External GPUs on P50 Mobile Workstation ThinkPad Systems

[Amy_PI_Lenovo]

Question

Why does Lenovo not support external GPUs connected via Thunderbolt 3.0 on P50 Mobile Workstation ThinkPad systems?

Answer

Lenovo does not support eGPUs on P50 ThinkPads because testing revealed a dramatic drop in system performance.

In internal testing on a GeForce GTX 1080 card running on a P50 with Razer Core via Thunderbolt  3.0 (Gen3 x4 PCIe) versus a P510 in Gen3 x16 PCIe slot, Lenovo found dramatic performance losses. This loss is quantified as up to a 20% performance loss running standard CAD applications, with up to 65% performance loss running M&E applications like 3ds Max.

For this reason, eGPU on P50 ThinkPads will remain unsupported.

[aaurnab]

I think this is not make any sense.... Thinkpad should make scope for Upgradion both Internal hardwares and external hardwares... 

[aaurnab]

I eble to implement eGPU on my thinkpad P50,

Here it is

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/11286-lenovo-thinkpad-p50-with-gtx-960/

[alexchan1016]

if i use the EPGU for external displayer not for the internal displayer, so it means the Thunderbolt 3.0 do not need date back to the internal displayer, is it supportable ?

[freddellmeister]

If anyone is still reading this thread I would like to affirm that the latest (as of today) Thunderbolt firware level 25 announces itself on P50 to be (External GPU's supported: Yes).

I don't know about the original Lenovo test but the notion that all of the CPUs 16 PCIe lanes would be wired to the dGPU only makes little sense considering the lanes required for NVMe etc?

Of course, if using eGPU one should use a external monitor if possible.

PS. aaurnab above you are using a Express Card eGPU and not thunderbolt 3.