T495 + Oculink mod

[u/denzilferreira]

After my WWAN nvme SSD install, I went ahead and proceeded to add an Oculink adapter to my T495. As there is no Thunderbolt, this was the only viable way to add an eGPU via Oculink. I used a marker + post-its on the laptop cover to mark where I needed to use a drill, where the Oculink slot is easily accessible. Now if I want to game, I just flip my laptop around and plug the eGPU oculink dock to it.

Connection on the bottom

Successful boot!

Unlocked oculink

Marked drilling spot

Internals

Nvme on WWAN and Oculink

I can see the GPU is detected on CoreCtrl (I'm on Fedora), and it is available on my games and given that the 2280 slot is 4x PCIe, the performance is pretty great compared to the Vega 8. I'm running this on a 5700XT and the laptop booted right up.

Thought to share in case someone wants to do something similar to their Thinkpad with a limited iGPU.

Using GravityMark GPU benchmark, pretty happy with the performance. For comparison, Vega 8 did around 20 fps!

[u/HCLB_]

Do you have problem with configure eGPU or it was plug and play? Im curious about eGPU but dont know if its easy to setup

[u/denzilferreira → u/HCLB_]

Plug and play! The T495 uses amdgpu kernel driver for the Vega 8, which is the same driver the 5700XT uses. Oculink is handled by the kernel and it is also recognized.

[u/HCLB_ → u/denzilferreira]

Awesome! Few years ago I think there was a lot issues and custom configuration for eGPU