Running Crimson Desert at 100+ FPS with Radeon RX 9070 XT eGPU

The Ultimate Hack: How One Redditor Unleashed a Beastly eGPU in a Steam Machine

What happens when you combine the charm of a compact gaming rig with the raw power of high-end graphics cards? The answer, for one clever community member, is an ingenious hack. A Redditor recently managed to connect a powerful external GPU, specifically an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, to a Valve Steam Machine, turning it into a surprisingly capable powerhouse.

This wasn’t simply plugging in a cable; it was an exercise in hardware wrangling. The goal was to bypass the limitations of the compact desktop and fit a hulking triple-fan graphics card onto the system. The solution involved utilizing an M.2 to OCuLink adapter, which served as the bridge between the powerful GPU and the limited ports on the machine. This setup required careful planning to navigate the constraints of Valve’s hardware.

One major hurdle was dealing with the Steam Machine‘s limited storage options. Since the system only featured a single M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe slot, adding external storage proved tricky. The Redditor ingeniously solved this by placing the boot drive into a USB-C to NVMe caddy and booting from that setup, ensuring the operating system had adequate space for the new configuration.

To facilitate the connection, the custom adapter was paired with a device like the Aoostar EG01 eGPU dock. While this provided the necessary PCIe slot and supporting circuitry for the GPU, it highlighted the inherent compromises in building such a setup. The resulting solution is inherently messy, requiring external components and often exposing power supplies that are not built into the system.

Despite the aesthetic mess, the performance payoff was undeniable. When the system was powered up, the 9070 XT immediately became the primary display, offering an effortless experience without needing to select multiple graphic adapters. More importantly, the boost in gaming performance was significant. Testing a demanding title like Crimson Desert showed the eGPU running at over 100 frames per second using the High preset, demonstrating a sizeable performance enhancement over the integrated graphics.

This achievement underscores a broader theme in compact computing: the push for more flexible connectivity. While OCuLink provided excellent bandwidth in this instance, it also brings up questions about the bottleneck of current standards. Many modern mini PCs now feature faster ports like USB4 or Thunderbolt 5, which could offer an alternative, hot-pluggable eGPU port opening up far more docking options for compact system users.

The successful integration of a high-performance GPU into a compact gaming machine proves that creativity can overcome hardware limitations. It reminds us that the true power of computing often lies not just in what is built, but in how cleverly it is connected and adapted.