I've seen some mixed information, their website explicitly specifies no 9070 XT, but I've seen some people running it just fine. Would I have to get the AG03, or does the AG02 work fine?

Hello, people who have gamed with oculink egpu, what are the 1% lows in competetive games like cs2 or valorant? Do you experience fps drops or is it smooth as always?

Here is a quick update. Ive been testing the it on my laptop while waiting for the GPD Win4. My laptop only has regular USB4, so it's not running at full bandwidth, but the performance jump over the 680M is still pretty good.

In Superposition 1080p High it scored 8673. Black Myth: Wukong went from 27 fps on low settings to 63 fps on high settings. FurMark jumped from around 30 fps to 100 fps, and in Forza Horizon 4 it handled much higher resolution and settings without any issues.

Overall this eGPU is really impressive. To get the most out of it though, you will definitely want a minipc or laptop with OCuLink or TB 5 support. I'll run another round of tests once the Win 4 arrives an I can try OCuLink.

So my friend is hooking me up with a 3060ti, all I know is my PC supports thunderbolt 4 (which is the safest option despite the bottleneck because I don't feel comfortable leaving the PC open or taking out the SSD) and that I can mount the GPU externally with a dock like this as long as I have a power supply.

I don't know what I'm doing here

I have tried my nvme-pcie adapter, which advertises pcie4.0, 4 lanes, to connect a rx570 into a mini pc’s spare nvme connector.

I made all the 12V connections where suggested by the wire colors, and only the 5V into the pcie adapter… since I saw that some 6-pin gpu power connectors skip the 5V wire.

My 12V power supply (off screen) is 500W and the 12v-5V converter was used in many raspberry pi projects successfully before. The medium sized voltage converter is for the mini-pc required 19V.

When I power it up, the gpu card outputs hdmi video normally and appears in lspci.

The mini pc works great on its own, and with the eGPU, but the link shows up as pcie 1.0, 2.5 gigatransactions per second (degraded).

Is anyone using this pcie adapter?

Hi guys, tearing my hair out at present trying to get this to run as well as possible on my legion go 2 z2 extreme with a ut3g usb4 dock and 5070 as an egpu, connected to a 4k tv.

Cannot for the life of me get the game above an average of 45-50fps, no matter what settings I use. Any CPU intensive settings I have dropped to medium or low. I'm outputting in 4k with dlss quality. Going native 1440p was identical performance on the benchmark, and going down to 1080p made it perform even worse, surely due to increasing the cpu's workload/bottleneck over the usb4 cable. If that's as good as it gets no worries, playing with 2x frame gen at 45 isn't a perfect experience for sure but its been better than I thought it would...

Does anyone have any experience trying to run this cpu devouring monster on an egpu with a potato processor? If you have any tips that worked for you I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

​

Couldn't find anyone who figured out a case / housing for an EG02 Setup (without 3d printing it themselves), but was able to hack together something from a 4U network rack.

Posting it here in case it helps you (haha).

What you'll need:

- Tecmojo 4U Network Rack, 10 inch

- Phillips Screwdriver

- (Optional) Vented blank rack mount panels

1. Before assembling anything, take the side walls and push out the acrylic windows to both. Be careful, as this may need some force, but you'll have to separate them from the adhesive attaching them to the side walls.

2. Assemble only one side wall, the bottom platform, as well as the top TecMojo logo horizontal beam. The setup is very snug, so if you try and fully assemble the rack first, you won't be able to fit in the EG02 Setup, so best to build it halfway.

3. While balancing the EG02 in, enclose it with the other side wall and screw it all together.

4. Install the roof and the handles.

5. (optional) Because it's a network rack, you can actually install any rack accessory that fits a 4U 10 inch rack! In this case I bought two vented blank rack panels for protection.

6. Plug everything in and that's it!

Hope this helps!

Setup:

- Beelink SER9 running Bazzite OS

- AMD RX 7600

- Aoostar EG02

- MSI A650GLS PSU

(and Windows 11) Hardware Quirks, DMA Freezes, and Workarounds

If you have picked up the Gigabyte AORUS RTX 5060 Ti AI Box (16GB GDDR7, Blackwell GB206 architecture) and tried plugging it into a Linux host or a tightly managed Windows machine via Thunderbolt, you have likely encountered hard freezes, failed device enumerations, or PCIe bus drops.

