Work on-the-go, docking to eGPU at home

frythan · November 14, 2019

Hello everyone! I'm hoping to poke the brains of users who have done what I'm looking to do, or at least have tried it before.

My fiancé is a casual gamer, mostly enjoys console gaming, but there are a few PC games she's learning to enjoy. She doesn't want a desktop, and likes to be as minimalistic as possible when it comes to hardware, wires, etc.

I want to get a laptop and eGPU setup for her that meets certain needs that gamers may not always be looking for. She likes to use a laptop in the living room to look up things, do a little bit of work, browse social media, etc. She also loves 2-in1s. This means she needs something with good battery life. I also want to be able to allow her to dock it and game with me on occasion.

My experience with gaming laptops is limited, but from what I have seen the battery life is quite sub-par, I'm assuming because of the dedicated GPU drawing more power than is really necessary. My thoughts are: get her a decent laptop with integrated graphics, good CPU, SSD, 16GB memory, and a thunderbolt 3 connection that can handle an eGPU. I know this means a certain number of PCIe lanes are needed. There are SO many laptops out there nowadays that I am having trouble narrowing down something that would work in this regard. Not to mention, specifications documentation isn't the easier to read.

Does anyone currently have a setup like this? Can anyone help me with direction?