Thunderbolt 5 loses to OCuLink: External RTX 5070 Ti loses up to 36% FPS

In the Try Some Tech tests video card GeForce RTX 5070 Ti in configuration eGPU showed a noticeable loss of performance when connected via Thunderbolt 5, especially compared to OCuLink and a standard PCIe connection. The most bandwidth-sensitive games experienced a drop up to 36% FPS, and on average TB5 lagged behind OCuLink by 13-14%.

The graphs show that OCuLink is steadily closer to native PCIe: losses are minimal on average, and in games like Chiaroscuro, Indiana Jones, The Talos Principle 2 и Ghost of Tsushima the difference with a full-fledged connection practically disappears. At the same time, Thunderbolt 5 loses out not only in average FPS, but also by an important parameter 1% Low, which directly affects smoothness.

OCuLink shows peak throughput up to 6.7 GB / s, while TB5 is limited to ~5.8 GB/s due to protocol overhead. This is critical in resource-intensive games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales or RDR2Where TB5 loses 20-36% FPS. Only Ghost of Tsushima turned out to be insensitive to the interface - all options gave 120 FPS, hitting CPU.