2017 Guide: The Best External Graphics Card Boxes (eGPUs)
Now, we have to confess this up front: The headline of this story is a tease and, perhaps, a tad misleading.
Specifically, the problem is the "Best" part. You can find a "best" external graphics-card box for some laptop owners (and it can vary by the laptop in question). But for other folks, the answer is "none."
It also leads into something of a limp, geeky joke...
Q: What's the best external graphics card you can buy?
A: A desktop PC. (Cue "wah-wah" sound.)
The short version of today's external-graphics-box story is that if you own just the right laptop, and you have a pile of hundred-dollar bills with no particular destination, you may be in luck. Otherwise, you'll feel like the kid with the wimpy laptop, outside the electronics-shop window looking in, with a tear in his or her eye. (Or something like that.)
First of all, for those of you puzzled by these confessions and wan wisecracks: What is an external graphics card unit? It's likely you've never seen one in person. Most folks haven't.
Also called an "eGPU," it's an external enclosure that hosts a desktop-style video card and connects to a PC (usually a laptop) to speed up the graphics processing for gaming. The chassis has its own power source, a cooling system, and a PCI Express slot to accept your off-the-rack video card. It will usually accommodate a standard-size video card, up to the highest-end models of the day. (Custom-designed cards with large fans grafted on, or big, protruding heat sinks, may not fit, though.)
In practical fact, however, an eGPU is whatever the few manufacturers that make them define them to be. They're a quirky bunch. (The products. Not the manufacturers.)
eGPUs: The Background
People in the know in the PC business have been talking about the imminent debut of external graphics units for years now. But the products have remained always just over the horizon. Only a few have actually hit the market, and they're guaranteed to work with just a handful of laptops. The universal eGPU box that you can plug into any laptop is nowhere to be seen. Indeed, none is even close.
Still, what we have seen has excited us with its potential. The key players to date in eGPU hardware are Alienware, Razer, and PowerColor, all three of which have rolled out "real" product that you can buy today. We've also seen a handful of models, demonstrated at trade shows in the last year or so, that have not yet come to fruition, from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, Zotac, and SilverStone. In addition, Thunderbolt-hardware specialist Akitio has ostensibly released a much-anticipated eGPU box called the Akitio Node, but we've not been able to find it available for sale anywhere.
All of that vapor hardware aside, we believe that the eGPU's time has come—for real. Why? The technology that will give it a path forward is Thunderbolt 3, and it has seen a reasonable amount of adoption in PC designs in the last year.
This high-speed interface has shown up mostly in higher-end laptops, and it serves a bunch of purposes. The port itself is identical to the emerging USB Type-C connector and indeed "piggybacks" on that technology. (What that means: Some USB Type-C ports are just USB ports; others are also Thunderbolt 3 ports. See our primer The Basics: USB 3.1 and USB Type-C for more detail.) For an eGPU unit to accelerate graphics on a laptop, it needs a high-bandwidth, two-way connection to the host system, one with a connector small enough to be deployed on a trim laptop. That's Thunderbolt 3.
Thunderbolt 3 has other advantages. It can carry power, so a Thunderbolt 3 port can also serve as a charging conduit for a laptop. And, as a standard connector rather than a proprietary one, it has the advantage of being deployed across multiple makers' laptop lines. Which brings us to a key differentiation point among the eGPUs on the market today: Is it Thunderbolt 3-based, or is it proprietary?
The Thunderbolt & the Proprietary
Among the manufacturers that have brought eGPU hardware to market to date—Razer, PowerColor, and Alienware—the first two have opted for Thunderbolt 3 as the interface between the eGPU box and the computer, and the third (Alienware) has relied on a proprietary connection.
What this means, on the ground, is that the Alienware eGPU hardware, dubbed the Alienware Graphics Amplifier, works only with certain late-model Alienware laptops, as well as the company's smaller Alienware Alpha R2 and Alienware X51 R3 gaming desktops. These laptops and desktops are equipped with a special port to accommodate the Graphics Amplifier. This connection uses a chunky cable. It is, in essence, an external PCI Express interface, with four PCI Express lanes to accommodate the vast amount of data running between the video card and the host PC. It also means that your investment in Alienware's eGPU is good only so long as you stay with an Alienware laptop, and assuming Alienware continues to support the port in future models.
