External Graphics Cards (eGPUs) - What Everyone is Forgetting
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- eGPUs are always being marketed as the ultimate solution for laptop users, but companies aren't being fully transparent about the limitations of an eGPU setup.
In this video, I explain why an eexternal graphics card is not for everyone.
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I'd love to hear your thoughts on this so please leave a comment below. As always, if you enjoyed the video, please click like, share, and subscribe :)
Thanks guys.
Kevin
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Alright Kevin.
Great video. I was recently looking into having a flexible setup of a laptop combined with an eGPU and came to the same conclusions you have. Even if I’d managed to get the right laptop, CPU etc. It was just going to be so cost prohibitive compared to a much more powerful desktop.
I’d recently built an i9 machine with an NVMe boot drive and 32GB RAM for under £1000, extra editing/storage drives, capture cards and GPU are obviously an extra expense. When I looked at something similar as a laptop spec the price was just insane and obviously not as powerful. Plus, the storage and capture options for a laptop are either limited or none existent and the GPU power with a laptop and eGPU combination would never be as good as a desktop.
You’re right, for certain people the laptop and eGPU will be a great option but if you’re doing serious editing/production work and/or high end gaming, you’re best option is a desktop system which will be cheaper and more powerful. I’ve no doubt that the laptop/eGPU combo will one day be as powerful, maybe more, as a desktop.
BTW. Talking about mobile gaming. Have you ever tried a smartphone connected via DEX? I recently bought a Samsung A90 5G for £350 direct from Samsung with a trade in of an old iPhone 5 for £50 and right now they’ve got a cash back offer for the same phone that works out at £320 without the need for a trade in. This phone is 6GB/128GB and weirdly not only has 5G but a Snapdragon 855. The Snapdragon basically makes it more powerful than any UK bought S10. It’s cameras aren’t as good etc. and it’s screen res is lower but is still a HD+ Super AMOLED. It’s basically a less specified but more powerful Note 10+ or similar, for almost a third of the price right now.
Anyway. It’s the first A range phone of Samsung’s to have DEX compatibility and with the 855 and its GPU it’s not only a great phone for gaming but when you dock it with a £20 Amazon DEX compatible interface, it becomes a serious desktop game machine for certain games that allow gamepad control. I’m proper old school and can’t play with keyboards and mice :)
Seriously, with certain games it feels like at least a PS3 but with 1080/60P. I’m just trying to find a good cooling solution for it as a desktop game machine. I’m not into playing on such a small screen or with touch but maybe in the future the smartphone will take over as the main gaming platform with the ability to dock and go mobile.
I’m gonna do some videos next week about this A90 and do some examples to start putting content on my other channel. Check out this video of COD mobile with a gamepad on DEX ruclips.net/video/ew62jzHt0Cg/видео.html
Cheers,
Dave.
I'm out just now, but I'll check that video later.
I usually only play basic games on my phone, but that may change in the future if folding screens become popular.
I mainly play on my PS4, gaming laptop or PC. Like you, I prefer the controller. I've been using an Xbox controller with my PC etc.
I did used to play with the keyboard and mouse years ago, but I'd have to relearn it all now as it's been so long.
My gaming laptop is pretty good at video. I paid about £1600 or so for it and it has a 2080 max Q for gaming. 4K screen too, but that does cap the refresh rate at 60.
I need to spend a week clearing a lot of old equipment out. I've been putting it off for ages because of how much time it takes to actually sell it all.
A gaming laptop powered by a RTX 2060 costs $1500.
A non-gaming laptop powered by a i7-1065G7 + EGPU set up GTX 1660 (more powerful than RTX2060 mobile based on benchmarks) costs $1000 - $1,200. Not to mention a whole lot of other choices of Video cards that are way cheaper and on par in terms of power with an RTX2060. That doesn't sound Cost Prohibitive to me. Don't forget the portability.
A gaming laptop is only good for portability. If you’re playing or doing anything with a computer in one place at home, a desktop will always be way more powerful compared to a laptop at any given budget and the desktop has many more choices.
I’m not reading this dude.
Continued listening because of the accent.
haha thanks.
Me rhe same😂🤣😂
@@trtrhr its probably Dutch
What accent?
@@arealscotsman 😆
I've used an EGPU laptop setup now for 2+ years and it has been a versatile, awesome nightmare overall. I'm a photographer/videographer who also games in my freetime so i'm frequently switching between laptop/desktop and it's extremely efficient for my field work. But when it comes to gaming, there are only a handful of games that don't crash frequently. I'm tech savvy, I've done everything and have optimized a minimal setup with the most basic driver configuration and sill get issues under load in games. The bottleneck in an egpu setup is unavoidable and this bottleneck will behave very differently in video games. General rule of thumb is to strip away anything that increases this bottleneck (not only to the cpu but to the power supply).
Quick tips for people who have an eGPU: consider upgrading to an apple thunderbolt .8 cable, if your egpu has any ports other than the thunderbolt...dont use them, turn kernel DMA protection off, if your egpu comes with software that manipulates the lighting...dont use it, always install the most minimal version of your updated graphics drivers (amd allows the option to install the "driver only"). If your laptop comes with any internal graphics, turn it off in device manager when using your egpu, and finally I strongly recommend you do a fresh windows 11 install before you buy your new gpu.
These changes have made games that were previously unplayable, crash every few hours and have dramatically increased stability of my other games. I play plenty of titles on max settings without a crash for hours on this setup. I have also never had a crash within windows or editing/exporting huge video files. The crashing is only an issue while gaming.
Dont buy an EGPU setup unless you need one, and if you still want one, get ready to NOT have anything work properly out of the box. It will take lots of time and tweaks to get everything nice and stable.
Great advice there Daniel.
I bought an eGPU eventually just because I was curious about it all (and wanted to cover it on my channel). It's sitting gathering dust though.
I've not faced the same issues you have though with my laptop or main PC. Still, there still isn't great support for them.
You just saved me such a headache. I didn't think about this problem and you did an amazing job explaining the challenge and why an external eGPU would not work for me. For real, you just saved me money and time in returning everything as well as all that frustration. I feel a weight has been lifted.
You're welcome Adam. I do have an eGPU, but planning on returning it as I never use it. Much better to just have a dedicated gaming laptop.
Good points here. From my experience I noticed that gaming on a eGPU was okay at best. Typically lag spikes would occur often enough to frustrate anyone. With that being said I didn't originally buy the eGPU for gaming. I am a 3D artist, and at the time I had a gaming laptop with Thunderbolt 3. I decided to get a $200 (at the time) eGPU enclosure from Sonnet and a 1060 for it. My use case, and the best use case I have found is using it for extra GPU compute for rendering in CUDA accelerated applications. Or as a display adapter for 3D Modeling to handle extra poly counts. This use case works since its not having to update the screen non-stop like it would in games.
To me if you're a 3D artist and want extra performance from your TB3 enable laptop then go for it. I am about to do the same thing for my work office so I don't have to drag my desktop workstation around. But that is my two cents.
Hi @ncl3rdy2, do you mean it's not a bottle neck of the tb3 when using 3d apps?
I'm considering to buy a tb3 rtx2080Ti egpu for using Sketchup and other 3d rendering apps, but many people told me don't buy high end GPU for egpu box, they said it's waste performance, since they r all talking about gaming, but this still make me confuse 😢
Bryan Barajas So use a high end egpu (like 2080ti or titan) for 3D modelling & rendering , and it will not reach the bottleneck of tb3 that case waste the gpu performance? 😍
Very good point Bryan. Plus it's important to remember that all computers need to have CPUs, memory, storage and GPUs working in harmony.
Having a super powerful eGPU setup won't mean your computer can suddenly run everything as you'll still be limited by other components (CPU in particular).
Bryan Barajas Tks🙏🙏🙏
Kevin Muldoon tks everyone 🙏
70 % is more than enough of not using any graphics for video editing, since my company is limited with Thinkpad laptop
I wanna buy one for grafico design for college you recommended for this kind of work ?
@@magus9553anything is good for such task or get the 4k x1 carbon if your style is leaning towards color sensitive BUT it's bad at low brightness perhaps dell xps? That screen is perfect for color sensitive person
There is no free lunch. Sure a desktop is always better, more powerful and cost less, but you can't bring your desktop to the coffee shop, or on the plane to your oversea trip. For some people, the portability and flexibility of the laptop and eGPU dock setup would worth far more than the 20% bottleneck.
