

And if they are, there's a strong chance the laptop has an integrated GPU already, negating the need for an external GPU. Why not? Mostly because laptops just aren't set up to handle that much power. But the gains might not be as game-changing as you think. That's not to say the external GPU won't improve the graphical performance of your laptop it definitely will. If you're hoping to play the latest AAA titles on ultra-high settings, an external laptop GPU setup might not do it for you. However, the loss is something worth knowing about. Maybe even enough to play some graphically intense games.

Using the bigger, more powerful card gives you better graphical performance. (Bear in mind that you can use an external GPU for your desktop, but they are much more common for laptops.) In theory, this process will get you better graphics performance as, by and large, laptops don't have much graphical processing power. Once you have it set up, your computer routes graphics requests to the external GPU instead of the default one supplied with your computer. (Of course, your experience will vary depending on your hardware.) Using a dock is as a simple as installing the card, installing the drivers, rebooting, and installing any custom software. An external GPU dock has a PCIe port for the graphics card and usually either a Thunderbolt or USB-C cable to connect to your computer. In most cases, you'll see an external GPU hooked up to a dock.
