Sonnet introduces two higher-powered Thunderbolt 3 eGPU Breakaway boxes for Intel Macs
Wesley HilliardSonnet introduces a pair of Thunderbolt 3 eGPU cases
The Sonnet eGPU Breakaway Box 750 and 750ex are Thunderbolt 3 eGPU expansion systems with the biggest available power supply on the market at 750W.
The Sonnet eGPU Breakaway Boxes are built to be future proof with a 750W power supply, which is often the limiting factor when upgrading a GPU. Sonnet offers two variants of the breakaway boxes, the 750 and 750ex.
The eGPU Breakaway Box 750 includes:
- Two 8-pin (6+2 pin) auxiliary power connectors
- 750W power supply; supports cards requiring up to 375W of continuous power plus an additional 100W peak power
- Provides 100W of upstream power for charging
- AMD approved for the air-cooled editions of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, Radeon Pro WX 8200, and WX 9100
- Designed to also support overclocked NVIDIA cards with high peak power requirements
Sonnet has a list of compatible GPU cards you can see here. The list spans 21 pages from manufacturers like AMD and NVIDIA.
The eGPU Breakaway Box 750ex includes all of the same features as the standard model with an added USB and Ethernet hub. The integrated hub has four USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A ports and one Gigabit Ethernet Port. The 750ex has an additional Thunderbolt 3 controller to manage the integrated hub.
Sonnet claims that the Breakaway Boxes will be the coolest and quietest eGPU systems available. A large variable-speed temperature-controlled fan keeps the installed cards cool during even the most intense operations without producing a lot of noise.
The Sonnet eGPU Breakaway Box 750 and 750ex are compatible with any Intel Mac or Windows machine with Thunderbolt 3 ports. Users can utilize the single-cable connection to their Mac to immediately take advantage of whatever GPU cards are installed in the Breakaway Box. Users can even chain up to four eGPU Breakaway Boxes together to take advantage of more GPU cards at once.
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7 Comments
Considering Apple's M1 offering and the cloud of uncertainty with eGPU's running on Apple silicon, these eGPU's are a solution looking for a problem.
750watts - good lord! This seems like we're heading back to the days of super computers that require a dedicated cooling system to get rid of all the heat they produce. (For reference, your average 15A circuit can supply 1800 watts total. and generally should only run 80% of that continuously, or 1440 watts. That means this supply alone would be taking about half of the power for an entire circuit.
The M1 chip is looking better every day!