Wow you’ve actually just helped me save nearly £900 which would have gone into buying a razer core x chroma and an rtx 2080, but now it’s all going towards a tower. Cheers Kevin :)
You're welcome Janandos.
I think for most people, opting for a PC or a more powerful laptop is the way to go.
@@KevinMuldoon But Kevin! Do you have to buy an eGpu why not buy an exp GDC?
That is another option. It's not something I've tried myself though. It certainly changes the economics of it all.
I think I might get one with the intention of putting the gpu in a tower im going to have built eventually anyway
That's the logic I have as well. I'm not ready to build a full gaming rig yet but will inevitably use the GPU in it one day
One thing to note is that for if you already have decent laptop and plan to build a decent gaming PC with limited budget, good but cheap eGPU adapter like TH3P4G3 from EXP GDC is a viable options. As long as:
- your local market have a decent demand for second hand eGPU adapter.
- you already have rough spec for your build.
- you're comfortable buying one or two part at a time. Rather than saving for one big purchase.
E.g with budget of roughly 350 USD a month I can buy corsair 1200w platinum + rx 6700xt + TH3P4G3 within 2 month. Enjoy decent gaming performance in my work laptop (T480) while slowly buying up other parts for my final build, with CPU and Mobo as last purchase to ensure future proofing. After which I plan to sell the adapter.
Granted, this is very specific case that came about due to our weak currency (IDR) making computer parts's price quite unstable.
great video, and extremely ON THE POINT!
thankyou
Thanks P V. 👍
I would say the best part about eGPU os that:
-you can upgrade the GPU when you upgrade your CPU/Laptop
-you can connect the eGPU to multiple laptops at home
-you can buy cheaper, used laptops that only have integrated graphics, so you save money in the long run.
The only negative side is the eGPU enclosure itself, its bulky, you can really carry it around. But for my use it's ok.
Yeah egpus are really big. About the size of an ITX PC.
Cheap laptops aren't always a great fit as you're limited by the laptop's CPU. In other words, you'll not even be able to use all the GPUs power.
You make a good point about connecting an egpu to multiple laptops. That is a really good use case.
Thank you for this video discussion! For the past two months I've been trying to add an external graphics card to my mini pc. I am not new to computers but new to this graphics card business as I am not a gamer. My intention was to help my mini pc (which has Intel UHD graphics) with stretching video over four 1080p 60hz monitors because it studders.
What I learned, and your video speaks of this, is that there are minimum requirements your pc must meet before you can add a graphics card. In my case the cpu is a dismal Intel Celeron N4500. I've not found ANY graphics card that will work with this processor, nor will Nvidia Experience install on the system. The minimum requirements I've seen is Intel G series or i3 processor systems.
Didn't mean to be so long but wanted to explain my situation AND AGAIN TO THANK YOU FOR ADDRESSING THIS OVERLOOKED DETAIL!!
You're welcome. Yes that CPU would quickly become the bottleneck in most situations.
It's something which many companies don't explain. I've seen many computers with basic CPUs and integrated graphics be marketed as gaming PCs, despite their obvious limitations.
@@KevinMuldoon Thank you for reading my situation and replying‼️😎
@tooshort4892 you're welcome👍
Super awesome reminder! Glad I saw this before making the purchase! Thank you! This is an honest reminder amongst all the sponsored videos! In this day and age, we really need honest and earnest ppl like you! Thanks again! And, btw, where are you from? Is that an Irish accent?
Glad you liked the videos Roben.
I'm Scottish 👍
i actually dont mind having my cpu being worse as the main reason i want an eGPU is for blender and blender tends to be GPU intensive
Interesting. What are you CPU and GPU% normally sitting at in task manager?
Even if Blender isn't too CPU intensive, it could prove to be the bottleneck with an egpu (depending on which graphics card you install).
Thank you so much for this! You have been such a big help :)
You're welcome Adro.
Everything in this video is pretty right on. Minus ever being bottlenecked by 16 gb of ram. That just wouldn't happen. And as you go up in resolution you'd see more of a benefit. But yes, I agree it's generally not the best option for your money.
This video is a great help, although I'm also not good enough with technology to know whether or not these limitations apply to my specific situation...so I wondered if you'd mind me asking your advice?
I have a HP pavillion laptop that, since I installed an SSD has always been great for my needs until I started needing it to edit videos on Davinci Resolve. I keep running into trouble due to the GPU being stretched. My laptop came with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050, which I imagine isn't the best for high end video editing.
All the advice I've been given tells me I should basically buy a good desktop computer for all my needs but all the ones I'm recommended cost over £1000 and I just can't afford that. I gather eGPU is still also expensive though I hope less so... but I don't want to splash out on that if it won't work.
I know it's quite a difficult question to answer, but what would your advice be?
I don't think an eGPU is the best approach here as you're a few hundred for the eGPU then you need to buy the GPU too. Plus, at the end, you'll still be limited by the CPU in your laptop.
I would recommend an entry level business or gaming laptop that has a good Intel or AMD CPU from the last two years. For example, a gaming laptop with a 3060 can be had for under a grand.
Now we need the eCPU. Perhaps a combo. That brings up an interesting question. Could you add CPU power through PCIe?
Haha no you couldn't.
In the future, probably. Also most likely to happen cause technology is evolving fast rn.
You can't currently, I think because of bus speeds. Basically, it would delay the CPU's processing too much, hence why it is connected directly to the motherboard socket. But this is an interesting point... could very well happen in the future.
I have Lenovo P50 workstation with 32GB RAM and i7 it is a powerhouse and I agree that a eGPU will work wonders for me gaming on the go... Looking at the AORUS GTX 1070 GAMING BOX by the way as a light weight option to boost gaming and graphics when needed! Thank you so much for the info and your points!
That's an absolute beast of a laptop. It will be great for video editing.
That's the kind of laptop that would fit well with an eGPU as your laptop's CPU wouldn't be a bottleneck in most apps and games.
@@KevinMuldoon Thanks, it is a wonder machine for multitasking and underneath is so easy to upgrade..... 2 M.2 SSD trays , one 2.5 hard drive/SSD slot , 4 slots for RAM sticks just love it ! Was trying to run DCS on the P50 for the last couple of days ,but the integrated graphics are not able to cope to say at least! As I am often away from home I hope that a compact eGPU will allow me to fly with my mates in half decent FPS when not working! We shall see. DCS runs sluggish even on lowest settings at the moment.!
@@conan670431 have you bought one ?
really well explained. Thanks Kevin! Good idea, but I should stick to the workstation/gaming desktop.
I think that's the best option for most gamers 👍
Would you be able to take a few different cards and compare the framerates they give in different games while in a desktop and then again while in an e-GPU enclosure?
I'm thinking about grabbing an XPS 13 and egpu enclosure for just the sort of best of both worlds setup. The 25w limit on the i7-1065g7 in the laptop model XPS 13 puts it at about 10% faster in benchmarks than my current desktop with an i7-4790 so I don't think the CPU will really bottleneck my RX 580 much. What I really want to know is just how much performance is lost to the limited bandwidth of that x4 connection and how much more pronounced that becomes (if at all) as you upgrade the card.
Spent 20 on a PSU, 50 on a 750ti and 25 on a exp gdc adapter for an old laptop, from Intel HD to 750ti on competitive games anyone will get 100 more fps or more
What do you mean by three components?
Your video is good for consideration before buyiing eGPU. However, the critical point is that you need to output video directly from the display card to an external monitor through DP or HDMI. Otherwise, you will not see the great improvement if you just return the image to your laptop monitor.
You could still display on your laptop monitor, but you'll be limited by its resolution and refresh rate.
@@KevinMuldoon that's not at all what this is about Kevin. you mentioned but screen parameters, while the thing with returning the image back to integrated display is that you loose some TB data lanes, which otherwise could be used to feed more input to the eGPU 🤷
I'm not sure how significant the difference is specifically as I never tested that. You'd have to test the HDMI connection directly from your laptop and from your eGPU and then compare the max FPS.
From my experience with EGPU they run very well when you have a decent graphics card, decent cpu i7 (no less) and running it at resolutions of 1440p and 4k for some reason the performance dip is on 1080p there is a big gap on fps. But if you didn't have the FPS counter on you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a egpu and a inbuild PCIe graphics. Where you will see bad performance is if you get a shit graphics card if your Laptops dedicated gpu can outperform you egpus then you need to think about your graphics card choice. I use a macbook pro 15 inch though so the specs tend to be alot better than most PC slim laptops so I haven't had an issue in that regard. From the numbers though its still much cheaper to get a egpu with a decent graphics card than to buy a high spec PC for gaming and video editing etc.