The special cable connection for the Alienware Graphics Amplifier
Ironically, though, the Thunderbolt 3-based units have fewer computers officially certified to work with them than Alienware's box does. Razer, with its Razer Core eGPU product, and PowerColor, with its Devil Box eGPU unit, are the boxes based on the open Thunderbolt 3. Take the word "open" with a grain of salt, however: The use of the port would suggest far wider compatibility for these units than actually exists. In practice, the Core and the Devil Box are certified to work with only a small subset of current machines.
In Razer's case, that list is its own Blade and Blade Stealth laptops, the latter of which is a very slim ultraportable without a dedicated graphics chip. In the case of the Devil Box, while it worked to varying degrees on the three machines we tried it on anecdotally, it was certified by PowerColor to work with only two machines at this writing. One of these is the Razer Blade Stealth. (Redundant, to our eyes; why buy this unit for a Razer laptop when you could get the matching Razer Core?) The other is the Intel NUC Kit NUC6i7KYK, better known as the "Skull Canyon" NUC—not a laptop at all but a powerful mini-desktop with integrated graphics. PowerColor notes that it's up to other laptop makers to assert compatibility with the product.
Back of the PowerColor Devil Box: Note the USB ports and the Thunderbolt connector
The issue holding back that wider compatibility is driver and firmware support. More than a few current-gen laptops have Thunderbolt 3-compliant USB Type-C ports. But most have been implemented and QA'd for use not with eGPU boxes but for the vendor's own docking solutions—if for anything specific at all. HP's Thunderbolt 3-equipped EliteBooks, for one, work seamlessly with the company's Thunderbolt 3-compatible monitors, and Dell has a similar dynamic going on with its latest Thunderbolt 3-equipped Dell XPS laptops, the Dell XPS 15, XPS 13, and XPS 13 2-in-1. The Thunderbolt 3 connectivity isn't meant for gaming.
As a result, we can't recommend getting fixed on the idea of buying an eGPU box unless you have one of the few known-compatible computers. If you want to experiment with an eGPU box on an uncertified laptop with Thunderbolt 3, make sure the seller you buy the box from has a bulletproof, no-questions-asked return policy. You may run into roadblocks with a non-certified laptop. Indeed, you likely will.
The kind of things we saw in testing the PowerColor Devil Box, for example, with a couple of unsupported Thunderbolt 3-equipped laptops (the HP Spectre x360 15 and Dell Latitude 7480) included a lack of recognition of the video card (because of a dedicated Nvidia chip already in the Spectre) or the ability to accelerate video only on an external display, not the laptop's own screen. See our review for the complex details on that.
The Limits of eGPU
The other thing to bear in mind about eGPU boxes is that they have some innate limitations by their very nature, and by the PCs you can install them on.
The reason you're probably looking at an external graphics solution: You want to play the latest games on a laptop that has only CPU-based graphics acceleration. (On Thunderbolt 3-equipped laptops, that's Intel HD Graphics or Iris Graphics of some flavor.) Having an up-to-snuff video card is a big part of getting to that goal. But there are other system requirements that, if not met, will keep the eGPU from reaching its full potential.
If a given game demands a certain grade of CPU or number of processing cores, the host system will still need that to perform well (or in some cases, to run at all). So don't expect an eGPU to turn a slim, Thunderbolt 3-equipped ultrabook with a light-hitting, dual-core mobile processor into the fire-breathing equivalent of a Razer Blade Pro or an Alienware 17. You may well run into a sad-face phenomenon known as ending up "CPU limited"; in other words, the graphics performance and frame rates may be held down by the processor's inability to keep up with game demands. The rest of those gaming system requirements—those beyond the graphics card—still apply with an eGPU in play.
Another issue is bandwidth. Even if the computer in question is stacked in terms of CPU muscle, you may well see some "overhead"—which is to say, frame-rate penalty—because of the nature of the connection. The proprietary connection used by the Alienware Graphics Amplifier is an x4 pathway; the Thunderbolt 3 connection may also extract its own pound of frame-rate flesh in the back-and-forth across the bus.
