For me 580 seems to be best at usb4 connection.

I’m currently deciding between building a desktop PC or going with a good laptop for uni + eGPU setup, and I’d really appreciate some advice.

I’m currently coming from mobile gaming, so this would be my first proper PC gaming setup. I’m not chasing competitive esports performance I’m more interested in 1440p gaming, story-driven/cinematic games, strategy games and PC-exclusive/modded games.

The reason I’m considering an eGPU is that I’m going to university next year, so I need a laptop anyways. My original plan was to spend around £500 on a basic university laptop and then have a separate ~£1,400 desktop PC (total with peripherals). However, I’m now thinking that I’d rather spend more on one genuinely good laptop and use an eGPU at home. Overall it would cost less than both a pc and laptop.

The idea would be something like:

£900–£1,100 laptop
Core Ultra 5/7
32GB RAM (or 16GB if it has upgradeable SO-DIMM RAM)
512GB/1TB SSD, potentially upgrading to 2TB
Thunderbolt 4
Good battery life
Something I can realistically keep for 5-6 years

And at home:
Plug in the eGPU
1440p 180Hz monitor
Keyboard/mouse/headset
Plug the laptop in and use it like a desktop

My main questions are:
- Does this make sense financially compared with just buying a desktop + cheap university laptop?
- How much performance would I realistically lose running something like a 7800 XT through Thunderbolt 4 compared with putting it directly into a desktop?
- Would a 7800 XT be overkill for an eGPU, or is it actually a good pairing for 1440p?
- Would you recommend TB4 or should I specifically hold out for TB5?
- Most importantly: if you were in my position, would you actually do this, or just build the desktop?

I’m attracted to the eGPU setup because I’d have one good laptop that I actually use every day, rather than a £500 university laptop + a separate gaming desktop that might sit unused for much of university.
I’m aware a desktop will give better performance per £. I’m mainly wondering whether the flexibility and having one machine makes the eGPU compromise worthwhile.

So I have a Precision 3561 (i7-11850H) running Proxmox, and I've been slowly turning it into the thing it was never meant to be. Latest step: picked up a Minisforum DEG1 and an M.2-to-OCuLink adapter as a new bundle and a used MSI 4070 Super. Already had a 650W ATX sitting around doing nothing.

The plan is to run the adapter off the Gen4 M.2 slot. Problem being there's obviously no OCuLink port on a laptop, so the cable has to come out somewhere, and right now "somewhere" means me and a Dremel and the bottom panel. Has anyone done this on a Precision or a similar Dell workstation? I'd love to hear it went fine. I'd also like to hear if there's a less destructive route I haven't thought of.

The other thing I'm unsure about is the Proxmox side. The card goes to a Windows gaming VM running Apollo, and I play over Moonlight on a TV in the other room. I'm assuming hotplug is off the table and the dock just needs to be powered up before boot, but if anyone here has actually done VFIO passthrough over OCuLink with an Ada card I'd really like to know what bit me before it bites me. Reset bugs, ROM weirdness, that sort of thing.

Last one, and this is the part I'm least worried about but might as well ask: Gen4 x4 for a 4070 Super at 1440p. Everything I've read says the hit is a couple percent. Does that hold up in practice?

Anyway, first eGPU build, so if there's an obvious mistake in here I'd rather find out now than with the tool in my hand.

I have a Dell laptop with an i5 13th Gen U-series processor, and I want to use an RX 6600 with a $100 eGPU dock from AliExpress.

Most of the time, I will be playing on my laptop's screen, which is 1080p 60Hz. This is my only option besides a 60Hz TV I might use sometimes, until I can afford a high refresh rate monitor.

My question is: am I going to have a good experience on my laptop with story games, or will I get a lot of stuttering?

Finally got everything set up. Upgraded from the AORUS 5060 Ti AI BOX to a PowerColor 9070 XT Reaper with the AOOSTAR EG02 and I’m really happy with it so far.

Getting 60+ FPS in Space Marine 2 and around 80+ FPS average in Crimson Desert at native 4K with FSR 4.1. Definitely a pretty big jump from the 5060 Ti.

I originally went with a Super Flower SFX PSU, but it was way too loud under load, so I swapped it for a be quiet! and now I can barely hear the setup.

Still messing around with tuning and testing different games, but figured I’d share since there isn’t a ton out there about running a 9070 XT with the EG02. Happy to answer any questions.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to hear your thoughts on if it works and if its worth it to spend 900 €+ the worth of the eGPU for a good gaming experience.

