External Graphics: The Way Forward For Gaming Laptops?

Conclusion: Are External Graphics The Way Forward For Gaming Laptops?

This is most certainly a tough one to make a judgement on. Gaming laptops are currently reaching a dead-end in terms of the way games are moving forward so much in graphical intensity and yet GPUs cannot keep up with the performance per watt demands that give laptops an acceptable battery life. Therefore external graphics are increasing looking like a more and more viable solution, offering desktop level graphics when the laptop is stationary and plugged in at the mains. At the end of the day people very rarely game-on-the-go so the dock is only really needed at a desk, consequently it makes sense to provide onboard low power graphics on laptops for when it is being used in its traditional mobile state. Then the external graphics can be used when the laptop is plugged in at the wall and stationary or a desk for example.

External graphics bring the benefits of high performance graphics without a large drain on battery life but they also bring their negatives. The requirement for the external dock, graphics card and a Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 capable laptop can be immense: sometimes it would work out cheaper to buy both a desktop and laptop. However, price aside the innovation is vital, with innovation and mass production comes lower prices, better designs and better performance. External graphics are sure to improve immensely over the course of 2012 as Thunderbolt takes off. Moreover, in the same vein of thought it is important to recognize that innovation in the onboard graphics market for laptops is still important for example if companies like Nvidia can bring GTX 580M level graphics to the GeForce 600M series but reduce power consumption by say 30-50% then the need for external graphics will be much less.

The need for external graphics is there and unless Nvidia or AMD can pull something brilliant out of the bag before Thunderbolt hits the mainstream, we expect them to take off.