Choosing a dedicated GPU for my laptop

Support
1

My question probably seems dumb to some of you, but I want to put a dedicated graphics card into my laptop that came with an onboard one, and i need help finding out if that’s possible or not.
The thing is, I have never bought a GPU separately in my life, always made do with whatever my pc shipped with, usually onboard graphics.
I have a TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 v5. What makes me want to have better graphics performance is virtual machines. Basically most tutorials for running a Windows or MacOS VM deal with passing through your GPU to the VM - because otherwise you typically get abysmal graphics performance.

  • I gather that passthrough is only possible with a dedicated GPU, not an onboard one - correct?
  • If at all, I’d need a free PCIe slot to add a dedicated one? Or are there any other options?
  • Could and external graphics card work for passthrough?
2

Most manufacturers of laptops will make the chasis, mainboard, BIOS and heat-sink fit the specific blueprint of that model and for what was dedicated for, and will remain that way. Probably battery, WiFi card, storage, memory dim can be replaced at some point, even probably resolder the CPU or the dGPU (if was build with one), but in case of laptops with only iGPU that can be integrated either onto the motherboard as part of the (northbridge) chipset, or on the same die (integrated circuit) with the CPU, you can’t modify it to have a dGPU. Not even the manufacturers will take that task. They will build a totally different model that has a dGPU.

Please refer to the documentation PCI passthrough via OVMF - ArchWiki as will reply to all your questions.

3

You could try using an external gpu, they’re readily available. Not sure how well they perform though

4

I’m sorry to bother you again, but from all the instructions I’ve found - including this Arch Wiki page - I can’t glean the part I need to use for iGPUs. It just mentions them in the top paragraph but mostly, this is on a “I give up” level of length, jargon and complexity.
However, is there a part for iGPUs in there at all?

5

Do you know if they can be passed through to a VM, e.g. from a Thunderbolt 3 port?
The housings cost about 200€, and then whatever the price of the actual card is. I was hoping to stay below 150€ total, but I guess I’m giving up that dream now.