Yeah with my 2018 i9 MBP (with the 560X) I have a 5700xt as my eGPU and I get great performance out of it, i get about 110-90 FPS in shadow of the tom raider with the eGPU and 30 with the dedicated GPU in my MBP
cpu wont necessarily be the limiting factor. it can be but usually it'll be the bandwidth over the TB3 port. 30-40% performance loss is unfortunately common
That's true. The number of PCIE lanes available via Thunderbolt 3 is another major factor.
@@KevinMuldoon just hooked up a 1080 ti to my laptop with this sonnet egpu enclosure and I'm getting just a hair under GTX 1080 performance (and lots of bugs and system crashes). returning this enclosure Monday lol
Sorry to hear that.
From what I've read, the enclosure makes all the difference. There's a lot of software problems with many of them.
You're doing the right thing getting your money back.
Just an fyi! With 12th gen Intel out, a mid tier cpu like an i7 1260p + 3060Ti will only lose you 10 to 15 percent of the performance of an equivalent desktop.
There is an advantage when using intel icelake! thunderbolt 3 on icelake doesnt doesnt go throu the chipset, it runs throu the cpu. this gains more of a precentage of gpu usage through an egpu and thunderblot 3 using icelake! gains are about 20 to 27% higher than normal thunderbolt 3 with egpu!
I was looking at a eGPU for my dell XPS 13 (ice lake i7-1065G7). Do you think it would run efficiently with a 2070 or a 2080?
@@sendymcsend7907 It will perfom very well especially to external monitor.. The only issue some have had is with intergrated graphics causing alot of problems. Simply go into device mng and disable the intel graphics driver and you will be fine!
That seems crazy to me as there few situations where you could use your GPU fully without bottlenecking the CPU.
@@KevinMuldoon yeah. It's a rather resourceful feature when using a egpu throu thunder bolt 3 on an Icelake cpu! anything using thunderbolt on icelake will be alot faster..
I bought Razer Core X recently and connect to my Dell Laptitude 7390 with 8th i7 / 16 ram. There is great difference if I output the video to a external monitor from my RTX-3060 rather than only return video to my laptop display. The FPS has improved over a double even I played 3A gaming.
The critical point is, if you only return image to the laptop screen, I will increase the capacity of the TB3. Based on the factory advice, it will affect around 30% performance drop. So don't worry about the CPU bottleneck if you transit the video to an external monitor.
I can say, the eGPU is good to anyone if their laptop only have an onboard GPU but would like to enjoy gaming or high efficient on graphic works.
Your Dell probably only has a 60hz screen. It's not designed for gaming so will have poor latency and low refresh rates.
I have a Dell XPS 1645 core i7 qm, is it worth to install an external graphic card for it? Thanks
Totally
So basically to sum it up, eGPU’s can boost your laptops but only to a certain extent. And this is because if your CPU maxes out, your GPU can’t increase any further?
Yes, because every application you use will throttle if the CPU, memory or storage reaches 100%.
So you may not even get to use the GPU power you have.
How does the eGPU work with a Oculus Rift S VR? I would like to use it to bring it at a friend's house
Although it could be done using various adapters and dongles, it would just be easier to get an oculus quest. Never tried it myself though.
Upgraded my Alienware M18R2 laptop. Has 2 680m's. Many games no longer SLI so i added a Titan X to my laptop with an external EGPU through the Express port. Direct pcie lane contact. Get 4x in the lane. Yes its not like it would be on a desktop but hell, i now have 12 gb of vram vs 2gb per 680m. Performance is actually great and can run 4k with 60+ frames per second. Now let me say this, the Alienware laptop i have is a full gaming laptop with the 3840QM extreme and 32 gb of ddr3 ram with one m.2 and 2 solid state drives. Not your average laptop
Nice. I'm looking at getting a new gaming laptop later this year. A lot of good options are there.
The used gaming laptop market is good too. I can see the argument for picking up an older model like the one you have.
@@KevinMuldoon I bought this laptop new back in 2013. It has the 18.4 inch 4k screen on it. They dont make those that size anymore. Why I want to keep it and mod it. It's in imaculant shape and I do the maintenance on it. Been building PC's for years.
Yeah most laptops go up to 17" displays, not 18. Sounds like you use it like a desktop. I prefer 13-15" laptops so I can carry them around easier.
Do you think a six-core CPU would bottleneck card with an eGPU?
I got my laptop with a Intel Core i7-8750H in case I wanted to use an eGPU in a few years.
It will still bottle neck in some cases. It all depends on the game though. Some games are more CPU demanding than others.
So.. how to choose the optimum compatible egpu with any old laptop?
Thanks
I guess it depends on how old the laptop is, what games you play, what resolutions and frame rates you want to play at, what your budget is etc.
For most situations, buying a gaming laptop or small pc is a better option.
The CPU must match the type of GPU you plan to use - but as a miner - it really doesn't matter - we don't use the CPU much at all - we want the GPU and it's power! It's a win win for miners - if you have high end GPU's lying around - but the cost now - I wouldn't recommend.
I think things have changed drastically since this video was released. A gaming laptop from 2019 had a CPU which according to the benchmarks performs slightly worse than a CPU from a slim notebook from today.
I bought a gaming laptop at the end of 2019 with an RTX 2080 and a medium to high spec i7 chip at the time. I can manage 60 FPS in Fortnite with max settings and double that with average settings (not the best benchmark I know). I'm now looking at a laptop with no integrated graphics with a CPU that is 15% better than my old one (even though it's not the best one available today, it's still better than what I had due to advances in tech). The laptop is super light, thin with a great battery life (LG Gram 17). Even if I can get the same performance on my new laptop as my old one using an eGPU, I'd be happy enough but looking at the spec, I'm destined to get at least a 50% improvement using a RTX 3080. That's enough for light/casual gamers. It isn't an efficient way to operate but I don't think the CPU gap is an issue anymore for most people who have portability requirements.
Hi Schillaci.
Yes these things do change over time.
Your gaming laptop probably had an Intel Core i7 10875H (8 cores, 16 threads). The 2022 version of the LG Gram 17 has the Core i7-1260P and it does look like it performs better.
You'll be limited to 60hz on that laptop display, but you could hook up a good gaming monitor and an eGPU.
The thing is, now you have a laptop connected to a monitor and an eGPU that is the size of a small pc. I'd rather have a gaming laptop in that situation.
How about the other way round. If you have a CPU like an AMD 7 5800x with a eGPU using Radeon 580X?
The 5800x is a desktop CPU so you'd be better using a regular GPU.
i have a ryzen 5 5600h with a gtx 1650 max-q and need more gpu power on this laptop
Thank you for the opposing argument! I would have spent 1 grand for nothing
1 garand
This guy talk so much sense.
Just recently got the dell latitude 2 in 1 for my school I'm an enginnering student and had a lenovo flex 15 with the mx230 gpu but got rid iof it because I didn't need the internal graphics card. Was planning on using an epu now for other stuff I'm ok gaming at medium or high at 1080p 60fps.
1080p at 60fps is still awesome for most games.
How are you finding the laptop?
@@KevinMuldoon Pretty good it's very small yet the screen is large, keyboard and display size I liked better on the Lenovo but other than that the dell takes the cake. I've only had it for a day now but I can see myself loving it.
@@nedabiahwarner6447 yeah Lenovo keyboards are always great, but Dell laptops tend to be cheaper. Why I opted for Dell too.
I have a Lenovo P72 with a Xeon E2176M, 128GB RAM, and a Quadro P4200M (Max Q) and was able to play Cyberpunk 2077 but it's been struggling with Starfield. No matter how low put the settings or the resolution, it just doesn't seem to have the GPU power to have a good experience consistently.
I've been trying to determine if my setup makes sense for an eGPU and based on what you say here, it sounds like my situation is one of the better cases for one, yeah?
Hi Zalafini.
The Lenovo P range has always been a great business laptop. Xeon CPUs were never designed for gaming, but sounds like it's still doing ok. Looking online, it looks like you get similar performance to an 8850H.
How much CPU are you using when playing Star field? Your CPU is about five generations behind now so there is a good argument for putting your funds towards a new laptop instead.
