My laptop works fine for watching streaming services, doing office work, and playing very light games. I want to play some games on Steam that require a bit more from a GPU, so I am considering getting an eGPU. When I try to run any games that require a bit more GPU, the laptop runs very, very hot. Honestly, I am not tech savvy about this stuff.
Is an eGPU worth it and will it work?
I don’t want to spend more than 300 USD.
What are some good options?
(I do not want to buy a desktop or a new laptop)
Here are my laptop specs:
Zenbook Pro 15 Flip Oled UP6502ZD
GPU 0: Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics
GPU 1: Intel® Arc™ A730M Graphics
16.0 GB RAM
12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-12700H 2.30 GHz
Windows 11 Home
2 Thunderbolt 4 USBC Ports
If you really care about performance, laptop and eGPU just won’t cut it. eGPU might eventually be comparable to desktop GPU on PCIe 4 down the road, but you will need a new laptop to work with that future eGPU anyway.
For now, eGPU has to operate at a bandwidth and latency at least 2x worse than desktop GPU.
I guess it depends on the GPU, most GPU doesn’t use the entire bandwidth of the PCIE 8x. Meaning if you’re hoping to use a 3080 or 3090, then eGPU is a waste of money.
According to some internet article I read, it’s mainly if you wish to use the laptop’s own display, the data must go out the thunderbolt port and then come back in, thus reducing your throughput further to x2. That would be a huge problem. Unless you can somehow route the external GPU directly to the built in display of your laptop, without going through the system or thunderbolt at all.
So basically using a egpu makes your laptop no longer functional as a laptop.
Basically to use your laptop’s display it would require the laptop to be able to support having display only input that doesn’t go through the system at all. No laptop does that.
Hence an external display is necessary no matter what.
It would be a problem even if they develop an external port where all of the PCIE throughput can be connected externally, like full x8 speed.
I do not think it is a great idea. Buying eGPU + GPU will be more expensive than just buying a new gaming laptop, or at least get into 50-70% of the expense, making it more practical to buy a gaming laptop.
Ah right, I was assuming using an external display. Yes, if for whatever reason insisting on using the internal display for gaming then an eGPU seems not as suitable.
As far as I understand, that’s not how Thunderbolt works. An PCIe x4 link is used to transfer the PCIe data to the eGPU. The calculated resulting picture should not be transmitted by PCIe, but instead by DisplayPort (DP).
Both PCIe and DP are routed through the Thunderbolt link, sharing the bandwidth. So the resultung PCIe bandwidth would be depending on the total Thunderbolt bandwidth and the bandwidth that the DP needs at the used resolution/refresh rate/colour depth (and if PCIe and DP together need more than the available bandwidth: the prioritization that Thunderbolt does).
Example:
DP @ FHD 60Hz = 3.2 Gb/s Gigabit per second
PCIe @ Gen3 x4 = 32 Gb/s
Total: 35.2 Gb/s
This is less than Thunderbolt 4 with 40 Gb/s
Note: Thunderbolt 3 also supports 40 Gb/s in total, but only supports PCIe at 16 Gb/s (like PCIe Gen3 x2)
QHD @ 60Hz would be 5.6 Gb/s
4K @ 60Hz would be 12.5 Gb/s
But yeah, I wouldn’t want to use a notebook display for gaming, so in my point of view the above is not so important. I would use such a notebook on the go, and at home dock it to the eGPU and use it like a stationary PC with monitor, mouse and keyboard.
All in all: an eGPU with plenty of VRAM should work just fine if you have Thunderbolt 4 and use an external monitor connected directly at the eGPU. Such a setup easily can be much faster than most iGPUs inside common Intel or AMD notebook CPUs/APUs.
Of course a bit less performance than in an x16 PCIe slot, but not very significantly so. Unless your games/apps use more video memory than the eGPU has VRAM - in that case the lower PCIe bandwidth becomes a real bottle neck.
The above is assuming a more or less “normal” user, that wants to play games that their notebook’s CPU integrated graphics don’t run well… not someone planning to use really high-end GPUs, wanting maximum details in newest blockbuster games, etc. If you want absolute max performance, then an eGPU might not be for you.
They have laptops with decent GPU for a fairly nominal price, and by the time you get a desktop GPU, an eGPU enclosure, a monitor, and all that, you’ve turned a laptop into something not portable at all.
At which point you might as well just build a desktop tower.
Coming back to the OP: Your notebook already has an discrete GPU that is not too shoddy. According to https://egpu.io/ 300 USD will likely not get you any eGPU that is significantly faster than your A730M.
300 USD isn’t getting you a whole lot, maybe a 3050 or if you don’t count the cost of an extra monitor and an enclosure, a 3060.
I think you could get a 3070 used for about 8000nt. I’m not sure if the risk is worth it though. Higher end GPU has a higher risk that it was used for mining. I seen someone mining on a 3070, in a room that is definitely too hot to be comfortable for me. That GPU will likely not fare well.
Bet you could buy used 3080 cheap, but the probability that it was used for mining is very high.
