We are running HP laptops and have had an idea to install eGPUs to run Sketchup Pro.
We are hoping to run the HP OMEN Accelerator.
Has anyone tried this? or had any experience with a with any kind of eGPU setup.
And can anyone would be able to recommend a video card to pair it with for decent performance?
Our system base spec is :
•CPU: Core i5-7300U dual-core 3.5GHz.
•Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 620.
•RAM: 8GB DDR4-2133.
•Screen: 13.3-inch 1920 x 1080 resolution display.
Your HP notebooks will need a USB Type C with Thunderbolt 3 port to connect to the eGPU box. (I think the HP EliteBooks have this, but make sure.)
We always recommend to most recent Nvidia GTX card that you can afford. Make sure that the power supply in the eGPU box supports the wattage required by the graphics card you choose.
You probably will want to plug in some more System RAM as the 8GB is not much for power use (large models / rendering, etc.) The i5-7300U will support up to 32GB of RAM. Currently your integrated Intel HD 620 is using some of your system RAM, so not all of it is available to applications.
Lastly, an eGPU box with a high end GTX card would need a nice 25" to 27" UHD or 4K monitor to plug into the eGPU card. It makes no sense to use a bitty little 13" display for CAD / Modeling work when these monitors are so affordable these days.
Thank you for your reply @DanRathbun - The OMEN is compatible with the laptop so we should be good there. My main concern was if the application would work with an eGPU at all.
Thank you for the link, though most I found when I searched before relate to running with a Mac. Great advice re an external monitor and Ill see what we can do re upgrading the Ram (not sure if the laptop motherboard will support it).
Re the video card. Can you point me in the right direction in regards to what would be plausible, at the end of the day I could recommend we get the best available (as it is for company use) but I would hate to buy over what is required for it not to be used to its full capability - its just a shame.
Really thank you for your reply - it has helped a lot.
Good tips by Dan (of course). Also - investigate the laptops TB3 specs. Check how many lanes the laptop supports / what the actual reported TB3 speed is. Not so long ago, Dell had a popular laptop line that didn’t support the maximum TB3 speed.
I’m also running a egpu setup and am very happy about it (GTX1080 + Sonnet Breakaway 350 + Thinkpad P51). I choose a gtx1080 to drive two big monitors and an OculusRift. Just for SketchUp a gtx 1060 would be fine although, I still would look for a gtx1070/1080 or higher in case you ever intend to do vr (with a machine that has a better cpu because the U-line cpus won’t do it).
I recently chose a gaming notebook with a GTX 1060 w/ 6 GB VRAM. It’d likely be best if you didn’t get anything older than a GTX 1050. Titanium models are better than the normal ones (they have a “Ti” suffix.)
If you’ll be doing rendering, the better and newer the card and more VRAM it has, the better and faster for rendering.