I connected an Nvidia RTX 5090 to a portable video game console.

Two weeks ago, the performance of the world's fastest graphics card was explored on a compact PC. To my surprise, the Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition showed impressive performance, even within a 12.7-liter desktop with a five-year-old processor. This made me wonder how this card would perform in a portable gaming PC. After testing it, the results were astonishing, opening up the possibility of a future where portable consoles are more powerful when connected to a dock at home.

For the test, I used the same $1,999 RTX 5090 FE and a 1000-watt power supply. Both were installed in a $99 Minisforum DEG1, an external eGPU. This device connects via the Oculink port, which is currently available on some portable gaming PCs that require the user to provide their own desktop GPU and power supply. I connected the Oculink cable to a GPD Win Max 2, and despite using an AMD Ryzen 8840U mobile processor and only four lanes of PCIe 4.0 bandwidth—instead of the 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 that the GPU supports—the performance was impressive. I achieved over 100 frames per second in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K resolution and Ultra settings, and the results in most demanding games were equally satisfying.

Although the performance was between 7% and 47% lower than tests conducted with the RTX 5090 and the fastest CPUs on the market, it still exceeded my expectations: it was between 4% and 29% slower than in the small form factor (SFF) setup on my desktop and was significantly faster than when I used an RTX 3080. Compared to the integrated Radeon 780M GPU of the portable device, the performance was four to twelve times higher.

Among the tested games, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 averaged 17 fps at its native resolution of 2560 x 1600, while setting the graphics to minimum gave me only 113 fps. With the RTX 5090, the game ran at 131 fps on maximum settings. Although playing on the small internal screen of the portable is not recommended, the best results were when connecting an external monitor, where the fps increased to 134 on a 4K monitor.

However, Oculink solutions come with some limitations. First, Oculink cables are not hot-swappable like USB products; the PC must be powered off every time you connect or disconnect to avoid damage. Additionally, the current cables are not very robust and can easily come loose. There is also a lack of devices incorporating Oculink, as many brands prefer USB4. Nvidia's driver support for this system has been problematic, requiring community patches to function optimally.

Nowadays, those interested in eGPUs must choose between the limitations of Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 or the less convenient Oculink. However, there is hope that hybrid solutions will soon emerge. With the arrival of Thunderbolt 5, there is potential for the development of devices that can better take advantage of this technology, thus offering a real alternative to traditional desktop setups. This could revolutionize the world of PC gaming for those who do not want bulky towers on their desks.