After a long planning and research phase, I finally found a case for my eGPU setup with my MSI Claw 8 AI+ connected via USB4/TB4.

I am aware that there is some pretty amazing 3d Prints / Sheets available for this exact model but since i have nothing to do with printing and ready that costs would be Like 150 Euros for one printed Case, I deciced to start a new Project and build something cooler. And i Like the Idea of having some space left in the Case for Future / bigger cards.

Here's what I've done so far:

- Installed RGB lighting using a USB hub in the lower cable compartment.

- Added a stainless steel carrying handle.

- Installed a metal cable guide to secure the TB4 cable against sudden pulls (small kids + limited space 😅).

- Replaced the AG02's stock fan with a Noctua.

- Added an extended power connection with an external protective cover for more flexibility and a cleaner look.

I'm planning to add a temperature-controlled 80mm fan above the GPU, including a temperature display visible in the cable compartment.

Cable management isn't exactly pretty yet, but it's functional for now! 😅

I'm also unsure how to safely power the RGB and additional fans directly from the AG02's PSU, so I'm currently keeping them separate rather than risking an unsafe modification.

Performance & software questions

I'm mainly a single-player gamer, especially RPGs and action-adventures. I love the portability of the Claw, but I wanted a more powerful option for atmospheric AAA games.

My goal is native 1080p at 60–120 FPS on Ultra, or 1440p with upscaling at up to Balanced settings.

Yesterday, I tested A Plague Tale: Innocence at 1440p Ultra and got around 120 FPS. Pretty happy with that! Hogwarts Legacy crashed, though, so there's still some troubleshooting to do.

I'm also completely new to AMD Adrenalin and features like the FSR 4 driver override. Since I'm using ClawTweaks with Intel-specific profiles, I'm wondering whether these settings might conflict.

For anyone running a similar setup:

- Any tips for combining ClawTweaks with AMD Adrenalin and FSR 4?

- Should I leave the Intel iGPU enabled when using the eGPU, or is disabling it worth trying?

- Any suggestions for improving cooling, cable management or powering the extra fan and RGB safely?

Thanks Guys

Long story short, I'd like to use my RX 5700 XT with my ThinkPad X390 Yoga.

Since it only has one m.2 slot, so thunderbolt is my only option, but everywhere I look, even the cheapest eGPU adapters are over 100€/$, which is suboptimal since thats about the price of my GPU...

Is there any other solution or way to cheap out on getting my GPU connected?

Hello,
I have a Minisforum UM880 (8845HS, 32GB RAM) on which I run llama.cpp with 12B or 14B parameter models. It works, but it’s very slow—even though the GPU is at 99% utilization, I’m only getting about 4 tokens per second.
It seems that, thanks to the OCuLink port, I could connect an eGPU to boost performance a bit. Has anyone tried this? If so, what hardware did you use, and what kind of performance did you get?
Thanks for your feedback!

Mid last year (pre-RAMpocalypse), I picked up a Minisforum UM890 Pro with 96 GB of RAM with the DEG1 for 800 bucks for what was supposed to be homelabbing. But for some reason it’s just sitting on my desk collecting dust. Then I tried putting a 5060 Ti 16 GB on it so that the dock will be put to use. Now, it’s been a month, and I’ve revived my old Steam games and have been loving it so far. Now I’m tempted to upgrade the GPU to a 5070 mini or 5070 TI to get more FPS in some AAA titles… but something is pulling me to stop and just enjoy the gear I already have. Should’ve went to higher-end GPUs.. 🥹

Ich hätte eine verrückte Idee!

Ich habe daheim 2 Netbooks (1x MSI U100 - 1x Toshiba NB510) und überlegt, was ich mit denen noch so machen könnte. Mir ist schon mehrmals in den Sinn gekommen eine eGPU anzuschließen. Wäre das überhaupt möglich, so als Projekt eine GPU über den Adapter anzuschließen (da wo der WLAN Adapter drin ist) Wollte eure Meinung dazu wissen und mehr herausfinden, über das Thema. Also Netbooks so aus dem Jahre 2007 - 2012 (Die alten Dinger, Ihr wisst schon;)

What's the most powerful GPU not bottlenecked when outputting to internal screen? And what's the most powerful GPU not bottlenecked when outputting to external screen? (For gaming)

As the title say, i got a Stupid Question about the USB-C Port an a GPU.

I got a RX6900XT for cheap money which will be delivered soon which i'm gonna use an eGPU with an AOOSTER EG02 over TB5 for my LeGo2.

I know the LeGo 2 only uses TB4 so when i use the eGPU on the Handheld itself, i will lose a lot of performance through sending data in both directions.

