Gaming Performance Part 2

Watch Dogs 2 is a visually beautiful game but like a lot of Ubisoft games it tends to push the CPU and GPU hard. Here we are once again seeing a 50 percent improvement to 1% low framerates and these framerates push above 30 FPS (just) for the first time. Still, we're limited to GTX 1060 performance here.

Mass Effect Andromeda runs well on the GTX 1080 + i7-8550U combo, doubling the 1% low framerate we saw last time with the older eGPU combo. This allows the system to outperform the GTX 1070 Max-Q by a good 15%, though it can't reach the GTX 1080 Max-Q.

Prey is one of the best performing games on gaming laptops but it struggles massively with the 15W CPUs we used with the eGPU here. While 1% low framerates again are almost double what we achieved with the older eGPU combo, performance is below the level of a GTX 1060, which is typical of the more CPU-limited titles we've tested with so far.

Middle-earth Shadow of War is the final game we'll be looking at today, and this game did come out after we tested the older eGPU combo so we don't have data for that system. What I can tell you is the GTX 1080 eGPU + i7-8550U records similar performance to the GTX 1070 Max-Q and delivers perfectly playable performance at 1080p with the ultra quality preset.

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