I've seen this kind of testing before with the mini pcs and it's crazy how much those thunderbolt ports can push/handle. You are right though that since they are sharing information lanes it can and will bottleneck things but your data shows that. Wicked cool video idea and now I almost regret having a 4tb hdd dock instead of a GPU one for my gaming laptop (kidding I need to install all those games off steam that I'll never touch!)
I always saw an eGPU as something great to have for fiddlers. If I had a 3D Printer, I’d work on create a “dock attachment”. Where I can easily dock the device and harness the power of eGPU and external data storage. One day maybe! Until then, thanks a lot for watching!
the bottleneck is on the egpu dock. TB4 port/cable will not solve the limitation all thunderbolt egpu docks/enclosure are using tb3 controller which have a hard cap of 2750MB/s either up/down (22gbps up/22gbps down = 40gbps by intel marketing bs) tb4 controller wont help either, as its botched to 1 pcie lane which capped to 750MB/s i believe theres a external nvme slot in the wm2 although im not sure if that is using pcie 4.0 x4 if it is, you can use R43SG 4.0 egpu dock then directly connect it to that slot which give more bandwidth than thunderbolt dock
As you sound aware, I'm sure you already know but GPD showed an adapter to connect an eGPU to the 2230 nvme slot on the Win Max 2. Will that be mass produced? Hard to tell but yeah, going through that would be better. However, I must say I found different information in terms of Tb4 being able to access more lanes effectively doubling down on rate speeds. That's not to say that Tb4 would correct every limitations, but the ones caused by data transfer speeds would be alleviated to some degree. At least that is what I would think. Thanks for engaging! :)
any plans on testing an M.2 eGPU setup (such as the ADT R43SG 4.0) using the M.2 2230 slot on the bottom of the WM2? It should offer more bandwidth thus less of a performance loss than Thunderbolt 3. I really want to test this out as I have read that people successfully got it to work with pretty good results. It would be really cool to see it from a content creator such as yourself to see if this is in fact a viable option. The 2230 slot is conveniently accessible without having to remove the entire bottom case of the chassis that I picture someone that's creative enough could come up with some kind of docking mechanism like the Nintendo Switch (probably not as seamless but similar in concept) except with an eGPU and not just video out.
Can't say that I do at this point in time. I wish GPD would sell that little piece that they have shown a couple of days/weeks ago that would give an external access to the port. I can't say that I am completely ruling this out. But if I'm being totally honest, this wasn't in the plans at the time being. I'll consider it however as you do raise a valid point. :)
for Red Dead Redemption 2 you might be right about VRAM. If you watch CryoByte33's Red Dead Redemption 2 Deep Dive, increasing the VRAM to 4GB actually gives worst performance than the default 1 GB on the Steam Deck.
Oh dang I gotta check that out. I mean it behaved way to strangely to just be normal protocol limitations, it had to be something and with how massive and ambitious RDR2 is, yeah... Glad to know my presumptions are not crazy and that this theory has some logic to it. Cheers! :)
Do you have any recommendations on getting the eGPU to work with the win max 2? Mine doesn’t seem to detect the eGPU at all. I’ve tried it on a xps 17 and it detects it no problem.
Can't say that I do, that's really weird. I know it sounds like basic troubleshoot but have you tried both USB-C? Because one supports USB4, the other doesn't. It should be indicated. Also, have you tried with different USB-C to USB-C cable, it might be that the XPS 17 supplies more power and enables the function? Also, on the GPD Win Max 2, do you have any "power balance" features being on? Could it be that your power settings are disabling USB4? Last but not least, when plugging the eGPU, do you have "device manager" opened to see if your OS is seeing the eGPU or is it not being seen at all, I think that should give you a good indication as to where to start. Cheers and good luck!
