Sapphire introduces the GearBox 500 eGFX solution, a Thunderbolt 3 external GPU enclosure with a Radeon RX 6600 XT

Sapphire has launched the GearBox 500 Thunderbolt 3 Pulse RX 6600 XT eGFX Solution, an external GPU enclosure with a built-in Pulse RX 6600 XT. The eGFX solution is meant to provide a significant boost in graphics performance to Thunderbolt 3/4-capable thin and light notebooks. While Sapphire is marketing the GearBox 500 as a complete package with a GPU included, you will also be able to buy the enclosure separately.

The GearBox 500 measures 300 × 138 × 204 mm (11.4 x 5.43 x 8.03 inches) and supports GPUs with dimensions less than or equal to 266 x 125 mm (10.5 x 4.9 inches). So, bigger GPUs like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 or above won’t fit inside the enclosure. On the outside, it comes with a 40 Gbps USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port that supports 60 W Power Delivery (PD), two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and a gigabit ethernet port. A 500 W built-in power supply will be responsible for powering the GPU.

Sapphire also mentioned that the GearBox 500 eGFX solution will be compatible with Thunderbolt 3/4-capable devices running 64-bit Windows 10/11 and macOS Monterey 12.1 or later. However, not all Apple Macbooks will be able to use the GearBox 500. Due to the restrictions put in place by Apple, only Intel-powered Macs will support Sapphire’s new eGPU enclosure.

There is no word on the pricing of the eGFX solution yet, likely due to the ongoing GPU shortage.

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