Recommendation on using Thunderbolt 3 external adapter

dquill1

I'm getting a new machine that will hopefully render faster.   It is a 2070 (couldn't get the 2080, still too expensive), 64gb ram and a decent fast drive.   

It has thunderbolt 3, and  I've read using that may improve rendering perfomrance.   I will also use this as a gaming machine, so don't want to destroy gaming performance if I were to move to a thunderbolt look.   Does using thunderbolt speed render times since it offloads a bit of the video card work?

 

Gordig

Someone more knowledgable about the particulars of Thunderbolt can correct me if I'm wrong, but I would think that BEST case scenario is that it's the same speed as putting your GPU in PCIE.

Not meaning to be rude, but if you're worried about Thunderbolt "destroy[ing] game performance", why would you think that it would improve render speeds? What is it you think Thunderbolt is or does?

dquill1

Truthfully, as far as Thunderbolt goes, I know exceptionally little.   I didn't get the machine for it, it happened to come with the box.    It was a vague impression that it took some of the gpu effort off the card, but wasn't even sure about that.   It's a pretty broad search topic and I've not been able to find much info, figured some hardware type would know the answer.   The reason I mentioned gaming performance was moving to a TB3 out for my 34" ultrawide I thought could cause some issues.   But again, this is mostly out of ignorance.   

Thanks for responding, I'm not much of a hardware guy, come here to see what's a best fit.   

Gordig

Thunderbolt is just an interface. In the case of a GPU, Thunderbolt would only be used to connect your computer to an external GPU enclosure. The card is doing exactly the same amount of work whether in an eGPU or in PCIE.

bytescapes

Gordig has it right. Thunderbolt is an interface standard, like USB. (For the sake of simplicity, let's say it's like a super-USB, and leave it at that).

People who don't have a GPU or don't have the right kind of GPU built into their machine sometimes put a GPU card in an external box and connect it to the machine via a Thunderbolt connection. Then the machine can use the external GPU as if it were built in. In that sense Thunderbolt will "improve rendering performance".

But that's not of interest to you, because you have that 2070 sitting right there inside your machine, and that's what you'll be using. And the Thunderbolt components will be sitting quietly on another part of your motherboard minding their own business, and they won't play in any part in your rendering process, neither slowing it down nor speeding it up.