News Pocketable RTX 3050 GPU Has Thunderbolt Power

Mar 31, 2023
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How many laptops with an adequate TB3/USB4.1 port don't already have something more powerful than a 4GB RTX3050 built-in?

I hope nobody buys this with the intent of playing games when so many newer games readily fill 8GB of VRAM.
I did agree, thunderbolt 3 has been around since i7-7700hq and there a lot of laptop with thunderbolt 3 and 1060s and 1070s are out there. This could be a good way to get more life out of a old but capable laptop. Also it could be a good add on to a mini pc, with out spending $300 on a GPU dock and $300 on a GPU. If they can reduce the cost of the device it could be a compelling option and could help reduce e waste.
 
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InvalidError

Titan
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If they can reduce the cost of the device it could be a compelling option and could help reduce e waste.
Or increase e-Waste since by the time you dial down details in most games to make them fit in 4GB of VRAM, they could play pretty much just as good on any other potato with at least 4GB of VRAM.

To me, this smells like a jump-start on April 1st.
 

bjnmail

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Jul 20, 2018
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How many laptops with an adequate TB3/USB4.1 port don't already have something more powerful than a 4GB RTX3050 built-in?

I hope nobody buys this with the intent of playing games when so many newer games readily fill 8GB of VRAM.

Seems more like it's marketed toward owners of "thin & light" Ultrabooks which do not have a dGPU but may need the power of one at times for professional work, or to be paired with mini PC's like Intel's NUC line (the 4"x4" small ones; not the larger Extreme variants which can take desktop GPUs).

It doesn't seem to be intended for gaming, though it will still likely play some games at lower settings just fine.

Definitely a niche product, but a creative one nonetheless, as eGPU enclosures have generally not been small in the past. About the smallest you could get was to stuff a compact pro GPU into a Sonnet TB3 enclosure, and that's still significantly larger than this device. I could definitely find uses for this as I know some of my clients could as well.
 
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InvalidError

Titan
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Seems more like it's marketed toward owners of "thin & light" Ultrabooks which do not have a dGPU but may need the power of one at times for professional work, or to be paired with mini PC's like Intel's NUC line (the 4"x4" small ones; not the larger Extreme variants which can take desktop GPUs).
If you take the RTX3050 and basically chop it in half with 64bits VRAM and 3.0x4 worth of PCIe bandwidth, you are left with something that probably lands in the neighborhood of AMD"s 680M IGP. it should really be called the RTX3010 at this point, maybe RTX3030 if I make an extra effort to be generous.

Remember the shellacking the RTX6500 got for its often exceptionally poor performance at 3.0x4? I don't expect reviews to be any kinder to another 4GB GPU irremediably throttled by its own 40Gbps cord.
 

bjnmail

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Jul 20, 2018
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If you take the RTX3050 and basically chop it in half with 64bits VRAM and 3.0x4 worth of PCIe bandwidth, you are left with something that probably lands in the neighborhood of AMD"s 680M IGP. it should really be called the RTX3010 at this point, maybe RTX3030 if I make an extra effort to be generous.

Remember the shellacking the RTX6500 got for its often exceptionally poor performance at 3.0x4? I don't expect reviews to be any kinder to another 4GB GPU irremediably throttled by its own 40Gbps cord.

Again, none of that matters when you're using it for it's intended purpose, which is NOT gaming, but professional work.
 

RedBear87

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How many laptops with an adequate TB3/USB4.1 port don't already have something more powerful than a 4GB RTX3050 built-in?
Basically every ultrabook with Intel iGPUs? There are a lot of them out there. Mind you, I wouldn't get this thing in order to play games, but for that matter I wouldn't buy an AMD RDNA2 equipped ultrabook in order to play games at 1080p mediumish settings either.
 
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ManDaddio

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How many laptops with an adequate TB3/USB4.1 port don't already have something more powerful than a 4GB RTX3050 built-in?

I hope nobody buys this with the intent of playing games when so many newer games readily fill 8GB of VRAM.
The article clearly states it's not for gaming.