Looking for a laptop with egpu in mind

[Creepytacoman]

I'm helping a friend pick out a laptop and one of the things he wants is upgradeability down the line, especially VR. Personally I'm all for desktops but he's going to college so he's really set on getting a laptop. In this situation I figure an egpu would be a good option. The initial budget for the laptop is around $600 to $700 and then maybe 6 months to a year later he could start looking into an egpu. In order to save money, the CPU should be prioritized at the expense of the GPU a little bit, so what options are out there to do that?

[Akira Shimazu]

27 minutes ago, Creepytacoman said:

I'm helping a friend pick out a laptop and one of the things he wants is upgradeability down the line, especially VR. Personally I'm all for desktops but he's going to college so he's really set on getting a laptop. In this situation I figure an egpu would be a good option. The initial budget for the laptop is around $600 to $700 and then maybe 6 months to a year later he could start looking into an egpu. In that situation, I figure the CPU should be prioritized at the expense of the GPU a little bit, so what options are out there to do that?

do you know how expensive eGPU? 

[Aristotle2019]

Hey, eGPU is not entirely that great an option. I recently heard in an LTT video thunderbolt 3 would merge in with USB 4. And I'm like - then why do we need TB3? 

Anyhow, to take full advantage of an external GPU, you will need to shell out at least 200$ for an eGPU enclosure, and even more to have additional USB ports or a larger power supply on it. 

https://www.windowscentral.com/best-egpu-enclosures?amp

Check this list out. I would suggest him to opt for the Gigabyte Aorus RTX 2070 Gaming box for 650$ (other options don't include the graphics card, only the enclosure — so in that case the cost will be more ) . Add a decent 350$ monitor with high refresh rate and FreeSync support (since G-Sync is costly and now Nvidia GPUs support FreeSync monitors) and also because running back the graphics to the laptop will hurt performance by 20-25% while to an external monitor it will be 10-15% and you're looking at above 1000$ 

And the cheapest thunderbolt 3 laptops are no less than a 1000USD themselves 

https://thunderboltlaptop.com/cheapest-laptops-with-thunderbolt-3/

 

For a 1000$, you can make a PC that beats that setup. I would suggest him to get a 600$ range laptop right now. Possibly this one : 

1) a below 500$ choice which can't  be beaten : https://www.amazon.com/HP-Business-Quad-Core-i5-1035G1-Bluetooth/dp/B07ZV8LQSC/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?keywords=10th+gen+intel+laptop&qid=1575707409&sr=8-8

2) same goes here : https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-14-Quad-Core-Bluetooth/dp/B081Q3DXD4/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?keywords=10th+gen+intel+laptop&qid=1575707438&sr=8-6

3) my personal choice, he can also game lightly with the Nvidia MX250 in it 

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Display-i5-10210U-802-11ax-A515-54G-53H6/dp/B07XJRGKKD/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?keywords=10th+gen+intel+laptop&qid=1575707438&sr=8-5

 

After some time, he came save 700$ for a pc like this https://pcgamehaven.com/best-gaming-pc-build-for-under-700/

Or even 1000USD for this https://techbuyersguru.com/1000-gamingproductivity-pc-build which is completely bonkers and so frickin better than eGPU 

If you want, and he agrees to my idea, I can provide a more detailed PC build for him for 700-1000USD including monitor and peripherals (if needed) which will be better than the above two as I'll ration the money between different parts better as a setup and not just a PC build. 

[genexis_x]

22 hours ago, Creepytacoman said:

The initial budget for the laptop is around $600 to $700

It's almost impossible to get a new laptop with TB3 for that price. Also most of them are equipped with low power CPUs.