Planning a new build

[Lilithty]

I am going to move into a college dorm room soon (woooooo!) but that means literally living and working and playing and sleeping and EVERYTHING in half of a box that is the size of a closet.... Needless to say I am caving and selling my desktop and replacing it with a portable and much smaller solution. (the problem wasn't the PC. It was the three 24"

monitors on a vesa stand)

 

I wanted something:

15 inches or smaller

Portable (laptop)

not super "gamery"... IMO many gaming laptops are very garrish and just look stupid.

Pretty thin and light. Don't want a massive thick laptop.

Has to be reasonably powerful (i'll be doing computer science. Need a decent CPU for compiling).

Reasonably powerful GPU. want to play some games as well. Nothing ridiculous. but still am going to play on an external monitor. 

 

So these requirements unfortunately are rather tough to match.

The new Razer Blade 16 looks perfect.... But its $2,000

The 2015 Razer Blade goes for about $1,500. Still too much.

 

So as I was racking my brain I came across posts on eGPU implementations and realized I had struck gold.

 

My current plan is:

  Get an ultrabook with ThunderBolt 3.

Get an AkiTiO thunderbox 2 (eGPU enclosure that operates at ThunderBolt 2 Speeds. If anyone knows of a better / cheaper / faster eGPU enclosure let me know)

Sell my PC for about 1400$

Get a 380x and some cheap EVGA PSU to power it

Also get an external monitor. maybe another 24" but idk for sure. a 144hz one would be great.(not really worried about this part)

and an external HDD or NAS array i will set up. (not worried about this part)

 

So my parts list looks like this:

Dell XPS 13: ($675)

8 GB RAM

128 GB SSD

i5 5200u CPU

1080p non touch screen

Don't remember the exact model of the iGPU it has. (Don't think it matters all that much in my case)

 

AkitiO thunderbox 2: ($219.99)

What more do you need to know?

It can be modded to allow larger cards to fit.

 

Some PSU: ($20-$35)

Something half decent. Probably an evga 430 W 80+ model or something similar. (Yes i know a 430 watt is really overkill)

 

R9 380X: ($220-$250)

I like the price point of the 380X and it has 4gb of VRAM.

If anyone can provide a different card for around the budget I have listed above that would outperform the R9 380x for around the same price please let me know.

 

Grand total:

about $1150 (plus the cost of monitor and External HDD which i'll worry about later)

 

If you have managed to stick around this far, congrats I'm impressed, and my real questions are:

 

1: Anyone that knows what they are doing with eGPU and the stuff I'm doing see anything wrong with my setup? Any thing I'm missing?

 

2: Anyone have any general advice?

 

3: Anyone have a better eGPU enclosure? Cheaper? Faster. I don't want to use express card or mSATA card slots. I want to use Thunder Bolt 3.

 

4: Anyone have any other general advice?

 

5: Turnip?

 

Before anyone tells me that the CPU is going to bottleneck the GPU. Unless you have a REAL ARGUMENT please just don't.

 

EDIT: forgot to mention that yes I am aware of techinferno. I'm trying LTT forum before i create an account on TI.

[DanKnight]

If you're getting a Thunderbolt 3 laptop, the AKiTiO Thunder2 PCIe Expansion Box won't work without a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 Adapter. The port design for Thunderbolt 3 is a USB Type-C Connector, while Thunderbolt 2 is it's own design.

In terms of everything else, I think you got it! Just gotta have that adapter, or just wait till a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU comes out.

[FRN]

why not just build an itx tower?

[antisleep]

2 hours ago, FRN said:

why not just build an itx tower?

he cant carry an entire system into the classroom

[Herman Mcpootis]

10 hours ago, DanKnight said:

If you're getting a Thunderbolt 3 laptop, the AKiTiO Thunder2 PCIe Expansion Box won't work without a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 Adapter. The port design for Thunderbolt 3 is a USB Type-C Connector, while Thunderbolt 2 is it's own design.

In terms of everything else, I think you got it! Just gotta have that adapter, or just wait till a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU comes out.

please don't necro old threads.