Is There Any Laptop with Thunderbolt + Intel 11th Gen H45 Chip but without a Good Gpu?

Brrrrt on 17/10/2021 - 18:05
Last edited 17/10/2021 - 21:23

Title, I know this seems a bit weird of a requirement but Im curious if theres any laptops that fit this description.

Currently on a ryzen gaming laptop that while great, the 30th gen mobile gpus are a bit of a letdown compared to desktop cards, and especially compared to how good the mobile pascal generations were. Now I did consider building an itx and just get a cheap laptop for a daily driver, but the hassle of getting an monitor (especially since i move a lot) and having to resort to use a 'slow' laptop put me off. I would much rather just have a laptop + egpu and it seemed a more 'mobile' setup, I would still have a powerhouse of laptop when Im without the egpu, and when I inevitably settle down I can always use the gpu in an actual PC build later down the line.

Heres the trouble, I cant seem to find any laptops, that have tb and have an h45 11th gen intel card, and one with not too much gpu so its doesnt cost 'too much'. I can probably sell my current laptop about anywhere from 3.5k to 3.8k. A egpu enclosure cost around 500 bucks, an rtx 3070 or better card will set me back at least 1.5k and thats with a sale on. That leaves painfully little room for me to purchase a laptop without putting extra cash in. The metabox alpha-s 3060 model is some of the cheapest that I have seen thats with a 11800h and thunderbolt, but that cost 2k stock without any upgrades.

Looking for recommendations if anyone knows any, cheers!

Computing Computer Laptop

Comments

  • Aydo01 on 17/10/2021 - 19:23

    I have the metabox alpha s and it’s a pretty awesome setup with the 3060

  • brendanm on 17/10/2021 - 21:22

    A egpu enclosure cost around 500 grand

    Should buy a house instead.

    • Brrrrt on 17/10/2021 - 21:24

      ah heck my bad sorry, brain freeze moment right there. fixed now

      • brendanm on 17/10/2021 - 21:40

        All good just having a joke my friend.

    • HairyChickens on 17/10/2021 - 23:49

      What's wrong with living in an egpu enclosure. I find those quite spacious

  • juzza87 on 17/10/2021 - 21:33

    On performance you're at a much higher level than me but I'm running a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i with 16GB RAM, Intel 1165G7, 980 Pro 1TB and 2x TB4 ports running an RTX2060 via a CM E200 TB3 EGPU enclosure. The portability is awesome (it's a 13" 16:10) and integrated 96EU Iris GPU is enough to do basic gaming.

    With the eGPU I have not been able to get full performance while the lid is shut so I have to leave it open all the time, have it on a cooling pad. eGPU performance is probably 60% from when it was in my old desktop because of the bandwidth of TB (4x PCIe).

    • Brrrrt on 17/10/2021 - 21:44

      i see. would you not recommend an egpu then? if im going to be getting rougly 60% of performance of the card, than the desktop 3070 wont be faster than my current mobile gpu, I would assume?

      • juzza87 on 18/10/2021 - 07:05
        +1

        I love the eGPU concept and won't be going back in the future, looking again the loss in performance is closer to 20% with an external display and 30% if using the internal display (because it has to pipe the output back to the notebook). For the games I play at the resolution I play (2560x1440) I'm very happy.

        Gaming notebooks are cool and being able to game anywhere you can plug it in is great, but if you don't game or do graphics intense work away from home then there's no point carrying the extra weight (and gaming on battery will drain it very quickly). There are also limitations with a notebook form factor in relation to cooling potential and maximum performance (the discreet GPU in the notebook will likely have a PCIe 16x connection to the system (vs 4x via TB) but a lower clock and faster throttling or a screeching fan to compensate for the cooling). The eGPU though limited at PCIe 4x will have great cooling (and take up quite a bit of room on your desk).

        If your internet's good have you considered Parsec? You could have a high end desktop at home streaming to an ultralight notebook.

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