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1 Rookie

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30 Posts

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June 23rd, 2023 11:00

Would an external gpu work through mini m.2

I heard you can somehow get a gpu conneted by getting a gpu to hdmi to m.2 but would it work on a dell xps 18

10 Elder

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28.7K Posts

June 23rd, 2023 13:00

See above.  You should carefully size up the internals --  the cables for external GPUs are generally hefty and it's more likely than not you'll need to leave the back off the system.

Also realize that a wifi card is wired for a device that needs perhaps 200 megabits a second.  The slot may offer 300 Mbps -- but a PCIe x16 GPU card needs up to 16 gigabits/sec -- so the card will be severely throttled to just a couple of percent of what it needs by the adapter.

Practical eGPUs need Thunderbolt (or some other proprietary high bandwidth interface such as the old alienware graphics amplifier) to work anywhere near the full potential of the GPU card -- your system has neither prerequisite.

 

 

 

1 Rookie

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30 Posts

June 23rd, 2023 11:00

Also comes with an i7 4th gen and 8gb of ram

10 Elder

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28.7K Posts

June 23rd, 2023 12:00

Not at full speed (the M.2 slot is designed for a low-bandwidth network card),

Not without an external monitor (it can't drive the internal panel),

and probably most of the show-stopper:

Not without leaving the system a pile of disassembled parts (you won't be able to reassemble the system, as there is no internal space to route the wires to the external GPU).

 

10 Elder

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28.7K Posts

June 23rd, 2023 12:00

An SD card slot won't accommodate a GPU adapter.

And any mSATA (the system is mSATA, not M.2) will not have the bandwidth to support a GPU at anywhere near maximum performance.

If your goal is an external GPU, by the time you buy an external GPU box, the card, and a monitor you'll be over what a good, used complete desktop system would cost, and you won't have to deal with the compromises in hardware and performance  that an eGPU will bring with it.

 

1 Rookie

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30 Posts

June 23rd, 2023 12:00

I could sacrifice the sd card slot since i hardly use it and i could replace its function with a USB adapter 

and isnt pcie not for wifi cards and m.2 for storage but theres still a sata port for storage 

1 Rookie

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30 Posts

June 23rd, 2023 13:00

So what if i go with the taking out the wifi card out route and route the cable through the sd card slot and out of the computer to the gpu

and the monitor and computer isnt part of the budget 

I would only get a gtx 980 or something along with the adapter to the gpu

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