You Shouldn't Do This to Your Cheap Thinkpad

DISCORD: / discord
I've been on a hunt to find the best upgradable laptop for as cheap as possible. That search lead me to the Thinkpad T480, the only downside was the horrible gaming performance. So today I'm trying my best to get as much gamer out of this little old cheap business laptop as possible.
Build your own T480 EGPU setup.
Some of the following product links are affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
T480 - amzn.to/3t6nnzy (Amazon) - ebay.us/o1vfj0 (Ebay)
GTX 1650 - amzn.to/486LXiw (Amazon) - ebay.us/TpM3lN (Ebay) - Make sure to get one that doesn't require external power
TH3P4 Lite - ebay.us/eS9lTP - More expensive on ebay than Ali.
My Gear
iFixit Tool Kit - amzn.to/3DgiF3A
Fujifilm X-T3 - amzn.to/3ltUtFm
Fujifilm XF16-55mm F2.8 - amzn.to/3qARLjK
Sigma 30mm F1.4 - amzn.to/42rxGtH

[@aChairLeg]

JOIN MY DISCORD discord.gg/2Wj8WanUzn

[@harunaluna314]

Umm 400$ modded laptop u get screen+keyboard, basic knowledge 😅, and desktop require more power

[@enderpirate9887]

I can't wait for the day when the Framework laptop is cheap!

[@aChairLeg]

I know, I'm counting the days too

[@guaiqueritech]

same here, bud!

[@manitoba-op4jx]

when you think about it, you save money in the long run because nothing short of totally destroying it can force you into buying a whole new laptop. if a part breaks, it can be replaced, if performance becomes an issue, get a newer generation motherboard or change out the struggling part.

[@iamperplexed4695]

You cannot have both.

[@leohuangchunwang]

@@manitoba-op4jx Not when the motherboard itself is 90% the price of a whole decent laptop whenever there is an deal (e.g. black friday)

[@amadii8768]

I commented on the t480 video suggesting a complete upgrade of it and received a reply of "Unfortunately, I really can't justify spending that much money on a laptop for a video to FULLY upgrade it... but I do currently have a GTX 1650 hooked up to it", this was 2 months ago, this absolute legend basically spoiled this video to me 2 months early and I didn't even think about it until this came out, dude's amazing, wish ya the best aChair leg

[@aChairLeg]

Lmao it took time but I got there

[@hristomir-zw6bg]

Btw few years back i was really invested for the upgradable laptop with the external GPU. It sounded so cool to be able to revive old laptop and make it gaming. But after seeing your video i think this is more of a gimmick more then a real thing that's why i saw almost no one doing something similar. Also if you use external GPU without a monitor you loose a lot of performance (the part i hate the most btw because you loose the entire reason why you doing that 😅).

[@aChairLeg]

It can be a good solution on other laptops, but the t480 isn't ideal for an egpu it seems sadly. Adding an external monitor adds even more wires, mess, cost and bulk sadly

[@VerbenaIDK]

i got a laptop that doenst have a screen and i daily drive it, and the GPU sucks (it's a 920mx) and if i had the money i'd love to do it since it seems like a fun project if you cant use the internal screen at all it might be a cool thing to try out

[@edivad7888]

What do you mean by "without a monitor you lose a lot of performance"? Does a monitor benefits performance or just image quality?

[@hristomir-zw6bg]

@@edivad7888 Benefits the performance and like you are losing 30-40% on the bare minimum of your GPU power if you are not using external monitor 😔. That's why the concept of upgrade your laptop with external GPU is dead . Also i believe if you have older laptop the CPU have less core counts + low GHz. My processor was i5-8250U i believe and had 4 cores with 1.80 GHz which is quite low to be honest

[@somerandomguy001]

Dude i've been thinking for a while now ago about pairing my T480 with an egpu!! Egpus are soo underrated imo. I've seen many egpu adaptors on Amazon for less than 50$ whith good reviews. And if you used a 1660 or a 1660ti you'd easily see a 30% increase in performance. Anyway great video!

[@wizard_pirate_9085]

How does it handle on battery?

[@somerandomguy001]

it's been a while since i've uesd it. will let you know when i use it. but as far as i remember, it goes pretty strong even with >450 cycles on the secondary battery @@wizard_pirate_9085

[@atetraxx]

​@@wizard_pirate_9085 You wouldn't run an egpu on a battery

[@pingtime]

Theres 2 problem why the performance sucks (excluding the pathethic cooling on T480 that doesn't have dGPU model heatsink on). First one is the thunderbolt 3 port on T480 is running at PCIe x2 gen 3 speed instead of standard x4 speed per Thunderbolt 3 spec. Second one is because youre using internal display for gaming, which further worsen the already limited PCIe tunneling bandwidth on T480 since the display output from the external GPU need to travel back via PCIe bus, and tunnel it down to integrated graphic on the CPU, instead of just outputting it via the HDMI/DisplayPort on the GTX 1650.

