I absolutely love it. I was getting frustrated with Thunderbolt eGPU performance and was seriously considering building a desktop PC. Then I came across the OCuLink mod and decided to give it a try. It ended up costing much less than building a PC while giving me almost exactly what I wanted.
The Thunderbolt enclosure does block one of the vents, but temperatures are still excellent—around 85°C under maximum load in Performance mode. It’s paired with an RTX 5080, so I get the best of both worlds: a portable handheld when I’m on the go and desktop-class gaming when I’m at my desk.
I also completed the 80Wh battery mod and use an angled Thunderbolt adapter for charging.

What I used:
80Wh battery upgrade
Custom 3D-printed back cover (Amazon)
GRAUGEAR Thunderbolt 4 NVMe enclosure (Amazon)
M.2 2280 adapter
PCIe 5.0 M.2 eGPU adapter
That’s it!

It’s actually a very straightforward mod. The only hardware you need is:

An OCuLink eGPU dock
A USB4 NVMe enclosure
An M.2 2280 adapter
A custom 3D-printed rear cover that exposes the M.2 connector easily available on Amazon.

First, move your internal SSD into the USB4 enclosure and boot from it to make sure everything works. In some cases, you may need to run a small registry (.reg) file once while booted from the internal SSD before moving it, but that’s a one-time step.

After that, connect the OCuLink eGPU adapter to the M.2 slot and you’re done. Mine is not oculink but direct m.2 but works same for oculink like aostar ago2 or minisforum deg1.

Some double side tape to stick the usb4 enclosure.

It’s much simpler than it sounds, and once it’s set up, it works really well.

I just wanna share how i overcome mine. Hope it will help someone. I notice that everytime connect it via thundrrbolt. It detected as drive E. Ag will turn on for a few second. And light ring will blink once then stop. Fix it with ejecting the usb then pull out the usb as fast as posible then put it back in. before the notfication about safe to eject the device. While the laptop still busy with the ejecting plugging it back might help with the thunderbolt. Solve mine with that

Hi, a few days ago I bought an egpu mini pcie adapter, and I can't get this gpu running

I'm using a Thinkpad E431, GT 1030 2gb LP OC edition. With i7 3632qm and 16gb of RAM. I'll link a video below.

What i tried so far:

• DDU.
• Updating Windows ( 21h1 -> 22h2 ).
• GPU is working as normal on desktop, but not on EGPU.
• Swapping the GPU from a GT 1030 to a RX 7600

Sorry for my bad English. (Note :The Microsoft display adapter is my hd4000)

Someone have any suggestions?

Host Device: Xbox Ally X

GPU: RTX 3060 12Gb

PSU: EVGA PSU 750W, GT, 80PLS

eGPU Dock: Negent Dockr USB4

Operating System: Windows 11 Home

My Experience:

Very satisfied with the eGPU Dock it arrived very quick! I have been using it with my Xbox Ally X connected to my main setup or even my TV in my bedroom. The Negent Dockr uses replaceable core boards, allowing it to support or switch between TB3/TB4/USB4, Thunderbolt 5, and OCuLink. It works with different types of PSUs and includes a customizable ARGB lighting with a display that shows you information. The founder and the team are very open for Feedback from the Founder Beta users.

Strongly considering using an eGPU to get more performance and life out of my 2018 Razer Blade 15 1060-MaxQ Base model. Im not 100% sure but i think the TB3 is PCIe 3.0 ×4

Trying to better understand the best GPU card for my situation (tb3 limitations, CPU bottleneck, etc.)

My understanding is that the 5060 Ti's lower core count and narrower native bus means it will be better for TB3 bandwidth limits, so it loses less performance?

Also, because of the TB3 bandwidth bottleneck, I am better off aiming for high-resolution gaming over 1080p because the workload becomes more GPU-bound? Therefore, I want a card with more than 8Gb of VRAM (I will not accept 8GB of VRAM - I also do video editing too).

I'm also open to AMD cards, but because I already have NVIDIA drivers on my laptop for the 1060 max Q, I think staying green over red is more convenient and should help me run into fewer issues?

**edit/note: I'm finding a few ppl saying that they get issues using an Nvidia card for eGPU if their laptop has an Nvidia dGPU because the drivers can conflict, and that using an AMD card for the eGPU resolves this issue and keeps the drivers separate. So I think an AMD card would be better (also seem to be better value for more VRAM)

Also, any GPU dock recommendations for this scenario? I will most likely just get a Razer Core X, unless there's a good reason not to/better alternative?

Apparently, the 5060 Ti would be the better choice for this scenario (ChatGPT, Claude). Mostly because of the TB3 bandwidth limits, but the 3080 would be better if desktop? Also the 5060 ti will give me the newer DLSS and frame gen features, so would be better for the future?

Other cards I think would be good:
RTX 4070 Super 12GB (lower memory bandwidth than 3080)
RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (288 GB/s bandwidth)
The assumption I'm making here is that lower-bandwidth cards will do better against the TB3 bandwidth limitations? I could be talking complete rubbish tho

Mostly tho I would just like to boost my laptop's performance just enough so I can play/access new/modern AAA games at decent 60 fps performance. So I would lean more towards convenience and fewer issues over trying to get the most performance. I'm not fussed about 4k, 1440p or 1080p - I will do whatever resolution is best for my situation (although I would upgrade to a 1440p ultrawide monitor).

I'm not so much into egpus myself, aside from finding them cool and maybe i'll get one eventually, but i've heard about certain gpus such as the Arc B580, needing resizeable bar enabled to have good performance. How do they work when used as an egpu for a laptop ? Just "not well" ?

I have recently switched from an RTX3070 8GB to an RX 9070 16GB OC.

My performance in Apex Legends has drastically lowered.

Using the exact same dock, cable and system with an RTX 3070 I averaged around 140 FPS in Apex, now it sticks to 50-60 average with some highs to 100+ and some lows around 40.

Hardware:

• Legion Go 1 (Z1 Extreme)
• TH3P4G3 eGPU dock
• Samsung G60SD via DP1.4
• Windows 11 25H2
• AMD Adrenalin 26.10.21.05
• UMA Auto (also tested 4GB and 6GB)
• ReBAR enabled (cant turn this off apparantly)
• PCIe link reports x4 Gen3 correctly in GPU-Z

Ingame:

• Looking at the sky: 250–300 FPS
• Looking at the ground: ~200 FPS
• Normal gameplay: 45–90 FPS
• Dropship: ~20 FPS
• GPU utilization sometimes falls to 15–20%
• GPU rarely exceeds 50% utilization
• Lowering graphics settings to minimum changes FPS by less than 10 FPS.

What I tried

• Fresh Windows install
• Latest AMD driver, older AMD driver
• Deleted Apex config and shader cache
• Cleared DirectX shader cache
• Disabled Anti-Lag / Chill / HYPR-RX
• Different UMA sizes in bios
• Different Apex settings
• Verified game files
• Disabling internal GPU
•  

3DMark Steel Nomad:

• Score: 5950
• Average for same hardware: 6009

GPU reaches 99% utilization during Steel Nomad.

I mostly use my windows installation for Apex only, but I installed CS2 and that runs fine (200 fps)

I have no idea what do try anymore at this point, any help is appreciated.