Can someone explain to me the advanatges of a thunderbolt GPU vs dedicated GPU on the laptop

[Voltron123friends]

Im either deciding to get a core ultra 5 processor laptop for college and hook it up to a thunderbolt GPU(probably the new intel B580) or getting an Asus g14 or a14, but are there any disadvantages to getting a thunderbolt GPU than a dGPU on a laptop?

[GOTSpectrum]

Advantage is the laptop is lighter and uses less power when you aren't gaming. 

You can take your lighter laptop on the go and not need an outlet, then get home, dock/plug in the GPU and off to the races with a great gaming experience 

 

Disadvantage, you have more to carry when you want to game away from home and the GPU could be slightly less performant. But usually the better thermals make up for that 

[starsmine]

4 minutes ago, Voltron123friends said:

Im either deciding to get a core ultra 5 processor laptop for college and hook it up to a thunderbolt GPU(probably the new intel B580) or getting an Asus g14 or a14, but are there any disadvantages to getting a thunderbolt GPU than a dGPU on a laptop?

Cost and portability and power requirements are major cons with thunderbolt enclosures. 

[Zodiark1593]

Pros,  you don’t need to manage both dGPU and iGPU on a laptop. While gaming laptops can have really good battery life, an errant program keeping the dGPU awake will rapidly devour battery. Need to run a tight ship. 
 

Also, the dGPU often cannot be upgraded. 

 

Cons, very costly. Is another thing to haul around and plug in if you need the dGPU away from home. 

[Eigenvektor]

Pros:

• You can pair (almost) any laptop with any (usually more powerful) discrete desktop GPU
• You can use the same dGPU for more than one laptop (not at the same time)
• You can continue to use the dGPU when you switch laptops or switch to desktop

Cons:

• You need more room, power and the additional GPU isn't as portable. You always have the dGPU inside the laptop with you, but that same might not be true with the external enclosure, since it's extra bulk to carry along.
• More cost than simply buying a laptop
• Thunderbolt also reduces performance of the GPU compared to using it inside a desktop, due to lack of bandwidth, but it should outperform same-tier laptop models at the very least

[Voltron123friends]

19 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

Pros:

• You can pair (almost) any laptop with any (usually more powerful) discrete desktop GPU
• You can use the same dGPU for more than one laptop (not at the same time)
• You can continue to use the dGPU when you switch laptops or switch to desktop

Cons:

• You need more room, power and the additional GPU isn't as portable. You always have the dGPU inside the laptop with you, but that same might not be true with the external enclosure, since it's extra bulk to carry along.
• More cost than simply buying a laptop
• Thunderbolt also reduces performance of the GPU compared to using it inside a desktop, due to lack of bandwidth, but it should outperform same-tier laptop models at the very least

Do you have any cheap thunderbolt 4 options

[starsmine]

4 hours ago, Voltron123friends said:

Do you have any cheap thunderbolt 4 options

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-egpu-dock?srsltid=AfmBOorZKyJh2zReZLINZ8QZ5m0eEKZxARnc9YS-0Y7O7diXJaleCvRK

but you will also need a PSU to go with it. 

Edit: 
NVM thats Oculink not Thunderbolt

unless you want to spend 300, you can go with some chinese brands and roll the dice.

[Voltron123friends]

18 hours ago, starsmine said:

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-egpu-dock?srsltid=AfmBOorZKyJh2zReZLINZ8QZ5m0eEKZxARnc9YS-0Y7O7diXJaleCvRK

but you will also need a PSU to go with it. 

Edit: 
NVM thats Oculink not Thunderbolt

unless you want to spend 300, you can go with some chinese brands and roll the dice.

whats oculink

[Voltron123friends]

18 hours ago, starsmine said:

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-egpu-dock?srsltid=AfmBOorZKyJh2zReZLINZ8QZ5m0eEKZxARnc9YS-0Y7O7diXJaleCvRK

but you will also need a PSU to go with it. 

Edit: 
NVM thats Oculink not Thunderbolt

unless you want to spend 300, you can go with some chinese brands and roll the dice.

another question, do you know how to set up an oculink? idk how to do thunderbolt since I'm trying to choose between getting a thin and light gaming laptop for college or just a eGPU and a 500 dollar laptop. Does oculink work with ryzen cpus and is it like plug and play or more setup involved? Its cool if you don't know

[starsmine]

14 minutes ago, Voltron123friends said:

whats oculink

optical coper link, its straight up passing the pcie signal over optical. its not common. 

 

10 minutes ago, Voltron123friends said:

another question, do you know how to set up an oculink? idk how to do thunderbolt since I'm trying to choose between getting a thin and light gaming laptop for college or just a eGPU and a 500 dollar laptop. Does oculink work with ryzen cpus and is it like plug and play or more setup involved? Its cool if you don't know

Get a convertable so you can take notes on it. the goal is to take notes, a convertable lets you write and draw your notes.
build a desktop for gaming. 
oculink is cpu vender agnostic, the cpu just sees a retimed pcie 4.0 x 4 slot