A typical eGPU setup requires five basic items: a laptop, a desktop graphics card, an external display, a PCIe adapter/board or enclosure for the card, and a separate power supply for the graphics card (though Thunderbolt 3 enclosures have built-in power supplies).
Ideally, your laptop packs an Intel quad-core Core processor, or a dual-core Core processor with Hyper-Threading technology. A solid-state drive (SSD) can also improve your gaming experience, but it’s not a necessity.
How to set up eGPU
1. First, slip your graphics card into the PCIe slot on the BPlus board.
2. Next, hook your (not yet powered-on) PSU’s 24-pin ATX power supply pins into the BPlus board.
3. Now connect the 8-pin PCIe connector on the board to the 6-pin power connector on the graphics card .
4. nsert the ExpressCard cable into the laptop, then slide the opposite side of the cable—the one with the HDMI connection—into the HDMI port labled “X1” on the PCIe adapter. At this point you’d also connect your graphics card directly to your external monitor, typically via HDMI or DVI.
5. Plug the power cable into a power outlet, then to the back of the Processor Unit.
6. Flip on your PSU (don’t worry if nothing happens yet), power on the external display, and then boot your laptop—or at least, that’s the boot order that works for me. Some users report that booting an eGPU setup works only when they hook into the ExpressCard slot after the initial boot, or when Windows has loaded.
7. If your graphics card is unidentified, manually download and install your card’s drivers from AMD or Nvidia. You may then need to reboot the system to get your eGPU setup working properly.
