While modern portable systems pack a nice punch and feature high-end graphics solution, it’s still enough, not always. That’s where external graphics cards come into play and Sonnet has announced the release of their eGFX Breakaway Box.
The eGFX Breakaway Box is actually quite simple: It connects a PCIe Express slot with your system via Thunderbolt 3. With 40 Gbps of bandwidth and a full PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, there’s plenty of power to share.
eGFX Breakaway Performance
Sonnet’s eGFX Breakaway box connects through a single 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 Type-C port. While the use of a single port eliminates the options for a daisy-chained setup, it provides the full bandwidth to the connected graphics card.
Thunderbolt 3 has a bandwidth of 40 Gbps, and the eGFX Breakaway Box can deliver the full PCIe 3.0 x16 speeds with 2750MB/s available bandwidth. This kind of power allows you to take full advantage of the external graphics cards. It is in fact over double the performance of a Thunderbolt 2 generation.
Power Supply
Sonnet will launch two different models of the external graphics card box, a 350W and a 550W model. The eGFX Breakaway Box 350 includes an 8-pin and a 6-pin auxiliary power connector while the 550 has two 8-pin.
There’s also a difference in the upstream power, the power it provides to your notebook for charging. The 350 deliver 15W upstream power while the 550W delivers 87W. For cards requiring less than 300W, you’ll get the small box and cards requiring 375W or more, you get the larger version.
Compatibility
Those who spend money on an external graphics solution will also have a relatively new graphics card, and if that’s the case, then it’s compatible. The Breakaway Box supports graphics cards such as AMD Radeon R and RX series as well as the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 9 and 10 series.
Other Thunderbolt 3 compatible devices such as the RED ROCKET-X or AVID Pro Tools|HDX will work perfectly in the box too. Any
With a full-length, full-height double-width space available, you should be able to fit and use pretty much any add-in card.
Pricing and Availability
Sonnet’s eGFX Breakaway Box 350 is expected to be available in early July 2017 with an MSRP of $299. The 550W model, the eGFX Breakaway Box 550, is expected to be available late in the third quarter of 2017 with an MSRP of $349.
