Forget Thunderbolt, Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ with OCulink EGPU Support Is Coming in 2024

Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ is an upcoming laptop that will launch in 2024. It has leaked on Chinese social media forums, and several details were shared by Zhizhu Da V Apocalypse. In the new lineup of Lenovo’s 2024 laptops, we can see that this particular laptop (ThinkBook 14+) will come with an OCulink EGPU port and Intel Core Ultra processors.

What Is an OCulink Port? Is It Better than Thunderbolt 4?

Besides all the other specs of the ThinkBook 14+, the highlight here is an Optical-Copper Link (OCulink) port. For those unaware, this port means the laptop can basically be upgraded with dedicated desktop graphics via a compatible adapter.

An OCulink connection is faster and more affordable than a Thunderbolt one, which makes it a better option for EGPU products.

This includes products like OSMETA GK01 or GPD G1 with RX 7600M. Oculink is much better than Thunderbolt for external laptop graphics. This is because it operates using the PCIe interface and does much better when you measure the bottleneck caused by Oculink & Thunderbolt.

We have personally tested an M.2 to OCulink port EGPU adaptor with an HP-based AMD laptop and had extremely good results when paired with both GTX 1080 Ti & RTX 3070 Ti. It is great to see this port appear in a dedicated manner, on an upcoming laptop of Lenovo.

Various images of this upcoming Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ (2024) laptop were also shared on Zhizhu. It has been revealed here that this laptop will come with at least an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor. But for now, it is unconfirmed if the more powerful Core Ultra 9 CPU will also be available. Of course, you can see the Oculink port here as marked.

Regarding the other specs upgrade, these new Intel Core Ultra CPUs are powered by the Meteor Lake architecture. The new generation Intel processors have plenty of improvements. This includes an evolved Intel 4 manufacturing process, Intel Arc Graphics, an all-new NPU Chip for on-device AI processing, and more.

For now, we do not know which Core Ultra variants this particular Lenovo ThinkbBook 14+ laptop will launch with.

The leaker notes that besides OCulink support, the ThinkBook 14+ has “surprises.” The high-end variants of this laptop will have exclusive features, and the laptop is extremely configurable. Optional GPU, different screen options, and different SSD capacities are notably part of the leaked details.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming Lenovo ThinkBook 14+ (2024) with Intel Core Ultra processors? Do you think OCulink EGPU capabilities should come to more laptops? Let us know in the comments below.