Could eGPU setup make my G14 have more performance?

[Puszek]

Budget (including currency): ~1500$ (but I have few GPUs)

Country: Poland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: mostly Rocket league, Armored Core 6, Elden Ring etc. AKA gaming but in higher resolutions 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

I currently have Asus g14 laptop ith 6800HS and 6700S using USB hub to connect all of the peripherials (I am switching it for my work laptop since I am WFH)

 

Hi LTT forums. I was wondering if someone could help me with this topic. I started to think if I could prolong my lapotp's lifespan by connecting it to eGPU enclousure used as a USB hub and power station(single USB connection) with the best GPU that could be connected to it without going over 40GBPS limit on it's port. I have searched for the answer for very long time and tried to leverage chatGPT(3.5)/Bing(same but 4) for answers, but I got this response:

I have read that 3080 is the 'top tier' card for eGPU setup (bandwidth) and it would still be way slower than regular desktop GPU but I was wondering if there is currently solution available to hook my laptop to, let's say, 3070 (I have 2 lying around lol) and be able to buy some 1440p UW or 4K monitor (in theory similar workload on CPU) and use bigger resolution than currently. I have been using 1080p 16:9 external monitor and 1080p 16:10 internal mostly for playing RL but I moved from PC tower setup that had 5600xt, then 3060, then 3070 and I could use 1440p monitor with similar performance. I would love to use 1440p UW or 4k with this laptop (again, because of work I like to have over-the-top audio setup even on calls and ease of swap between laptops to play them games) but seeing it's perf on 1080p, I do not think it's feasible. 

Is there anyone who tried to resuscitate (where spellcheck) their 'getting old gaming laptop' with eGPU (mine is still quite fresh, but I could try to flip it if that's not possible)? This would allow me to move to ultrabook laptop in the future or something. Would that be feasible or we are not there yet?

[Dedayog]

We build desktops instead of propping up a laptop with a crutch.

 

You can build a better desktop for $1500, is that not an option?

[Puszek]

Thanks for instant response

It would be, but I am frequently visiting my friends to play LAN RL so I really like the portability in those cases (because RL is not that demanding, and my friends Xbox X has horrible input lag on his dated TV). Also I have tested it during covid and cable clutter kills me when connecting my desktop setup and work laptop and I had to play on that not-so-fun-to-play-tv when I am at my friends. I that scenario I would rather play 1080p 144fps+ internal display than old 4k 60Hz TV and I can't really ask my friend to buy newer TVs (and my laptop can't handle 4k 120+ in RL) and I am not rich enough to buy them those  
On top of that I just moved to not-that-big studio flat and I want to save as much space as possible, even using monitor/TV of the setup as a display for watching movies etc.

Budget was set up so I could buy any modern mid-high end GPU + enclousure + PSU.

I really love that I can turn off work pc, plug in mine and play games within 1min or so. I was thinking about some other solutions, but I could not find anything that could be cheaper in this regard, apart for having more stuff in small apartment. I was wondering, if there is better solution than having 2 laptops and 1 PC tower that would be similar cost. It's more like 'I am looking for options' than get another PC that you just gave up for ease of use
I undesrtand that is VERY SPECIFIC question but until I can get modular laptop in Poland, eGPU seems to be the best solution in my case. If I couls swap that 6700s to newer GPU, I would, but in my case I would need to eaither flip laptops every now and then or have something, that is not really suiting me. If that's the case, oh well.

[jaslion]

An egpu really is not that portable.

 

That and you have to have a usb4 one which is at best thunderbolt 3.0 x4 linke so pcie 3.0 x4 and that bottlenecks even the lowest end cards these days decently well.

 

1 minute ago, Puszek said:

I really love that I can turn off work pc, plug in mine and play games within 1min or so.

We can get you set up so you have a kvm that you dock your current dock into and your new desktop directly into the kvm. Hit a button on the kvm and it works just like the old setup.

 

Either way egpu isn't going to help you get much better performance than a 6700s since you are severly bandwith limited. A 3070 will most likely be performing at the level of power you have now.

