Thunderbolt3 tops out at 4GB/S bandwidth. If that bandwidth was available as an internal x4 slot the GPU would be fine (within a few percent of x16 at worst). The extra overhead (latency???) of TB3 really clobbers high end external GPUs. Unless driver updates have managed to massively improve things over the last year or two performance degradation is typically in the 25-50% range and worse for higher end cards.
Now, if only Thunderbolt on Windows wasn't so terribly broken with DCH drivers. That said, good that those boxes exist, nice that it's an entire docking station (especially for the price), I just hope they didn't compromise on the bandwidth to make room for all the non-GFX features. I think I would've preferred 1x TB3 for the graphics and charging and 1x USB-C for the ports and hard drives, but well, still an intriguing product.
Finally someone seems to be understanding that $500 empty eGPU boxes are a ridiculous idea. $249 for this seems ideal. I'm a bit intrigued (worried?) by the m.2 NVMe SSD support, though - does it support PCIe switching of some kind, or do these take lanes away from the GPU?
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StevoLincolnite - Sunday, January 5, 2020 - link
Is 5 GB/s of bandwidth enough to feed a Geforce 2080 Super though?PeachNCream - Sunday, January 5, 2020 - link
Could always opt for a lower end GPU to move in the direction of placing the performance bottleneck on something other than the Thunberbolt interface.DanNeely - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
Thunderbolt3 tops out at 4GB/S bandwidth. If that bandwidth was available as an internal x4 slot the GPU would be fine (within a few percent of x16 at worst). The extra overhead (latency???) of TB3 really clobbers high end external GPUs. Unless driver updates have managed to massively improve things over the last year or two performance degradation is typically in the 25-50% range and worse for higher end cards.jordanclock - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
Probably.https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-...
MenhirMike - Sunday, January 5, 2020 - link
Now, if only Thunderbolt on Windows wasn't so terribly broken with DCH drivers. That said, good that those boxes exist, nice that it's an entire docking station (especially for the price), I just hope they didn't compromise on the bandwidth to make room for all the non-GFX features. I think I would've preferred 1x TB3 for the graphics and charging and 1x USB-C for the ports and hard drives, but well, still an intriguing product.Valantar - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
Finally someone seems to be understanding that $500 empty eGPU boxes are a ridiculous idea. $249 for this seems ideal. I'm a bit intrigued (worried?) by the m.2 NVMe SSD support, though - does it support PCIe switching of some kind, or do these take lanes away from the GPU?s.yu - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
$249 Also gets you a decent chassis.skavi - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
this appears to be by far the best eGPU enclosure yet available.