[@aChairLeg]

I wanted to go for an external display, but that would increase the budget even more, and make this an even worse deal. Didn't seem like the performance was that much better but I could be mis remembering

[@pingtime]

@@aChairLeg in this situation on T480? its definetly helps, and hey, also you can make a new intresting video about making DIY screen from a laptop that have busted motherboard, etc

[@Incommensurabilities]

@@aChairLeg Since every frame counts in this case, I for one would love to see how much of a difference it makes to use an external display

[@huffa8562]

At that point, the "value" of a laptop vs. an SFF build + USB C monitor + el cheapo keyboard/mouse might be a losing proposition?

[@deanirwin3645]

Good to see a video from you again!

[@marioauditore571]

Great Video! Nice to see that it actually works. Love teh T480 :) thanks for your effort and insights

[@BillHutchison77]

Thank you for doing this. I was considering something similar for my son (a light laptop for school, with an external GPU for home), but will give that idea a miss now.

[@DJSammy69.]

What a adventure. Cool video!!

[@vladislavkaras491]

Thanks for the video!

[@Facade866]

That house that you show for like 5 secs and has the name Facade above it looks really cool

[@its_scythe]

I know, looks familiar

[@aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa9027]

That cat really looks like the best meow for the buck you couldve gotten,especially since how you perform is more important than the looks ;)

[@N1ghtMemes]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[@Ben-pd8ev]

Great video as always

[@spg3331]

Love your channel

[@Max_Mustermann]

The main advantage of ThinkPads and similar business laptops is that they've been designed to last for some time. While gaming laptops, even more expensive ones, seem to be designed to last for 2-3 years until the user buys a newer model.

[@shatteredonthesidewalk]

Goddammit I love this channel

[@nonchecker]

your uploads are always a very pleasant surprise. keep it like this and dont puke out a Video every few days like so many others. Also wich gpu do you think would go best with my t480s with the i7 8650u? which by the way i got after watching your t470 and t480 videos. ❤

[@aChairLeg]

Thank you! I mean the 1650 is a pretty solid GPU for the T480, even if you can't use the whole thing plus then you could use it for future builds. Other than that, maybe a 1050ti or 750ti?

[@saurabhkulkarni8854]

I feel your pain at not being able to get the highest end cat. I wanted the all white package but mine ended up with a few orange spots.

[@MrOlek700]

Early gang! I've been thinking about getting a t480 with an egpu like rtx 3060 or something. I've read if you connect an egpu to a monitor you can get even more fps.

[@aChairLeg]

If you don't need true portable gaming it's a really cool and unique setup, I really dig it

[@olnnn]

You can often eek out a little more performance from these laptop cpus by undervolting them (using e.g throttlestop) . Undervolting can allow them to boost a bit higher since they are severly power limited.

[@MinecraftCheating]

just bought a t480 based on your earlier video. it should be much better than my old t440p for my use.

[@Stealth86651]

I've done something like this. Had an i5 with a 1650 Max Q and set up a fast fan that I sealed to the inlet and basically made a jet engine in the casing of my laptop. Didn't drop temps, but it did reduce throttling a ton, thing just blasted out heat regardless.

[@maasho8149]

thx for uploading

[@aChairLeg]

thx for commenting

[@jeff__dev]

You should find a Thinkpad with an m.2 NVME slot if they exist, and get an pcie adapter to use an eGPU with. I believe it has more bandwidth than Thunderbolt if the m.2 slot is 4-lane

[@pingtime]

T480 does have M.2 slot if the adapter installed, but its still running on PCIe x2 gen 3 speed. T480S is the more better option since its have full x4 lane.

[@one_step_sideways]

​@@pingtimeT480s is never a good option because of lack of upgradability for so many things. It's T480 or nothing.

[@vedantsingh6624]

I love your vids .please upload bit frequently if possible. Can you make vids on psp and also on smartphones. Btw do you still use pixel 4a , how it’s going?

[@aChairLeg]

haha I'm trying my best thank you!

[@hermsflerms2373]

I have a T480 with an egpu and about all the common upgrades. I really like it and would still recommend in 2024. With the dual channel heatsink and a 1080ti egpu, I can run games like Fallout 4 on Ultra (consistent 60fps) while my temps stay really reasonable. Plus, 5tb of storage and 48gb of ram is really nice. Although, it's not like all these setups were budget friendly.