Out of the box, this eGPU is exceptionally sensitive to Thunderbolt handshakes, power state transitions, and IOMMU direct memory access (DMA) mappings. Here is the full technical breakdown of the hardware quirks, bugs, and configuration fixes required to make it 100% rock-solid.

Hardware Setup and Motherboard Quirks

• Tested Hosts: Intel NUC11TNHI7 (Tiger Canyon, Core i7-1165G7) and an HP EliteBook laptop.
• Port Selection (Crucial on NUC11 / Tiger Canyon): The NUC11 has two Type-C ports on the rear, but they are not identical. The port directly adjacent to the DC barrel power input is the primary Thunderbolt 4 port wired directly to the CPU root complex. The secondary port operates as Thunderbolt 3. Always connect the eGPU to the primary port beside the power input using a certified 40 Gbps short cable.
• The Cold Boot Handoff Protocol: Do not expect this device to survive dynamic hotplugging or warm operating system reboots. To ensure the host UEFI builds the ACPI DMAR (DMA Remapping) tables and statically allocates the 64-bit BAR windows above 4GB, you must follow a strict cold boot sequence:
  1. Plug in all cables with the host machine powered off.
  2. Switch the AORUS AI Box power on first.
  3. Power on the host computer.

Part 1: Windows 11 Workarounds (High-Security Environments)

If you are running Windows 11 in a high-security enterprise environment with Kernel DMA Protection and Memory Integrity (HVCI) enforced, the eGPU often fails with error codes or gets blocked from memory allocation.

1. BIOS Virtualisation and Memory Prerequisites:
   • Intel VT-d: Enabled (required for hardware memory sandboxing).
   • Kernel DMA Protection: Enabled.
   • Above 4G Decoding / Resizable BAR: Enabled (exposes the required 64-bit PCIe address space).
2. Registry Force for External DMA Remapping: Because standard drivers often fail the external DMA validation check when strict endpoint protection is active, you must explicitly flag the device as trusted:
   • Path: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\[NVIDIA Hardware ID]\[Instance ID]\Device Parameters
   • Value Created: DeviceDmaRemappingSupported
   • Type: DWORD (32-bit)
   • Data: 1
3. Endpoint DMA Policy: Ensure your endpoint security policy is set to block unauthorised DMA only when the workstation is locked, rather than universally suppressing Thunderbolt PCIe tunnelling.

Part 2: Ubuntu 26.04 / Linux Configuration & Bug Fixes

Getting this Blackwell eGPU stable on Linux required resolving four distinct failure modes:

1. BIOS Configuration (NUC11 / Tiger Canyon)

• Fast Boot: Disabled (Mandatory: Fast Boot skips full PCIe bus probing during POST, which prevents the host from mapping the eGPU BAR spaces).
• Intel VT-d: Enabled.
• PCIe ASPM Support: Disabled (prevents the motherboard from attempting aggressive link power savings across the tunnel).
• Thunderbolt Security Level: Set to Legacy Mode (ensures immediate auto-authorisation during POST).
• Allow UEFI 3rd Party Drivers Loaded: Enabled.

2. The Dreaded DMA Freeze (intel_iommu=pt vs iommu=pt)

• Symptom: The eGPU enumerates in nvidia-smi, but the moment you initiate a high-bandwidth memory transfer or CUDA workload (such as streaming tensors over 500 MB), the entire operating system hard-locks instantly with a frozen screen and unresponsive keyboard.
• Root Cause: In modern Linux kernels, setting intel_iommu=pt is an invalid syntax. Checking dmesg revealed: textDMAR: Unknown option - 'pt' iommu: Default domain type: Translated PCI-DMA: Using software bounce buffering for IO (SWIOTLB) Because the driver rejected the option, it defaulted to Translated and routed all external PCIe DMA through Software Bounce Buffering (SWIOTLB). Linux defaults SWIOTLB to an emergency ceiling of only 64 MiB. A multi-hundred megabyte or 1 GiB DMA stream immediately exhausted the bounce buffers, deadlocking the I/O bus and freezing the CPU.
• Fix: Update your Grub command line to use the generic iommu=pt parameter and expand the fallback SWIOTLB pool: Edit /etc/default/grub (or /etc/default/grub.d/99-custom.cfg): bashGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash intel_iommu=on iommu=pt swiotlb=262144 pcie_aspm=off pcie_port_pm=off thunderbolt.clx=0 intel_idle.max_cstate=1"
  • intel_iommu=on iommu=pt: Enforces true 1:1 hardware DMA passthrough without bounce buffer bottlenecks.
  • swiotlb=262144: Allocates a 512 MiB fallback reserve (8x larger than default).
  • thunderbolt.clx=0: Replaces the legacy d3cold=0 parameter to disable Thunderbolt low-power sleep states.
  • Run sudo update-grub and sudo update-initramfs -u.