@@KevinMuldoon Whenever I check my resources when the game is stuttering or doing very poorly the GPU is maxed but the CPU is like 10% or otherwise very low use.
That's really low. In that situation, an eGPU could be a good solution if you're still happy with the laptop. Be sure to factor in the total cost of the eGPU enclosure and the card you want.
Out of Curiosity I have an Alienware M15 R6 with a RTX 3060 GPU and an 11th Gen I7 processor with 32 gigs of ram I was interested in an EGPU and you said you also have an M15 what would you say is the performance boost on your laptop? I Was looking into get an RTX 4080 with an EGPU but I am afraid that the bottlenecks that'll occur would not be worth spending $1200
Hi Jonathan.
There's a few things to consider.
First thing to note is that there hasn't been any new egpus for a few years, so whilst new desktop GPUs may use pcie 4, you'll be using pcie 3. I think the drop in performance is similar at about 20-30%. So you could get 80% of the power of the 4080. There are some other factors to conside there such as the thunderbolt throughout etc (plus I'd look at others that have this setup to verify the numbers as I'm guestimating here).
Depending on the 4080 card you buy, you may have to manually replace the PSU in the egpu so that supports the card. So that is a potential cost (though something you would check before buying the egpu or the GPU).
In the UK, it would be around £150-£250 for the egpu (if buying used) and maybe £1,000 for the GPU (could be more).
You'll get good performance with that. I suspect the CPU could be a bottleneck in many games, but it could be a quieter solution that just using the GPU in the laptop.
There are pros to this setup, but I'd rather sell the Alienware laptop and put the £1,200+ towards a new gaming laptop. You'd get a 13th gen Intel CPU (or AMD equivalent), a better display and a newer mobile RTX 40 series GPU in the laptop. It's a more portable solution too.
For me, that's the better option as you're upgrading everything, not just the GPU. Gaming laptops are all about balance between the CPU, GPU, display and fans etc. A newer gaming laptop will give you better performance across the board.
If you already have a desktop 4080, well, an egpu is a great way to boost the performance from your laptop.
Thanks.
Kevin
I have a intel core i5-5200U 2.20GHz 8gb ram, I would also like try to upgrade my graphics card to a GTX 750. I’m only planning to play older games on it though. Do you think it’s necessary for me to upgrade?
It depends on the famed you are playing. That's a very old dual core CPU at this point. There's a chance your phone is more powerful.
What type of games are you thinking of playing?
glad I watched this video before I bought the razer egpu
I'm actually selling my Razer eGPU as it has been gathering dust a long time.
Apparently 10th gen CPU has TB3 built right into the CPU bypassing the TB3 controller now which makes eGPU performance better. What do you think about eGPU now?
I'll need to look into that more.
It does sound like a good improvement, but how does this affect bandwidth and performance?
Assuming everyone needs a laptop for work, study, play, whatever, an eGPU setup is cheaper than buying a laptop and a desktop.
That is the reason Thunderbolt eGPUs have become so popular. A dedicated performance desktop is a luxury most people can't afford, and a gaming laptop has limited portability.
So at the end an eGPU is the best solution, assuming you already use an Ultrabook.
And a TB eGPU gives up 20% performance, not 70% as you claim.
You misinterpreted what I said. I said you get around 70% performance. That's a drop of 30%.
If you have a laptop already, then an eGpu may be a viable solution, but there's still many factors to consider. You'll be 300 bucks for the egpu and several hundred for the GPU at least. That's 1000 bucks right away and you'll still be limited by the CPU in the laptop unless it's 8+ cores.
I have an eGpu myself. It's good in some situations, impractical in others.
@@KevinMuldoon Starting with Intel 10th Gen which has integrated Thunderbolt directly to the motherboard for reduced latency, performance gap has been drastically reduced, it's actually less than 20% if you game on external monitor. (Source: Jarrod's Tech)
A completely barebone used TB eGPU Case ($150-200 US) + RTX 3060 ($329 at msrp) / older 2070/1080 (even more affordable) = ~$500. (ignoring the scaling price increase)
The cheapest laptop suitable for an eGPU - Good cooling with TB4 port - are HP Envy or Lenovo Ideapad/Yoga 7 laptop which costs $800 msrp for 16GB model, less with a discount.
So total estimate $1300 for a RTX 3060 gaming setup, with the advantage of ultrabook portability. I would say that is affordable.
There is also another solution, a M.2 eGPU that connects to a M.2 PCIe slot (for tech-savvy people). This allows for 1. less cost, 2. reduced bandwidth compared to TB4, and 3. compatibility with 8-Core Ryzen Zen 3 U15 chips in ultrabooks. (Source: ETA Prime).
Finally, you are forgetting 1 thing, that there are some cheap laptops that come with Intel H35/45 CPU only without the dGPU. These Ultrabooks completely eliminate remaining CPU bottleneck when playing games on the laptop screen. Intel's 11th Generation H-series mobile performance has been a huge jump from before, thanks to AMD Ryzen's performance push.
Haha I haven't forgot about that. I've published videos discussing all of these issues.
Maybe you'll get a 3060 at RRP in the future, but not at the moment given the silicon shortage and demand for GPUs for Cryptocurrency mining.
Regardless, there are many factors to consider. The situation has definitely got a lot better over the last year or so as quad, hexa and octa core CPUs are more common.
In many situations, the CPU will still be a bottleneck, but things are now better now. Bear in mind, however, that gaming laptops are designed with thermals in mind. Something which regular laptops don't usually make a priority.
Thing is, gaming laptops have got smaller now. There's now 13 and 14 ultra portable gaming laptops on the market too.
At the end of the day, you should buy the setup that fits your needs most. You just need to be aware of the downsides of an eGpu setup. Like I said, I have an eGpu and I've used it with my XPS 13, so I know it's great in some situations and not so good in others.
@@KevinMuldoon Wholeheartedly agree! Personally I use a LG Gram 16 2-in-1, which is a light hybrid laptop with a big screen. So TB eGPU allows me to game on a 16 inch screen without compromising screen size, and work on a ultra-light, giant touchscreen canvas for design and sketch.
I would say if you want to use 1 device only as a PC like me, an eGPU makes more sense.
For most people though, getting a separate tablet, laptop, and a desktop is probably better, even though that is a bigger investment.
Yeah that makes sense. I guess we need to factor that games we play too.
I'm in a similar situation now. I sold my gaming laptop earlier this year (which had a 2080). I'm keen to replace it with a newer laptop with a 3080.
I already have a gaming pc so it makes sense for me to get something I can travel with.
👍
Not everybody has the space or desire to have a large gaming desktop just to play some games. I have moved from desktops to laptops a decade ago, and yes I have a top of line laptop as I was a programmer before retiring. It has always been that the graphics card always becomes outdated long before the cpu does. My current drive has been upgraded to twice what it was when new and is faster. I have 4 times the memory and I can do databases and programming without a swet, but the built in graphics card holds me back. An egpu is the perfect solution.
I think more modular systems are definitely the way to go in the future.
Hi Bill.
I do agree with you. Everyone has different requirements and don't want a large pc.
I'm going to be buying a gaming laptop again soon. It will let me game, edit videos, code, update websites etc, on the move.
My main pc is pretty big, but it's worth noting that my eGPU is about the size of an itx build. When you add a laptop, the overall footprint is larger. Not to mention the fact the laptop's display is not going to be ideal for gaming unless it's a gaming laptop with low latency and a high refresh rate.
Of course, what a laptop and eGPU gives you is flexibility.
For many people, though, they don't have a suitable laptop for an eGPU. Even if they do, a gaming laptop could be a better option than buying an eGPU and graphics card separately.
After owning an eGPU for years, a gaming laptop is a better option for me right now.
@@KevinMuldoon I believe that will change, I think the they will release powerful cpu 2 in 1 with either upgradable storage and memory or topped out to start with. With that you only need a fairly good integrated internal gpu to handle most tasks. That should also maximize the battery life. Wirelessly network it to you smartfone and your online on the go. Add Bluetooth earbuds or headphones and you have great sound system that doesn't require the 2in1 to have speakers. Heads up glasses eliminates cumbersome monitors.
Alot of this already exists, no one has yet to put them together.
There's been major leaps in CPU performance, but the market is still geared towards desktops. Look at how much larger the new 40 series cards are.
I'd love more versatile solutions to be introduced, but it's always difficult for companies to tick all boxes.
