System specs
HP Spectre x360 ap0028ca ($1450 CAD on Black Friday, down from $1900)
i7-8565U (1.8 GHz base frequency, up to 4.6 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, 8 MB cache, 4 cores)
16 GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM (onboard)
512 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
Intel® UHD Graphics 620, Win10
eGPU hardware
Razer Core X + GTX970 4gb
Hardware pictures
Installation steps
SUPER plug n play. Very impressed how it immediately recognized my card (especially now that its a bit older). See comment at bottom for ongoing difficulty with recognizing on re-connects.
I took the GTX970 out of my old desktop, which will now function as a media/NAS for my house. I have never been a tinkerer, but taking out and installing a GPU is something anyone can do. I am not mechanically inclined, so believe me when I say that.
Benchmarks
Comments
So nice to play games on higher settings smoothly. I mainly play strategy and rpg games so mainly it affects how pretty my game looks, not how quick my reactions can be.
Razer Core X is pretty heavy and no easy transport handles. I will be using this on some LANs so I'll need to pick up some sort of bag for it, no biggy though.
I used the foam the enclosure came with to make a little vertical laptop stand which I have found helps airflow dramatically. Even connected to egpu the laptop can run a bit hot, so propping up vertically seems like a no brainer.
Is it advised to turboboost the CPU? I am very newb at all this so your input is greatly appreciated!
One challenge I am having is disconnecting and reconnecting. 1 out of 2 or 3 reconnects I have to uninstall driver and perform a scan+update of drivers which is a pain. Is this because I am not unplugging correctly? Or missing software/driver that helps with this? Minor speedbump when hooking back into game mode. Your input is much appreciated!
@james_atilla_goodwin If Windows automatically installed the graphics drivers for your eGPU, it's likely an older set of drivers that cause reinstall. I'd recommend running DDU to remove the graphics drivers then manually download and install the latest drivers from Nvidia website.
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2021 15" ASUS TUF Dash F15 [11th,4C,H] + RTX 3080 @ 32Gbps-TB4 (AORUS Gaming Box) + Win10 2004 // my 3rd RTX 3080 build [build link]