Thank you for quality content! I would like to ask you for an advice bc you've tried both SD and WM2. What would you recommend more -- Steam Deck or GDP Win Max 2? I don't have a gaming device (just Macbook Pro M1 + portable second screen for my work) and I need something to play some AAA RPG games (like Witcher) together with Total War, AoE, and Mount & Blade real-time strategies. The thing is -- I don't really have a use for Windows other than gaming. Also, I need my gaming set to be as lightweight as possible since I will play mostly at home but also in hotels while on business trips. Also, I have no use for handheld form-factor. Even SD I will just dock to the larger screen to play it like that. So, Macbook Pro + portable second screen + SD OR WM2, based on your experience?
Oh wow, I'm so sorry, I never realized that I didn't respond, I must have forgot to hit reply. Hmmm, it's a bit hard to say but I would tend to go towards GPD Win Max 2, I'll tell why. By what you are saying, you seem to be looking at a docked solution mostly. The expandability of having eGPU support on the Win Max 2 makes it so that you can push your device for a much further time with the right investment. SD on the other end does not officially support eGPU, it can be used as a docked device but it doesn't make it more capable towards AAA games and we are already seeing some struggle so yeah. If you'd tell me: "I'm a handheld player mostly" I'd tell you SD. If you tell me: "I'm a docked player mostly" than WM2 for sure.
thanks so much for this video, perfect timing as I'm about to test this setup once I get all the components. I just bought a razer core x for pretty cheap ($125 CAD), about to get my Win Max 2 this Wednesday and still shopping around for a GPU. Which GPU do you recommend (best bang for buck)? I'm currently shopping around for a second hand RTX 3070 as I believe that's the sweet spot for this device (correct me if I'm wrong)
With great pleasure, happy to hear that you finally decided on the Win Max 2, you won't be disappointed in my opinion! The 3060Ti / 3070 is probably going to be where you want to be in terms of "leaving some performance on the table" but not enough that you feel like you overspent. This way you'll feel as though you maximized potential. I'd go for the 3070 if you are into ray tracing. If you are not necessarily interested in it, I think the 3060Ti would do nearly just as good in an enclosure. That's guesswork mind you.
@@GameTechTalk thanks, yea I've been looking at 3060ti's but most have been in similar price ranges as the 3070 so I figured I might as well just get a 3070
I would like to see an example of a dock setup for this GPD. How would you advise to organize docking Win Max 2 at home or office? For example if this laptop is the only PC I have.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, there are no aftermarket solutions like tht as it is too niche. So the solution then becomes to have a 3D modeler do something like that, or if you 3D print yourself, to have that done. I always wanted to get into 3D printing but fear that I won't be able to do the models so I never bothered. If I had, I'd start with a USB-Hub that I like and build around it. Cheers! :)
Pretty smooth overall. It is very uncommon nowadays for CPUs to get beat up when gaming, GPU is definitely driving the most heat in most computers in modern times. So by taking the GPU workload outside of the device, for the most part, you'll have temps that are closing in on idle temps, a bit more cause the CPU is working after all but just never like if you were running a Cinebench. Cheers!
Which one will you be putting in your enclosure? It's really a lot of fun, I'm actively fighting my brain off to not buy a 3D printer right now and go crazy with ideas ahahhahha!!!
@@Kuromi4553 Ahh I see, yeah you're going to see a sweet jump. I've decided to keep the 1660 Super in my enclosure as well. It's fun having the 3090 in there but 1, I'm concerned this thing'll blow up and 2, I hate the thought of losing so much power from it. Thanks for watching, much appreciated!! :)
Haven't tested, had no specific intentions too but you're in luck. My eGPU setup is still by my PC with the 1660 Super. So not right this moment but give me a day or two and I'll report back on this specific comment. Cheers! :)
URGGHH!!! I just typed a freaking essay and misclicked and lost it all.... Long story short, using my 1660 Super, Warzone 2 did run better but not by much, mid 70 avg. Regular MW2 did much better with lower 100 avg. I think we run here on the same bottleneck as we have with RDR2. Large scale games like Warzone 2 that employ p2p put a lot of effort on CPU of clients (the players). MMOs on the other hand often handles the heavy lifting server side which is precisely what we would need. In resume, I think Warzone 2 will unfortunately not be a super "eGPU friendly" game at least until Activision address the way they handle their servers, that which may never happen. Don't consider this as the final result, I haven't tested long enough to confirm this is indeed the case but yeah, let's just say this may very well be your use-case as well. Let me know once you try it for yourself what your findings are.
