Hey friends,
For the most part, I’ve been very happy with the performance and stability of my (second) FW16, but I was running into some pretty constant crashes in DaVinci Resolve, so I decided to try out an eGPU. I’ve had the displeasure of using eGPU setups in the past and it’s mostly been an exercise in frustration, but I have been very excited by the possibility of the fabled Oculink expansion bay for this machine.
I was able to snag a cheap, Aliexpress eGPU for $50 on FB marketplace and decided to pick up an open-box PSU and GPU (4070ti S) at Microcenter to give it a whirl. I’m happy to say it has greatly exceeded my expectations. I did have one crash/disconnect early on, but I think it may have been due to the super cheap/sketchy TB cable that came with the eGPU. I swapped it out for a nice CalDigit cable and it’s been rock solid since then.
Resolve hasn’t crashed on me once and the performance has been delightful. Gaming prowess has been awesome as well. I’m running Valheim, BF2042, Helldivers 2, and OW2 at 4k with plenty of eye candy turned on (and DLSS when needed) and getting a steady and stable 70-90+ FPS. Another subtle distinction is that they feel like “desktop frames”, which sounds silly, but I feel like I can always tell the difference between desktop frames and laptop frames. You might be able to push the FPS with new gaming laptop hardware, but it never feels as smooth as a desktop. I haven’t done a lot of benchmarking, but achieved 17,500ish on my first and only Time Spy run.
Another nice advantage is that it allows me to leave the windows power settings on Balanced and though the FW fans still get cookin’ (tiger can’t change its stripes), it’s a lot less obnoxious than before. And–probably unsurprisingly–it doesn’t borrow juice from the battery while pushing the system. Had a really fun, 4-5 hour Valheim session with a friend the other night and everything was stable and sustainable.
I’m very happy with this configuration so far and even more excited for an Oculink future :).
Quick edit: I also wanted to mention that all 3 GPUs seem to be playing well together and I haven’t had to disable any of them in device manager. I’m only running my primary monitor through the eGPU and my dock/the iGPU are pushing the secondary monitor without issue.
Here’s a pic I snapped today of the makeshift setup.
