Site icon Tapscape

How do I Connect An External GPU To My Laptop?

How do I Connect An External GPU To My Laptop?

An external GPU, once connected to a laptop, does an extremely great job at enhancing the graphics and images of your laptop.  This is in a case where your laptop isn’t doing so well in providing you with the best graphics and rendering possible. Usually with gamers, you’ll need a laptop that works well with your top tier games, and when that doesn’t happen, there’s a fix that comes in the form of an external GPU. All you’ll need to do is connect the external  GPU to your laptop and your graphics when gaming is increased to a level beyond what your laptop can provide. That’s not the only thing that will be improved, your images and video editing will also be affected tremendously and positively, In all the best ways possible.

How do I connect an external GPU to my laptop ? Connecting your GPU to your laptop is as easy as buying a stand alone eGPU with the box and graphics card pre-installed , In that case, you will need a USB c-port  or a thunderbolt 3 cable and port to connect from the eGPU to the laptop. You would need the dock, the graphics card and the power supply to make a connection from your external GPU to the laptop. Whether the graphics card is in an eGPU enclosure or it is mounted on  dock, making a connection from the external GPU to the laptop is all in the same process and the power supply needs to be available to help with the connection.

To connect the external GPU means you’ll have to get all the essential hardware to make it all happen, with the creation of thunderbolt, connecting an external GPU seems to be less complicated because the devices would be mounted already and all you’ll need to do is to connect the thunderbolt cable to the thunderbolt 3 port of your laptop, if it has one.  But if that’s not the case with you, you’ll need a proprietary eGPU and that works with a certain alienware. There’s also the option of buying an enclosure with pre-installed or swappable graphics card, you’ll still need a power supply and a USB or thunderbolt cable to connect the device to.  Once all the hardware is connected, there’s the installation of software or the upgrading of your laptops OS and carrying out other instructions based on the eGPUs manufacturers guide.

Everything You’ll Need To Connect Your External GPU to Your Laptop

The main hardware you’re going to need are : the power supply unit , the graphics card and an eGPU dock. All these things will come together to make the connection happen. The power supply unit is very important because without it, the laptop might go off unexpectedly because of the graphics card watt capacity, so basically, the power supply unit is bought based on the capacity of the graphics card.  The graphics card itself is the powerhouse that provides the good graphics and enhancement of your gaming.

The eGPU dock is the docking station, the eGPU can be chained on the dock or set on the dock ,there are different options when it comes to docks.there’s the PCIe dock version, or the M.2 dock version if your laptop has an M. 2 slot ,choosing the dock is based on the type of laptop’s Wi-Fi lan card. Buying the M.2 dock means the laptop has the M.2 slot.

You will need to choose a graphics card that goes well with your laptop ,the dock and the power supply unit also have to be able to all work well together, so it is important you research how all of these things work before you make a purchase. There are a lot of options to choose from for all the necessary hardware, you’ll need to make sure you make the best choices.

Ways To Connect Your External GPU To Your Laptop

The easiest route to go with connecting your external GPU to your laptop would be buying an eGPU that has already been very well set up, there are some stand alone eGPUs like the BlackMagic eGPU that is so properly designed ghat all you have to do is take it out of the box and connect the thunderbolt cable to the thunderbolt 3 port of your laptop.  There are no drivers installations or any complicated steps, just the connection and that is it.

Another way would be, finding the Wi-Fi lan card of your laptop, it could be connected through a PCIe slot behind the laptop (you might need a screwdriver) you’ll then have to connect a PCIe dock to the PCIe slot after the Wi-Fi LAN card has been removed. The connection is made with the eGPU cable that came with the dock

The next step would be to connect the power supply unit and connect it to the dock’s power connector ,the end of the power connector will then be connected to the dock and the end of the eGPU cable will also be connected to the Dock.

Once all of that is done, connect the graphics card on the dock and then the power supply unit as well.  Connect the power supply unit to the main source of power and also out in your laptops charger. The external GPU is already set up at this point, and then the final step is to turn on your computer. Make sure the eGPU is recognized and then you may proceed for installing all the necessary drivers or softwares to ensure the compatibility of the external GPU and the laptop.

There’s usually an installation guide to explain all the nitty-gritty details that comes with installing  the drivers or updating particular software’s or ,dealing with anything that has something to do with the BIOS. All you have to do next is to follow the instructions based on the manufacturers guide and you’ll be just fine.

Deciding what route to go when it comes to connecting your external graphics processing unit to the laptop might be tricky. But the thing about it Is, whatever you decide to do has to be done smoothly to avoid any mishaps.

https://paularoloye.com/ helps connect businesses and services to the right audience increasing sales and return on investment while https://nairatips.com/ is a technology blog that teaches beginners how to use web products and services.