Gadgetory

welcome back to hardware own box today we're looking at a GPUs once again and in particular we'll be answering one question I see pop up from time to time do you need a Thunderbolt 3 port with four lanes of PCI Express 3.0 or does two lanes suffice for gaming this question stems from the fact that not every Thunderbolt 3 port is the same the vast majority of Thunderbolt 3 ports support the full capabilities of the protocol in other words four lanes of PCIe that use the full 40 gigabit per second available to it some laptops in particular those in Dells XPS line opt for just two lanes of PCIe with reduced bandwidth presumably as it's easier to design for this we know that Thunderbolt 3 isn't the ideal protocol for external GPUs with bandwidth and latency concerns leading to reduced performance compared to a pure PCIe connection so naturally those that have purchased or want to purchase a dell XPS laptop are wondering whether the reduced bandwidth available to each GPUs through just two lens of PCIe leads to lower AGP performance then fully fledged four-lane systems today we'll be answering this question through benchmarks of popular games as always at hardhome unbox the setup we've got is about as apples to apples we can get right now representing four-lane Thunderball 3 laptops we have the razor blade stealth equipped with an intel core i7 8550 u + 16 gig of ram and in the other corner of this battle representing two-lane thunderbolt 3 devices we have the Dell XPS 13 here we also have an Intel Core i7 8550 U and we do move to a gig of ram but this shouldn't make much of a difference the key factor here is we're using basically the same CPU but one laptop uses four-lane Thunderbolt 3 and the other uses 2 lanes the e GPU we're using is the Auris GT X 1080 gaming box one of the most powerful and economically sensible options on the market the GPU and he is pretty damn fast but of course we aren't going to harness the full power with either setup that's just life with the GPUs right now though in my opinion you can you'll get decent gaming experience with one depending on the title today we'll be going through fourteen games and comparing the performance between the four Lane and two lane systems I've also included results for other systems in the charts but the main focus will be the e GPU setups also I should point out that all testing was done with an external 1080p display hooking up and displayed directly to the e GPU provides the best performance so we've done that here starting with Grand Theft Auto 5 here I tested at 1080p with the maximum detail settings both setups are playable with an average in the seventies and a 1% low in the 40s however the four lanes setup is noticeably faster here 2% faster and averages and a decent 9% faster in 1% lows this doesn't take the game from unplayable to playable but an extra 4 or 5 fps is decent Batman Arkham Knight can be difficult to play with game works enabled but both systems push a 1% low above 30 FPS at maximum detail levels here still the falling setup is faster to the tune of 16% on average and 10% in 1% lows this allows the game to reach a 60 FPS average on the 4 Lane razor blade stealth rise of the Tomb Raider is normally a punishing game and it's here that the Fallen system holds a massive performance lead in 1% loads the 4 Lane system is 60% faster which is the difference between 20 and above 30 FPS in this metric at the maximum detail settings with DirectX 12 enabled the performance lead when looking at averages is smaller at just 13% but it's significant nonetheless it's clear in this game that four lanes gives you a better experience Deus Ex mankind divided showed relatively modest performance gains for the four lane Thunderbolt 3 system at 6 percent on average and 8 percent in 1% lows the performance between each system here is similar at around 50 FPS on average and above 30 FPS in 1% lows so I wouldn't worry too much about this game if you're planning on playing it hitman is quite CPU intensive but we're still seeing a handy performance led to the four lanes system despite the Dell XPS 13 outperforming the 4 Lane razor blades stealth in general CPU benchmarks in dead the blade stealth with its four lanes of PCIe has a three percent lead on average and eight percent in one percent lows the game doesn't play well on each GPUs with a 1 percent load below 30 FPS at maximum detail levels and there's quite a large difference between the average and one percent low results which indicates some inconsistent performance watchdogs 2 again is quite CPU intensive but there's not a lot of difference between the two Lane configurations the four lane system is 3% ahead looking at averages and 5% faster in 1% lows using the ultra preset at 1080p you'll only get just above a 30 FPS minimum so it's best to turn down the quality for real gaming Mass Effect Andromeda delivers similar performance whether you have two or four lanes of PCIe here the difference between the two is only 3 to 4 percent which isn't that significant and the game runs over 60 FPS on average anyway one of the better experiences with each GPUs from what I played which is a shame because the game itself is pretty disappointing prey is enormous Lee affected by the lane configuration it's the biggest difference you will see in this set of benchmarks the four lane system is a whopping 42 percent faster on average and 37 percent faster when looking at 1% lows clearly this game is quite bandwidth intensive as performance really suffers on the two-lane system and that's a shame because the game is very playable on a four lane Thunderbolt 3 solution Middle Earth shadow of war shows a pretty typical performance advantage to the four lane system 5% looking at averages and 12% in 1% lows with the GT X 1080 gaming box playing on the ultra preset is possible though I'd probably turn down a few things for gaming with the tool and system just to be on the safe side Assassin's Creed origins with the ultra preset is not a great experience with the GPUs with both systems to living 1% lows below 30fps the fauline system is 7 to 10 percent faster in this game but in general you'll want to turn down the detail level on both systems to get that 1% low frame rate at an acceptable level star wars battlefront 2 is one of the rare games where performance is actually better on the two-lane Dell XPS 13 which suggests the game is CPU limited aside from some on occasion the experience is quite good in the single-player campaign with a 1% low above 60fps still the thule system is 7% faster in this test looking at the 1% lows which is pretty unusual considering the other results things get back to normal with battlefield 1 where there is no significant performance difference between the two and for length Thunderbolt 3 systems looking at the 1% low results the four-lane system is slightly faster on average but the 1% low results tell us more and here there's nothing significant to report in dirt for with the ultra preset used again we're seeing the following system are performed the two-lane system by a decent margin 13% on average and 19% in 1% lows there are some odd periods to slow down when playing to it for so be aware of that when you're you know playing this game on an e GPU but you'll be better off with a four-lane solution here if you are thinking of playing in the final game we're looking at is Wolfenstein 2 just to make those Vulcan fans happy this is one of the larger margins in favor of the four-lane system at 20% in both average and 1% low frame rates the Fallen system here runs above 60 fps almost all the time whereas the two layer system doesn't hit that level of performance using the mind Leoben preset though you're getting a pretty good experience either way overall it's quite clear from the games we looked at that the four lane Thunderbolt 3 implementations do have a performance advantage in nearly every solution although the degree to which four lenses faster does vary the smallest margin we saw was about 2 to 3 percent in games like watchdogs 2 up to 20% or larger in games like Wolfenstein 2 and prey and of course there was that one game Star Wars Battlefront 2 that was a little bit faster on the tool and solution on average the situation is this four lane Thunderbolt 3 attached to a new GPU is 10% faster than two lanes when looking at average frame rates and 14 percent faster looking at 1% those that's not an enormous difference it's not a case of having double the bandwidth with four lanes and therefore double the performance but those tossing up between a dell XPS laptop or a competitor with four lens of PCIe might be swayed by the extra performance of the four lanes solution for a GPU gaming that's it for this investigation into one corner of external and graphics give it a thumbs up if you liked it don't forget to subscribe and I'll catch you later you