Gaming Laptop or ultrabook with External GPU?

[bash]

Hi guys

Has anyone got experience with external GPUs? Right now I'm missing my old light gaming sessions (emulators, Doom 2016 etc). I have a LG Gram 17 which is great to carry back and fourth from work and handles Office, Outlook, Excel etc but it cannot game at all. It has a Thunderbolt 3 port so tempted to buy a Razer Core and try and buy an RTX 30xx GPU for a mini gaming build in the home (may consider a monitor later on down line too)

I have read there can be some weirdness and inconstancy with GPU performance using Thunderbolt 3.

The other option I have is to sell my laptop and use the money to get a gaming laptop but I obviously lose the slimness and lightness of the Gram. Thinking a Razer 17 might fit the bill but might be out of my budget.

Anyone got any advice feedback on the above 2 options?

 

[Fe_man2000]

Don't get a external GPU, I don't have first hand experience but every time this comes up, which has been a couple times on here, It ends up being shown to be a very poor return for the price and some what unstable - also getting a 30xx GPU at the moment is going to be insane money.

How much are EGPU going for these days without a GPU in it ? I mean how much are we talking for the Enclosure and the GPU - could you buy a 2nd gaming laptop for that money and have both your current one for out of the house and the gaming one at home ?

e.g

Don't buy an external graphics card – just build a PC or get a gaming laptop, seriously

Will the extra performance matter?

www.techradar.com

7 Things You Need to Know About External GPUs

If you're not getting enough gaming performance out of your laptop, you can try an external graphics card. But are they worth it?

www.makeuseof.com

 

[bash]

Fair enough, I guess I better put my laptop in the classifieds then lol

 

[bash]

Actually tbf you can get razer cores for about £150 2nd hand. The problem is GPU.

 

[next010]

This site is the main hub for external GPU you will find lots of user info and a forum.

Best eGPU Enclosures - July 2022 External GPU Buyer Guide

Find the best external GPU enclosure for your needs: hands-on unboxing, in-depth reviews, weekly-updated ranking & comparison, thousands of eGPU builds.

egpu.io

They do work but the cost of proper enclosures isn't cheap let alone the GPU, there are some scuffed low cost options like Wikingoo eGPU if you don't care how it looks.

 

[bash]

Thanks for that. Interesting and yes I don't really care what it looks like. It'd probably go on the floor out of sight anyway.

Its still £150ish after postage but I think if I can get a razer core (which you would assume would have decent customer support/online community) for £150-ish then my main headache is the GPU.

I'd like to throw a 3060 or 3070 into one but not prepared to pay reseller prices. I don't want to knock the next mans hustle so maybe £100 over RRP, maybe there would be some kind fellow pop up in our classifieds one day.

In the meantime I think I'll upgrade to the latest LG Gram with 11th gen processors and thunderbolt 4 (for future proofing) plus it has Iris Xe graphics which is a lot better than the previous gen and save up for a GPU in the meantime and hope that the availability eventually increases.

2nd hand Razer 17s can be found for £1500 ish but would need to sell my current laptop first.

Urgh, decisions decisions . . . .

 

[Delvey]

Have a look at geforce now. No good for multplayer but certainly works very well for single player. You can try it for free for an hour and then just reconnect or sign up for a subscription

 

[ghrh]

I bought a Lenovo booststation with a 2060 for £350 a year ago from Lenovo. The come up once in while. You will loose about 15% of performance using TB3 but much less if you laptop and the enclosure are TB4.