External gpu on an old laptop

[Sikesyy]

So i have a desktop at home but im out and about alot atm.

So i have an old laptop that doesnt have a thunderbolt port or even a type c port. 

Could i use a external hub to add a thunderbolt 3 port to my laptop or do i need a more modern laptop?

 

Thanks for any help guys!

[Skiiwee29]

you wont have the bandwidth necessary to use the GPU at any type of performance level that would be acceptable or respectable with an e-GPU. 

[CapitalistVN]

You can probably use the mini PCIe slot on your laptop motherboard to connect with an eGPU, pretty sure there are some adapters for it.

[TheSLSAMG]

5 minutes ago, CapitalistVN said:

You can probably use the mini PCIe slot on your laptop motherboard to connect with an eGPU, pretty sure there are some adapters for it.

Yeah, there are a few different adapters out there for this including the EXP GDC Beast. Using one with ExpressCard (same PCIe 2.0 x1 bandwidth as mPCIe) on a Lenovo ThinkPad X230, this is what I was able to achieve in Fire Strike and Time Spy with a GTX 970:

 

 https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15473294 https://www.3dmark.com/spy/3736059 

 

The results (as far as GPU performance goes) are certainly respectable, with an around 2500 point drop in FS from what my GTX 970 Strix normally does in a desktop with the applied OC.

 

In my opinion, the bigger issue is whether your laptop has a decent enough CPU to keep up. The i5-3360M (2C, 4T, 3.1GHz all-core boost) in my ThinkPad wasn't enough to keep the GPU fed in all games, so some were downright unplayable. Had it been an i7-3630QM, it would've been a much better experience.