Original question by @[email protected]
I am building an AMD Ryzen PC, and want eGPUs. Thunderbolt is extremely limited, but I’ve recently seen OCuLink. For example, AOOSTAR AG02 supports USB4 and OCuLink.
The AOOSTAR AG02 is more expensive than some Thunderbolt options, so I’m looking around. What options do I have for non-Thunderbolt eGPU?
You are going to be looking at some variant of oculink, you can get riser cards that convert a PCI-e or M.2 socket into an oculink port if you don’t have one available stock. Still though, if you are building it yourself why even bother? You are going to add a significant cost to the build for marginal or no benefit over buying a mini PC with an oculink port and a known compatible dock. EGPU options are not plug and play, they rarely just work and need significant tinkering and workarounds and will come with noticeable drawbacks in the best case scenario.
There are plenty of OCuLink eGPU enclosures available. There are also bare adapter boards if you want to build your own enclosure.
Since it’s just PCIe with a different connector, it’s much cheaper and simpler than Thunderbolt/USB4. It does have a couple of downsides though. It can’t be hot plugged, so the computer has to be shut down to connect or disconnect an OCuLink device and the connector is not designed for a large number of mating cycles.