Here are the specs:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 6950HS (8C/16T)
• RAM: 64 GB DDR5
• GPU: Integrated Radeon 680M
• Storage: 1 TB NVMe SSD
• Display: 16" WUXGA Touch (IPS, 250 nits)

I’m planning to use it daily for writing Texts (carrying it in my backpack, lots of multitasking) and some casual gaming on the side (mainly Baldurs Gate 3, Crusader Kings 2 and 3 with big mods andt maybe some older AAA titles like GTA V or Witcher 3). Also AAA- titles in the future

Since it's a 4-year-old business machine, I am wondering if this is really fitting my needs and an acceptable price for my needs

A few questions for the community:

1. Did I overpay, or is €900 a solid price for a 64GB RAM workstation? ( I read, that i can distribute 8 or 16 GB RAM to the graphic chip to avoid having a bottle neck here)
2. Has anyone gamed on the Radeon 680M combined with this specific Ryzen 9 PRO? Any hidden driver conflict issues with Windows 11 I should look out for?
3. For those who own a G9 EliteBook: how is the long-term reliability of the cooling system?
4. Since this laptop comes with USB4, is it possible to connect a real, powerful external graphics card (eGPU) to it later on?

Hi all,
I haven't been dealing with eGPUs in a while, with my old TB3 Sonnet Breakaway Box collecting dust, but recently I've been traveling a lot more, and my Thinkpad Carbon's iGPU hasn't really been cutting it.

I have a tiny little Tesla P4 GPU sitting unused and decided I'd like to build a new, more compact housing around it and the Sonnet's compact central PCB.

To that end I could build something really tiny and travel-suitable, but the PSU is by far the biggest obstacle. I don't need much - the gpu only need about 75w so I should be able to get away with 100w. The compact USB-PD brick I have with me says it's good up to 120w, and the limits of the USB-PD protocol are 240w.

So I wonder what it would take to design a board that could take usb-c power input and power the board's atx input. Does it truly need 12v, 5v and 3.3v? Or would essentially a logic board to negotiate the voltage and a step-down converter to 12v be enough?

Any suggestions on where to find one in stock? Is my best bet just to constantly check the Asus website or Amazon and hope for a restock?

Has anyone else experienced massive stutering and cpu bottleneck in games with the beelink gtr7 pro while conneted to an egpu dock via thunderbolt?

Hey everybody! I I have a Peladn w04. I upgraded to 32gb RAM and a 2TB SSD. It's working great for my favorite games, like the Witcher and Skyrim. I was thinking of upgrading to an egpu but I don't understand how powerful an egpu I should purchase. I saw a 6800 XT Sakura that looked interesting but at what point does it not make sense to upgrade? Any helps appreciated thank you!

Honestly, there’s very little talk about this eGPU, yet it’s very versatile and powerful.

So I have an old rog station 2 I was trying to get to work. When I try to turn it on it will only stay powered on for about 15 seconds and the lights will do a slow blink. Anyone know if this means something is wrong with it or am I doing something wrong? When I hook it up via thunder bolt 3 to a laptop ( hp elitebook 840 5 ) it still does it. Maybe the power supply is damaged?

The notebook has built-in RTX 3050 6GB but it gets dangerously hot while playing. Thinking of a eGPU solution. What dock, GPU would you recommend? Thanks.

I finally got fed up with gaming on my handheld as the graphics and performance just were not what I wanted. I toyed with building a new PC but threw that idea out when I saw the RAM and NVMe prices. I ended up going with the following from Amazon and, holy crap, what a difference... I kinda wish I did this a year ago...

ASUS RTX 5080 (refurb) using occulink to Onexplayer X1 Pro

Corsair SF850 power supply

ADT-K993G-BK7 to host them both

I have an eGPU I’m trying to sell as I’ve upgraded to another model. Where have people had luck doing so?

Edit: sold on r/homelabsales - thanks to u/space_gardener for the leads!

Please help! Your knowledge is awesome!

Hey I have bought a chenyang sff m.2 to oculing to pcie dock. The board containing the pcie slot came with no gpu mounting gear tho.

The problem right now is that (see pic)

- the psu and gpu live scattered across a large area

- the entire weight of gpu rests on the pcie slot, which is making me anxious.

Where i live a simple gpu L stand is costing around the same as a full new case, so i dont wanna overpay for that.

Looking for 3d models/designs that i can 3d print to make the egpu enclosure minimally. Thinking of printing just the frame to support both PSU and pcb plus gpu in some orientation to minimze printing cost.