 

So if you visit your friends just use the laptop you have now. When at home use the desktop

 

Or option 3 sell the laptop you have now and buy a better one. Keeps the portability, removes the crappyness of an egpu and gets you everything properly portable.

 

 

[Agall]

45 minutes ago, Puszek said:

Budget (including currency): ~1500$ (but I have few GPUs)

Country: Poland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: mostly Rocket league, Armored Core 6, Elden Ring etc. AKA gaming but in higher resolutions 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

I currently have Asus g14 laptop ith 6800HS and 6700S using USB hub to connect all of the peripherials (I am switching it for my work laptop since I am WFH)

 

Hi LTT forums. I was wondering if someone could help me with this topic. I started to think if I could prolong my lapotp's lifespan by connecting it to eGPU enclousure used as a USB hub and power station(single USB connection) with the best GPU that could be connected to it without going over 40GBPS limit on it's port. I have searched for the answer for very long time and tried to leverage chatGPT(3.5)/Bing(same but 4) for answers, but I got this response:

I have read that 3080 is the 'top tier' card for eGPU setup (bandwidth) and it would still be way slower than regular desktop GPU but I was wondering if there is currently solution available to hook my laptop to, let's say, 3070 (I have 2 lying around lol) and be able to buy some 1440p UW or 4K monitor (in theory similar workload on CPU) and use bigger resolution than currently. I have been using 1080p 16:9 external monitor and 1080p 16:10 internal mostly for playing RL but I moved from PC tower setup that had 5600xt, then 3060, then 3070 and I could use 1440p monitor with similar performance. I would love to use 1440p UW or 4k with this laptop (again, because of work I like to have over-the-top audio setup even on calls and ease of swap between laptops to play them games) but seeing it's perf on 1080p, I do not think it's feasible. 

Is there anyone who tried to resuscitate (where spellcheck) their 'getting old gaming laptop' with eGPU (mine is still quite fresh, but I could try to flip it if that's not possible)? This would allow me to move to ultrabook laptop in the future or something. Would that be feasible or we are not there yet?

You'd have to modify the chassis to get eGPU support using an M.2 slot or such and hope its enough bandwidth to drive a dGPU, since that laptop doesn't appear to support Thunderbolt. AMD laptops can support Thunderbolt, but they need a Thunderbolt controller for it, which most don't, and Asus would rather put their proprietary eGPU connector on than do that.

 

Even then, the experience of actually using thunderbolt eGPUs isn't great. I daily drove one as my main rig for over a year and the latency added (even while using an external dispaly) was enough to have actual game performance impacts at ~50ms extra latency. In WoW, it was enough time to miss a spell interrupt reliably that was solved by going back to my i7 4790k desktop.

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Agall said:

You'd have to modify the chassis to get eGPU support using an M.2 slot or such and hope its enough bandwidth to drive a dGPU, since that laptop doesn't appear to support Thunderbolt. AMD laptops can support Thunderbolt, but they need a Thunderbolt controller for it, which most don't, and Asus would rather put their proprietary eGPU connector on than do that.

 

Even then, the experience of actually using thunderbolt eGPUs isn't great. I daily drove one as my main rig for over a year and the latency added (even while using an external dispaly) was enough to have actual game performance impacts at ~50ms extra latency. In WoW, it was enough time to miss a spell interrupt reliably that was solved by going back to my i7 4790k desktop.

It recieved usb4 through a firmware update however that does make it a bit wonky with all egpu docks.

[Agall]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

It recieved usb4 through a firmware update however that does make it a bit wonky with all egpu docks.

I agree, but USB4 =/= thunderbolt even though it should.

[jaslion]

Just now, Agall said:

I agree, but USB4 =/= thunderbolt even though it should.

Yup hence my addon with egpu dock wonkyness. It works sometimes. It's basically completly random what it will work with so yeah op if you do go egpu basically good luck finding a dock that works

[Agall]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

Yup hence my addon with egpu dock wonkyness. It works sometimes. It's basically completly random what it will work with so yeah op if you do go egpu basically good luck finding a dock that works

Even though USB4 is marketed to support thunderbolt, its not a requirement to meet USB4 standards, which are looser than they should be.

