Question 4060 Ti eGPU

[ezzeldinelmasry]

Hello,
I want to ask I currently have a Dell G15 5520 with I7-12700H, 3060 130W, 16GB DDR5 RAM, 512GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, and 1080P 120Hz Screen.
Now I play all games extremely well, even new and demanding ones like Cyberpunk 2077 is around 60~70 FPS with ultra high settings, DLSS set to quality, and Ray Tracing off.
But I would like to try pushing this setup even more, so I was thinking of buying a 4060 Ti and an eGPU enclosure and connecting it to my laptop via Thunderbolt 4 while using a 1080P external Monitor.
So I wanna know, will this get me more frames especially in games that support frame generation, or will the thunderbolt 4 limit the performance gains, I chose the 4060 Ti as it is running an 8x PCIe Gen 4 lane, and using an external monitor should make things faster, I also intend not to connect anything to the eGPU to make sure that all the bandwidth is allocated for the GPU, because honestly I am fine with 1080P gaming and I'm ok with the frames I have, if I'm gonna get 5~10 more FPS in gaming, I won't go through the trouble.
So this is my question, what type of improvement in frame rates should I expect with this setup?
Thanks,

 

[Tech Junky]

I wouldn't bother personally.

I just rebuilt my server with AMD inside and needed to add a GPU to the mix for media transcoding. I also have a TB4 card inside for data transfers as well a laptop w/ TB4.

TB data is currently capped off at 3.1GB/s due to the uplink being Gen3.

The A380 spat out something about being capable of 120gbps in an x8 slot when I was double checking some things regarding firmware/bandwidth so.... that's 3X more than TB supposedly will do in terms of BW alone.

Now, with it being an eGPU things might not be as demanding across the cable back to the laptop but, TB5 is supposed to have a 120gbps option for display data boosting from 80gbps.

For my use though adding the GPU got me 800-850fps when converting a 720p file / 350-400fps on 1080p / 60+fps on 4K which is pretty good for a $100 A380 and hits my objective completely.

Spending $500 on a 3070ti / $200 eGPU case just doesn't make sense to me right now. When tech gets refreshed it might be more viable as an option but, by then you should be looking at a new laptop again anyway to get the TB5 option and most likely it will come with a RTX5xxx inside anyway unless you specifically look for something cheaper w/o a GPU or go w/ Intel Arc BMG and want to add an eGPU if it doesn't live up to the hype.

 

[ezzeldinelmasry]

I wouldn't bother personally.

I just rebuilt my server with AMD inside and needed to add a GPU to the mix for media transcoding. I also have a TB4 card inside for data transfers as well a laptop w/ TB4.

TB data is currently capped off at 3.1GB/s due to the uplink being Gen3.

The A380 spat out something about being capable of 120gbps in an x8 slot when I was double checking some things regarding firmware/bandwidth so.... that's 3X more than TB supposedly will do in terms of BW alone.

Now, with it being an eGPU things might not be as demanding across the cable back to the laptop but, TB5 is supposed to have a 120gbps option for display data boosting from 80gbps.

For my use though adding the GPU got me 800-850fps when converting a 720p file / 350-400fps on 1080p / 60+fps on 4K which is pretty good for a $100 A380 and hits my objective completely.

Spending $500 on a 3070ti / $200 eGPU case just doesn't make sense to me right now. When tech gets refreshed it might be more viable as an option but, by then you should be looking at a new laptop again anyway to get the TB5 option and most likely it will come with a RTX5xxx inside anyway unless you specifically look for something cheaper w/o a GPU or go w/ Intel Arc BMG and want to add an eGPU if it doesn't live up to the hype.

Thanks for the insight.

 

[Tech Junky]

Thanks for the insight.

Yeah, the egpu has a niche appeal or solution to a problem you don't have. I would think for a low end nuc though it would be worthwhile since they tend to only have an igpu. With your laptop though I see the TB connection being a bottleneck rather than an improvement. Even if you were able to use two connections you'd still be limited by the bus they're connected to.

I could be wrong though if everything gets offloaded to the GPU and there isn't a high data requirement to send the image info to it across the cable

 

[ezzeldinelmasry]

Yeah, the egpu has a niche appeal or solution to a problem you don't have. I would think for a low end nuc though it would be worthwhile since they tend to only have an igpu. With your laptop though I see the TB connection being a bottleneck rather than an improvement. Even if you were able to use two connections you'd still be limited by the bus they're connected to.

I could be wrong though if everything gets offloaded to the GPU and there isn't a high data requirement to send the image info to it across the cable

I guess upgrading my RAM to 32GB and my SSD to 2TB is a much better way to spend money.

 

[Tech Junky]

Probably. Or maybe an enclosure for a spare drive/storage. I got an Acasis that hit 3.1/2.8GB/s but, there's a new player that's appealing called the zike drive that hits even higher speeds and is about $100 and unlocks more speed. Also, 4tb drives are falling under $200 these days. If you went 2.5" for a drive you could get a U.3 nvme 8tb for $400 and a dock but, the speed would be 10gbps as they don't make TB docks for them yet.

 

[ezzeldinelmasry]

Probably. Or maybe an enclosure for a spare drive/storage. I got an Acasis that hit 3.1/2.8GB/s but, there's a new player that's appealing called the zike drive that hits even higher speeds and is about $100 and unlocks more speed. Also, 4tb drives are falling under $200 these days. If you went 2.5" for a drive you could get a U.3 nvme 8tb for $400 and a dock but, the speed would be 10gbps as they don't make TB docks for them yet.

I already have an 18TB USB 3.1 drive so I'm good on that part.