I can definitely understand the cult following Lenovo ThinkPads have garnered over almost two decades of robust laptops. But as a PC gamer, I am perhaps less convinced by external graphics cards, i.e. eGPUs. Still, I’ve stumbled across a modding project combining the two things that I simply can’t look away from.
It turns out Instagram is a surprisingly good place to discover neat hardware projects. Case in point, user KabutoKunai has brought their 2008 ThinkPad up to date with an RTX 4070 Super. Opting for the chunky desktop version of the card, it will have to run outside of the laptop’s chassis like an eGPU—but how does the modder hook up all of this hardware, released decades apart?
Simple: via an OCuLink cable and a ‘sneaky’ internal M.2 slot. They first lifted the ThinkPad’s classic keyboard out of the way and removed the daughterboard beneath to get at the M.2 slot. They plugged in the OCuLink before replacing the daughter board. To better situate the OCuLink’s PCIe port, they created a custom, 3D printed socket to sit in the hard drive bay. This is arguably the most elegant half of the hardware mod.
The other half of the video sees the modder seating an MSI RTX 4070 Super on an external GPU logic board that converts the PCIe port back into another OCuLink cable (this arrangement is much like the OCuLink Dev Kit Framework just released). They then attached a ruddy great big Corsair RM750 PSU to the whole thing.
Bob’s your uncle, Debra’s your aunt, you still enjoy the form factor of the ThinkPad but with the option to plug in a lot more graphical grunt—and the less said about KabutoKunai’s booby mouse pad, the better.
I’m all about bringing older hardware like this up to date; I particularly enjoyed the original PlayStation project that adds HDMI output, USB power, and wireless controller support to the 1995 console. I even think this deeply questionable Game Boy Color smart watch project is actually pretty neat.
The one other thing I don’t think I’ll ever get on with, though, is calling anything from 2008 ‘vintage’, as KabutoKunai does, hardware or otherwise. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Persona 4 came out that same year—you can’t tell me that’s retro gaming now!
