Will this plan work?

Invincible Sugar · March 14, 2020

I just purchased an HP Spectre Folio, the i7 LTE model. It meets all my needs perfectly for a mobile LTE Windows computer. But I also plan to use it docked at home as a second PC on my desk.

I currently have one external screen I plan to use with this computer. The Intel® UHD Graphics 615 on this laptop can support 2 external screens plus the built in screen, and the laptop supports Thunderbolt 3.

This is what I would like to do: get a Thunderbolt 3 dock that can power/charge the laptop and give me two displays powered by the laptop directly, then daisychain an external GPU for another 3 or 4 monitors.

One Thunderbolt 3 port would be powering the laptop, running two external screens, an eGPU, and any USB A devices I need. Is that possible?

I am not really worried about CPU bottlenecking. I know the Y series i7 is not that powerful, but I am not gaming on this, or doing any heavy work. I really just want it for a bunch of Discord channels, to make moderation easier. None of the screens are 4K, all will be older VGA or DVI screens from Goodwill. As far as I can tell 6 or 7 1080 or lower resolution screens should work fine, bandwidth and resource wise. For basic text chats.

The laptop does have two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a USB C, I could use one Thunderbolt 3 port for a dock to power two external screens + my various USB gadgets, the other Thunderbolt 3 to power of the eGPU, and the regular USB C port to power the laptop. But using a single cable for everything is really appealing. Especially since I'm not doing anything that requires a ton of bandwidth or low latency. As far as I can tell on paper this should work. But I'm hoping someone here will know more.

Thanks!

UPDATE:

This dock seems to support two displays powered by the laptop's internal graphics, and powering the laptop, and passthrough for a daisychained 2nd thunderbolt 3 device. I would probably use this, along with an eGPU.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q6B29S9/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apa_i_SExBEbTW4B65K