@@GameTechTalk appreciate the reply. I tested Warzone 2.0 on my crappy work laptop (X1Yoga 3rd Gen - i5-8350U) with a Razer Core X (non-Chroma) and RTX 3070 and I wasn't getting playable framerates (1-20 fps lol). Other games such as Street Fighter 5/6, Devil May Cry 5 and Final Fantasy VII Remake work perfectly fine (60+ fps) but are obviously bottlenecked by that old cpu. I'm getting my WM2 today (so freaking excited!) so best believe I'll be doing some extensive testing. What happened to your 3090 btw?
@@FS-zt6tm That pushes my theory even further. Yup, this game mode is just not eGPU friendly. The 3090 is still there but I've installed it back in my second PC. Just a bit tired with swapping things around ahahah! Cheers :)
@@GameTechTalk Based on the warnings in your video, I thought you had fried it with the adapter you had to use to get it correctly configured to the Razer Core, glad that wasn't the case!
Considering the WIN4 to use with my 3090 in an eGPU so this was very helpful, thanks!
Glad it helped! Cheers 😊
I've seen this kind of testing before with the mini pcs and it's crazy how much those thunderbolt ports can push/handle. You are right though that since they are sharing information lanes it can and will bottleneck things but your data shows that. Wicked cool video idea and now I almost regret having a 4tb hdd dock instead of a GPU one for my gaming laptop (kidding I need to install all those games off steam that I'll never touch!)
I always saw an eGPU as something great to have for fiddlers. If I had a 3D Printer, I’d work on create a “dock attachment”. Where I can easily dock the device and harness the power of eGPU and external data storage.
One day maybe! Until then, thanks a lot for watching!
the bottleneck is on the egpu dock. TB4 port/cable will not solve the limitation
all thunderbolt egpu docks/enclosure are using tb3 controller which have a hard cap of 2750MB/s either up/down (22gbps up/22gbps down = 40gbps by intel marketing bs)
tb4 controller wont help either, as its botched to 1 pcie lane which capped to 750MB/s
i believe theres a external nvme slot in the wm2
although im not sure if that is using pcie 4.0 x4
if it is, you can use R43SG 4.0 egpu dock then directly connect it to that slot which give more bandwidth than thunderbolt dock
As you sound aware, I'm sure you already know but GPD showed an adapter to connect an eGPU to the 2230 nvme slot on the Win Max 2. Will that be mass produced? Hard to tell but yeah, going through that would be better.
However, I must say I found different information in terms of Tb4 being able to access more lanes effectively doubling down on rate speeds. That's not to say that Tb4 would correct every limitations, but the ones caused by data transfer speeds would be alleviated to some degree. At least that is what I would think. Thanks for engaging! :)
any plans on testing an M.2 eGPU setup (such as the ADT R43SG 4.0) using the M.2 2230 slot on the bottom of the WM2? It should offer more bandwidth thus less of a performance loss than Thunderbolt 3. I really want to test this out as I have read that people successfully got it to work with pretty good results. It would be really cool to see it from a content creator such as yourself to see if this is in fact a viable option.
The 2230 slot is conveniently accessible without having to remove the entire bottom case of the chassis that I picture someone that's creative enough could come up with some kind of docking mechanism like the Nintendo Switch (probably not as seamless but similar in concept) except with an eGPU and not just video out.
Can't say that I do at this point in time. I wish GPD would sell that little piece that they have shown a couple of days/weeks ago that would give an external access to the port. I can't say that I am completely ruling this out. But if I'm being totally honest, this wasn't in the plans at the time being. I'll consider it however as you do raise a valid point. :)
@@GameTechTalk sorry, what piece are you talking about?
