I am thinking more and more that external GPU, if it can be done reliably, is a good long term solution. Because:
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The main expense in a stonking gaming rig is the GPU, by far. $600+.
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The CPU, memory, etc barely matters at all any more. The CPU and memory available today is so comically fast that you can buy the lowest end Core i3 (currently the Core i3-7100 which is all of $120) and it will make zero difference in real world gaming at 1080p or higher.
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If you want a small system or a laptop, an external GPU makes it a hell of a lot more flexible. And since CPU/memory matter so little, almost every small device you can buy with a thunderbolt 3 port can magically transform into a potent gaming rig with a single plug.
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An external GPU rig will probably be usable for a very long time (5+ years?) as PCI express is long established and Thunderbolt 3 is clearly here to stay.
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The external GPU is not meaningfully bottlenecked by bandwidth, the impact is 10% or less.
The only downside, really, is cost. It’s more “stuff” to attach a GPU externally. But given the other pros, I think – at least for a large enough “I like my computers small, yo” segment of the gaming audience – this trend will continue to grow over time.
I found a crazy roundup of all the external GPU enclosures currently on offer:
I’m gonna go ahead and pull the trigger on the Razer Core, even though it is expensive. It’s the first so it has been out and debugged for a good while now, and it’s from a large company so it is well supported. It’s the most well known of the eGPU enclosures.
Then, once the 1080 Ti comes out, I can swap my 1080 into this box for my Skull Canyon rig …