Years in the past, I actually needed a laptop computer with an exterior GPU. It appeared just like the holy grail of transportable laptop computer gaming — a power-hungry GPU that lived in your desk, to be plugged in for gaming efficiency as wanted, then unplugged if you wanted to work on the go.
Sadly, exterior GPUs by no means actually took off. While some merchandise had been launched, the concept by no means went mainstream. But that doesn’t imply the dream is useless! In truth, one in every of our favorite showings at CES 2025 was a brand new Asus external GPU with Thunderbolt 5 connectivity.
Are we lastly on the cusp of exterior GPUs taking off? Let’s have a look at what occurred to exterior GPUs, why they didn’t take off, and why 2025 may very well be the 12 months that sparks an eGPU revolution.
The first exterior GPUs weren’t so good
External GPUs now return at the least a decade. In 2015, we reviewed the Alienware Amplifier, an exterior GPU for Alienware laptops. A couple of years later, they had been changing into extra standardized and will hook up with laptops over Thunderbolt 3. For instance, in 2017, we reviewed the Akitio Node Cabinet, a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU.
The drawback was, eGPUs like these solely labored on some Thunderbolt 3-enabled laptops. It didn’t cease individuals from utilizing them, but it surely wasn’t precisely splendid. So whereas some hobbyists even created their very own DIY external GPU setups, eGPUs languished in uncertainty.
Furthermore, they simply weren’t as quick as having the identical GPU instantly in your PC. Why? Well, the pace of the Thunderbolt 3 connection was a bottleneck, plus the additional latency that got here from connecting the GPU over a cable reasonably than inserting it instantly right into a motherboard slot.
PCIe lanes had been one other issue. When you insert a GPU right into a PCIe slot on your PC’s motherboard, you’re typically inserting it right into a PCIe x16 slot with 16 “lanes” for information switch. An exterior GPU would probably use a PCIe x4 slot as a substitute, with solely 4 lanes. That doesn’t make it 4 instances slower, but it surely does have a non-trivial influence on efficiency.
Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry
And this isn’t simply theoretical hand-waving. We can level to actual benchmarks that present this in apply. In 2020, PCWorld’s Adam Patrick Murray benchmarked a variety of games with a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU. With The Witcher 3, the eGPU ran the sport at 60 FPS whereas the identical GPU in a desktop PC ran the sport at 140 FPS. That’s greater than double the efficiency… with the exact same GPU! (By the best way, the eGPU was sooner than the laptop computer’s older built-in GPU, however not by a lot.)
Why exterior GPUs didn’t take off
As PCWorld’s benchmarks demonstrated, whilst you may slap a robust desktop GPU into an exterior GPU enclosure, you’d get a lot better efficiency from that exact same GPU if it was working instantly in your PC. So, your hard-earned money was higher spent shopping for a greater gaming laptop computer with a extra highly effective built-in GPU.
Meanwhile, gaming laptops turned ever thinner, lighter, and extra transportable over the past decade. Yes, they’re nonetheless a bit bulkier than thin-and-light laptops, however they’re not the heavy bricks that gaming laptops had been a decade in the past. You can now get surprisingly good battery life and portability from many gaming laptops, no exterior GPU required.
Plus, to essentially get probably the most worth out of a desktop GPU, you wanted it inside a full-blown desktop PC, not sitting in an enclosure that was bottlenecked by cable speeds. And in addition to, should you had been spending that a lot on a robust desktop GPU that you possibly can solely use whereas sitting at your desk anyway, why not simply construct a robust gaming desktop? (Or purchase an equally powerful pre-built PC.)
In the top, eGPUs had been simply too gradual and too costly. As gaming laptops grew extra transportable and as desktop PCs grew extra highly effective, it was arduous to justify the expense again then. But possibly not anymore.
How Thunderbolt 5 makes a distinction
In 2025, we’re speaking about eGPUs once more as a result of we now have Thunderbolt 5, the cutting-edge tech that gives extra.
While Thunderbolt 3 may solely hit 40Gbps max, Thunderbolt 5 can attain as much as 80Gbps — and even 120Gbps in some conditions. And with Intel (who develops the Thunderbolt customary) trumpeting Thunderbolt 5 for exterior graphics, it’s all fairly thrilling. But is it simply hype?
Mark Hachman / Foundry
Asus was at CES 2025 exhibiting off the most recent model of the Asus ROG XG Mobile, an exterior GPU resolution that helps all the pieces as much as Nvidia’s new $1,999 GeForce RTX 5090 GPU. While it seems to be spectacular, will it carry out in addition to an RTX 5090 instantly inside a desktop PC?
We haven’t had an opportunity to benchmark it but, however I’m excited to see what these exams will present. If merchandise like this could shut the hole, that’ll be superb — and I’ll be the primary to leap on these new exterior GPUs.
Asus
But there’s an enormous hurdle proper now: the shortage of Thunderbolt 5 assist within the newest PCs. As PCWorld’s Mark Hachman identified, Thunderbolt 5 was essentially a no-show on the latest laptops at CES:
“From my conversations at the show, device makers blamed two things. First, the continued lack of Intel chipsets with integrated Thunderbolt 5 inside. But they also pointed to the stalled transition to 8K content. Without it, device makers say that consumers seem happy enough with the capabilities Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 provide.”
So, even when Thunderbolt 5 exterior GPUs show to be superb, the “year of the external GPU” might not come till Thunderbolt 5 itself arrives in additional laptops. And the business might zoom proper previous these eGPUs, like with Nvidia saying that GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards will come to laptops. Why trouble with an exterior GPU when you may get a sooner built-in GPU in your laptop computer?
Why eGPUs may not be the long run
A decade after my curiosity in eGPUs was piqued, I’ve to be trustworthy: eGPUs nonetheless don’t really feel like they’re about to go mainstream. Yes, the tech is getting higher and extra succesful because of Thunderbolt 5, however the remainder of the business continues to alter round it.
Gaming laptops simply aren’t that inconvenient anymore. A gaming laptop can be your only laptop now, particularly now that gaming laptops might be surprisingly light-weight and transportable. You don’t want an exterior GPU to have a very good gaming expertise on a laptop computer.
IDG / Chris Hoffman
If you’re chasing absolute top-end efficiency, nothing beats a desktop gaming PC. Theres extra to it than a GPU, too. Even in an ideal world the place exterior GPUs carried out equally in addition to inside GPUs, the gaming PC would have a greater CPU with stronger efficiency!
And the price remains to be an issue. Dollar for greenback, you is perhaps higher off spending your money on the correct gaming laptop computer (or constructing a gaming desktop) than shopping for an exterior GPU along with a standard laptop computer.
Dominic Bayley / IDG
Not to say that efficiency isn’t all the pieces. The rise of gaming handhelds like Valve’s Steam Deck proves that, with integrated graphics hardware getting increasingly more succesful as nicely.
Personally, I’m nonetheless intrigued by exterior GPUs. I would like the expertise to work and I would like it to succeed. It’s simply cool. But I not crave one like I used to as a result of gaming laptops have turn into transportable sufficient for me.
In 2025 and past, exterior GPUs appear to be they’ll get higher and higher. But will they ever actually go mainstream? We’ll see!
Further studying: The best gaming laptops under $1,000