The one awkwardness in all this is that the SLS only has USB-C thunderbolt ports on the left side, and the thunderbolt cable that comes with the BoostStation is pretty short (maybe 30-40cm), so I’m limited in where I can put things. I plug the eGPU into the laptop, and it’s exactly like working at a desktop computer. I leave my monitor plugged into the eGPU, and have my Logitech Craft and MX Master sat on the desk. It really quite a seamless experience – just turn on eGPU, plug it in, and you’ve got a full desktop experience. If I’m running a second monitor from the eGPU, it comes to life within a second or two. 2 seconds later, I get a notification that the eGPU is enabled. The one caveat here is that I wasn’t easily able to just switch out the GPU (I used a 2060 super and a 3070 below), and really to ensure everything went smoothly, I ran DDU to clear all the drivers then started again with the new GPU inserted.Īfter that, everything has been exceptionally smooth – just turn on the boost station and plug in. I then plugged in and powered on the eGPU, and ran the generic Nvidia installer for my A2000 – it then installed both the laptop and eGPU drivers in one go. But then I used DDU to clear all the nvidia drivers and prevent automatic updates. WindowsCentral wrote about their experiences with an eGPU and SLS, and reported that they experienced quite a few black-screens and crashes. To solve this, I just grabbed a 6-pin to 8-pin adapter from amazon, and everything has worked perfectly fine. For the 3070, I was stuck for power – the card requires 2 8-pin leads, but the BoostStation only has 1 8-pin and 1 6-pin available. I will say that the 2060 super just dropped straight in (though the design of that card makes it really difficult to get to the PCI-E release). Obviously if you really push the GPU, the fans on the GPU itself will rev up and determine how loud it is, but in idle or low-usage, it’s just a small PSU fan in the enclosure making any sound. The BoostStation is pretty quiet when in use. In my usage so far, I’ve not seen battery drop at all even during heavy usage, the eGPU providing enough power at all times). The BoostStation will charge the SLS when in use, so there’s 100W power delivery (note: normally 100W would be less than the total usage of the SLS – mine came with a 127W charger, but when you’re running the eGPU, you may not be taxing the internal GPU or screen so much. The PSU inside is 500W, and I gather from other reviews that the more you stick in there and plug into the USB ports, the more power you’re going to draw. There’s also room (and fixtures) inside for a full-size HDD or a couple of SSDs, with SATA connections, but I’m not using that. The handle at the back lifts, releasing a catch, and allowing the insides to smoothly slide out so you can fit a GPU: On the back, you get the ports that come with your GPU, and the ports specific to the BoostStation, which comprise 4 USB-A ports, and a USB-C thunderbolt port for connecting to the laptop: The machine has venting on one side so the GPU can keep cool. The little triangle in the ‘o’ lights up when it’s on. It’s a fantastically constructed machine, with relatively thick metal surrounding it, making it feel very robust, albeit that construction makes it pretty heavy at around 8kg. It’s a thunderbolt 3 enclosure, a little longer and about 3x as wide as a normal graphics card (let’s ignore the nvidia 40xx series for now). I picked up a brand-new Lenovo BoostStation from eBay for ~£100. It really is a stunning machine, and takes the place of my old desktop and my old surface pro X for moving around the house with.īut, I do a lot of rendering/photogrammetry and enjoy gaming, so it needed more power. I just love the screen, keyboard, touch and pen of the SLS, and when I took it on an undergrad field course last week, it let me make photogrammetric models in just a matter of minutes, on site, and present them in a lecture that day. Well, over a month later, the SLS has become my main machine, and my old Desktop is in bits, waiting to be eBayed off. ![]() ![]() I ended that post by saying I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep the SLS. I also briefly looked at gaming where the SLS was not good, losing out to the Desktop by a vast margin in the Hitman III physics-based benchmark (Dartmoor). The exception was in a super heavy scene where the Desktop was limited by available RAM, but the MacBook Pro absolutely dominated. The SLS was mostly ok when plugged in, holding it’s own against the MacBook Pro in simple rendering/photogrammetry, but losing out to the Desktop with dedicated GPU. The results were not particularly exhilarating to say the least. My last post compared the raw performance of my new Surface Laptop Studio (SLS) against my old Desktop and my wife’s M1 Macbook Pro.
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