Gaming Laptop + External GPU recomandations

[Tiber1337]

Hey,

 

So I'm in the market for a 17 inch 120hz/144hz display gaming laptop, that will highly compatible with an external GPU box without much bottleneck.

I want to use the eGPU with the laptop's display (not a external display) , however I've heard there are issues with delay and stuff when it comes to this option especialy in FPS games like CS:GO

 

What I had in mind was a Alienware 17 with a gtx 1060 + a Alienware Graphics Amplifier with a GTX 2080 because it seemed to have good performance.

 

I am looking for opinions,other brands, research and your view on what I should get. I didn't buy anything just yet as I've never worked with a setup like this before.

 

I hope some of you which are more experienced can help.

 

Extra question: is the cable from the eGPU to the laptop going to be a bottleneck for future stronger GPU's?

[Cereal5]

You can run CSGO with a hamster. You don't need an eGPU. Maybe for other FPS games it might matter but input lag can probably be overlooked otherwise

[wojtepanik]

can't you just wait for laptops with raytracing ?

[Tiber1337]

54 minutes ago, wojtepanik said:

can't you just wait for laptops with raytracing ?

Not really, I have a opportunity to buy anything at about 30% discount.

[Tiber1337]

58 minutes ago, Cereal5 said:

You can run CSGO with a hamster. You don't need an eGPU. Maybe for other FPS games it might matter but input lag can probably be overlooked otherwise

Well, BF5 perhaps I'm not sure what amount input lag we're talking about here

[zhubaohi]

A thunderbolt 3 port only has access to 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, while normally a high end graphics card requires at least 8 lanes to unleash it's full potential.(I've read some reviews, a gtx 1080 requres at least 8 lanes, and a more powerful card requires more. That is why 1070 or lower is recommended if you want to have an eGPU solution.) Plus there will be bandwith lost if you want to use it on internal display.

 

So, I do not recommend using a 2080 for eGPU. You will likely spend $1000( a 2080 card and an enclosure) for a 30% FPS increase compare to your 1060.

 

 

[Tiber1337]

7 minutes ago, zhubaohi said:

A thunderbolt 3 port only has access to 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, while normally a high end graphics card requires at least 8 lanes to unleash it's full potential.(I've read some reviews, a gtx 1080 requres at least 8 lanes, and a more powerful card requires more. That is why 1070 or lower is recommended if you want to have an eGPU solution.) Plus there will be bandwith lost if you want to use it on internal display.

 

So, I do not recommend using a 2080 for eGPU. You will likely spend $1000( a 2080 card and an enclosure) for a 30% FPS increase compare to your 1060.

 

 

 

I've seen that thunderbolt 3 sucks for eGPU thanks for the info , but what about Alienware Graphics Amplifier? it seems to be much better than thunderbolt solutions, but I'm not sure what bandwidth it can handle, can't find that information

[zhubaohi]

50 minutes ago, Tiber1337 said:

 

I've seen that thunderbolt 3 sucks for eGPU thanks for the info , but what about Alienware Graphics Amplifier? it seems to be much better than thunderbolt solutions, but I'm not sure what bandwidth it can handle, can't find that information

Alienware graphics amplifier also has access to only 4 pcie 3.0 lanes, same as thunderbolt3. I'm not saying you will not get any improvements, but the performance to price ratio will be very low, if you plan to use a 2080 in it. If you really want it, you can find a used 1080ti on ebay, but you will likely lose up to 30% of your graphics performance if you plan to use it on internal display.

[Tiber1337]

@zhubaohi In Linus's video about this, he mentions everything that you say on thunderbolt. He doesen't talk much about the alienware amplifier about internal display. I'm confused now

 

 

 

[zhubaohi]

1 hour ago, Tiber1337 said:

@zhubaohi In Linus's video about this, he mentions everything that you say on thunderbolt. He doesen't talk much about the alienware amplifier about internal display. I'm confused now

 

Well, as long as Dell's solution uses 4 pcie lanes, it will bottleneck the GPU. I do not posses one of these, so I just assumed it's internal display will perform worse than external display. I could be wrong, but I dought it. Using the internal display, means the eGPU need to send the video back to the laptop thru the cable, and this will likely occupy some of the bandwith, and have a negative influence on the FPS. Again, I'm just assuming based on common sense, Dell might already solved this issue, I could be wrong.

[genexis_x]

Why you want to pair eGPU with gaming laptop?

[Tiber1337]

On 10/19/2018 at 6:50 PM, GeneXiS_X said:

Why you want to pair eGPU with gaming laptop?

Well the options are:

Laptop with 1070 

or

Laptop with1060+ Alienware aplifier with stronger GPU

 

I need to combine good gaming performance at home while having portability for other activities on same machine

[genexis_x]

The thing is, eGPU can only have 1060 like performance due to TB# limitation, even with a 1080TI. Not sure on AGA, it should have the same problem but less bottleneck. Better settle down with 1060 laptop

[Pendragon]

@Tiber1337 Hmmm, pretty much what everyone said is wrong. 

 

Firstly, Alienware eGPU implementation is great. It's a direct 4x lane without any TB3 conversion loss. If you look at benchmarks comparing 16x vs 4x the difference is like 5%. So whatever. 

 

TB3 does incur higher losses depending on how you run it. 

 

Interestingly, ULV CPUs work better with eGPUs up to a certain point due to OPI. Note. Up to a certain extent. If you take a look at benchmarks on Firestrike from someone using a ULV CPU+xGPU and a 6 core 45W CPU+xGPU, the ULV setup's GPU score is generally higher. (source: ultrabookreview). However, if you're planning to add a 2080 then you'll need the 6 core 45w CPU to scale even if you incur higher losses, it's worth it once you hit a high enough GPU power threshold.

 

I run my XPS13 (2018 white) with an Aorus 1080 box and I get around 1070 to 1070ti desktop levels. Note my setup is very optimized, highly overclocked and lots of aftermarket modding went into it. A stock setup is around 1070max-q with a 1080 box.

 

Hence you can assume a tier downgrade from whathever GPU you're running using TB3 (2080ti will run like a 2080/1080ti) and no downgrade using Alienware's eGPU setup.

 

^ those are the facts.

 

Now for my opinion. Why the fuck are you using a 17in laptop for eGPU? The point of eGPU was to have a thin and light notebook do it no? But ultimately up to you. If you really really want to run the best eGPU setup, Alienware is the best implementation on the market. BUT all Alienware's are heavy as fuck. I lugged one around for 2 years and while I was fine, when I went to my XPS13 it was a completely different experience. 

 

Should probably get a thin and light ish laptop with a 6 core CPU + eGPU

[Tiber1337]

1 hour ago, Pendragon said:

SNIP

Dude you  were  extremely informative. thanks for that.

 

However it seems that I can only buy atm a Dell 7577 with a 1060 6gb atm, don't ask me why it's complicated.

 

BUT, it comes only with a HDMI 2.0 Port and I wanted to use my 1080p 144hz monitor with it. My monitor has HDMI 1.4 (AOC  G2460PF )

 

Can I use my external monitor with 144hz with this laptop?

[Pendragon]

3 hours ago, Tiber1337 said:

Can I use my external monitor with 144hz with this laptop?

yes