXM is no longer supplied freely by Nvidia but it is controlled by the MXM-SIG controlled by Nvidia. Only corporate clients are granted access to the standard. The MXM 2.1 specification is widely available. The initial 3.0 technical brief (not the actual spec) can be found here. The 3.0 Electromechanical specification can be found here
Compliance[edit]
A common misconception about MXM is that certain models of graphics cards (e.g. Nvidia GTX 980M) 'is MXM 2.1', and therefore any notebook with a GTX 980M fully implements MXM 2.1. However, this is incorrect. While Nvidia defines a lot of MXM specifications, they do not manufacture or design MXM cards themselves, which mostly consist of a PCB with vRAM and an Nvidia or AMD GPU core. Therefore, any model of GPU can be manufactured in MXM, but a laptop released with any particular graphics card model may or may not implement MXM regardless. This is because it is the decision of the ODM whether or not to implement MXM, not Nvidia's or AMD's.
List of MXM cards[edit]
What Is An Mxm Slot Card
MXM 3.x cards[edit]
| Vendor | Name | Released | MXM Type | GPU | Architecture | Core config* | TFLOPS (FP32) | TDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD | FirePro M5950 | Jan 2011 | Type-A | Whistler XT | Terascale 2 | |||
| FirePro M4000[5] | Jun 2012 | Type-A | Chelsea XT GL | GCN1 | 512:32:16 | 0.69 | 33W | |
| FirePro M5100 | Oct 2013 | Type-A | Venus XT | GCN1 | 640:40:16 | |||
| FirePro M6100 | Type-B | Saturn XT GL | GCN2 | 768:48:16 | ||||
| FirePro W5130M | Aug 2014 | Type-A | Tropo LE | GCN1 | 512:32:16 | |||
| FirePro W5170M | Tropo XT | 640:40:16 | ||||||
| FirePro S4000X | Venus XT | 640:40:16 | 1.0 | 45W | ||||
| Radeon Embedded E6465 | Oct 2015 | Type-A | Caicos | Terascale2 | 128 | 20W | ||
| Radeon Embedded E8860 | Type-A | Cape Verde XT | GCN1 | 640:40:16 | 0.8 | 37W | ||
| Radeon Embedded E8870[6] | Type-B | Bonaire Pro | GCN2 | 768:48:16 | 1.4 | 75W | ||
| Radeon Embedded E8950 | Type-B | Tonga XT | GCN3 | 2048:128:32 | 3.0 | 95W | ||
| FirePro W6150M | Nov 2015 | Type-B | Saturn XT GL | GCN2 | 768:48:16 | |||
| FirePro S7100X | May 2016 | Type-B | Amethyst XT | GCN3 | 2048:128:32 | 3.0 | 100W | |
| Radeon Embedded E9260[7] | Sep 2016 | Type-A | Polaris 11 | GCN4 | 896:56:16 | 2.5 | 50W | |
| Radeon Embedded E9550[8] | Type-B | Polaris 10 | GCN4 | 2304:144:32 | 5.8 | 95W | ||
| Radeon Embedded E9172[9] | Oct 2017 | Type-A | Polaris 12 (Lexa) | GCN4 | 512:32:16 | 35W | ||
| Radeon Embedded E9174 | Type-A | Polaris 12 (Lexa) | GCN4 | 512:32:16 | 50W | |||
| Nvidia | Tesla M6 | Sep 2015 | Type-B | GM204 | Maxwell (2nd gen) | 1536 / 96 / 48 | 3.0 | 100W |
| Quadro M520 Mobile[10] | Jan 2017 | Type-A | GM108 | Maxwell (1st gen) | 384 / 16 / 8 | 0.8 | 25W | |
| Quadro M620 Mobile[11] | GM107 | 512 / 32 / 16 | 1.0 | 30W | ||||
| Quadro M1200 Mobile[12] | 640 / 40 / 32 | 1.4 | 45W | |||||
| Quadro M2200 Mobile[13] | GM206 | Maxwell (2nd gen) | 1024 / 64 / 32 | 2.1 | 55W | |||
| Quadro P3000 Mobile[14] | Type-B | GP104 | Pascal | 1280 / 80 / 32 | 3.1 | 75W | ||
| Quadro P4000 Mobile[15] | 1792 / 112 / 64 | 4.4 | 100W | |||||
| Quadro P5000 Mobile[16] | 2048 / 128 / 64 | 6.2 | 100W |
Mxm Module Card
*Unified Shaders : Texture Mapping Units : Render Output Units
External links[edit]
- [ MXM Upgrade] - Site about MXM, with a table of some MXM laptops, detailed upgrade procedures and MXM cards for sale, no longer updated.
- [1] - Nearly complete list of Acer laptops implementing MXM.
- ^http://ridingtheflow.blogspot.ru/2011/04/is-thinkpad-w701-mxm-kind-of.html
- ^Klaus Hinum (2012-05-26). 'Notebook Video Card Upgrade / Replacement'. Notebook Check.
- ^'MXM Standard 3.1 is the new one (Up from 3.0)'. NotebookReview. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^'MXM Graphics Module'. www.mxm-sig.org. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^'AMD FirePro M4000'. TechPowerUp. Retrieved 2018-07-22.
- ^https://www.amd.com/en/products/embedded-graphics-high-performance
- ^'AMD E9260'(PDF).
- ^'AMD E9950'(PDF).
- ^https://www.amd.com/en/products/embedded-graphics-power-efficient
- ^'TechPowerUp'. TechPowerUp. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
- ^'TechPowerUp'. TechPowerUp. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
- ^'TechPowerUp'. TechPowerUp. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
- ^'TechPowerUp'. TechPowerUp. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
- ^'TechPowerUp'. TechPowerUp. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
- ^'TechPowerUp'. TechPowerUp. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
- ^'TechPowerUp'. TechPowerUp. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
Mxm Type A
What Is An Mxm Slot Software
I am building a low power mini-itx system and I want to use a MXM card in a PCI-e slot. So I am looking for a PCI-e video card that accepts a MXM daughter.
I found this MSI product from 4 years ago, but I can't find anywhere to buy it, and I only need one MXM not two:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/features/view/43518
I also found this Liantec product, but it appears to use something called a PCI-e extension slot which I can only find on Liantec boards:
http://www.liantec.com/product/tbm/TBM-1610.htm
A PCI-e host card seems like the obvious choice for what I want to do. But if anyone knows of some other solution for using a MXM card in a mini-itx desktop I am open to new ideas.