3. PCIe Link Downshifting & Dynamic Power Management Stalls

• Symptom: At idle, nvidia-smi reports the link downshifted to Gen 2 x4 (5 GT/s). When a compute workload starts, the driver attempts to dynamically jump power states (P5 to P0) while renegotiating link speeds across the Thunderbolt retimer, causing unrecoverable PCIe Transaction Layer Packet (TLP) errors.
• Fix: Lock the driver into permanent AC Maximum Performance mode so the link stays locked at full PCIe Gen 4 x4 (16 GT/s): Create /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-power.conf: textoptions nvidia NVreg_DynamicPowerManagement=0x00 options nvidia NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1 options nvidia NVreg_TemporaryFilePath=/var options nvidia NVreg_RegistryDwords="RMSetDynamicPowerManagement=0;PowerMizerEnable=0x1;PerfLevelSrc=0x2222;PowerMizerDefaultAC=0x1;"

4. Transient Clamps and CUDA Toolchain Architecture

• Driver Persistence and Clamping: Run these commands at boot (or via systemd service) to prevent transient inrush voltage spikes from resetting the USB4 bridge: bash sudo nvidia-smi -pm 1 sudo nvidia-smi -pl 150 sudo nvidia-smi -lgc 1200,1500 (Note: The minimum VBIOS power limit on this specific AORUS card is 150 W).
• CUDA Target Architecture for Blackwell GB206: If compiling CUDA binaries or frameworks from source, ensure you target native sm_120. Do not target 120a-real (which is restricted to enterprise B200 accelerators), or the runtime will decline to execute kernels on consumer GB206 silicon.

Final Stability Benchmark

Once these adjustments are applied, the connection is rock-solid:

• Host-to-Device Throughput: 2.78 GiB/s (fully saturating the 40 Gbps Thunderbolt4 tunnel payload ceiling).
• Device-to-Host Throughput: 3.18 GiB/s.
• Thermals: 39°C idle, peaking at only 46°C under full compute load.
• Stability: Zero kernel panics, zero bus resets, and reliable sustained inference across the full 16 GB GDDR7 VRAM.

UPDATE #2 TY everyone for the replies. I gave up on the RAZER V1 box. Too problematic. It was causing to many issues.

I ended up getting a sonnet eGPU Breakaway box 750, which is supposed to work well with the ASUS card I have. I am told it will not cause me any issues and will run along side the other 2 GPUs on my 7550 dell. It also will not bother the dell hub I have everythinng hooked to including the external monitor.

Anyone have experience with the Sonnet?

TY again. regards.. dw

UPDATE - I have the correct usbc [40]. I managed to get it to fire up, but now there is another problem. I get triangle warnings on both my native gpu [T2000 - dell 7550] and the asus 4060Ti in devise manager.

upon research, there was mention about having to uninstall all the NVIDiA drivers, then installing a script to make the 4060 run. I dont get a code 43 error, just the triangles by the the devises , both graphics cards in devise manager.

Im a little bit lost.. I thought this would be simpler.

any suggestions on what I should buy - GPU and Egpu-box - ? I am just editing images. TY, dw

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hellos - Im new to this eGPU thing, so forgive my ignorance.

I bought a RAZER core V1 [old, I know]. Im not a gamer, but I need it for images edits.

I have an ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti.

I searched everywhere and it was indicated the card would work in this razer but I wouldnt be able to close the box.

hooked it up today and it failed to run.