But here comes my Stupid Questions into play!

Could i use the TB5 on one Port of my LeGo2 to the EG02 to send the data and one TB5/USB4v2 cable directly from the GPU to my second USB4 port from my LeGo2 to skip the losing? Will it even work???

Thanks for helping!

Cheers, Fun!

every guide i see suggests i use Nvda control panel to set what gpu does everything, but i dont have the global dropdown. I dont want to set specific apps in Windows settings, i want everything on this GPU instead of some stuff using the integrated graphics. i cant set the UMA lower than 1GB in bios.

Is there a setting within Windows or a bios setting i can change to make it use only the dedicated gpu?

Im using a Thinkpad T14s gen 3, DEG-2 dock, RTX 2070 blower, ASRock CL-550B. Windows 11 Pro

Configured Stellar Blade to use Wine Wayland (on CachyOS) to take advantage of the new GPU scanout improvements.

Interesting results, average FPS was probably only 5-10 FPS higher (110-115), however the lows (as reported by steam overlay) saw a big improvement. with Xwayland lows would sometime dip into the low 30's but with the changes, I didn't see a low below 70 FPS

This is Stellar Blade Very High Graphics 1440p. RX 9070XT connected to an Aoostar AG02. Definitely worth a try. This is a sample steam command line

WAYLANDDRV_PRIMARY_MONITOR=HDMI-A-1 DISPLAY= PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 %command%

Just wanted to share my latest project. I'm building a compact home server with an external GPU, mainly for running local AI models, Ollama, and experimenting with virtualization.

Current hardware:

- Mini PC: HP ProDesk 4 Mini G1i

- CPU: Intel Core Ultra 5 235T

- RAM: 32GB DDR5 5600MHz

- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti 16GB

- eGPU Dock: MINISFORUM DEG1

- Connection: M.2 NVMe to OCuLink

- OS: Proxmox VE

- Power: Dedicated external ATX PSU

The idea is to turn this tiny machine into a dedicated AI server without needing a full-sized desktop.

I'm still working on the setup and haven't fully tested the OCuLink connection or GPU passthrough yet.

My main goals are to run local LLMs, experiment with GPU passthrough in Proxmox, and eventually integrate AI agents into my business automation workflows.

A couple of questions for the community:

Has anyone successfully used an M.2-to-OCuLink adapter with a modern HP ProDesk Mini?

Any BIOS settings, PCIe compatibility issues, or Proxmox GPU passthrough tips I should know about?

Also, what do you think of this setup? I'm really enjoying the open-frame look of the DEG1.

I'll share benchmarks and updates once everything is running!

Thoughts on a setup like this? I'm considering a thunderbolt eGPU dock. I would like to have the eGPU drive the two monitors directly if it is plugged in, otherwise use my laptop's iGPU via the docking station. The reason is that I want to leave the eGPU disconnected unless I actually need it for gaming, and stick to the iGPU for general use. Would this setup work as intended? (provided I get the right parts of course). I'm concerned if the laptop will pick it up as 4 separate displays since all 4 cables are connected at the same time, 2 through eGPU and 2 from iGPU. And yes I don't want the eGPU sending frames back through thunderbolt and getting displayed through iGPU.

Diagram 2 shows daisy chained setup.

I have tried a couple of eGPU docks by now and they all seem to have quirks, even though they work decently with my setup.

• AOOSTAR AG02. GPU gets coil whine, noisy PSU fan even when idle, power button not working. Needs a reconnect and a reboot to work properly with full BAR.
• AOOSTAR AG03. GPU gets coil whine, noisy PSU fan but less so than AG02, not sure what power button does. Needs a reconnect and a reboot to work properly with full BAR.
• AOOSTAR EG02. This one has been best so far, using a Corsair SF750 PSU, but it seems to have very high idle power usage, power button functioning is quirky.

Would a Razer, MINISFORUM DEG2 or other dock or enclosure work better and more reliably? Without having to disconnect + reconnect the TB cable and then reboot the Legion Go 2.

The docks I have tested so far seem to have trouble with handshakes and/or power states, is my guess.

I manually installed the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (6144-core Blackwell RTX GPU) drivers on my Surface Pro 11 (Snapdragon X 12-core X2E80100) with my TB5 FEVM FNGT5 dock and a 5060 ti, and it recognized the GPU! I have 6 screens up, 2 from the surface pro (USB C and internal display) and 4 from the 5060 ti. I don't think there was any more to it.

I am using this version available for public download: 621.01-rtx-spark-notebook-win11-arm64-international-whql, then extracted it with 7 zip to a new folder and used that as the manual driver installation path.