[@somerandomguy001]

And it was the TUF F15 or A15 I'm sure. (It was... right?)

[@robsquared2]

Thinkboard works. I try to think, then I get bored.

[@derekhatake]

Best channel ever.

[@TechDave]

I couldn't help but mention: u plugged TB3 cable into PD/psu port, did this work? Either way solid video! In my experience, eGPU really does need an external monitor to even approach desktop performance, especially on AMD gpus (which is all I have) so I'm kinda impressed that the 1650 did so well on built in display, hats off to nvidia Edit: ps: u nailed the precise use case for this; having a t480 already & wanting a boost As u may have noticed, I love the workflow of eGPU/thin portable laptop. Looking forward to more videos bud, keep em coming 👍

[@siontheodorus1501]

he uses the top one just for power and you can see in the video that he plugged another cable from the eGPU to the second port which is the TB3 port

[@TechDave]

hi, so in the video he says about attaching the eGPU, but shows in the footage a cable being plugged into the PD port. which i actually asked him about on his discord server. was asking a sincere question, as i own a t480 and use it with egpu, and was curious as to whether id missed a trick n hope that i might have 2x TB3 ports. i was in fact correct in my assertion and it was editing/footage related. thanks for the confirmation though @@siontheodorus1501

[@downey2294]

have you tried using an external monitor to mitigate the 2 PCIe lane issue. i'm currious about the performance that would give.

[@AceAku]

So you got the right idea but where you're going wrong is playing on the laptop screen, you're loosing about 20% performance, hook up an external monitor to the EGPU and you will gain a significant boost.

[@deepspacecow2644]

Also, if you stiol want to penny pinch and get super jank. Get an amd radeon mi25 and run that in the egpu. You do need to flash the vbios to a wx9100, and need a fan to coop it, but it is a fun project and they arent very expensive. Top end vega.

[@soupdrinker72]

shame these mi25s seem to have all disappeared at a reasonable price in the last few months. time to wait for mi50 to drop i guess

[@Wisankara]

"old 2018 quadcore" ---> me with ancient 2012 i7 quadcore in my X230 :0

[@aChairLeg]

All depends on who you ask how old your hardware is tbh

[@Pasi123]

The i7-8650U isn't that much faster than old 4c/8t laptop i7's because it only has 15W TDP while the old ones were 35-47W. Before 8th gen the 15W ULV CPUs were only 2c/4t

[@rickyp6815]

How did you get a quad core into an x230? Do you mean a T430?

[@MyNameIsBucket]

I've owned a Thinkpad X12 for over a year now and only just discovered some eGPU options in the BIOS. I knew it supposed USB4 and DP but now I'm curious to see how it handles this 3060 I've got lying around.

[@gogoboobay]

I see aChair Leg uploaded and I stop all things to watch

[@Trevorwyatt18]

Would the fps be different if you were using an external monitor plugged into the gpu? That way the bandwidth doesn't need to be shared with up stream and downstream stuff?

[@Karti200]

i know i am 4 motnhs old - but i am myself thinking about building my own eGPU for my T14 (intel based thank god so tb port) and maybe pair it with like rx 6600

[@Wizard883LOL]

Cool Video

[@Dwyght-]

Low key wanna see how this set up performs on competitive titles 🤔

[@neysu4529]

Hey you should try the p50 a bit old but still fairly good

[@aChairLeg]

Haha I did a video on a p51 actually

[@neysu4529]

oh shit sorry @@aChairLeg

[@andresvaldevit3692]

I thought it was going to be something more convoluted...an egpu, yeay! You have a thunderbolt 3 port, yeay!

[@Yuriel1981]

Buy a cheap used sfx or flex psu unit, they all come in 500 and 600w power now. It maybe a bit bulkier. But some double sideded tape and boom cheap powered egpu enclosed and you can run a 3060 or 4060 easy.

[@ahmadal-hafidzramadhan4123]

can u try on external monitor ?

[@LeRatVisseur]

I dont quite understand the big performance gap, is the bottleneck from the cpu, the TH3P4 or the thunderbolt in general ?

[@aChairLeg]

yes.

[@Pr1mEHub]

just got a thinkpad e480 with an i7-8550U and RX550 for 180usd for light gaming and tinkering lol :)

[@Dave102693]

How much did this set up cost altogether?

[@gamagama69]

bro please play with sodium and lithium its basically neccesary. with iris you can even run shaders

[@bufordmaddogtannen]

Did you remember to install the emergency TB firmware patch to prevent the eeprom (?) from corrupting itself?

