- Apr 20, 2017
- 25
- 3
- 18,545
Hello there,
I am becoming more interested and fascinated in eGPUs the more I read about them. I have a HP Probook 450 G0 (a 2013 model) and it's GPU (Radeon HD 8750M) definitely doesn't age well. I'm not planning on trying anything just yet, but perhaps in an year or two (when I get a permanent flat rather than having to move often) I might consider a desktop computer.
The thing is, whenever I play a game the quite powerful i7 3236QM barely gets 20% usage ( see this ), plus I already have my SSD and HDD in it as well as enough RAM for now (8GB, mobo supports 16 - upgrade is possible) and all my Games, Files, Setting, Passwords, etc. So this made me think in the way of eGPUs. Remove the WLAN card, use the PCIE slot there to plug in the eGPU, use Ethernet cable for connectivity, connect a second screen using HDMI (or VGA) and chug everything (Laptop, power cable, eGPU, PSU ) under a desk and only have a keyboard, mouse and a screen on top of the desk.
There's a couple of things I've been reading however:
Apparently the PCIE slot will bottleneck the graphics card (and it depends on the lanes and model of the PCIE slot). I couldn't really find what mine is, but I believe I have a Ralink rt3290 in it. Any idea what my PCIE is and if the GPU will be bottlenecked because of it?
The other thing is that apparently the better the GPU, the more bottleneck there will be (high performance is bottlenecked by the PCIE) - is this true and if so what card should I aim for? Mind you I'm not planning on doing this for 1-2 years so by then I assume some of the current high-end cards will drop in price when miners start dumping them (NVIDIA 10xx series and AMD's Vega/Radeon RX 5xx). So will the performance of the card matter? Because if so, should I still consider lower tier cards - will they really be that better than my Radeon HD 8750 that it will make sense to do it?
And of course, based on your answer to the previous two questions: Would it be worth it? (considering I can always ditch the laptop, take the GPU and PSU out and throw them in a desktop build - the only loss will be the eGPU adaptor thing that cost around 50$)
Things to take into consideration:
- I will be getting the GPU/PSU second hand (cheaply)
- I don't mind the setup (some people won't like it because it's messy unlike desktops, in which all components are in the case) and will probably think of a way to have it all hidden somewhere - under a desk, etc.
- I rarely do video editing and never do streaming, so I think the CPU will be OK for me for the close future (I'm rocking a Phenom X4 when I'm back at my parent's house every year lol)
- I'm actually worried about CPU instructoins as modern titles might have instruction sets that are not supported by my CPU
I am becoming more interested and fascinated in eGPUs the more I read about them. I have a HP Probook 450 G0 (a 2013 model) and it's GPU (Radeon HD 8750M) definitely doesn't age well. I'm not planning on trying anything just yet, but perhaps in an year or two (when I get a permanent flat rather than having to move often) I might consider a desktop computer.
The thing is, whenever I play a game the quite powerful i7 3236QM barely gets 20% usage ( see this ), plus I already have my SSD and HDD in it as well as enough RAM for now (8GB, mobo supports 16 - upgrade is possible) and all my Games, Files, Setting, Passwords, etc. So this made me think in the way of eGPUs. Remove the WLAN card, use the PCIE slot there to plug in the eGPU, use Ethernet cable for connectivity, connect a second screen using HDMI (or VGA) and chug everything (Laptop, power cable, eGPU, PSU ) under a desk and only have a keyboard, mouse and a screen on top of the desk.
There's a couple of things I've been reading however:
Apparently the PCIE slot will bottleneck the graphics card (and it depends on the lanes and model of the PCIE slot). I couldn't really find what mine is, but I believe I have a Ralink rt3290 in it. Any idea what my PCIE is and if the GPU will be bottlenecked because of it?
The other thing is that apparently the better the GPU, the more bottleneck there will be (high performance is bottlenecked by the PCIE) - is this true and if so what card should I aim for? Mind you I'm not planning on doing this for 1-2 years so by then I assume some of the current high-end cards will drop in price when miners start dumping them (NVIDIA 10xx series and AMD's Vega/Radeon RX 5xx). So will the performance of the card matter? Because if so, should I still consider lower tier cards - will they really be that better than my Radeon HD 8750 that it will make sense to do it?
And of course, based on your answer to the previous two questions: Would it be worth it? (considering I can always ditch the laptop, take the GPU and PSU out and throw them in a desktop build - the only loss will be the eGPU adaptor thing that cost around 50$)
Things to take into consideration:
- I will be getting the GPU/PSU second hand (cheaply)
- I don't mind the setup (some people won't like it because it's messy unlike desktops, in which all components are in the case) and will probably think of a way to have it all hidden somewhere - under a desk, etc.
- I rarely do video editing and never do streaming, so I think the CPU will be OK for me for the close future (I'm rocking a Phenom X4 when I'm back at my parent's house every year lol)
- I'm actually worried about CPU instructoins as modern titles might have instruction sets that are not supported by my CPU
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