The 2021 GIGABYTE AORUS Gaming Box external GPU was debuted late last week. It introduces many firsts for a market less addressed this generation, particularly due to the GPU shortage. The lineup debuts with a model based on NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, and introduces a liquid-cooling. The box uses an all-in-one, closed-loop liquid cooler to tame the RTX 3080 Ti, using a 240 mm x 120 mm radiator and a pair of 120 mm fans located inside the box, while additional fans ventilate the rest of its innards.

For all its might, the card is bound to be bottlenecked by its interface—a single 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 connection that gives the GPU the equivalent of a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface. Our RTX 3080 non-Ti PCI Express Scaling article shows that the GPU loses 12% performance on PCI-Express 1.1 x16 (comparable bandwidth to PCIe 3.0 x4). Other features of the AORUS Gaming Box include a USB 3.0 hub, and addressable RGB lighting that you can control using the RGB Fusion software. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability, but one can expect a roughly $300-400 markup over whatever the running rate of an RTX 3080 Ti these days, is. GIGABYTE is expected to carve out more Gaming Box products based on the same chassis, but using different GPUs.

Gigabyte, via its AORUS brand, today launched the eGPU to outclass all other. The new AORUS Gaming Box is an eGPU solution that features a watercooled version of NVIDIA's RTX 2080 Ti graphics card - the current cream of the crop when it comes to raytracing performance. Apparently, and despite being an AORUS-branded product, the AORUS Gaming Box hasn't been overclocked - which makes sense, considering the thermal constraints already in place with such solutions. The RTX 2080 Ti inside the new Gaming Box features an AIO cooling solution with a copper baseplate and two 120 mm fans for airflow.

The enclosure also features two removable dust filters for maintenance purposes. Connectivity-wise, we're talking about 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB Type-C, 1x Thunderbolt, 1x Ethernet, 3x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI. No word on pricing or weight of the solution, but it's likely a heavyweight when it comes to taking punches out of your wallet, as are usually any such external solutions.

eGPUs may not have made quite as much of an impact on the market as one might expect - but maybe that's because of incorrect expectations. The idea of having an external GPU box to increase a given machine's frame output when it's stationary is all well and good, but that begs the question of why not just buying a more powerful machine outright, which will allow users to keep their mobility and portability.

It seems GIGABYTE is readying another eGPU solution, after their work on their RX 580 gaming box. The box is equipped with a GIGABYTE-engineered GeForce RTX 2070 graphics which features 1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort, 1x USB-C, 1x ThunderBolt 3 and 3x USB 3.0 ports, so it also serves as an extender for your laptop's (or mini-ATX) functionality.