[@aChairLeg]

I believe I did when I originally did the first T480 video

[@magcs6233]

Was that an Asus TUF FX505DT I saw? Thats my main computer right now haha

[@aChairLeg]

Haha perhaps

[@Xenotester]

by the way bulldozer fx wasn't bad - but it need fast ddr3 and nb tuning

[@nickthaskater]

The Thinkpad X395 would be a great budget option. The Vega 10 iGPU is reasonably stout backed by 4 cores/8 threads and 16GB RAM. I came across one recently on Marketplace for $400 CAD.

[@OmDesk]

I choked at "renderererer" 😂 btw I just got my p51 i7 78**hq. Having problems with stopcode memory management on win 10. I had to use a stick, double boot it and delete the win10 after. Maybe I shlould repaste thermal paste

[@Hartworth]

I run a Dell precision, cost me 360 and works great for some light gaming

[@spartaqq]

model?

[@Linus3000_]

do i need power supply if i go for gtx3060

[@Xenotester]

Steam deck destroy "budget" laptop - price+size+performance is really great

[@its_scythe]

Still better than Vega 8

[@kmkzer0-999]

"lightning"...

[@LovelyZaia]

I hope i can play something in my future thinkpad t440p with geforce 730m inside 🤣 rlly like your video btw

[@Pasi123]

I have a T440p with an i7-4800MQ and GT 730M. It can run some games decently for being a decade old laptop with a low end dGPU, for example GTA V 720p/60 or 1080p/30 normal settings, Genshin Impact 30fps 0.6x render res FSR2 scaling to 1080p with mostly low (not lowest) settings but with bloom on and environment details at medium, Star Rail was almost playable at native 1080p but something like 720p-900p is preferred. I've also tried Watch Dogs (2014) on it and it ran fine but I don't remember what resolution and settings I used because that was few years ago. Minecraft runs fine at 1080p and so does most 2D games. AAA games from 2013 and before should run fine at at least 720p.

[@LovelyZaia]

@@Pasi123 that sounds really good, sadly I will be stuck with the i5-4300m bc for various reasons I can't get any i7 quad core for that laptop 😓

[@wznzgq1354]

can anyone tell if all T480 have two batteries? or some models have only one (removable)? thanks

[@aChairLeg]

I believe the t480s only has one battery

[@doubleacoarnaud9280]

You win the title of Jank Lord.

[@aChairLeg]

I don't see exposed wires, we still have a ways to go

[@thatmoooocow]

Uh I thought thinkpad t480 would have better performanse in minecraft (with that settings), since I wanted replace my hp elitebook 2570p with it. Eh, at least its lighter

[@aChairLeg]

Modern minecraft doesn't run too great without mods imo either way.

[@thatmoooocow]

@@aChairLeg true, optifine (forge) and sodium (fabric) make a huge difference, and allow me to play minecraft relatively smoothly on 3rd gen intel igpu

[@deepspacecow2644]

Jank computers are so much more fun to work with

[@katiefrisk980]

Optifine is deprecated. Use Sodium/Lithium with Fabric, it is extremely straightforward to install and basically doubles performance. (There’s Embeddium for Forge but considering the complexity of Forge, there is no reason to use that unless you’re assembling a large modpack)

[@My_Old_YT_Account]

It's not but it doesn't have the best performance. Also if you have a recent Nvidia gpu Nvidium is much faster, it should support the 1650 used here too

[@Spiros219]

Is this actually a good solution??? Edit: impressed

[@aChairLeg]

It's not too bad tbh

[@JurassicLuigi]

Why is your voice so attractive

[@aChairLeg]

Idk ask god

[@Sybertek]

Bulldozer sucked. Piledriver was an improvement, but still sucked.

[@nerdsforgaming3167]

RTX A2000 with thiss

[@aChairLeg]

I wish I had one to test w/ this lmao

[@carlitosaguacate861]

why not compare this laptop with a steam deck?

[@carlitosaguacate861]

they go for about 400 dollars, in my experience they are a true alternative to a gaming laptop

[@mario-xg9mw]

i love you

[@aChairLeg]

You're breathtaking

[@xbigbobsagetx]

So the question is. Does this laptop come with a 6 core 12 thread cpu option. Then you could get a a2000. Be I it as much as a budget gaming laptop and be no better off. 😂

[@aChairLeg]

Sadly, no 6core option on this laptop. You'd have to jump forward a few years to get a 6 core on a thinkpad

[@midnightmythos]

First :)

[@Facade866]

First

[@Facade866]

Nvm

[@aChairLeg]

So close

[@fernisoldernow]

skill issue@@Facade866