Who's there?

eGPU.

eGPU who?

Just this little guy trying to make all your graphics dreams come true.

Hello, everyone!

And welcome to DIY in 5.

I'm Trisha Hershberger and last episode we chatted about building your own external SSD

and it got me thinking about what other nifty external upgrades are out there.

A big one that's relatively new and not as well-known is the eGPU, or external Graphics Card.

Today, we explore the world of eGPUs - what are they and is one right for you?

If the tips in this video give you pause, in a good way, then go ahead and subscribe

so you don't miss a beat.

So you want to turbocharge your gaming framerates

but you don't want to, or maybe physically cannot, put an actual GPU into your system.

Perhaps an external GPU is the answer for you.

eGPUs are still really new to today's tech scene

and most people have never even seen one in person!

This is what it looks like - it's an external enclosure for a desktop-style video card that

can plug into a laptop or other system to boost graphical performance.

These things are pretty beefy - after all, they will need to house the card itself,

a power supply, probably some type of cooling,

maybe a PCI Express slot to accept your video card of choosing.

Some even come with a card pre-installed, like this model from Gigabyte.

Now why would you want one?

Maybe you want to transform your laptop into a gaming powerhouse - who doesn't want that?

In olden times your upgrade path would be shopping for a whole new laptop.

Now the future is here!

And we have the ability to upgrade graphic performance via an external solution.

I mean, this is really exciting tech that has been on the horizon for a while but is finally

consumer ready - to a degree.

Because eGPUs are just starting to make it to market they are

not quite as plug and play as other externals,

such as the hard drives we discussed in the last episode.

You need to have the right laptop or system

and a fair amount of cashola to make this dream come true.

So what type of system will you need?

One with a high-bandwidth, two way connection and, for laptop users, a connection that's

small enough to fit into that trim laptop profile.

Yep, I'm talking USB-C - and not just vanilla USB-C but USB-C with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity.

Thunderbolt 3 is described as “USB-C that does it all”

and it boasts twice throughput of USB 3.1 Gen 2!!

That's like two 4k video streams!

It's new tech like Thunderbolt 3 that even make something like an eGPU possible.

Now don't reach for your wallet just yet.

We still have more compatibility requirements to get through.

The current eGPUs on the market have their own criteria for systems compatibility.

The Alienware Graphics Amplifier, for example, works with specific newer Alienware machines

that have a special port and a super chunky cable capable of running the crazy amount

of data necessary to make this magic happen.

Other, non-proprietary boxes like Razer's eGPU or PowerColor's Devil Box

have their own list of certified compatible laptops.

Ok, so let's say you have a compatible model laptop and you are ready to take the plunge.

Well, there are a few other things to be aware of.

Boosting your graphical prowess alone may not be enough to run certain games that require,

say, a certain number of processing cores.

In this situation, your graphics performance could be limited by your processor's ability to keep up.

Another thing to be aware of is frame-rate penalty or overhead due to the connection

itself and depending on your combo of video card, eGPU enclosure, system and display type,

the performance gains you see might have some variation.

So who here has actually messed around with one of these?

Is there a specific model you recommend?

What did you think?

Or did you fully try to DIY it???

(boom)

Tell us your stories in the comments.

I, for one, cannot wait for this tech to be adopted and further refined.

As primarily a PC-based gamer, the more options I have to continuously bolt-on upgrades, the better.

Again, this is cutting edge stuff, so if you want more information on external GPUs

and the options currently out there, we've left you some handy dandy links in the description.

Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time with more DIY in 5!