Sonnet Technologies has announced the Mac compatible eGFX Breakaway Box 650, the latest in the company’s series of Thunderbolt 3 to PCI Express (PCIe) eGPU expansion chassis for professional graphics and gaming applications. Last month Apple released macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, which added support for external graphics processors (eGPUs).
The Breakaway Box 650 is designed and qualified specifically for large, power-hungry video graphics processing unit (GPU) cards, including the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and overclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10 series-based cards. The $499 AMD-approved Breakaway Box 650 is equipped with a 650-watt power supply, which provides ample power for GPU cards with high transient peak power requirements, according to Robert Farnsworth, CEO of Sonnet Technologies.
The eGFX Breakaway Box 650 provides a single slot for connecting any size Thunderbolt-compatible GPU card, and features enough room for many high-performance water-cooled cards. The unit is equipped with a 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 port that enables data transfers up to 2750 MB/s, and supports all Thunderbolt-compatible GPU cards — such as AMD Radeon R9, RX, RX Vega, and Pro WX models; and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 9 and 10 series, Titan X and Xp, V, and Quadro models. In addition, the Breakaway Box 650 includes two eight-pin auxiliary power connectors and provides 87 watts of upstream power (Power Delivery), useful for powering and charging a connected notebook computer that supports Thunderbolt 3 charging.