Framework Laptop & eGPU: GPU CPU Pairing

[MoxFlynn]

Budget (including currency): $1,500ish, ideally selling my older laptop for a few peanuts.

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Rust, Splitgate 2, Blender, Waveform DAW. (Not a serious gamer, but I appreciate 120Hz)

Other details: Dell XPS 15 9510 (11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H, 16GB RAM), GeForce RTX 3080 in a Razer CoreX Chroma eGPU with Thunderbolt 3, 2X ASUS 1440p 120Hz Monitors. Seeking framework laptop.

 

Hello All,

Its a long story, but I have a GeForce RTX 3080 in a Razer CoreX Chroma eGPU (Thunderbolt 3) and I'm thinking about upgrading my laptop (a Dell XPS 15 9510) to a Framework laptop since the whole system seems to be really dragged down by the CPU. Ideally, the whole system will then be generally modular for future upgrades.

I have a few questions:

I believe I learned the system is limited in general because of the limitations of Thunderbolt 3, will upgrading the separate components be pointless at some level?

If I were to get a framework laptop, what CPU would be best matched with the system? Based on CPU GPU bottleneck calculators (which I hear are all bogus) the Intel Ultra 5 125H 4.5GHz would be just fine, but I have no real idea.

 

Thanks!

[jaslion]

6 hours ago, MoxFlynn said:

because of the limitations of Thunderbolt 3,

Yes correct, this will always be the limiting factor here a 3080 simply isnt properly fed by the link.

 

However since you have it already no point changing it.

 

a 11800h should be doing pretty fine keeping up with it especially as it is being slowed by the tb3 link.

 

The framework 13 with the ryzen 340 will do but honestly for your budget I wouldnt get a framework and just get something else faster.

 

Either way for gaming I wouldnt expect a big jump but for other tasks getting a better cpu would do a lot. However the 340 may not be a satisfying upgrade and you may prefer going a bit higher. Sadly your budget wouldnt allow that going framework.

 

6 hours ago, MoxFlynn said:

ideally selling my older laptop for a few peanuts.

Its an xps those sell for a decent chunk above others usually