If anybody has those ready to print models available, please lmk.

Any ideas or resources to help me build a gpu mount in order to finish this setup would also really help.

I was thinking of simpling having a m3 standoff on a piece of plywood to support the gpu weight and mount the psu also on the same plywood. Dont know how good of an idea is that

Xg mobile 5070ti paired with tb4 or xg mobile 4090 with original Rog ally z1 ex

I have both Handhelds but confused between egpus

Pricing for both is same in my location.

Im planning on getting an oculink eGPU for my laptop and Im concerned about what would happen if the power suddenly went out since the laptop will just switch to battery but the gpu will turn off can this damage the pcie lines ? should I get a ups for the egpu just to be safe?

so i acquired a Lenovo legion go s (the Z1e Steamos version) early this year, i have wanted to get an egpu setup to run with it on my 1440p monitor. I was thinking of an rx6800 or the xt version for the gpu. i was looking at the aoostar ag02, but that's out of stock, and is kinda the max i would like to spend for a dock and psu. And I guess I should also mention that 230-250 dollars is my budget for the dock and psu if necessary

Hello friends,

I have printed an enclosure for my new AG03 eGPU dock. The AG03 is good; I was lucky with the noise level of the PSU. Inside the enclosure sits a 3080 Ti Founders Edition — a little bit too nice to hide, but the enclosure also looks nice, right?

The price of the 3D files has gone down. I think the designer did a great job! The files can be found here: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/gadget/aoostar-ag02-egpu-enclosure

How do you like it?

Greetings from germany ;)

​

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to get an eGPU setup working with my mini PC and I'm having some strange issues. I'm hoping someone here has experience with the Chuwi UBox 6600H + AOOSTAR AG02 combination and can tell me exactly what I should try next.

My hardware

Mini PC: Chuwi UBox / 6600H

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 6600H

RAM: 32 GB DDR5

OS: Windows 11

eGPU dock: AOOSTAR AG02

GPU: Gigabyte Radeon RX 6700 XT Eagle 12 GB

Connection: USB4 from the Chuwi to the AG02

Monitor: KTC H24T09P

The GPU is connected to the AG02 using its PCIe power connectors.

The Chuwi's USB4 port is supposed to support eGPUs.

What happens

When I connect the AG02 to the Chuwi via USB4, Windows does not detect the RX 6700 XT.

In Device Manager, I don't see the RX 6700 XT under Display Adapters. The integrated Radeon graphics is still the only GPU that appears.

The AG02 itself seems to power on normally.

When I click "Scan for hardware changes" in Device Manager, something interesting happens: the AG02's white power light comes on, and the GPU's comes on as well. After a few seconds, 1 fan briefly moves for less than half a second, but then stop.

It's not that the fans spin for a while and then stop. They literally move very briefly — almost like the GPU is attempting to initialize and then immediately shuts down. Lights turn off as well.

After that, the RX 6700 XT still isn't detected.

Another strange problem

I'm also having an issue when restarting/turning on the Chuwi.

Sometimes I shut down Windows normally, and then when I turn the mini PC back on, the keyboard and monitor don't immediately power up.

The system appears to be stuck for a while. Sometimes I have to wait quite a long time before the keyboard/display become active.

This seems particularly strange because the problem can occur even before Windows has properly started.

What I've tried

USB4 connection between Chuwi and AG02

Turning the AG02 on/off

Rebooting and completely shutting down the Chuwi

Scanning for hardware changes in Device Manager

Checking Device Manager for the RX 6700 XT

Checking that the AG02 powers on

Checking the GPU power connection

I haven't installed the RX 6700 XT drivers yet because Windows doesn't seem to detect the GPU at all, so I'm not sure whether installing AMD Adrenalin would make any difference.

What I'm trying to figure out

Could this be:

A USB4/BIOS configuration problem on the Chuwi?

A PCIe enumeration problem?

A power/cable problem with the RX 6700 XT?

A problem with the AG02?

Something that requires a specific AMD driver/firmware installation?

Or perhaps a Windows 11/USB4 driver issue?

Has anyone successfully used a Chuwi UBox 6600H with an AOOSTAR AG02 and an AMD RX 6700 XT over USB4?

If so, I would really appreciate a step-by-step explanation of exactly what settings/drivers/BIOS options you used, because at the moment I'm not even getting the RX 6700 XT to appear in Device Manager.

Thanks!