looking for eGPU setup recommendations

dchiang · October 8, 2018

I'm looking to pickup a new laptops for my fiancee and I, and I wanted to get something that would have a docking station of sorts so we could share the single desk that we have. Originally was just going to have to be restricted down to a single enterprise line of laptops where a docking station would have been an accessory. Then I realized Thunderbolt 3 was a thing now, however it can only drive two monitors at a time. I have three 24" monitors that I'm going to end up re-using from before moving in. Thinking that I'm going to need to use an external GPU enclosure of some sort to have the graphics card drive all three monitors. I'm wondering if there is anyone that has found a decent one that could work. Space is a concern and I'm not looking to clutter up the valuable desk space with dongles hence the enclosure as well. Would need to have additional USB ports and a network jack as well for connectivity.

Open to suggestions on enclosures, going to see how feasible this all is before I start looking at laptops

Edit: There isn't going to be much gaming on this mostly productivity, but that could always change =D I'm out in the Vancouver area so would be helpful in CAD

Edited October 8, 2018 by dchiang
see edit

RollTime · October 8, 2018

Thunderbolt isn't limited to 2 monitors as far as I know. Are they 1080p displays? If so you should be alright.

If I'm wrong here someone please let me know.

dchiang · October 8, 2018

as far as I could tell, Thunderbolt will support two display port streams which I'm reading to be only two monitors. plus all of the dongles that I've seen out there only come with two display connectors. If i could daisy chain two dongles together then it might work, however I'm not looking to cheat to get the third monitor to work via displaylink.

i'm really looking to try to get it setup so it's just a single cable that would be needed to be moved between laptops to charge and drive all three monitors plus peripherals

dchiang · October 8, 2018

monitors are 1920X1200 but eventually i might want to replace them with something different. I'm thinking the eGPU route would give me the option to upgrade the graphics cards and monitors to get more performance down the road without having to replace the laptops.