@@KevinMuldoon and the fone industry wasn't geared towards today's smartphones either until a company did it.
@@KevinMuldoon that's the beauty of a modular ecosystem, no part has to do it all, it just needs to do 1 thing great.
I am gonna use m.2 to egpu my m.2 slot is PCIe 3.0 x4 3 I know it’s gonna limit but is it bad as the thunderbolt
It's not something I've tested myself, but there's a good comparison about them here egpu.io/forums/expresscard-mpcie-m-2-adapters/build-m2-vs-thunderbolt/
I already have a dell G5 with a I-7 8750k, 16GB DDR4 Ram, but a 1050ti. Would it be worth it to get an eGpu or just save up for a new PC?
It depends on your needs. Your CPU is still pretty good so it wouldn't be a major bottleneck.
In your situation, there is a good argument for going for an egpu instead.
My budget gaming laptop has a very beefy cpu, but a relatively weak gpu. I wonder if an egpu would be worth, or if the bottleneck from thunderbolt gpu would level it out to just mildly better frame rate.
Your performance from an eGPU will vary between games as the CPU could still be the bottleneck.
You could be edit from it though if the graphics card is the weakness right now. Of course, as technology moved forward, it's sometimes better to just upgrade.
Top notch information mate 😇
How would you go about using egpu without purchasing an epgu enclosure? Is there a bare bones system that I could create? Can I just purchase a gpu and somehow connect it over thunderbolt?
I got i7 3rd gen 8gb ram with GT740m, I also like to try egpu for my laptop, I like to try RX 590 it will work?
I'd be looking to upgrade as that's an old computer, but out of interest, do they have thunderbolt 3?
Something that's been on my mind as of the past 30 minutes is the thought of having an eGPU for my Toshiba satellite which uses a intel i5 4210U 2 core processor and is currently running manjaro linux (might switch distros or return to windows 10 if still possible). The gpu of choice would either be a gt 710 with 2 gb ddr3, pcie 2.0 and hdmi support or a gtx 1660s with 6 gb of gpu memory (can't recall further details because I don't have the box). The built in display doesn't work so I would have an external monitor in use running at 1080p 60 hz. I ran both options through a bottleneck calculator and the bottleneck for the gt710 went as high as over 40% whereas the 1660s didn't go over 6%. Would like your thoughts on if this could possibly be a good idea or if this idea would go terribly wrong :P
A fourth generation dual core Intel CPU and a GPU with 2GB of DDR3 memory isn't going to help you much. I'd strongly recommend upgrading at this point using the money you'd spend on an eGPU. The integrated graphics in modern CPUs would give you better performance than an old CPU and GPU combo.
@@KevinMuldoon appreciate your input, thanks for preventing me from spending a ton of money off some thought I had at 1:30 in the morning lol
Haha no problem. It can be difficult to know what the best option is sometimes.
What's your budget and your requirements? (That is, which apps or games do you want to play).
@@KevinMuldoon I currently already have a fairly decent mid to high range desktop running a r9 5900x paired with a rtx 3080, which can handle whatever I throw at it pretty well. For my laptop, I wouldn't really expect it to do much even with an eGPU (low or medium settings at around 30 fps would be acceptable for me) I kind of just thought of getting an eGPU for the heck of it, since I already have a spare gt710 and a spare gtx 1660s. I'm not familiar with eGPU prices but I'd probably have a budget of $200, assuming I can get an eGPU case alone. Atm im not really interested in having a new laptop unless I could somehow get a 3070 or better on a laptop for $700, which im aware is probably quite unrealistic
I'd take a look at some GPU performance comparisons. The results aren't always 100% accurate, but it will give you an idea of what your old GPU can do against modern GPUs and integrated graphics on modern CPUs.
I suspect the main problem with you is your laptop compatibility. Even if your old laptop has thunderbolt 3, it probably doesn't have the bandwidth support you would like for graphics cards (though less of a concern with an old GPU).
The problem is laptop manufacturers do not make proper laptops for eGPUs. The eGPU isn't the problem, the laptop is. Manufacturers *CAN* make thin and light laptops with high-end CPUs, as long as they don't put in a hot and power-hungry GPU along with it. I have yet to find one that does. Laptop manufacturers, even the ones that have eGPU options, don't properly design their laptops with an eGPU in mind. I want something like an XPS 13 with a 1068NG7 or 4800h with Thunderbolt 3. Even better would be a 10900KF laptop with no GPU with Thunderbolt 3.
You're right.
Most people want thin and light laptops, but that means getting something that is less powerful. So you're going to be restricted by your CPU and the number of lanes available via the Thunderbolt 3 port.
Hi Kevin, really informative video! My question is that will i see appreciable gain from attaching an egpu to my MSI Titan GT76 (Corei9 9900/128GB/Rtx2080) to a Titan RTX for usage in 3d content building and game engine rendering ( unity/unreal)? I personally like the idea of not having to reinstall all the programs and files.
Hi Milty.
Your laptop is a beast. Adding another GPU via an eGPU will give you additional options, but most applications will not let you use both at once (well, that's my experience)
With regards to reinstalling files etc, are you referring to the actual installation software?
Perhaps install the software on an external drive?
Kevin Muldoon in reality I need a lot more vram on gpu for rendering and the titan rtx seems to have triple the memory than my rtx2080 which was a bottleneck during some rendering work before. As for as files, I want to avoid a new desktop entirely because I hate reinstalling my work applications over and over again. I was just looking for some advice if the pros outweigh the cons for an egpu. Thank you so much for your reply!
You're welcome.
Can your application use two GPUs or would you have to choose one?
With regards to installing everything etc.
Have you considered purchasing an M2 SSD enclosure which supports Thunderbolt 3?
With a Samsung Evo 970, I was able to get close to 1,000MBs read and writing via my enclosure. That's much less than what you would get if it was attached to the motherboard, but still good. Plus other enclosures give better speeds.
The idea is that you could install all your apps on the external NVME SSD. 👍
When eGPU is useless: if you didn't have a Laptop and planning to get something to play with games. Just build a PC.
When eGPU is useful: if you already have a Laptop and want to get better Graphics Processing Power.
Edit: The cheapest eGPU you can find is EXP GDC v8.5c. it currently supported nearly all of Desktop GPU with extra Power Cable, Except RTX 3000 series.
Great comment Clay.
I think some people have misinterpreted my video and believe I hate eGPUs. I don't and wouldn't rule out buying one on the future.
However eGPU enclosures remain expensive so when you add the cost of those to a GPU, upgrading starts to make more sense.
That being said, a good thunderbolt 3 hub can cost about £300, so if you're looking for a good hub, maybe it's not that bad.
@@KevinMuldoon actually I'm talking about not using Thunderbolt with any Laptop that only have NGFF or mPCIe. Or some Laptop that don't have Thunderbolt but have Two M.2 SSD slot. EXP GDC is very useful.
In real world, you will always find a Man which his Job require a Laptop but he also wants to play video games. The best Bet to saving money? eGPU of course.
There are plenty of Laptops with Quad Cores but no discrete GPU. Office work by day using iGPU, Gaming by night using eGPU.
@@KevinMuldoon EXP GDC docking is just $35 and can support up to RTX 2000 series.
It depends on the laptop though.
My Dell XPS 13 has a ULV CPU. It has four thunderbolt 3 ports, but an eGPU would be a waste as the CPU would bottleneck with most games.
In contrast, the Xeon based laptop I had was an absolute beast from a CPU point of view, but had no discrete graphics card. To me, that's a better candidate for an eGPU as it's an eGPU powerhouse without any dedicated graphics.
I just had a look at the EXP GDC on Bangood [£31.00 46% OFF][Mini PCI-E Version] V8.0 EXP GDC Laptop External Independent Video Card PCI-E Expansion Card Computer Components from Computers & Office on banggood
banggood.app.link/LMAfDuFJsbb
Obviously, at that price, my point of about eGPU enclosures being too expensive is irrelevant. Pretty incredible that it can be used with 20 series cards.
Nice explanation. I have a dell precision m2800 with an i7 4810MQ quad core and a Amd FirePro 4170m 2GB gpu with 16 gigs of ram.
Do you think that would be a bottleneck For an Egpu? Thanks.
It depends on the game. A lot of laptops are coming out with hexa core and octa core CPUs.
Some games may bottleneck with a quad core, older games may be fine.