@@FS-zt6tm yt3.ggpht.com/MlOPc_ZkBGozQ8PFv4fDHp10Ghw9CNF8lUVMb1tpg_dLg7XeNpWvd0-ynpVOUdfqiu_USCAo2heh=s800-c-fcrop64=1,20000000dfffffff-nd-v1
@@GameTechTalk looks like some sort of M.2 to Oculink adapter? Much cleaner solution if so. I'd definitely be interested in giving this a test.
@@GameTechTalk здравствуйте, а где можно купить такой переходник?
for Red Dead Redemption 2 you might be right about VRAM. If you watch CryoByte33's Red Dead Redemption 2 Deep Dive, increasing the VRAM to 4GB actually gives worst performance than the default 1 GB on the Steam Deck.
Oh dang I gotta check that out. I mean it behaved way to strangely to just be normal protocol limitations, it had to be something and with how massive and ambitious RDR2 is, yeah... Glad to know my presumptions are not crazy and that this theory has some logic to it. Cheers! :)
Do you have any recommendations on getting the eGPU to work with the win max 2? Mine doesn’t seem to detect the eGPU at all. I’ve tried it on a xps 17 and it detects it no problem.
Can't say that I do, that's really weird. I know it sounds like basic troubleshoot but have you tried both USB-C? Because one supports USB4, the other doesn't. It should be indicated. Also, have you tried with different USB-C to USB-C cable, it might be that the XPS 17 supplies more power and enables the function?
Also, on the GPD Win Max 2, do you have any "power balance" features being on? Could it be that your power settings are disabling USB4?
Last but not least, when plugging the eGPU, do you have "device manager" opened to see if your OS is seeing the eGPU or is it not being seen at all, I think that should give you a good indication as to where to start.
Cheers and good luck!
Thank you for quality content! I would like to ask you for an advice bc you've tried both SD and WM2.
What would you recommend more -- Steam Deck or GDP Win Max 2? I don't have a gaming device (just Macbook Pro M1 + portable second screen for my work) and I need something to play some AAA RPG games (like Witcher) together with Total War, AoE, and Mount & Blade real-time strategies.
The thing is -- I don't really have a use for Windows other than gaming. Also, I need my gaming set to be as lightweight as possible since I will play mostly at home but also in hotels while on business trips. Also, I have no use for handheld form-factor. Even SD I will just dock to the larger screen to play it like that.
So, Macbook Pro + portable second screen + SD OR WM2, based on your experience?
Oh wow, I'm so sorry, I never realized that I didn't respond, I must have forgot to hit reply. Hmmm, it's a bit hard to say but I would tend to go towards GPD Win Max 2, I'll tell why. By what you are saying, you seem to be looking at a docked solution mostly. The expandability of having eGPU support on the Win Max 2 makes it so that you can push your device for a much further time with the right investment.
SD on the other end does not officially support eGPU, it can be used as a docked device but it doesn't make it more capable towards AAA games and we are already seeing some struggle so yeah. If you'd tell me: "I'm a handheld player mostly" I'd tell you SD. If you tell me: "I'm a docked player mostly" than WM2 for sure.
@@GameTechTalk Thank you so much for your response!!
thanks so much for this video, perfect timing as I'm about to test this setup once I get all the components. I just bought a razer core x for pretty cheap ($125 CAD), about to get my Win Max 2 this Wednesday and still shopping around for a GPU. Which GPU do you recommend (best bang for buck)? I'm currently shopping around for a second hand RTX 3070 as I believe that's the sweet spot for this device (correct me if I'm wrong)
With great pleasure, happy to hear that you finally decided on the Win Max 2, you won't be disappointed in my opinion! The 3060Ti / 3070 is probably going to be where you want to be in terms of "leaving some performance on the table" but not enough that you feel like you overspent. This way you'll feel as though you maximized potential.
I'd go for the 3070 if you are into ray tracing. If you are not necessarily interested in it, I think the 3060Ti would do nearly just as good in an enclosure. That's guesswork mind you.