This overhead is impossible to quantify with every possible combination of video card, eGPU box, and host system. But we say this only to point out that you shouldn't expect to gain the full 100 percent of performance you'd see with the same video card in a well-outfitted desktop PC, even if CPU-limiting is not an issue.
The Key Players: A Summary
At the moment of this writing, you'll find three main eGPU products on the market today that you can buy. Here's a brief rundown of each.
1. Razer Core
ESTIMATED PRICE: $499
PROS: Elegant external design; uses Thunderbolt 3 interface for data and charging; four rear USB ports, Ethernet port
CONS: Certified to work only with Razer laptops; pricey
GOOD FOR: Razer Blade laptop owners with deep pockets who want a plug-and-play gaming upgrade and docking solution in one.
2. PowerColor Devil Box
ESTIMATED PRICE: $450 to $500
PROS: Uses Thunderbolt 3 interface for data and charging; four rear USB ports, Ethernet port
CONS: Certified to work with only one laptop, one desktop; pricey; noisy fans
GOOD FOR: Owners of the Intel "Skull Canyon" NUC, or shoppers willing to experiment with Thunderbolt 3-equipped laptops (and able return the device if it doesn't work out).
3. Alienware Graphics Amplifier
ESTIMATED PRICE: $199
PROS: Works with a variety of late-model Alienware laptops and SFF desktop PCs; much cheaper than other eGPU solutions; four rear USB ports
CONS: Limited to Alienware use only; proprietary connection to PC; doesn't power/charge the laptop like Thunderbolt 3 solutions do
GOOD FOR: The Alienware faithful, who own one or more Alienware laptop or SFF desktops with the Amplifier port. The caveat is, the machines that work with the Graphics Amplifier will all already have dedicated graphics chips onboard. It makes the most sense when that chip has become too weak for what you want to do.
Buying Basics
Let's be blunt: There's nothing "basic" about buying an eGPU box. These are bleeding-edge products that aren't guaranteed to work without hiccups or fatal flaws unless you're connecting them to specific, pretested computer models. As a result, you're not likely to have a choice between more than one eGPU model, if even that. But here are the key points to know.
CERTIFIED COMPATIBILITY. Be sure the computer that you are looking to connect any given eGPU is on the box maker's certified list. In the case of Alienware PCs, make sure you have the right generation of laptop or desktop; some older models with the same name may not have the needed Amplifier port. It's always possible that the Thunderbolt 3-based boxes may see their lists of compatible units expand; keep an eye on the manufacturers' product pages for these products.
GRAPHICS-CARD SIZING. Some pumped-up video cards have large or protruding features that can interfere with fitting inside the chassis. Each of the eGPU makers gives very specific dimension specs for the card space available. Make sure your card will fit without obstruction; support for a given graphics processor doesn't mean that every such card based on it will fit in the box. (High-end and overclocked cards may be extra-thick or have heat pipes that stick out too far.)
POWER-SUPPLY ADEQUACY. Look on each eGPU's spec list for a list of supported cards. The Devil Box and Razer Core both have 500-watt power supplies, but both are designated for a max card power draw of 375 watts. The Graphics Amplifier is specified at 460 watts but does not give a max power draw.
OTHER FEATURES. All three of the current eGPU boxes can act as docks and/or USB hubs. You can connect an external monitor or monitors to the video card's back-panel ports in all three cases. The two Thunderbolt 3 boxes also have Ethernet ports, and in a quirky twist, the Devil Box also has a SATA drive bay that lets you use the box as an external hard drive, too.
Ready for Our Recommendations?
Well, let's be clear here: Unless you own one of a few specific laptop models (a few certified, late-model Razer Blade or Blade Stealth machines, a compatible Alienware) or one of the few SFF desktops supported, today's eGPU field is a roll of the dice. As we found when testing the Devil Box with non-certified Thunderbolt 3 systems, it may work well, it may not work at all, it may work partially, or it may work only under certain conditions or depending on the video card installed. But check below for the few we've reviewed and the several that we have seen demonstrated but not yet for sale. The only model we haven't bench-tested that you can buy today is the Razer Core.
Source: http://feeds.computershopper.com/~r/ComputerShopperFeatures/~3/TZWGLg8mPIw/2017-guide-the-best-external-graphics-card-boxes-egpus
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