 

Thunderbolt is optional in USB4, USB4 spec says | PCWorld

 

As someone who does occasionally do weird stuff with eGPUs, its disappointing, but at least I don't have to worry about 20Gb/sec vs 40Gb/sec ports like it was a few years ago.

[jaslion]

16 minutes ago, Agall said:

Even though USB4 is marketed to support thunderbolt, its not a requirement to meet USB4 standards, which are looser than they should be.

 

Thunderbolt is optional in USB4, USB4 spec says | PCWorld

 

As someone who does occasionally do weird stuff with eGPUs, its disappointing, but at least I don't have to worry about 20Gb/sec vs 40Gb/sec ports like it was a few years ago.

Interesting thingy I found the asus DOES support pcie HOWEVER it seems to be mostly a x2 link.

 

Basically making it useless for egpu.

[Agall]

5 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Interesting thingy I found the asus DOES support pcie HOWEVER it seems to be mostly a x2 link.

 

Basically making it useless for egpu.

Their custom eGPU system is good, although limited since it uses a non-modular GPU design.

 

ASUS ROG XG Mobile eGPU Dock NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU OFF BLACK GC33Y-059 - Best Buy

 

If I didn't already have a top specced desktop, I'd probably be blowing money on these things while using their tablet or an ROG Ally. Between 2016-2021, these were products I was the top paying customer for, but that's since died having having my RX 6900 XT then RTX 4090 that don't even fit in any eGPU enclosure. I'm in a constant battle to not throw my 7950x3D in the B650 mITX board I already have and do weird SFX builds constantly like I used to

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Agall said:

Their custom eGPU system is good, although limited since it uses a non-modular GPU design.

 

ASUS ROG XG Mobile eGPU Dock NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU OFF BLACK GC33Y-059 - Best Buy

 

If I didn't already have a top specced desktop, I'd probably be blowing money on these things while using their tablet or an ROG Ally. Between 2016-2021, these were products I was the top paying customer for, but that's since died having having my RX 6900 XT then RTX 4090 that don't even fit in any eGPU enclosure. I'm in a constant battle to not throw my 7950x3D in the B650 mITX board I already have and do weird SFX builds constantly like I used to

It is but the g14 doesn't support it it's the flow series and a couple others limited.

 

 

[Agall]

3 minutes ago, jaslion said:

It is but the g14 doesn't support it it's the flow series and a couple others limited.

 

 

I agree, and its a scenario where Asus practically killed their thunderbolt eGPU lineup and have a financial incentive to not support thunderbolt anymore but suppor their XG eGPU system. My major point in pointing towards those XG devices.

 

Thunderbolt eGPUs would be nice for productivity, but for gaming, in my experience in using them, kind of suck.

[jaslion]

Just now, Agall said:

I agree, and its a scenario where Asus practically killed their thunderbolt eGPU lineup and have a financial incentive to not support thunderbolt anymore but suppor their XG eGPU system. My major point in pointing towards those XG devices.

Thing is most of those devices do support thunderbolt as long as they are intel based or have usb4 with pcie link. So it is nice that asus basically says. Hey here is a better solution that is from only us or you can use a universal version.

 

Either way they are the only ones that actually have a somewhat usable egpu system right now.

[Agall]

3 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Thing is most of those devices do support thunderbolt as long as they are intel based or have usb4 with pcie link. So it is nice that asus basically says. Hey here is a better solution that is from only us or you can use a universal version.

 

Either way they are the only ones that actually have a somewhat usable egpu system right now.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-1065G7 Processor,LENOVO LNVNB161216 (3dmark.com)

 

Found one of my 3Dmark benchmarks from only a few years ago, one of the last times I tested eGPU enclosures via thunderbolt. That laptop has a full 40Gb/sec lane and I do still have it.

 

Alienware's solution was also really good, proprietary folded PCIe connector with a modular full GPU slot. There's other standards that also work that might take off in the non-mainstream.

[Puszek]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Or option 3 sell the laptop you have now and buy a better one. Keeps the portability, removes the crappyness of an egpu and gets you everything properly portable.

