A comprehensive 'apples to apples' comparison of GPU vs eGPU performance

[M.Laz]

I'm interested in eGPUs and the recetn LTT video on weird motherboards got me thinking about if there is an article or video with a deep dive on GPU vs eGPU performance.

Ideally, there would be a test done on a board that supports a mobile CPU, has a TB3 or TB4 port, and has a PCIex16 slot. 
The test would have data on the range of Turing, Ampere, RDNA, RDNA 2 cards. 
I'd like to see data for the card connected at x16, optionally connected at x4 to that same slot, and connected as an eGPU.
I haven't found anything this extensive yet, is there such a video or article out there?

 

It would be a pretty big undertaking and for a product that's still pretty niche, I would not be surprised to find that no one has decided to commit the resources for something this extensive. 

 

What I hope the data would show is that the GPU 'sweet spot' is for someone whose upgrade path is an eGPU. Does it make any sense to get something like a 3080 or 6800xt for an eGPU if there are n plans to transfer it to a desktop in the future?

Does AMD or Nvidia have an advantage over the other in the eGPU space? 

 

It would also be good to have that kind of date for someone planning to get a specific notebook and assume they can just throw an eGPU at it and expect to game to better understand if they should consider an alternative. 

[Vanburman]

I have not ever seen this level of detail in the wild for eGPU's but it certainly would be interesting. And I'd also like to see it, need someone with an extensive enough GPU collection @LinusTech - Video idea maybe ?

 

Usually knock around 15-20% of raw performance off the GPU, Which is what I experienced when I dabbled in it. 

[M.Laz]

I honestly don't see LTT doing a comprehensive eGPU video based on their previous videos. The problem is that there is an inverse relationship between tech reviewers interested in eGPUs and those that have the hardware and software to do comprehensive testing.

[m9x3mos]

6 hours ago, M.Laz said:

I honestly don't see LTT doing a comprehensive eGPU video based on their previous videos. The problem is that there is an inverse relationship between tech reviewers interested in eGPUs and those that have the hardware and software to do comprehensive testing.

That and I just don't see that many people interested in it. I know I am only using it because of a weird use case that I use it to dock and game on my work laptop and then switch to my gaming rig for the weekend (switch connections).

[M.Laz]

On 10/14/2021 at 7:56 PM, m9x3mos said:

That and I just don't see that many people interested in it. I know I am only using it because of a weird use case that I use it to dock and game on my work laptop and then switch to my gaming rig for the weekend (switch connections).

Pop over to reddit.com/r/egpu or egou.io. There is definitely interest out there. With the chip shortage, it's making a lot more sense to try and extend the capabilities of a laptop rather than trying to build a dedicated gaming PC. It's still nice, but that niche is bigger than it used to be.

There are so many questions about performance like  what cards are optimal for the limited PCIe bandwidth, what titles will be problematic (because they are PCIe bandwidth heavy), etc. It should be possible to test various types of GPU connections with different cards to build the definitive reference for those interested in eGPUs. But it would take a LOT of hardware to accomplish this.