I have an old gaming laptop with an excellent cpu but the mxm gpu went bad.(I'm not sure if it's the card or the slot)
I'm not going to buy some fancy external GPU setup because I like the Frankenstein look.
Great video, what if the new Ryzen (8 core CPUs if increased to 20-25W instead of 15) would be inside instead and have a 32Gb setup. Would this setup be able to run a VR Game ? What do you think?
A gaming PC would cost around 3600 Euros (Ryzen 3950x, RTX 2080Ti, 32GB Ram DDR4 3600, X570 motherboard, cooling and NVME SSD, No monitor or wireless keyboard and mouse), add to it an amazing ultrabook like the the HP spectre 360 2in1 4kOLED (1800 Euros) and it would break the bank (total of around 7500 Euros, if a the monitor was 1000Euros 144Hz, 1ms, 4k, G-Sync, plus Valve Index kit). But this way I would have the best of all worlds :P lol.
While having a powerfull 2 in 1 (Ryzen 4900U for eg.) say 2000 Euros and buying an eGPU would cost an extra of 1500Euros (RTX 2080Ti + Case) that would be saving me lots of money.
That sounds like the perfect combo for me too.
Hi Kevin. You spoke of bottlenecks in your video and an approximate 70% performance reduction; I'm wondering if you could elaborate on this idea? I get that I'm not going to have desktop-like performance out of an eGPU setup, however, if I knew the limitations I might be able to get more value out of the hardware I have. For example: should I simply rule out high-performance GPUs for the sake of not getting the performance? I'd like to think there is a sweet spot where GPU performance on Thunderbolt 3 has the best value.
Hi Aaron.
Your motherboard likely has at three main PCIE slots. There is an X16, X8 and X4. You may have some X1s too.
It is recommended that you put graphics cards in an x16 so that you maximise bandwidth available to you, though you can also put it in an X8 for a slight reduction in performance.
An X16 can go up to 16 GB/s.
An X8 can go up to 8 GB/s.
An X4 can go up to 4 GB/s.
So with a GPU, you're going to get a maximum throughput of either 16 GB/s or 8 GB/s.
In comparison, the maximum throughput of a Thunderbolt 3 connection is 40Gb/s. That's bits, not bytes. So it translates to 5 GB/s.
5 GB/s is obviously lower than the 8 GB/s you get with a PCIE X8 slot and the 16 GB/s you get with the X16.
The Thunderbolt 3 controller is linked to the CPU using four lanes of PCIE, so in practice you only get 4 GB/s (or less). In other words, you're going to get the same amount as an X4.
Thing is, many laptops only provide two lanes of PCIE to the Thunderbolt 3 port, so you're down to around 2 GB/s. Then it's down more if you connect anything else.
In short, it's all about bandwidth, or in the case of the Thunderbolt 3 and GPUs, the unavailability to take full advantage of a graphic card's full potential.
I don't claim to be an expert on all of this, but it's clear there's diminishing returns from spending a ton of money on high end GPUs if you're going to lose a lot of its power.
@@KevinMuldoon
Haha, found the answers I was looking for 3 weeks 🥰🥰🥰🌷🌷🔥🔥😍😍🤗😋❣️
@@KevinMuldoon
Bless you Kevin 🌷🔥👍🥳🥳
Yeah but I have MacBook Pros a 6 core i7 and a 8 core i9. When im gaming my CPU is chilling around 20% load while my GPU is at 95% Why so much eGPU hate the only issue I see is cost ..... which for me isn't an issue at all. BUY BUY BUY
I'm curious as to what games you are playing where you only have 20% usage?
It's worth noting that Apple throttle their CPUs to reduce heat and fan noise, so their i7s and i9s frequently perform poorly compared to other laptops with the CPU. That's not necessarily a bad thing as when you're browsing the web etc, you don't want the fans going crazy, but it is annoying if you need that power.
If money isn't an issue though, go nuts and buy the most expensive eGPU and GPU on the market 👍
@@KevinMuldoon GTA V LSPDFR
@@KevinMuldoon Yeah in my case money isn't a problem. Macs are expensive as hell.
Are you using a low FPS?
I play COD at 144FPS and CPU usage on my hexa core is at 60% to 80%.
I wish I would have seen this video sooner.
Already bought a Core X w/ a 5700XT and realized the poor performance.
Please make another video about this and title it "eGPU Setup" so that more people come across this information. People looking up eGPU set-ups have most likely already made up their minds about purchasing an eGPU.
What processor did you have, did it bottleneck you that bad?
Great video. Thanks for the advice
You're welcome.
With new advancements in thunderbolt 4, pcie 5.0 and usb 4 type c soon coming to laptops in 2022, would speed and bandwidth still cause issues? Price wouldn’t be an issue because it’s written off as business expense.
Thunderbolt 4 operates at the same speed as thunderbolt 3, though new motherboards and CPUs do have more bandwidth.
It all comes down to the CPU you're using.
Nice presentation! Can you give me some advice for the question I have: I have a laptop (Tosiba satellite, intel i5-2410 cpu, window 7 home premium), and the max screen resolution is only 1366x768. For some trading software application, It requires higher screen resolution (e.g., 1920x1080), do you think an eGPU may help? If yes, what model will you suggest? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Considering the age of your laptop, I think it's time to upgrade.
Get a t540 don’t upgrade too much these u cpu throttle bad I have a t430 it was cheap to have a gpu
I don’t understand why the egpu cases are damn expensive
Thunderbolt hubs are quite expensive in general. The part that annoys me is the size of the eGPUs.
I guess I will just build my own gaming pc for the same price..... 600 dollars for the egpu when I could build a full fledged gaming pc for the same price...
The point of a laptop is the convenience of it being mobile which in my opinion is worth the price
@@allbthatmom2153 depend how often you play on the go…
I wish I watched this video before getting an eGPU setup.
It's just crap. DirectX 12 isn't working, drivers are a huge mess, and I get frequent crashes even if I'm not playing a game. And even then, the lag spikes from the CPU bottleneck make modern games unplayable.
Also this stupid thing has the loudest proprietary fan ever and doesn't turn off until I physically disconnect it.
Sorry to hear that. eGPUs are a great concept, but there really isn't a great support for them on the market.
I'd always opt for a gaming laptop small ITX build instead.
Hi Kevin,
I have just over £1450 to get a laptop + an eGPU, I can get a pretty good pc for that price, but i prefer a laptop for movement purposes. What would you recommend?
With the GPU Shortage a 1080ti can reach £800. Not for a budget really. Also got to buy a mouse, some spray paint , monitor, monitor arm, lights and cables.
Let me know what you recommend
Hi Corny.
I have a Razer eGpu. It works well, but if I had around £1,500 to spend, I'd buy a good gaming laptop from Dell or Lenovo etc.
After buying the egpu and a GPU, you've got less money to buy the laptop.
Every situation is different, but for most people I believe buying a better gaming laptop is the best move.
@@KevinMuldoon im looking at better mini pc's they give the best performance, and all i really need is something that can run docs really well with a lot of tabs
There is one more thing you did not say about and it seems important.
Even if you buy that Dell XPS 15 with most powerfull processor some hexacore i7-9750h, you can still get a bottlenect on CPU.
Why? Look at you power brick. It is 130W! Because Dell XPS was designed to be low power ultrabook and producer had to do something with overheating issue. MSI laptops with similar processors does pack over 180W power supplies. The point is, that before buying eGPU think over all aspects of your setup.
Hi Andrey.
Apple have been guilty of promoting their MacBook Pros having i7 and i9 CPUs without telling people they are undervolting them.
I'm not sure if Dell have done the same.
I wouldn't say the 9750H is a low power CPU though. It's 45 watts. That's obviously lower than what CPUs were a few years ago, but it's not as low as the 15 watt CPUs that are used in laptop's such in the Surface range and XPS 13 range etc.
I realise that the XPS 15 is usually packaged with something like a 1660 TI, and the non-maxQ versions use 80 watts. That's actually surprising as the 2080 maxq is 80 watts too and the beefier version is 90 watts.
The power brick in my Alienware M15 gaming laptop is 180 watts. It has a 45 watt 8750H and a 90 watt 2080.
Gaming laptops tens to have higher power bricks for a number of reasons.
The displays generally require more power as they have higher refresh rates. They also tend to have more fans, more usb ports and more SSD slots. All of which require power.
