I Plugged An Nvidia Rtx 5090 Into A Gaming Handheld

Two weeks ago, I showed you really nan world’s fastest graphics insubstantial useful successful a mini style facet PC. To my surprise, Nvidia’s RTX 5090 Founders Edition delivered nan immense mostly of its capacity moreover successful a 12.7-liter desktop pinch a five-year-old CPU.

It made maine wonder: what if I plugged this insubstantial into a handheld gaming PC instead? So I did, and fto maine show you: it’s a wonderment to behold. It’s tin to make maine judge successful a rich | | early wherever handhelds get overmuch powerful erstwhile you dock them astatine home.

I started pinch nan aforesaid $1,999 RTX 5090 FE and 1000-watt powerfulness proviso from my desktop test, dropping them immoderate onto a $99 Minisforum DEG1. It’s an open-air outer GPU that tin nexus to nan Oculink larboard that’s now shipping successful a fistful of portable gaming PCs, truthful agelong arsenic you bring your ain desktop GPU and powerfulness supply.

I plugged that Oculink cablegram into a $1,000 GPD Win Max 2 handheld. And then, pinch conscionable an AMD Ryzen 8840U mobile CPU and 4 lanes of PCIe 4.0 bandwidth, alternatively than nan 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 that Nvidia’s GPU technically supports, my caller Franken-desktop spit occurrence anyhow. I’m talking complete 100 frames per 2nd successful Cyberpunk 2077 astatine 4K solution and Ultra settings. I’m talking astir playable model rates successful each nan astir intensive games astatine 4K and near-maximum specs.

Across our 8 proceedings games, it did tally betwixt 7 percent and 47 percent slower than erstwhile my workfellow Tom Warren paired a 5090 pinch nan fastest gaming CPU money tin buy. But it was only 4 to 29 percent slower than that 5090 successful my SFF desktop and acold faster than erstwhile I stuck an RTX 3080 successful that desktop. And it was 4 to 12 times faster than nan handheld’s Radeon 780M integrated GPU could negociate connected its own.

Start pinch nan “5090 handheld” record successful my array below:

For example, my GPD Win Max 2 reappraisal information averages conscionable 17fps successful Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 astatine Extreme spec astatine nan handheld’s autochthonal 2560 x 1600 aboveground solution — and if I group nan crippled to nan lowest, astir murphy graphics imaginable astatine a pixelated 640 x 480 resolution, nan very champion I tin get is 113fps. Plug successful nan RTX 5090, and I get 131fps pinch nan graphics astatine their highest settings. From murphy to ultra pinch 1 plug — and a beryllium payment.

Not that you’d want to play games that potent connected a handheld’s mini psyche screen, of group — and I saw nan champion results plugging successful an outer monitor, too, because you suffer small capacity shuffling accusation backmost and distant crossed that Oculink cable. My Call of Duty model title went from 131fps connected nan handheld’s 1600p psyche aboveground to 134fps connected an outer 4K monitor. Of our proceedings games, only Black Myth: Wukong fell beneath 60 frames per 2nd astatine autochthonal 4K.

I don’t want to oversell Oculink GPUs excessively overmuch because they’re not wholly caller for primetime, and they recreation pinch immoderate awesome caveats compared to Thunderbolt and USB-C tech.

First up, Oculink cables are not hot-swappable for illustration USB products. It’s truthful tempting to ideate playing a crippled handheld, past plugging it successful and resuming pinch astonishing graphics connected a ample screen, but that’s not nan reality. You personification to unopen down your PC each clip you nexus and disconnect aliases consequence harm — nan first clip I tried an Oculink strategy a twelvemonth ago, I apparently damaged its larboard for good. And earlier you powerfulness connected your PC, you personification to powerfulness connected nan eGPU first. (The Minisforum DEG1 I’m utilizing does effort to sync pinch a connected PC and powerfulness connected and disconnected astatine nan aforesaid time, but it hasn’t been foolproof for me; nan institution says it’s designed to sync pinch its ain mini-PCs.)

Second, existent Oculink cables themselves aren’t arsenic robustly designed arsenic galore USB products. While they’re shaped for illustration a smaller DisplayPort, pinch nan aforesaid benignant of locking connector, they look acold easier to accidentally dislodge, bend, aliases break.

Third, Oculink is not a single-cable docking solution for illustration Thunderbolt aliases USB4 because it doesn’t proviso USB data, audio, aliases powerfulness to a connected laptop: I had to tally a abstracted USB-C powerfulness cord to nan handhelds I tested. That’s a feature, not a bug, truthful there’s point to get successful nan measurement of your GPU bandwidth.

Fourth, location simply aren’t each that galore devices pinch Oculink. GPD is 1 devotee, and I tested it moving pinch an early sample of nan Ayaneo 3, but nan companies you’ll find astatine your conception Best Buy — Asus, Lenovo — are presently putting USB4 ports into their handhelds alternatively of Oculink.

And fifth, Oculink is presently specified an afterthought for companies for illustration Nvidia that their drivers personification apparently been bugged for years. When I first plugged nan 5090 into nan GPD Win Max 2 and nan Ayaneo 3, they refused to pat into its powerfulness astatine each until I installed a community-developed “error43” spot that worked for illustration magic. Even so, I saw a mates of crashes that I couldn’t pin down.

Today, prospective eGPU buyers personification to premier betwixt nan reduced bandwidth and compatibility pains of Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 aliases nan cleaner but less-user-friendly Oculink, but hopefully best-of-both-worlds options won’t return excessively agelong to materialize. Asus has already announced nan first Thunderbolt 5 eGPU, moreover if nan institution doesn’t presently personification immoderate smaller, weaker PCs pinch Thunderbolt 5 that could really return advantage of it, and perchance immoderate early 80Gbps USB4 devices could relationship nan aforesaid without needing Intel’s Thunderbolt certification.

Maybe then, I won’t petition a desktop astatine all. I’ll personification a handheld gaming PC, and I’ll conscionable plug it into my eGPU erstwhile I get home. Maybe this could moreover beryllium nan early of PC gaming for nan masses — a early for those who don’t want towering desktops — if nan manufacture tin conscionable fig retired which cablegram to use.