eGPU gaming benchmarks in 2020

Adam has been using an eGPU for gaming over the past 4 months and shares his real-world benchmarks as well as his thoughts on eGPUs in general. Played on a Dell XPS 15 7590 and Asus XG Station Pro equipped with an RTX 2070 Super.

00:00 - Intro
00:43 - Laptop/eGPU specs
01:21 - Testing parameters
02:16 - Testing configuration
03:14 - Halo 2 benchmark results
04:11 - The Witcher 3 benchmark results
05:22 - XCOM: Chimera Squad benchmark results
06:16 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) benchmark results
07:25 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered benchmark results
08:27 - DOOM Eternal benchmark results
09:13 - Resident Evil 3 (remake) benchmark results
09:56 - Gears Tactics benchmark results
10:55 - Control with RTX benchmark results
12:30 - The Division 2 benchmark results
14:18 - Asus XG Station Pro thoughts
16:03 - Who is an eGPU for?
19:00 - Is an eGPU best for me?
20:28 - Final thoughs

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#eGPU #Benchmarks #PCGaming

[meowmeowmeow]

As a college student portability was the most important thing when looking at either to build a PC or get a eGPU. I was willing to sacrifice some performance for portability. Now I can carry my laptop to class, and then bring it back home and plug it in for some gaming, all while keeping all my files and stuff on a single computer. Personally, that's why the eGPU made sense to me in my situation.

[lezzard]

As an eGPU enthusiast I can honestly say TB3 eGPU performance is a minefield. It pays off to do your research, but most of the time you have to rely on enthusiasts self reporting these things rather than manufacturers. Some things to consider:
1- Make sure to use a computer and enclosure with full 4x PCI-E lanes. Use the included TB3 cable that came with your enclosure or a high quality 40 Gbps cable.
2- Even if your computer has 4x ports it probably shares its TB3 controller(s) with multiple ports. Your eGPU should not be sharing its controller with any other devices, so do your research as to which ports in your computer share one. Newer 10th Gen CPUs have integrated TB3 controllers that solve this issue by dynamically assigning controllers to ports while also having reduced overhead.
3- Plug your eGPU directly into your computer rather than daisy chained. If your eGPU has additional ports, don't use them. It will take from your precious TB3 bandwidth.

[yoman]

Nice video adam, really appreciate the detail testing and suggestions.

[kentil_soup]

I use this egpu with my xps 13 with a rtx 2060 and it’s great for portability and living in small spaces as a college student. The tb3 hasn’t been an issue for me perhaps because I display the video on a different monitor than the laptop screen. Definitely expensive but I think for me the portability was worth it and through testing the performance drop seems to be minimal. Great video 👍

[cldpt]

this video has a serious flaw: the 2070 Super is being used in a electrically power-constrained enclosure. That power supply brick is 330W, nowhere near the needs of the enclosure itself when paired to a desktop graphics card that requires about 215W just for itself. TB3 enclosure not only take a big chunk of power for themselves, USB and other peripherals, and most importantly, USB-C Power Delivery (which, granted, for this enclosure it's only 15W) but most importantly, PCIe power which goes up to 75W (this does combine with the 215W requirements of the card). But there's more at play here than just the standard TB3 x4 limit and controller/PCH overhead.

So I am pretty sure the 2070 Super on this test is running very gimped, especially since GPU BIOSes and controllers these days seriously limit clock frequencies and overall performance when power is not detected to be enough. I'm genuinely surprised the card even powered. I know people like small eGPUs, but these are simply not suited for graphics cards above mid-range, especially with an external power brick (notable exceptions are Flex ATX power supply enclosures such as the Gigabyte Gaming boxes and other).

And a side note: this TB3 enclosure is not even close to being the best enclosure. Mostly because of the above limitation, but also due to a range of other issues such as being outdated in 2020, with things like Razer Core Chroma, Mantiz Saturn Pro or the many Gigabyte boxes, outdated controllers, lack of support due to having being released more than 2 years ago, etc.

I think the review did have proper care and mentioned relevant stuff on eGPU use, but the problem in the eGPU world is that there's simply too many small details that can go wrong and take performance, behavior and value away. Even the size or space or internal layout of them are a problem for temps and card mounting, or their PSUs constraining stuff, or simply abandonment by the OEMs who like HP (Omen Accelerator) or Asus (their 2 XG stations) stop supporting these niche products and no recent thunderbolt firmware will prevent it from running in recent versions of Windows or laptops with recent versions of the TB3 firmware and software properly.

[Rob_and_Other_Names]

Your video answered just about every question I could think of on eGPUs. Thank you.

[MarcoChapita]

Great video. Took a loot of time testing all those settings

[el.Fakir.]

Excellent review! Finally someone has come up with comprehensive comparisons in real world scenarios. Thank you, Adam!
Now the question is why the industry doesn't design a new type of connection that would allow laptops to utilize the full potential of GPUs. Is it not that an easy task to do or there's not enough demand?

[grantpaterson]

Same Laptop I have so was VERY interested in this, great video :)

[waqasfarid]

Amazing thank you so much for this video. Love to see the professional software side in the same testing setup - specifically to see how blender performs.

[owen]

This video and the last helped so much. Thank you!

[willl]

Great review Adam, was not expecting something so in depth, I have no interest in e-gpus until we get enough bandwidth as you said maybe with TB 4, I do wonder though that for GPU acceleration in adobe, CAD, Blender, Resolve etc.. I think in most case the TB 3 limitation won't be as pronounced so it can still be a good solution if you don't wan't to go full tower or build SFF. My recommendation would be not to bother going over an RTX 2060 or 2060 Super if you really need the extra vram, especially a couple of months away from ampere and RDNA 2. PS: Great vid, would love to see some more Adam GPU gaming videos, me likes!

[wolfgangaston]

Have to like and sub, this is what I've been looking for, thanks.

[CluelessEvil]

Thanks for the review :)

My back is a mess and I can't really move the old beast of a tower at current. I'm super tempted to try this. I can even use my old card

[njramsfan]

Thanks for this. I have a msi laptop with rtx2060 and love the portability of it. Was interesting in a egpu to get more power at home using 2070 super or similar but idk if spending cash on it is worth it now. After seeing your benchmarks. Haha. It would be better to build PC but Im always been pro laptop.

[janjordaanza]

Thanks for the feedback, Adam. Personally, I going to use it to render using C4D and Redshift, combining an internal 2070 Super and 2080 Super in the GPU. Seems like there is very little performance drop for that use case scenario. Maybe TB4 might close the gap, but we will have to wait a while.

[paulcathcart]

I think the best experience we are having is that shirt :)

[Nolodude]

Thanks for the information, I'll be there for the next update!

[pipebomber]

BRAVO!! YOU GAVE IT NICE AND NEAT BRAVO!!

[yousure]

Really grateful for this video. I do hove a high end desktop at home. and an OK gaming laptop that makes you forget about any power draining AAA games because of the FPS and the heat. My situation is that I travel for months for work and cant bring with me my tower every time I fly somewhere. So I tried the egpu and for the competitive games I play they are doing great. So I thought that this will be a solution. No need to bring gaming laptops to meetings, just go home dock it with one TB3 cable and power and game on with your professional laptop.
Thanks again, and surely for any other configuration it would not justify the hassle.