

If you’ve ever bought a desktop GPU, then you already know the drill. There’s also a chance that your eGPU enclosure won’t work with whatever graphics card you buy.

Make sure that your laptop actually has a Thunderbolt 3-port (and not just a USB-C port), and confirm that any proprietary eGPUs are certified for your laptop. So, before you buy an eGPU, check Google to see that how well it works with your laptop. Some Thunderbolt 3-ports aren’t built to Intel’s eGFX standards, and as you might expect, propriety GPUs will only work with a handful of specially made laptops. Getting an eGPU to work shouldn’t be any harder than plugging a phone or keyboard into your laptop. But, there’s a chance that your laptop and eGPU won’t play nice together. eGPU Compatibility Alfa Photostudio/Shutterstock However, these options are too complicated for most people and can potentially void your laptop’s warranty, so we’re focusing on Thunderbolt 3 instead. Some eGPU options will work without a Thunderbolt 3-port or a proprietary connector. As of right now, Alienware is the only manufacturer whose laptops work with proprietary eGPUs. However, old-fashioned eGPUS are proprietary, which means that they’re built for specific laptops and use non-standard cables. They’re sold as enclosures (without a graphics card), and they work with most Thunderbolt 3-equipped laptops. eGPUs have their own power supply and enclosure, and they’re occasionally packed with extra video, USBs, and Ethernet ports for your monitors and accessories.

An eGPU is just a desktop graphics card that sits outside of your laptop (hence, the name eGPU or “external” GPU).

Call me Captain Obvious, but full-sized desktop GPUs are too big to fit into a laptop, and gaming laptops with built-in GPUs are impossible to upgrade.īut, that’s where eGPUs come in. While desktop gamers can replace their graphics card every year or two, laptop gamers aren’t so lucky. They process visual data faster than integrated (built-in) graphics chips, and they’re usually the dividing factor between unplayable and outstanding game performance. What Is an eGPU?ĭedicated graphics cards (also called GPUs-graphics processing units) are essential for any gaming rig. If you want to push your laptop into the realm of high-end desktop gaming, then you’ll need to buy an external graphics processing unit, or eGPU.
