Conclusion: Are External Graphics The Way Forward For Gaming Laptops?
This is most certainly a tough one to make a judgement on. Gaming laptops are currently reaching a dead-end in terms of the way games are moving forward so much in graphical intensity and yet GPUs cannot keep up with the performance per watt demands that give laptops an acceptable battery life. Therefore external graphics are increasing looking like a more and more viable solution, offering desktop level graphics when the laptop is stationary and plugged in at the mains. At the end of the day people very rarely game-on-the-go so the dock is only really needed at a desk, consequently it makes sense to provide onboard low power graphics on laptops for when it is being used in its traditional mobile state. Then the external graphics can be used when the laptop is plugged in at the wall and stationary or a desk for example.
External graphics bring the benefits of high performance graphics without a large drain on battery life but they also bring their negatives. The requirement for the external dock, graphics card and a Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 capable laptop can be immense: sometimes it would work out cheaper to buy both a desktop and laptop. However, price aside the innovation is vital, with innovation and mass production comes lower prices, better designs and better performance. External graphics are sure to improve immensely over the course of 2012 as Thunderbolt takes off. Moreover, in the same vein of thought it is important to recognize that innovation in the onboard graphics market for laptops is still important for example if companies like Nvidia can bring GTX 580M level graphics to the GeForce 600M series but reduce power consumption by say 30-50% then the need for external graphics will be much less.
The need for external graphics is there and unless Nvidia or AMD can pull something brilliant out of the bag before Thunderbolt hits the mainstream, we expect them to take off.
Sounds good but still a bit of work, seems to defeat the object of a laptop if you then need an external graphics and monitor, the sony may be better if you can run it of USB3 no doubt USB4 could even follow in the future exciting though but any thing can happen I suppose. Will need it's own power supply.
"which only has good battery life due to the admission of any high end graphics hardware"
I think you mean omission…
Thank you!
where can buy it?
Very well written, and easily understandable by even those not very knowledgeable about computer hardware. Thankyou!
Or you can just get a gaming laptop that isn’t a piece of shit.
Why is nobody making a docking station that you can put a normal card in? I remember many years ago, before HP bought Compaq, they had a docking station that would fit PCI cards. Why don’t manufacturers use their docking station ports on the motherboard to pipe PCIe x16 slot to a large docking station solution that you can install a graphics card in. It’s been over 10 years since I saw these drop out of use but they were very good, and have been much missed by those that used to have twin displays they could game on with their work laptops.
Coz they’re idiots. I’ve always wondered why they never did too