What happens if you plug a handheld PC into an RTX 5090? We found out

Handheld gaming PCs are great. But they’re not powerful, at least not compared to full-sized gaming desktops. But then again, there’s nothing stopping you from plugging in a desktop GPU — Asus even makes some just for that purpose.

But what if you did it with a brand-new RTX 5090 using an external GPU adapter? Adam and Will did just that in the latest PCWorld YouTube video.

To be specific, they’re using a new GPD Win Max 2, a tiny mini-laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor (and integrated Radeon 890M graphics) and an onboard OCuLink port for a wide PCIe data pipe. Sitting in the eGPU adapter is the MSI RTX 5090 Suprim Liquid, which expands on the base card design with an integrated AIO liquid cooling setup.

It’s ridiculous. It’s glorious. And it’s time to run some benchmarks.

It’s important to remember that with the upgraded OCuLink connection, running games on a laptop + eGPU setup is going to create a bottleneck versus a similarly powerful desktop. And the GPD Win Max 2 is already a less-than-ideal handheld to test this on, since it’s pretty expensive compared to a Steam Deck. This setup is far more than you’d pay for a more powerful gaming desktop or laptop, and the only advantage is the ability to play games at far less power on the go.

That said, how’d it go? Popular games like Cyberpunk 2077, Black Ops 6, and Black Myth: Wukong all performed markedly lower than on a desktop with the same GPU and a Ryzen 7950X3D, ranging from a 12 percent to 60 percent drop. But interestingly, Black Myth: Wukong did the best out of the lot, going from 83 FPS down to only 72. It appears that the more a game relies on the GPU versus the CPU, the better it performs on a docked handheld and eGPU.

This isn’t a good idea, so don’t try this. It’s a huge waste of money. But it’s fun and at least possible. To see more goofy stuff with incredibly expensive hardware, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube and join us for our weekly podcast The Full Nerd.