I'm going to try running some benchmarks.

I setup a nobara pc running a 7800xt via usb4. The egpu is displaying to an external monitor just fine, occasionally need a little playing around with the usb side of things. Issue is that the performance is terrible when using the egpu, and even when it is just sitting there idle (running andoid emulator) the egpu is running 20 percent util and is hot to the touch.

I have tried turning of the android emulator and it is still the same util and heat and bad performance. The laptop it is plugged into has a gpu built in, so maybe a driver issue, but idk enough about linux to determine. The laptop is a gpd duo and I have tried the occulink port on it, but I never get video out. Any ideas on what I can do to get better performance?

I have been testing it on cyberpunk 2077 and am only getting 40-60 fps with medium low 1080 frame gen on. When I have this gpu plugged into the same laptop on windows I get 80-100 fps medium high 2k with frame gen on. I also noticed that I don't see the gpu going above 70-85 util when playing a game.

Gpd duo laptop

CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

IGPU: Radeon 890M

NPU: XDNA2 with 50 TOPS

32Gb Ram

EGPU: Radeon RX 7800xt

PCI to USB4 dock: ADT-Link UT3G

Purely theoretically speaking (I currently have a PC with a 5090, but I might be making some changes soon for personal reasons)—is there anyone here who uses a laptop with a powerful CPU (like a 275HX or 9955HX3D) paired with a Razer Core X v2 (or a similar eGPU enclosure) and an RTX 5080? If so, have you run any benchmarks, and could you share how much of a bottleneck this kind of setup creates?👍

Hey all,

Wanted to add a V100 32gb card to a PCIE 3.0 dock over thunderbolt 4 usb-c. I have a fan and shroud planned for cooling. This would be my first tinker with this type of project.

I plan on throwing a buttload of tokens at the initial setup for help, but am I setting myself up for failure with the card type and memory allocation?

New to egpus, I’m using a ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS and OMEN 34c G2 AV4C1AA with my Xax. What would be a good setup that leaves me open to upgrade to a 4k monitor eventually?

Stupid question, I know. My laptop does not have thunderbolt or USB 4 port. It only has USB 3.2 (type A and C) ports and HDMI port.

It's an ASUS Vivobook 15 M1502Y with 16 gigs of DDR4, 1TB SSD and a Ryzen 7 5825U with integrated graphics

I'm looking to buy a GeForce RTX 3070 for my Razer Core X (v1) enclosure. I found a decent deal on an MSI RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio, but I'm having second thoughts about the physical dimensions and clearances.

​I asked a few different AI tools about this, and they are completely split: one claims it will fit fine, while others say it won't slide in properly. So I really need some real human feedback from people who have actually tried this setup!

​According to the specs:

​MSI Gaming X Trio length: 323 mm (Razer Core X max is ~330 mm)

​Height: 140 mm

​Thickness: 56 mm (2.7 slots)

​On paper, 323 mm looks like it might fit, but I'm worried about two specific things:

​Height clearance with PCIe power cables attached: Will two 8-pin connectors/cables prevent the inner enclosure tray from sliding back in?

​Front frame clearance: Does the thick fan shroud hit the front edges when pushing the tray in?

​Has anyone here actually tried putting an MSI Gaming X Trio (or similar chunky cards like ASUS ROG Strix / Gigabyte AORUS) into a Razer Core X? Did it work natively, or did you have to use 180-degree low-profile power adapters, remove the shroud, or mod the enclosure?

​If it's a total no-go, what are the best high-power / good OC 3070 models (like EVGA FTW3 / XC3 or ASUS TUF) that you've personally managed to fit effortlessly?

Title. I'm running a MS-02 Ultra 235HX with a NIMO 7600M XT eGPU. I get 23k in Firestrike on the TB4 port, and barely 19k on the TB5 ports (both of em). 3Dmark bandwidth test shows 5.8 Gb/s with TB5 and 3.0 Gb/s with TB4. My 226v Lunar Lake laptop actually gets 3.2-3.4gb/s on its TB4 and gets 24-25k in Firestrike to match it. So I know the 3dmark results are accurate and I've checked the GPUs boosting to 120w.

(Scores talked about are Graphics score specifically, ofc)

Anyone got any idea what's going on? I'm about to just say fuck it and blow some money on a OCULink PCIe card and nice cable. I don't think buying another TB5 cable would be worth it, they're like $80.

Disabled igpu and removed adrenaline, moved the one monitor on aoostar mobo to Nvidia GPU, performance went way up. Does anyone else notice or have any kind of info on why this would occur? It's not a small boost either

So glad I went this route instead of dropping a ridiculous amount of money on a desktop.