Any recent egpu/pcie x4 gpu testing or benchmarks?

[ShadowChaser]

I'm probably one of the dozens of people where an eGPU setup makes sense, but with all the shortages and gpus being hard to find, empirical data on eGPUs or x4 PCIe has also been hard to find.

In the past, the rule of thumb was a 10-20% framerate deficit running an external display, and roughly double that when passed back to the internal display. I wanted to know if this is still the case, better, or worse now that pcie 4.0 gpus are mainstream. It would dictate whether I use a GTX 1080 or an RTX 3060 as my external gpu. (rtx doesn't matter and those 2 are close enough in both power draw and compute/gaming performance for me)

 

My current knowledge is all based on the 10 and 20-series which is pcie 3.0, my enclosure is pcie 3.0, and TB4 enclosures or adapters aren't exactly a thing yet. I plan on testing for myself once all the components for the enclosure arrive in July but until then if anyone could shed some light on the matter or point me towards any resources I'd appreciate it!

[jaslion]

Pretty much last big testing I saw was with the 1660, 2060 , 2070 and 2080ti. Basically verdict is that between a 1660 and 2060 lies the limit in that series and that the higher end cards sometimes performed better but basically there was no point in getting them. Keep in mind the 1660 still performed worse than the desktop version. Testing was done on a thick boi well cooled laptop with a 9750h vs a test system with a 8700k.

 

So basically don't hope for a lot or waste too much money on it and there are hard limits to how much a x4 link can really do this is the reason gpu docks kinda lost popularity once we went past the 1000 series as we already saw minimal differences between a 1060 and 1070 on tb3.

 

I assume this is for the xps 13 you have in your bio? That cpu is quite weak especially in a xps 13 due to thermal limits so really no point in getting something over a 1060 ish class gpu as the thunderbolt limits are there and hard cpu limits.

[Radium_Angel]

And it's a shame that GPU prices went stupid, because I feel the eGPU technology was a slick end-run around laptop limitations.

 

[ShadowChaser]

18 minutes ago, jaslion said:

-snip-

Yeah, I really hoped that someone out there would test 30-series with the older boxes. I'm getting an eGPU mainly since I have a few cuda workloads I'd like to run and honestly as nice as a desktop + laptop setup is, I'm a little tired of shuffling files around so I'm ditching the desktop for an egpu. Don't plan on doing a ton of serious gaming though so I can stomach the extra cost of a 1080/3060 despite those not really being significantly better at gaming over TB3

The XPS 13 is also soon to be replaced by a Razer Book 13, so I can even do a little bit of gaming on the go with xe graphics. I would have gone ryzen but none of the high end 13" ultraportables I was interested in had them :c

thunderbolt/usb4 on ryzen still seems like a unicorn after all.

[jaslion]

16 minutes ago, ShadowChaser said:

Yeah, I really hoped that someone out there would test 30-series with the older boxes. I'm getting an eGPU mainly since I have a few cuda workloads I'd like to run and honestly as nice as a desktop + laptop setup is, I'm a little tired of shuffling files around so I'm ditching the desktop for an egpu. Don't plan on doing a ton of serious gaming though so I can stomach the extra cost of a 1080/3060 despite those not really being significantly better at gaming over TB3

The XPS 13 is also soon to be replaced by a Razer Book 13, so I can even do a little bit of gaming on the go with xe graphics. I would have gone ryzen but none of the high end 13" ultraportables I was interested in had them :c

thunderbolt/usb4 on ryzen still seems like a unicorn after all.

There is the asus 13 inch flow ultraportable with a ryzen and a 1650 that surprisingly isn't really thermally constrained AND does offer a graphics accelerator with a 3080 in it.

 

I also HIGHLY advise you to stay as far away as possible from razer laptops they have an abismal record of them dying after 1 year and rarely making much further than 2 for no reasons part from really really really low end component choices.

 

I also did a bit of cost calculation and IF you were to get the razer for some reason the whole package of laptop + dock + a 3060 as prices are right now would be around 2400$ if all at msrp because stupid prices think more of 2800$.

 

This includes a garbage quality laptop and a 3060 that will be severly limited in terms of performance compared to 3k for the asus laptop + graphics accelerator which has a ryzen 8 core at near full speed thus MUCH faster with a seemingly nicely built laptop with a non limited 3080 max p that performs like a desktop 3070.

 

So i'd say the asus one is the choice. That or you just get it on it's own and you'd basically have the performance of the razer + a egpu config that isn't held back and then it is only 1500$ for the whole asus package.

[ShadowChaser]

12 minutes ago, jaslion said:

-snip-

Here's the thing though, I know Razer isn't the best, but I'm also not entirely convinced about the Flow X13. It's a great laptop, I'm sure, but I'm not ready to drop $2800 for the whole setup when I have a 3060 and 1080 already, the enclosure I'm building costs $150, and the Razer Book was $1200.

 

I would have loved the X13, honestly, since it's basically got the Book beat in every way. It's only got a 1 year warranty, though. My unit's got 2, and from my experience with previous gaming notebooks, they're engineered to die right after that warranty period unless you hardly use it at all. I'd rather drop the money on a $1200 unit with something I can carry onwards as opposed to a $1500 laptop and a $1500 dock that can't be operated without the other. Trust me, I looked long and hard at the X13 before ultimately saying no x_x

 

Edit: also you basically can't get it anywhere  Didn't even realize this until I actually looked at retailers

[jaslion]

19 hours ago, ShadowChaser said:

Here's the thing though, I know Razer isn't the best, but I'm also not entirely convinced about the Flow X13. It's a great laptop, I'm sure, but I'm not ready to drop $2800 for the whole setup when I have a 3060 and 1080 already, the enclosure I'm building costs $150, and the Razer Book was $1200.

 

I would have loved the X13, honestly, since it's basically got the Book beat in every way. It's only got a 1 year warranty, though. My unit's got 2, and from my experience with previous gaming notebooks, they're engineered to die right after that warranty period unless you hardly use it at all. I'd rather drop the money on a $1200 unit with something I can carry onwards as opposed to a $1500 laptop and a $1500 dock that can't be operated without the other. Trust me, I looked long and hard at the X13 before ultimately saying no x_x

 

Edit: also you basically can't get it anywhere  Didn't even realize this until I actually looked at retailers

I cannot recommend razer at all in any way shape or form. Buy a different laptop.

 

If you already have a gpu to spare then sure why not get a dock and call it a day. This was not info I knew so I went of buying everything.

 

Just don't buy a razer laptop they have an awful record and don't last. There are a fair few thin an light laptop that can actually cool themselves out there with thunderbolt that would be good for what you want to do.