In this article, we will look at how you can make a gaming laptop from a regular office laptop or ultrabook. True, it is worth making a reservation that not any laptop is suitable, but only one that is equipped with a USB type C port supporting the Thunderbolt 3 protocol. But today such laptops are found more and more often, so this method of increasing performance is becoming more and more relevant.
It is necessary
- - Laptop with USB type-C port with Thunderbolt 3 support;
- - a video card for a desktop with a PCI-express interface;
- - a case for a video card with USB-C with support for Thunderbolt 3.
Instructions
Step 1
First, you need to talk a little about what Thunderbolt is and what USB type-C is, since even consultants in stores often confuse these concepts. First, you need to understand that USB-C is just the name of the connector with which one device connects to another. There are also USB Type A and Type B, as well as their various variations. The illustration shows the most common types of USB connectors.
Secondly, the presence of such a port in a computer or phone does not mean that your gadget has a high-speed modern interface USB 3.0, USB 3.1, or even more so Thunderbolt. And this is of the most essential importance. For example, USB 3.0 has a bandwidth of up to 5 Gb / s, USB 3.1 - 10 Gb / s, but Thunderbolt 3 provides a bandwidth of up to 40 Gb / s (or 5 Gb / s - 4 times higher than in USB 3.1) … And this is already enough to transmit even a high-quality video signal.
Step 2
The weakest point (for video games) in ultrabooks is the graphics card integrated into the processor. With the advent of Thunderbolt 3 technology, users have a real opportunity to connect an external video adapter to a laptop and thus transfer part of the calculations necessary, in particular, for displaying 3D graphics, to a plug-in external graphics accelerator or the so-called. eGPU - external graphics processing unit.
To connect the graphics adapter, you need a special box. These are produced by several companies. The most famous: BizonBox, Razer Core, Akitio Node (in the photo it is he), Alienware Graphics Amplifier, ASUS RoG XG Station, Gigabyte AORUS Gaming Box and others.
It should be noted that there is no point in buying the most powerful video card. you still won't be able to play at maximum settings - despite the huge performance of the Thunderbolt port, it will still not be enough to transfer such a huge amount of data.
Step 3
The first step is to install the video adapter into the box. This is very easy to do. It is enough to insert the video card connector into a special slot and tighten the video card with screws, as in a regular personal computer. If the video card needs additional power, then it is worth connecting additional power connectors, which are also available in the box. Then we close the cover and our unit is ready to go.
Step 4
We connect it using a Thunderbolt cable to the USB-C port of the laptop. The Thunderbolt interface is hot-pluggable, so you can plug it into a running computer. Thunderbolt also supports connecting multiple devices in a chain. But when connecting a video card, the eGPU unit must be the first in the chain of connected devices. Those. if you, for example, use a docking station, then you need to connect the video adapter not to the station, but directly to the laptop.
Please note that the connection requires a special - Thunderbolt - cable, and not the usual USB Type C, which you use to charge your smartphone. Such a cable should have a lightning bolt at both ends, and the cable itself is thicker than regular USB and quite dense.
Step 5
When connected for the first time, when the operating system detects the presence of an external video card, it will offer to install the appropriate drivers. If you have Windows 10, then the installation will happen automatically. You may need to restart your computer after this.
Now let's run some game that will load the video card. The photo shows a comparison of the frame rate in DOOM with an integrated video card (left) and an external video card (right). It can be seen that on the integrated video card the frame rate was 10 FPS, and on the external one - 32, i.e. the increase in productivity was more than 3 times. This is the result on a computer with a powerful processor. If you have a weak processor, then the performance gain will be stronger.
Step 6
How else can you improve the performance of an office laptop to make it a gaming laptop? Increase your RAM to at least 8GB. Replace the hard drive with a solid state drive (SSD). During the game, disable all unnecessary programs - browser, cloud clients, you can even disable antivirus. In the game settings, when you first start, set medium or low settings, do not set the graphics to maximum. When you are convinced that the laptop can handle this level of stress, you can increase.
