How fast is mini PCI Express?

[Charlie A]

Also, how does it compare to a full sized PCI express in terms of data rate (bandwidth)?

Bonus question, is there a SIMPLE way to figure out how much bandwidth a GPU will require?

Is a mini PCIe adequately quick enough to use a GPU as a peripheral?

Finally, is there any way to make a mini PCIe work fast enough to be as good performance as a GPU on PCIe 8x or 16x, like a super fast cable or something?

 

[Charlie A]

My CPU isn't really slow at all, AMD A10 5750m, as far as I know this is on the higher end of laptop CPU's and is on a parcwith the laptop i5's.

 

[bignastyid]

Even with the fastest desktop apu a gtx 960 or a r9 380 are the fastest gpus I reccomend and the 5750m is a fair bit slower than the desktop A10s. Honestly i dont think you are going to get enough of a performance boost to justify the cost and effort.

 

[Charlie A]

Well if the setup doesn't work for me I can always keep the GPU and PSU for building a desktop. I wouldn't be willing to sell my laptop because that is believe meore faff than this.

The help has been really overwhelming, thanks guys for all the advice and information, I will have a think, but I am much more informed now.

 

[TJ Hooker]

My CPU isn't really slow at all, AMD A10 5750m, as far as I know this is on the higher end of laptop CPU's and is on a parcwith the laptop i5's.

Hate to break it to you, but that's not a high end mobile CPU by any means. It's about on par with a low power mobile i3 (the ones with a "u" at the end of the CPU name). Something like an i5-6440HQ or an i7-6700HQ (the kinds of CPUs a gaming laptop might come with) would blow it out of the water. That CPU would be a major bottleneck to something like an R9 390.

 

[Charlie A]

http/cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-4700MQ-vs-AMD-A10-5750M

Here, my CPU is only just beaten by an i7 that appears in £1200 laptops, quad core, 3.5 GHz boost, what more do you need? There is no point going overboard on a CPU for most games and I've never had issues with it before. I'll stick by that.

I could probably over clock it to 3.8 if need be, but my CPU shouldn't be a bottleneck with boost.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Yeah, CPUBoss is pretty useless. They do claim to base the scores on benchmarks, but there's no information on how the benchmark scores are converted to the CPUBoss score, and it seems pretty arbitrary. See here for some actual benchmarks.
Your CPU: http/www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-A-Series-A10-5750M-Notebook-Processor.92882.0.html
Low power i3: http/www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i3-6100U-Notebook-Processor.149441.0.html
Full power i5: http/www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i5-6440HQ-Notebook-Processor.149422.0.html

Scroll down to the CPU benchmarks. Skimming them, it looks like even the i3 beats your CPU by at least a little bit across the board. The i5 smokes it.

Let's put it another way. The closest desktop equivalent to your CPU is probably the 860k. But the 860k is a newer architecture and clocked slightly higher, so it's better than your CPU. The 860k is considered an entry level gaming CPU, and shouldn't be paired with anything higher than a GTX 960 or R9 380 (and even then may bottleneck a bit).