That's the first time I got so many replies, so thank you LTT community

(skip next 2 paragraphs if you already know I was delusional)
I thought of that, but I got mine like half a year ago for ~2k USD (currently it's even more expensive in Poland) and newer model with 4080 (nothing better available here) costs twice as much as mine and benchmarks are showing, it's 2x more powerfull so cost/performance ratio is the same, but screen is 1600p, which would actually equal to the similar performance while on the go (yes yes, more faster ram but for me it's useless atm, I can add capacity on my own later, CPU would actually make a diff in high FPS scenarios, but screen does not support it fully, better CPU, more SSD storage) but it isn't 'game changer' (might be wrong, consider price/perf) - it's an improvement, but is it worth ~20% loss of initial purchase and cleaning laptop every 1,5 years or so for similar perf on the go? Not to mention 10-20% more power consuption.

 

That is why I have asked this question - if there is a way I could potentially tinker it and make it work with a better screen for similar price in the comming years and not banish my initial investment right now. I would rather sell this laptop when it's more out of date to some college kid (or friend/familiy) that needs a laptop (cen't stress enough how G14 chassis is amazing IMHO) for a good price and want to play some games in the meantime rather than sell it to some reseller than would rip next person off (yeah sure, I might lose money but integrity is more valuable to me) instead of paying full price for new laptop that is already outdated (I mean, 1650 'gaming laptops' in 2023 anyone?)

(continue reading here if you thought I was delusional)

So all in all, it would be better for me, to look for a good gaming monitor with KVM switch, sell of my current laptop, purchase desktop and work with it instead of doing all of the shenanigans.

I love that community was quicker and smarter than AI in this scenario
Have a great day all !
(attaching cat photo as a thank you)

[jaslion]

9 minutes ago, Puszek said:

That's the first time I got so many replies, so thank you LTT community

(skip next 2 paragraphs if you already know I was delusional)
I thought of that, but I got mine like half a year ago for ~2k USD (currently it's even more expensive in Poland) and newer model with 4080 (nothing better available here) costs twice as much as mine and benchmarks are showing, it's 2x more powerfull so cost/performance ratio is the same, but screen is 1600p, which would actually equal to the similar performance while on the go (yes yes, more faster ram but for me it's useless atm, I can add capacity on my own later, CPU would actually make a diff in high FPS scenarios, but screen does not support it fully, better CPU, more SSD storage) but it isn't 'game changer' (might be wrong, consider price/perf) - it's an improvement, but is it worth ~20% loss of initial purchase and cleaning laptop every 1,5 years or so for similar perf on the go? Not to mention 10-20% more power consuption.

 

That is why I have asked this question - if there is a way I could potentially tinker it and make it work with a better screen for similar price in the comming years and not banish my initial investment right now. I would rather sell this laptop when it's more out of date to some college kid (or friend/familiy) that needs a laptop (cen't stress enough how G14 chassis is amazing IMHO) for a good price and want to play some games in the meantime rather than sell it to some reseller than would rip next person off (yeah sure, I might lose money but integrity is more valuable to me) instead of paying full price for new laptop that is already outdated (I mean, 1650 'gaming laptops' in 2023 anyone?)

(continue reading here if you thought I was delusional)

So all in all, it would be better for me, to look for a good gaming monitor with KVM switch, sell of my current laptop, purchase desktop and work with it instead of doing all of the shenanigans.

I love that community was quicker and smarter than AI in this scenario
Have a great day all !
(attaching cat photo as a thank you)

I mean you can have a laptop and desktop 1500 is nothing to laugh at gets you pretty decent stuff

[jaslion]

53 minutes ago, Agall said:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-1065G7 Processor,LENOVO LNVNB161216 (3dmark.com)

 

Found one of my 3Dmark benchmarks from only a few years ago, one of the last times I tested eGPU enclosures via thunderbolt. That laptop has a full 40Gb/sec lane and I do still have it.

 

Alienware's solution was also really good, proprietary folded PCIe connector with a modular full GPU slot. There's other standards that also work that might take off in the non-mainstream.

