laptop GPU upgrade, what is possible?

[Ernest Burden III]

I would appreciate help in knowing what upgrade options I have for the GPU in my aging laptop.  It was very expensive when new and it has been reliable and sports a fantastic 10bit IPS panel and glass screen.  I wrote to Dell to ask about it, and they were worse than useless.  I sent them their own unique device code for my machine so they could see exact specs and customer info, after many days all I got was questions if I was looking to make a business purchase.  Replied, waited weeks, nothing.  When I tried to buy a laptop last year from them I had to get 20 mins. of frames rendering in a hurry.  They wanted more than a week to ship.  I was able to call up B&H in NYC and order an identical spec MSI machine and drive down to pick it up.  Dell = jerks.

I can't justify a new laptop right now so want to extend the life of this one.  It has been great, but Adobe apps and Cinema4D are not happy with the GPU.  I'm hoping I can upgrade  it.  The new card must be able to do 10bit color in Photoshop, which used to always mean a Quadro.  Generally, I've always bought Quadros.

News item, Jul 29, 2019:
"NVIDIA has just released the latest version of its Studio Driver...the new driver, “delivers the best performance and reliability for creative applications via extensive testing of creator workflows” by adding support for 10-bit color for creatives who use programs like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere.

The new driver was announced at SIGGRAPH 2019, and it’s a big deal for PC users who don’t want to pony up for NVIDIA’s expensive Quadro cards. Up until now, only NVIDIA’s Quadro RTX cards supported 30-bit color (10-bits per channel) leaving users with NVIDIA’s GeForce and Titan lines of laptop and desktop GPUs limited to 24-bits (8-bits per channel)."

I would like to know up to what level of Nvidia cards I can use with this chipset.

Other than going from Win7 to Win10, the laptop is stock:

Intel Core i7-3840QM CPU @ 2.80GHz
Code Name    Ivy Bridge
Package    Socket 988B rPGA
Family    6 Extended Family    6
Model    A Extended Model    3A
Stepping    9
Revision    E1/L1

Dell Inc. Model    0WK0KW (SOCKET 0) Version    A00
Chipset Vendor    Intel
Chipset Model    Ivy Bridge
Chipset Revision    09
Southbridge Vendor    Intel
Southbridge Model    QM77
Southbridge Revision    04

NVIDIA Quadro K4000M
GPU    GK104
Device ID    10DE-11BD Revision    A2

17.3" FHD(1920x1080): Dell UltraSharp™ with PremierColor technology, IPS, LED-backlit, 100% Adobe RGB Color Gamut


Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Scott Schroeder]

Are you looking to do an eGPU or replace the one in the laptop? I have an MSI GS65 stealth that I've combined with a Titan RTX in an eGPU enclosure.

A slight bit of caution if you do go eGPU. You'll lose anywhere from 10-20% from the external card with the Thunderbolt 3 connection. I'm currently using a Razer Chroma X (https://www.razer.com/gaming-egpus/razer-core-x/RC21-01430100-R3U1) as the enclosure as it has more then enough onboard power for the Titan RTX. The other reason was that one has USB and ethernet ports on the back so it should have been able to replace my dock. Yet, those USB ports in the back 100% do not work well currently. Something bottlenecks from there in the Thunderbolt connection so think of someone turning the light switch off for a second every so often, and that's what it'll be like using a mouse connected to the Chroma X.

The Titan RTX performs well, but it is a shame that the USB and ethernet ports in the back are unused now. So you may want to just get the Razer Core X and save $100.

With the Uniengine Superposition Benchmark scene, I got around a score of 4400 for my stock MSI graphics card with is a 2080 max-q. With the Titan RTX I got a score of around 8400. Based on other Titan RTX scores, if I had it in a normal desktop that has close specs to my MSI, I should be getting scores of 10,000 or more. So, I'm at or around a 16% performance loss with the eGPU compared to if I had the Titan in a similar desktop setup.

[Ernest Burden III]

Scott, thanks.  I had never heard of an eGPU, but no, I want to swap out the graphics chip in my laptop to a newer generation one, if possible.

Also, I took your advice and found you on Instagram.

[Scott Schroeder]

1 hour ago, Ernest Burden III said:

Also, I took your advice and found you on Instagram.

Prepared to be bored to tears!

Agreed, i would recommend onboard graphics chips if you can. Having gone down the eGPU route, while it is nice to have to boost my daily work, the speed you get out of something that is onboard is more than worth it in the long run.