2 ms·
The last time the sonnet enclosure came up it was determined that the bandwidth of thunderbolt is simply not yet enough for a high end graphics card (especially
by dnissley 13y ago
The last time the sonnet enclosure came up it was determined that the bandwidth of thunderbolt is simply not yet enough for a high end graphics card (especially if we're talking about upgrading years from now) and the enclosure itself did not provide enough power (only 100-150w). Not to mention there are no reports of this actually working with any graphics card, let alone a high end one worth upgrading to.
Just to demonstrate the bandwidth of PCIe3 x16: PCIe1.1 x16, PCIe2 x8 and PCIe3 x4 all provide around 4GBps. That's right, not 4 Gbps. So that's 32Gbps times 4 for a grand total of 128Gbps over PCIe3 x16. In comparison, Thunderbolt 2 at 20Gbps is very constricted.
I'm not sure the external GPU route will ever be useful for professionals, but I'm hopeful that it will become a more viable option for gamers who want a laptop that is light and thin, and the decently portable option to plug in a midrange graphics card that would work way harder than any integrated graphics could.