Yeah too bad dell did basically a one off with it.

 

Maybe frameworks open to use standard helps in the future who knows. For sure makes them more enticing when I switch laptops in 4 years

[Agall]

17 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Yeah too bad dell did basically a one off with it.

 

Maybe frameworks open to use standard helps in the future who knows. For sure makes them more enticing when I switch laptops in 4 years

I imagine their modular dGPU compartment could be adapted to PCIe in some way.

 

The reality of my current arrangement is that I don't need a personal laptop. Anything I can't do on my phone or desktop at home is handled on my work laptop, which was previously a laptop+desktop which I consolidated into an Asus G14. It wasn't hard to convince management that a last gen gaming laptop on sale for $800 was better than having two devices. I easily outrun an ultrabook, even while doing basic multitasking, so I found myself wanting a larger die CPU. Gaming laptops provide.

 

I'm building the talking points to convince them that I need a framework laptop, but that likely won't be in a couple of years. I'd ideally swap the 5-6 laptops our organization uses to them as well, all the larger form factor ones. I've also looked at buying the old generation standalones since we have various use-cases for ultra SFF machines like NUCs.

[jaslion]

Just now, Agall said:

imagine their modular dGPU compartment could be adapted to PCIe in some way.

Probably its a literal pcie link

 

Yeah at work for the cad and 3d users we did a trial run of lenovo legions.

 

Its gonna be the new standard as we can actually spec em out so hard for the price of a low end dell workstation laptop that it doesn't make financial sense to not do it. That and dells support sucks so bad that the regular support from lenovo for a broken screen was months faster than dell taking 4 months to replace a panel

[Agall]

4 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Probably its a literal pcie link

 

Yeah at work for the cad and 3d users we did a trial run of lenovo legions.

 

Its gonna be the new standard as we can actually spec em out so hard for the price of a low end dell workstation laptop that it doesn't make financial sense to not do it. That and dells support sucks so bad that the regular support from lenovo for a broken screen was months faster than dell taking 4 months to replace a panel

^^^^^^

 

Why all the most recent replacement workstations I've bought are DIY builds. The cost different was like $600 vs $1800 to get an equivalently specced Dell system that used non-standard parts and would require shipping to service. Pleasant result of having someone as you system/network administrator who's built PCs for years versus the guy who didn't know hardware at all. Guy I replaced retired, if it puts it into perspective, a lot of things he didn't keep up with in his age regarding advancements and design.

[Puszek]

15 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Maybe frameworks open to use standard helps in the future who knows. For sure makes them more enticing when I switch laptops in 4 years

Fingers crossed  I hope one day, laptops would be similar to current PC tower designs (GL framework) - modular, easy to upgrade and allow people with less resourcess to buy off 2nd hand hardware instead of buying 'complete solutions' that are then thrown away because they are worth baraly anything after 2 years or so 

[jaslion]

53 minutes ago, Puszek said:

Fingers crossed  I hope one day, laptops would be similar to current PC tower designs (GL framework) - modular, easy to upgrade and allow people with less resourcess to buy off 2nd hand hardware instead of buying 'complete solutions' that are then thrown away because they are worth baraly anything after 2 years or so 

Ehh not getting my hopes up for that in this economic system

 

57 minutes ago, Agall said:

^^^^^^

 

Why all the most recent replacement workstations I've bought are DIY builds. The cost different was like $600 vs $1800 to get an equivalently specced Dell system that used non-standard parts and would require shipping to service. Pleasant result of having someone as you system/network administrator who's built PCs for years versus the guy who didn't know hardware at all. Guy I replaced retired, if it puts it into perspective, a lot of things he didn't keep up with in his age regarding advancements and design.

You tell me. Corporate is trying to hard force dell leasing. Like bro 900€ and I have the same hp probook, its ours and well I can even get 5 years warranty and 3 years onsite tacked on for 100 more. Instead of 1700 for a dell latitude that literally fucking bends in my backpack :D.

 

Good thing its basically universally hated so they are backtracking. That and one arrived doa and the soonest replacement is in februari