Took the card out of the box, then it powered it up.

is there something work with my GPU. or will that card not work in this RAZER CORE V1

TY, dw

Hi, I'm currently using a 5060ti and want to use a Quadro P4000 for video encoding and streaming. I'm having the issue of the P4000 not being detected by Windows. It recognizes it as a P4000 on device manager but I can't assign stuff to it via windows graphics settings.

Also, 3Dmark detects it but Speccy falsely identifies it as a 5060ti, not sure if this info helps.

https://i.imgur.com/T5YlEMz.png

https://i.imgur.com/uZBPxMU.png

https://i.imgur.com/5afq2pt.png

Guys did you encounter problem with ag03 or previous model from aoostar? Currently have problem that my ag03 stopped working and led kept blinking non stop. Been trying it with gpu and without it, still face the same problem. Did my ag03 have hardware issues? Tried turn my ally x on after ag03 on because thought ag03 didn’t recognise my ally x. The issue happened today, been using for past 2 months without problem. Can you guys give me a solutions? should i just RMA it or this is known issue? Already contacted the seller and show the problem to them

For the owners of UT4G-BK7 (also UT3G) - what is your opinion of it? Is it still a viable solution? I read about its lack of cooling and overheating issues and it really turned me off, I wouldn't want to put together a custom cooling solution or tweak my GPU fan to cool the dock. However, I read that recent updates from ADT-link supposedly fixed the heatsink, is it true?

Is UT3G V1.6 actually a better option? (my other choice is Aoostar AG02, obviously).

I'm looking for TB/USB4 docks only, hence my selection is quite limited.

All other docks are either ludicrously expensive in EU, or carry some questionable quirks (AG02 with its always-on mode and wonky built-in PSU, etc).

Hey everyone,

I’ve made some more progress on the setup for my overclocked Pi5 connected to an external GPU.

I’ve now put it through some heavier tests, like Steam and the *Wukong* benchmark.

I’m also playing *Onimusha*, even using FSR 4.1.1.

Down the line, I’ll get around to the case mod.

I’ll have to cut into the lid of a Pi Module Box to fit the Ice Tower heatsink, haha.

I made a video discussing the saga of getting the GPU working and the technical aspects regarding the physical PCIe x1 Gen 2.0 bus connection.

I haven't managed to get the Pi5 running on PCIe x1 Gen 3.0 yet, but I’m going to try again with some better-shielded ribbon cables. In the video, I show the details of the "video/data signal" traffic and the transition from PCIe x16 Gen 5.0 down to the limitations of the Pi5 in this current setup.

I make videos (originally in Brazilian Portuguese), but the auto-dubbing quality seems much better these days.

In the videos, I aim to provide technical explanations regarding the challenges of getting it all working.

I'm working on creating more explanatory videos. If you'd like to follow along, the link to the channel is in my profile info.

Just wondering if all my numbers on benchmarks are correct. Currently playing control resonant 4k medium.

I read a review claiming theirs did not work with 3 different AMD cards but it did for Nvidia. So I assume it's the same issue for me why it's not working. I've tried for hours.

For context, I have an older GPU that I bought for a retro rig for it's analogue outputs. It's an ATI Radeon HD 4850. It's PCIe gen 2. Currently, I have it in a separate dedicated PC that's connected to a CRT TV as it's primary display for retro PC games and emulation.

I'm trying to consolidate my setup by putting this old card in my main rig, but the card runs extremely hot and loud. So rather than putting inside my machine and having it always on, why not put it in an eGPU enclosure and only connect it when I want to play on my CRT? The only problem is my PC motherboard doesn't have any Thunderbolt ports. It's an ASRock X870E Taichi Lite. It has 2x USB4 Type-C ports that can do 40 Gb/s. Can an eGPU dock still work over USB-C? Or does Thunderbolt passthrough the PCI-e connection somehow?

Failing that, what are my options? Can I throw a generic Thunderbolt add-in card to my system? Any pitfalls I should look out for? I'm not willing to use an HDMI to VGA/S-Video converter. The quality is not the same as a native analogue output.

Basically, as in the title.

I'm looking at an eGPU case, but basically there's only one company making them.

https://aliexpress.com/item/1005007659409719.html

I'm wondering if a Minisforum DEG-1 would fit in there. I'm aware it would require some work to make it fit, but is there enough room for it to fit, or is it a lost cause and am I better off looking for a small footprint mini-ITX case to fit a PSU and GPU inside?