Of course, the number one reason gaming laptops need more power is because they are designed with power in mind, whereas laptop's such as the XPS 15 and MacBook Pro are designed to be slim and portable.
Gaming laptops are heavy and loud and they can usually be overclocked safely.
It would be silly to use a gaming laptop with an eGPU as the performance with the included GPU is probably already good enough.
You do raise a good point though. Many manufacturers are not making it clear to consumers what it's limitations are.
Sir ,i have lenovo ideapad S340 laptop , having I7 10th generation processor, 8 GB ram, 512 SSD , 4 GB Integrated iris plus graphics card with it.
My laptop has only 128 mb VRAM. I want to run solidworks in my laptop.
1) will i face any problem with graphics while running solidworks?
2) can i use eGPU for my laptop to run solidworks?
3) and if yes, which egpu is best for students to run engineering based software like solidworks?
Will you face any problems?
Possibly. SOLIDWORKS recommendeds a computer with a dedicated graphics card, which you don't have.
help.solidworks.com/2019/English/Installation/install_guide/c_viz_prereqs_system_reqs.htm
I'm not familiar with the program so I'm not sure how well it will run.
You could spend a few hundred on an eGPU and then hundreds more on a GPU for it, then you won't even be able to use it as the laptop doesn't have Thunderbolt 3.
On my opinion, the best option is to sell the laptop and buy something with a dedicated GPU.
what gpu is best compatible for celeron 1007U to avoid bottleneck?
Every celeron will bottleneck.
Celerons are designed for basic tasks like browsing the internet. They aren't designed for intense apps etc.
@@KevinMuldoon Alright I thought i can upgrade my laptop to play some games..thankss kevvv :)
I'm looking to buy the full spec HP specter 360 (2020) with the ice lake 10th gen i7, though I'm not a huge gamer (btw massive appreciation and respect to all you gamers who have helped me with questions in the past! You're epic!) there are a few games i really enjoy, COD, assassins creed, witcher, perhaps a few more in the future, would an eGPU be me worth purchasing with that processor?
Hi Chris.
I play COD most days and have it installed in my main PC and my gaming laptop (which has a 2080). That game uses a lot of CPU resources.
So that's probably going to be a bottleneck.
Your laptop will have the i7-1065G7. There are gaming tests with the CPU on RUclips such as ruclips.net/video/qJFQL2z8XiI/видео.html
An eGPU would help, but with games like Call of Duty, you might still be held back with the CPU.
My guess is that even with an eGPU, you're gonna struggle with games unless you really drop the resolution and frame rate.
I know with my Dell XPS 13, most first person games send the fans crazy.
@@KevinMuldoon Thank you! Truly, that helpsso much! I've looked into it more and i can see the cooling on the 2020 spectre would be an absolute nightmare if i were to play a couple of hours of COD in the evening, even using an external monitor.
Fortunately, right now I'm in the position now to buy a great laptop, something I've always wanted, yet never been able to afford, but it must be light for travelling, i got a bit over enthusiastic and checked out alienwear 😂 just beautiful, either way, thank you for the truly great advice! Very much appreciated and subscribed 👍🏻
You're welcome Chris. My Alienware gaming laptop has a 2080, but the GPU hardly gets touched in COD as it's the CPU that bottle necks. It's loud as hell too when playing games.
What sort of size are you looking for? 13"? 15"?
Maybe something like the Razer Stealth is more up your street. www.razer.com/gaming-laptops/razer-blade-stealth
@@KevinMuldoon I was actually just looking at the razer stealth when i got your notification, it's a proper mini beast! Preferably I'm looking for a 13" (ish) as it's easier to travel with.
There aren't too many portable laptops that size with a GPU. The surface book is one option, but is expensive.
well bottmrnrck isnt that bad considering the fact that we can gain more graphic power in addition to increase our gaming compatibility yes it s not the fullest we could gain but it s still better than with the laptop gpu
I don't think you understand how a bottleneck will affect you.
Man I was spoiled by Apple hardware and EGPUs/Thunderbolt. How the PC market handled it is appalling, they really worked hard at circumventing the correct mindshare of it and it’s value through poor integration, and lack of “correct” information. You could really see proper thunderbolt intergration layed out in the price structures of laptops at the time.
Going to a mac was the best solution if you wanted the intergration done right (to specs of value)
Luckily, I never had an issue using thunderbolt with my imac pro nor macbook pro 2019 in windows10/11 or macos. Either using 2x3090 or 2x6900xt I saw/nor felt any difference from my TRX40 workstation when using for GPU based tasks, such as rendering octane/redshift/cycles, video renders, nor viewport issues. Only slower framerates maybe 10-15% @ 1440p in games compared to internal usages.
I was/am so disappointed the companies got the youtubers/social media people to parrot their wants and won the mindshare of the consumer.
Yeah the initial years of Thunderbolt were not great.
A lot of laptops has Thunderbolt 3 ports, but they only carried two lanes of traffic, not four. This kind of information was not available in sales material or even in manuals. I remember chatting in forums with people who only discovered their laptop didn't offer full TB3 bandwidth until after spending a lot of cash on an eGPu setup.
Apple rolled out Thunderbolt support better.
I've been wondering if can you edit 4k video in premier Pro with this or another eGPU?
Yeah you'll have no problems doing that. You just won't get the same performance as connecting the GPU directly to the motherboard.
@@KevinMuldoon thanks Kevin... I've a Dell XPS 15
10th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10885H (16MB Cache, up to 5.3 GHz, 8 cores)
64gb ram and NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 1650 Ti 4GB GDDR6
So probably as you can see I want to have more gpu power to edit 4k in premier Pro that know I can do it but only 1/8 quality and I ve to preview all the time
What does task manager show for your CPU and GPU usage when you're using Premiere Pro?
I use DaVinci Resolve now, but I used Premiere Pro for years and I always found that it was the CPU that bottlenecked.
I don't tend to use a lot of effects in videos, which is one reason why GPU usage wasn't too high for me.
If your graphics card is the bottleneck, you could fix that by using an eGPU.
What I will say, however, is that you need to weigh up all of your options. For the cash you'd pay for an eGPU and graphics card to go in it, you could sell your current laptop and use all the funds to get a new 12th Gen Intel laptop with a 3070 Ti, 3080 or 3080 ti. New XPS machines will be out in a few months too that should have better integrated GPUs.
@@KevinMuldoon correct, I will just wait a bit and probably sell my laptop to get the new one. it is a pain to work with some effects and my colours.
thanks Kevin.. you are very nice person and it helped me a lot !
You're welcome. I'm in a similar situation just now.
I use an XPS 13 for emails and writing articles etc, but the webcam isn't great and it's not powerful enough to edit videos. So I might replace it later this year.
In the meantime, I want to get a gaming laptop that can handle everything and lets me play games when I'm not at home.
A lot of interesting laptops coming out this year so could be a good year for an upgrade.
hey i need some advice, i spoke to my mom and dad and they said agreed to get me a gaming pc once i do well in my march examination. so i want to get advice on what to get. i thought of getting an RTX 3070 and an intel core i9 9900k. Now what else do i need to get for my pc
You'll have to buy all components of you're building it yourself.
If you're buying from a company, just make sure the CPU and GPU can play the games you want at the resolution and frame rates you want.
If you have a set budget, look at what you can get for the money and then take things from there.
@@KevinMuldoon ok alright, so as my mother board option is there a cheap but good mother board i can choose, for the core i9 9900k and rtx 3070. im asking this because i have no clue on mother boards and i feel i may do the wrong thing. Also what about the cooling for it, what do i need to consider?
Before buying anything, I recommend browsing through other builds on Pcpartpicker.com.
You will need to read reviews or every single component you purchase to ensure it has what you want. Look at the builds from others too and see what they have.
Don't rule out AMD either. Right now, AMD are making some great chips for gamers.
Surface pro 8 + egpu does it work fine?
I've not tested it myself, but it has a thunderbolt 4 connection so you should be fine. The CPU could still be a major bottleneck though.
Hey kevin ! Mate I totally agree with you, that's why I am not ready to throw some cash on egpu solution yet, but what do you think about dell n5010 i7 1gen would it be Ok to try egpu on it?
It's too old so won't even have a thunderbolt 3 port. Even if it did, games would be throttles by the CPU.
Kevin Muldoon I really appreciate your answer cheers
core i5 2.70GHz 7th with 8g ram ddr3 can get to a bottleneck or what??
Oh yeah. The CPU will quickly bottleneck.
