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thanks for watching techwiki click the subscribe button then enable

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notifications with the bell icon so you won't miss any future videos

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if you've got a reasonably modern desktop pc upgrading your gaming

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experience is no big deal take out your old graphics card slot in a new one and

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shazam your games go from blurry slideshow to smooth and crispy like a

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pringle but let's say that you enjoy portability

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not only in your potato products but also in your computing ones so you've

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ditched your desktop for a do-it-all laptop and you're wondering how to

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upgrade the graphics card on that when you realize

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oh wait you can't because assuming that

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it has a discrete GPU at all the chips inside are soldered on

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so wait then what you just have to buy a new laptop with the graphics you want or

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go back to a bulky desktop actually do people even read the title no you don't

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as long as your current notebook has a Thunderbolt 3 port you may be able to

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use an external GPU enclosure these

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devices look a little bit like a small form-factor pc but they are built solely

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to contain a desktop graphics card

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inside you'll typically find a full length pci express slot power cables at

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least one case fan to help keep it cool and a power supply either on the inside

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or on the outside nicer enclosures also

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feature other creature comforts like usb and Ethernet ports that connect to your

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pc through Thunderbolt internal drive mounts for your game library or even RGB

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lighting which may or may not be welcome but back to the meat and potatoes of

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this topic the reason these external enclosures are suddenly popping up for a

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product that was thought of as exclusively for internal desktop use not

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too long ago is because the Thunderbolt 3 controller in your computer can

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interface with your system's pci express bus at very high speeds

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though that isn't to say that external GPU enclosures offer the same

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performance as a graphics card plugged directly into a motherboard or even a

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desktop grade graphics chip that has been incorporated directly into your

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laptop's main board a recent trend among notebook makers the Thunderbolt 3.0

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connection is active this means that it has internal logic that processes the

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signals that pass through it and it only supports up to four pci express

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3.0 lanes rather than 16. so you could

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easily see around a 20 or 25 reduction

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in frame rates compared to an otherwise similar desktop potentially even more

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depending on your exact hardware configuration and the games you're

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trying to play and if you want to play on your laptop's

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internal monitor with your external GPU

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that GPU will be competing with the display data being looped back to your

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system leading to yet another significant performance hit

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topping it all off these enclosures tend to be expensive starting at around 300

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us dollars when we shot this episode and going up to over 500 for premium ones

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it should be noted however that the alienware graphics amplifier is a bit of

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an exception here but it uses a proprietary pci express connection that

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can only be found on alienware branded laptops

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so then are external GPU enclosures just a waste of money for suckers well no

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they can be a compelling option if you have an existing non-gaming laptop or

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one with a weaker GPU and a Thunderbolt 3 port and they can even be useful for

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non-gaming tasks adding GPU acceleration to productivity suites like adobe

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creative cloud or even for plugging in non-graphics expansion cards like audio

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interfaces NVMe ssds high-speed network

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cards etc and helping matters some of

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the smallest and lightest enclosures are actually being sold with graphics cards

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included now at a net discount helping to offset the high cost a bit

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now there are still a few gotchas to watch out for you'll need to make sure

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that your laptop's Thunderbolt 3 port uses four lanes rather than two and it's

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preferred that they come directly off the CPU rather than through the chipset

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the latter can lead to bottlenecks but if your hardware setup looks good a

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laptop plus egpu might make getting to and from your next lan party a little

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bit easier unless you like to bench press full tower pcs in your spare time

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towards a new device so thanks guys for watching if you

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