@@GameTechTalk thanks, yea I've been looking at 3060ti's but most have been in similar price ranges as the 3070 so I figured I might as well just get a 3070
This is very relevant for me..thank you
Glad it was helpful! 😊
I would like to see an example of a dock setup for this GPD. How would you advise to organize docking Win Max 2 at home or office? For example if this laptop is the only PC I have.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, there are no aftermarket solutions like tht as it is too niche. So the solution then becomes to have a 3D modeler do something like that, or if you 3D print yourself, to have that done. I always wanted to get into 3D printing but fear that I won't be able to do the models so I never bothered. If I had, I'd start with a USB-Hub that I like and build around it. Cheers! :)
sorry, I might've missed it watching the video but did you test it on Windows 10 or 11? Asking because I read that eGPU's work better on Windows 10
Great question actually, I should've mentioned that. I tested on Windows 11 on both machines.
How is the heat on WM2 when it is connected to egpu? Is there any difference?
Pretty smooth overall. It is very uncommon nowadays for CPUs to get beat up when gaming, GPU is definitely driving the most heat in most computers in modern times. So by taking the GPU workload outside of the device, for the most part, you'll have temps that are closing in on idle temps, a bit more cause the CPU is working after all but just never like if you were running a Cinebench. Cheers!
I have a 1660 super rn with a 12GB RTX 3080 on the way
Which one will you be putting in your enclosure? It's really a lot of fun, I'm actively fighting my brain off to not buy a 3D printer right now and go crazy with ideas ahahhahha!!!
@@GameTechTalk I’ll be putting the 1660 in the enclosure with the 3080 in my build because my enclosure has a 1050 ti
@@Kuromi4553 Ahh I see, yeah you're going to see a sweet jump. I've decided to keep the 1660 Super in my enclosure as well. It's fun having the 3090 in there but 1, I'm concerned this thing'll blow up and 2, I hate the thought of losing so much power from it. Thanks for watching, much appreciated!! :)
any improvements to warzone 2/modern warfare 2?
Haven't tested, had no specific intentions too but you're in luck. My eGPU setup is still by my PC with the 1660 Super. So not right this moment but give me a day or two and I'll report back on this specific comment. Cheers! :)
URGGHH!!! I just typed a freaking essay and misclicked and lost it all....
Long story short, using my 1660 Super, Warzone 2 did run better but not by much, mid 70 avg. Regular MW2 did much better with lower 100 avg.
I think we run here on the same bottleneck as we have with RDR2. Large scale games like Warzone 2 that employ p2p put a lot of effort on CPU of clients (the players). MMOs on the other hand often handles the heavy lifting server side which is precisely what we would need.
In resume, I think Warzone 2 will unfortunately not be a super "eGPU friendly" game at least until Activision address the way they handle their servers, that which may never happen.
Don't consider this as the final result, I haven't tested long enough to confirm this is indeed the case but yeah, let's just say this may very well be your use-case as well. Let me know once you try it for yourself what your findings are.
@@GameTechTalk appreciate the reply. I tested Warzone 2.0 on my crappy work laptop (X1Yoga 3rd Gen - i5-8350U) with a Razer Core X (non-Chroma) and RTX 3070 and I wasn't getting playable framerates (1-20 fps lol).
Other games such as Street Fighter 5/6, Devil May Cry 5 and Final Fantasy VII Remake work perfectly fine (60+ fps) but are obviously bottlenecked by that old cpu.
I'm getting my WM2 today (so freaking excited!) so best believe I'll be doing some extensive testing. What happened to your 3090 btw?
@@FS-zt6tm That pushes my theory even further. Yup, this game mode is just not eGPU friendly. The 3090 is still there but I've installed it back in my second PC. Just a bit tired with swapping things around ahahah! Cheers :)
@@GameTechTalk Based on the warnings in your video, I thought you had fried it with the adapter you had to use to get it correctly configured to the Razer Core, glad that wasn't the case!