External GPU Enclosures as Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
989 words · ~4 min read
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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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