Introduction

ChargerLAB recently got the Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ 2024, which has a stylish appearance and business style. The rich interface types can meet the needs of multiple scenarios and have good expandability.

Unlike other thin and light laptops on the market, Lenovo has added a TGX graphics card expansion dock interface to the ThinkBook 14+ 2024, with a transmission bandwidth of 64Gbps. Through this interface, you can bring more powerful graphics processing performance to the notebook computer. Next, let’s test it.

What is the TGX interface?

TGX graphics card expansion dock interface is based on OCuLink SFF-8611 interface. The transmission bandwidth is up to 64Gbps, equivalent to a full PCIe4.0x4, which is about twice the PCle data transmission bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4 or 3 times the PCle data transmission bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3. Unlike other brands' OCuLink interfaces, Lenovo's TGX interface also supports hot-swap, which means users can easily add or remove graphics cards as needed.

Product Appearance

The Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ 2024 is equipped with a new Intel Ultra 125H processor and its appearance is not much different from the previous generation. The surface is sandblasted and feels comfortable.

In the upper left corner is engraved "Lenovo".

Its maximum opening angle is 180°.

It uses a 14.5-inch 2.8K (3072*1920) screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. On top of the screen is the camera.

The laptop keyboard is shown in the picture. It adopts a new 1.5mm comfortable key travel and a 0.3mm keycap depression.

At the upper right corner of the keyboard is the power button that supports fingerprint recognition, and above it is an LED indicator light.

There is a large area of ​​ventilation on the bottom. It has the Smart Power 3.0 intelligent system, which uses intelligent debugging to determine the usage scenario and dynamically adjust system parameters to optimize performance and reduce power consumption.

The left side has a full-featured USB 3.2 Gen2 port, a USB 3.2 Gen1 port, an HDMI 2.1 TMDS port, a Thunderbolt 4 port, a 3.5 mm port, and a TGX graphics card expansion dock port.

On the right side, there is a hidden USB 2.0 port, a Micro SD card slot, a USB 3.2 Gen1 port, and an RJ45 Ethernet port.

联想ThinkBook 14+ 2024笔记本机身转轴处干净利落，无接口。

The weight of it is about 1509 g (53.23 oz).

GPU Expansion Test

We will connect the Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ 2024 to the Lenovo ThinkBook TGX Graphics Doc for testing.

Since the Lenovo ThinkBook TGX Graphics Dock does not come with a power supply, we used FSP's 350W power supply (model: FSP350-60AGBAK). The graphics card chosen is a Lenovo RTX 4060Ti 8GB.

Use GPU-Z to view various information about the graphics card. The graphics card is NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti, with 48 ROPs, 136 TMUs, 4352 shaders, a default clock of 2310 MHz, a boost clock of 2535 MHz, memory type: GDDR6, memory size: 8GB, and a bus width of 128bit. The driver version is 31.0.15.5152 DCH/Win11 64.

Using 3D Mark to conduct PCI Express functional testing can verify whether the actual data transfer rate of the channel complies with the standard and ensure that the graphics card can fully exert its performance. After testing, the transmission bandwidth reached 6.03GB/s, which meets the bandwidth rate and loss of the OCuLink interface.

In the 3DMark TimeSpy (DX12 1440p) test, the Lenovo RTX 4060 Ti 8GB graphics card paired with the Minisforum DEG1 eGPU Dock can achieve a graphics score of nearly 8566 points.

Under the AMD R7 5800X + MSI X570S + TEAMGROUP 8GB×2 3600MHz platform, the Lenovo 4060 Ti 8GB can achieve a score of 13330 points in the 3DMark TimeSpy (DX12 1440p) test.

Finally, the game test shows that in Counter-Strike 2, at the default high-definition setting, the fps can reach 120 when connected directly to an external monitor and graphics card with OCuLink.

In the 3D Mark PCI Express functional test, it achieved a score of 6.03GB/s. But in the 3DMark TimeSpy (DX12 1440p) it still has a certain degree of transmission loss.

Summary of ChargerLAB

Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ 2024's unique TGX graphics card expansion interface gives the laptop more possibilities for performance expansion, providing users with strong support when processing graphics-intensive tasks.

In the test, although the graphics card performance is slightly lower than that of the desktop platform in the 3D Mark TimeSpy score, it can still provide relatively strong graphics processing capabilities. In the 3D Mark PCI Express functional test, it achieved a score of 6.03GB/s. It also ran Counter-Strike 2 at a high frame rate.

Overall, Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ 2024 has quite good potential for performance expansion. We believe that with further optimization of drivers and compatibility, it will perform even better.

Related Articles：
1.  OCuLink | Review of AOOSTAR GEM12 Pro Mini PC
2. What OCuLink Products Can Be Used with External Graphics Cards? | ChargerLAB Analysis
3. OCuLink | Review of Minisforum DEG1 eGPU Dock