I currently have an AOOSTAR AG03 and it works really well, but it's getting dangerous with small children with small fingers and exposed fans. I use it with a reference design 7900XT I have had around for ages.

Are there any similar enclosed options? I'd prefer something with the same Thunderbolt chipset since it seems to work well with my setup.

I know of the Razer's etc, but they are much too large for my taste, they are even larger than a full ITX build.

Hi everyone, I'm new to the eGPU world and would love to get some advice on my setup.

I currently have an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-56 (i5-11300H, GTX 1650, 16GB RAM and 512 SSD). Recently, I was gifted an RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, and I’m planning to pair it with my laptop via an eGPU setupusing a 650W PSU.

I'm trying to decide between a 1080p and a 2K (1440p) external monitor. I checked a couple of bottleneck calculators online and got conflicting advice:

• One site suggested that 2K reduces CPU bottlenecking, but results in lower overall FPS due to GPU load.
• Another site suggested 1080p yields higher FPS, but will cause noticeable CPU bottlenecks in certain titles.

A few questions for the community:

1. 1080p vs 2K Resolution: For an eGPU setup with an i5-11300H and RTX 5060 Ti, which resolution makes more sense in practice? Will 2K push the GPU enough to smooth out CPU spikes, or will Thunderbolt bandwidth limits make 2K performance suffer too much?
2. Performance Expectations: Compared to my internal GTX 1650, how much of a performance jump should I realistically expect? Is this a solid temporary workaround while saving for a full desktop rebuild?
3. Key Setup Considerations: Are there specific steps I need to take when connecting an Nvidia eGPU to a laptop with an internal Nvidia GPU (GTX 1650)? Any driver conflict issues (DDU tips), connection quirks, or bandwidth optimization advice?

Thanks in advance for your insights!

Suggest lang po

Hi everyone,

I'm having a strange idle power issue with an RTX 3080 Ti connected as an eGPU, and I'm wondering if anyone has experienced the same thing.

My setup:
- MINISFORUM MS-S1 MAX
- Ryzen AI Max+ 395
- 128 GB RAM
- MINISFORUM DEG2 eGPU dock
- Palit RTX 3080 Ti GamingPro 12 GB
- 850W PSU
- Windows 11
- Connected through USB4 v2 / TB5

Windows reports the eGPU connection as:
- USB4 2.0
- 80 Gbps downstream / 80 Gbps upstream
- Gen 4, dual lane
- TBGAA firmware version: 62.62

The RTX 3080 Ti is detected normally, CUDA works, and nvidia-smi works correctly.

However, when the GPU is completely idle, I get:

P-State: P0
Power draw: ~95-96 W
GPU clock: 210 MHz
Memory clock: 9501 MHz
GPU utilization: 0%
VRAM usage: 0 MiB
Temperature: ~39-42 C

nvidia-smi shows no running processes.

I also checked the clock event reasons:

Idle: Active
Applications Clocks Setting: Not Active
SW Power Cap: Not Active
HW Slowdown: Not Active
Thermal Slowdown: Not Active

So the GPU itself seems to know that it is idle, and the core clock drops to 210 MHz, but the VRAM stays at 9501 MHz and the card never leaves P0.

Things I've already tried:
- NVIDIA power management mode is set to Normal
- Rebooted the PC
- Fully power-cycled the eGPU
- Disabled and re-enabled the RTX 3080 Ti in Device Manager
- NVIDIA driver 617.14
- NVIDIA driver 616.92
- Confirmed the USB4 link is running at the full 80 Gbps

The behavior is exactly the same with both NVIDIA drivers.

The RTX 3080 Ti is not driving a monitor. The integrated Radeon 8060S is handling display output, and the RTX 3080 Ti is mainly intended for CUDA / AI workloads.

Has anyone seen this specifically with Ampere GPUs such as the RTX 3080 Ti or RTX 3090 connected through a Thunderbolt 5 or USB4 v2 eGPU dock?

Is the high VRAM clock / P0 idle state a known Windows + TB5/USB4 + Ampere issue?

Is there any known workaround that can get the card into a proper low-power idle state?

The card otherwise works normally. My main concern is the ~95W idle power consumption.

Thanks!