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I want a way to connect a graphic card like nvidia or amd to raspberry pi do you think has a way to do that?

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It's probably not exactly what the original question had in mind... but technically, it is possible to connect graphic cards to the Raspberry Pi using a bus it provides, namely USB.

However, it seems unlikely that it will be possible to get an improved performance over the embedded GPU. It is also noteworthy that there might be significant issues with such cards and the typical Linux OS on the Pi - in terms of finding appropriately supported drivers, see:

With the Raspberry Pi 4 released we now have USB 3.0 Gen 1 with an ideal world transfer speed of 3.2 Gb/s which could support a higher end graphics. The graphics cards could be cheaper than the adapters though so it may not be financially viable... but possible!

The Pi 4 does also now supports h.265 which offers dual 4k monitors being attached.

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    Yea i completely agree with this answer. If the Pi ever get a USB3 upgrade.. you never know?! right. Then a whole lot of new things will make sense. +1
    – Piotr Kula
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 14:29
  • @PiotrKula, well now there is a Pi4 with USB3 but then again its internal GPU supports dual 4k.
    – Ghanima ♦
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 6:41
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Graphics cards are usually connected via PCI or PCI Express bus. The Raspberry Pi has no such bus. It has a built-in graphics card, however.

It's fast enough to run Quake 3 :-)

Edit: Actually, there are USB graphics cards by DisplayLink, see http://plugable.com/2014/03/06/displaylink-usb-2-0-graphics-adapters-on-linux-2014-edition I don't know if anyone has gotten them to work with the Raspberry Pi, however.

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  • I am sure its not that diffucult to get it working. By worst case scenario it will just show up as a software screen capable of basic 2D. But on USB2 that is about the limit any way.
    – Piotr Kula
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 14:31
  • The new Pi4 got PCIe 2.0... but it is not exposed on the PCB for additional cards to be connected. It is just used to connect the USB-3.0-Controller - the VIA Labs VL805.
    – Ghanima ♦
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 6:43
  • Getting nVidia/AMD PCIe GPUs to work on non-Intel will be a big effort
    – neuhaus
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 6:49
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I originally flagged this as being, possibly seriously, Off-Topic but technically there is a further method that make it possible to connect a graphics card to the RPi and have the latter generate content that is displayed on the former. It is called, *inserts drum-roll*: "X11" and is what is involved when you run an X server on your PC Desktop (which has the Graphics Card in it) and connect to your RPi via ssh:

First, you will want an Xserver running that the RPi can connect to. If you already have one running like I do on a Linux Desktop then you are set to go. Other OSs like those from Redmond in the USA are more work but Cygwin may be of use (though I cannot recall whether the XWin server is there or in the CygwinPorts testing part). The Mac platform, also being a *nix derivative may also have something that will work but I'm not an expert on those.

Next use ssh with the -Y option to enable "trusted X11 forwarding" so that the latter are not subjected to the X11 SECURITY extension controls (which thus become a possible security hole, there may be safer ways to achieve the same linkage). ssh has the bonus that with the -Y option it will normally configure the correct value for the DISPLAY environmental variable but in some cases you might have set it with something of the form: export DISPLAY="Desktop PC name""Display number" e.g. using who I found my Linux Desktop PC was at 192.168.0.26 so this, using the default number becomes: export DISPLAY=192.168.0.26:0.0.

Now you can run GUI commands on your RPi and they will appear on your PC desktop as if they were running on the latter (though they will not be as responsive) and they will be using your Desktop PC's graphics card...

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I'm sorry to disappoint you. But there's no way to do that.

The integrated GPU is not upgradable.

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  • @kiumarskhaleghi: that's never going to happen. It wouldn't even make sense.
    – Jacobm001
    Commented Jan 25, 2016 at 21:50
  • Wellllll.. never say never! If USB 3 comes in next Pi package.. it will be possible. 5GB/s bandwidth will allow this. So... Even now with USB 2 it is possible.. but its so slow it wont help.
    – Piotr Kula
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 14:27
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    The problem isn’t just bandwidth, it’s also latency. USB3 doesn’t necessarily solve that. If you want upgradable GPUs, you need a system with PCIe slots.
    – Chris Hanson
    Commented Mar 6, 2016 at 22:51
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    Depending on what you're rendering, latency may not be such a big problem. Basically, a "graphics card" is a co-processor to which you send commands and data for it to process. The Pi has several different options for connecting to another unit and sending it commands and data, including USB, GPIO and (usually) Ethernet or WiFi networking.
    – cjs
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 0:36
  • no good solution, and impossible are not the same thing. It is possible, there are caveats to the solutions, such as latency, and bottlenecks.
    – j0h
    Commented Feb 17, 2019 at 11:31
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Even if you could get an AMD, which I am not saying is possible, you would be stuck without drivers since the GPU providers most likely do not support ARM drivers.

There might be a way to hack the hardware to use an external graphics, but again, the lack of driver support makes such a hack near impossible.

Sorry mate. There are pi alternatives you can try http://pine64.com/ which is a 64-bit based micro computer which comes up to almost twice the specs of a RPi2.

Good luck and happy hunting mate!

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    If you're smart enough to hack the hardware to use an external graphics card I assume you're smart enough to write your own drivers ..
    – Lonefish
    Commented Jan 25, 2016 at 20:41
  • I'm really doubtful of pine64's validity... That looks far too good to be true.
    – Jacobm001
    Commented Jan 25, 2016 at 21:54
  • pine64 is not out yet... its all in the backer board.. once they ship the product, then we can talk about it. Until then, it doesn't exist.
    – Piotr Kula
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 14:32
  • Well we will see, I know its not out yet but is planned to be shipped in may this year, so its not too far away.
    – Mitchell Urgero
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 15:58

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