Pls answer me
Is their any eGPU with type c any one
Well Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 3 use a type C connection (same connection used with Android phones).
I assume you're referring to Type C USB 3.1 and 3.2. the answer to that is no. Non Thunderbolt type c connections go up to 20gbps, whereas egpus use Thunderbolt 3 and 4 connections as it means they can get 40gbps.
Few days back i bought HP pavilion gaming 15
R5 4600H
8 Gb 3200mhz ram
GTX 1650 GDDR6
initially i thought building a desktop but
I'm a programmer so i need portability , now the weak point is the GPU in my laptop with in one year 1650 will appear in min req in upcoming games sys req
Yeah you're perhaps at the lower end of the graphical spectrum already. So are you thinking about an eGPU in the future?
@@KevinMuldoon yes .. I'm thinking .. but for atleast coming 4 years 1650 will handle game's at min 30fps ... after that eGpu may be needed .. i also saw some videos about connecting eGpu using m2 nvme slot !!
I've seen some of those adapters too, but I've not had the need to buy one.
I guess it depends on the games you're playing. 30FPS isn't going to cut it with first person shooters, but for other types of games it may be fine.
@@KevinMuldoon yes .. i like mostly open world games 🤞
Good point.
I have a ZBook with a m1000m quadro ... which is okay for light use ... but as I render in 3D and Davinci I am wondering if an eGPU with say a RTX 4090 would help with say Arnold GPU renders, or do I hit bottlenecks with that as well ?
Configuring a new laptop with that power is close to $6000 and even though pricing of GFX cards is insane atm ...it would still be cheaper , if it works that is
I'd recommend a new laptop in that situation. A new MacBook or gaming laptop with 12th or 13th gen Intel chip will have a better CPU and will handle davinci resolve better.
I think that's a better setup as with an eGPU, the CPU is more likely to be the bottleneck.
@@KevinMuldoon I understand your reasoning and I do understand that current gen CPU's and hardware in general is faster/better even if on the surface level it looks the same (i.e. 32GB RAM 10 years ago is way slower than 32GB RAM today).
Thing is that the CPU never seems to be a bottleneck in the current set up ... yes an Arnold render on teh CPU takes forever,but even if I get a machine twice as fast a CPU render will take hours.
DaVinci with me often craps out due to a GPU memory limit and as far as I understand runs a lot of things on teh GPU, more so than the CPU/RAM ... Maya & Arnold I see the same limits.
I do understand that an eGPU will not get the full amount out of the GPU due to a TB3 bottleneck (comms with the CPU), but it would be great to know how much it would be (not much info out there).
Currently I use a renderfarm to render sequences .
Problem is that it costs about €1 a frame if I get something that is remotely worth my while and I render an avg 230 frames per project ... if I have a couple of variations ( I do mostly product renders) that can be about €1000 per project .. so even though these GFX manufacturers are out of their minds with pricing , I could potentially get that out with even a few projects ... providing teh bottleneck is not that bad.
Problem with a new laptop is not only price , but also the fact that they offer only last gen GPU's ... and only quadro's or whatever their new name for it is
Anyway got some more research to do..thanks for your feedback though
Yeah DaVinci definitely uses the GPU more. I previously used premiere pro in the past and it would hog the CPU and memory.
Which CPU does your laptop have?
If you aren't close to bottlenecking the CPU, an eGPU could be a good solution.
I'd personally still lean towards a gaming laptop or MacBook she to the size of eGPUs (they're about the size of an ITX PC), but I appreciate they may fit into other people's workflow better.
👍
@@KevinMuldoon I have this processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz ... and yes Premiere and AE are archaic , always hated these little fidgets and the long walk through all these menu's and having to precomp everything ... davinci is much smoother
Ahh cool. I had the 6820HQ laptop in my old Lenovo laptop, which was only a little better than the 6700HQ. It was a great CPU, but I never found it to be great with Premiere Pro at the time. Granted, my laptop's GPU may have been letting me down too.
Itll be good when thunderbolt is as good as PCI express?
As long as there aren't any other bottlenecks, yes.
@@KevinMuldoon yes like cpu performance of the laptop etc. I think I got it, thanks you helped save me lots of money 👍
You're welcome.
I have a 2018 MacBook Air. I been gaming hard on the Sims 4. It runs fine on the Mac on medium graphics but it heats up pretty fast. I only have the base game.and I want to get the expansion packs for that. But before I do that, Im really thinking of getting an eGPU with a graphics card. Will it run good on Mac OS instead of bootcamping windows on it?
Ur better of selling the macbook air and getting a cheap gaming laptop like the nitro 5
Great vid but do you think an egpu would work for the oculus link
I'm wondering too, did you get an answer?
In theory, it should work if you meet the GPU requirements.
i play on a ps4 only i have a rlly good i7 laptop but with no graphics card and its only used for work should i get an epu also im not aloud to sell
Which i7 CPU?
For most people, I think the answer is no, you don't need an eGPU.
I have an all in one pc, would it be possible to use an egpu? Cpu is Ryzen 7 4700u
If it has a thunderbolt 3 or thunderbolt 4 port, yes, GPU can use an eGpu.
However, AMD builds don't typically come with thunderbolt connections unless you add them yourself via PCIE.
@@KevinMuldoon doesn't have a thunderbolt port, is there any other way?
Unfortunately not.
Can I plug the eGPU through a TB3 dock that sits at home. Or would I have to plug the dock (which connects to the displays) in one port and the eGPU into a 2nd port?
You can go through a dock (daisy chaining), but you'll probably see a performance drop.
There's a discussion about it at www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/78epbk/daisy_chaining_the_egpu?sort=top
thanks Kevin, much appreciated.
short question is an egpu worth it if I only have usb 3.1 (5gbit/s or 10Gbit/s im not quite shure what I have)? or do you need more than 10Gbit/s of data transfer for eGpu? Thanks
No it is not.
USB just doesn't offer the bandwidth you need.
Hi i have a acer aspire 3 specs is core i5 10th gen and mx230 it has a m.2 slot is it possible to put a external gpu on that?because I heard that aspire are white listed
The m2 slot is used for SSDs (in desktops, it can be used for some other things too).
Ate there any egpu with dual channel tb3 ports so you can hook it up to dual tb3 port for 80gbs instead of 40gbs bandwidth.
It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. The GPU is tired to one connection, plus the Thunderbolt 3 controller spreads the PCIE traffic across all TB3 ports.
www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/7r8ajo/why_dont_egpus_have_two_tb3_connections_to_double?sort=top
Will i7-4600U (2-cores 4-threads 2.1Ghz 2.7Ghz turbo),2x4GB DDR3L RAM and GTX 1650 bottleneck? Because I tried i5 3470 and 1650 and it works perfectly
Well it really depends on the app or the game you are trying to use.
Every setup can be bottlenecked.
That's an incredibly old system with the older memory standard, so the CPU will probably bottleneck before the GPU.
2 cores will be quite the bottleneck
Hi my laptop has a ryzen 5 3500u and Ive been thinking of getting an eGPU. Im planning to buy an NVIDIA GPU probably between 1660 super to 2070 super. I will buy the glu to get it ready for my PC because Im saving up for now and I just want to game.
I think you'd be better getting a laptop with a 30 series GPU (30XX laptops will be out in a few months).
I would like to ask about the possibility of a cpu bottleneck, I assume you would just need a cpu that's as powerful as one that you would put into a desktop with the same gpu, or do you need a disproportionately powerful cpu to get the same performance out of an egpu? I have a convertible laptop with a Ryzen 7 and 16GB RAM, it can handle the Hitman games and anything less demanding on its own without issue but there's still some games that are out of reach for me.
The chance of a CPU bottleneck is high as people tend to use egpus with lower powered laptops which do not have a discrete GPU.
A convertible laptop will have a CPU optimised for battery life so the CPU would be the bottleneck in most games.
You're missing the point here the purpose of egpu is to transform a used laptop to save money on building a new one. Its not for buying a gaming laptop and an egpu if that's the case then build a desktop rig.
I think you're missing the point.
An eGPU won't always save you money. That's what I explained in the video.
You can spend several hundred on an eGPU setup and if you might not be able to utilise that power if your CPU is the bottleneck, which is likely if you do have an old laptop.
@@KevinMuldoon there's a lot of laptops without this cpu bottleneck you're saying.
This is super helpful!
Glad you found it useful Nick.