SoNNeT eGFX Breakaway Box 550W (GPU-550W-TB3)

I purchased this to attach a more powerful GPU to my Lenovo P52 mobile workstation. Physical installation was no different than installing a video card in a desktop PC (arguably easier). The laptop was already loaded with Nvidia software for the built-in GPU, so setup was very little more than "plug it in and wait."Some things I wish I'd have been able to find more information on before I ordered it:-Yes, at least with a Lenovo P series running Windows 10, you can have both the onboard discrete GPU and the eGPU enabled. The onboard GPU can be configured to drive an external display attached to the laptop itself and the built-in panel, or it can be configured as a dedicated PhysX coprocessor to offload those operations from the main GPU. Windows generally disables the onboard GPU when an eGPU is connected, but if you re-enable it in the Device Manager under Control Panel, you can then assign the GPU to a display(s), or configure it as a dedicated PhysX processor. Whichever is more useful (disabled, enabled on the laptop display + displays attached to the laptop, or dedicated PhysX) will depend on your specific intended use.-The speed, if using adequate cabling, is on par with having the GPU connected via an internal PCIe slot. I am using an Nvidia GTX 2060 which had previously been in my desktop workstation that was built mainly for CAD. The machine was built around a pair of relatively dated hex-core Xeons, and though the motherboard had a 16 lane PCIe slot, the slot operated electrically as an 8x PCIe 2.0 interface. This was mostly fine for CAD and other applications that don't need to load lots of texture data, but it did show its limitations when running applications such as games. Migrating from an 8x PCIe 2.0 interface to a Thunderbolt 3 interface has produced a noticeable reduction in average load times (between 15 to 50% depending on the game) and I have had no issues at all with performance or stability.-Hot-plugging: Yes, you can hot-plug the Thunderbolt 3 cable. I often come home, drop my suspended laptop into a laptop stand, and connect both this, and a second Thunderbolt 3 PCIe enclosure containing NVMe storage and a discrete sound card before opening the lid. Upon waking the machine up, it takes about 20 seconds to initialize the external hardware, but I've not encountered any issues with things not working when hot-plugged.-Hot-unplugging: This has been a little more problematic, but those issues had more to do with specific software not recognizing the change. The worst that happens is I have to reboot the machine and manually specify what sound hardware to use.-Noise: Some people have complained about the noise level of the internal fan, but I have no complaints. I use this setup for professional audio recording, and the noise levels aren't meaningfully higher than the fans in the laptop itself, and I don't have to do anything beyond what I'd normally do to remove background hiss from recordings. If you are particularly sensitive to the sound levels, the fan is just a standard PC fan that plugs into a regular fan header on the adapter board inside of the enclosure so you could easily replace it with a quieter fan. (in which case, I would highly recommend Noctua.)One last note on cabling, the cable that comes with this is fairly short, but that's because actual 40gbps Thunderbolt 3 cables are fairly expensive items. You can get a longer cable, but you will want to make *absolutely certain* that it's a legitimate, certified cable, and that it's rated for 40gbps, and not 20gbps. A 20gbps cable *will* work, but it will obviously make certain things slower, but a standard USB-C cable WILL NOT WORK. When buying cables for any Thunderbolt device, it is imperative that you purchase legitimate, certified cables and not one of the cheap ones you find floating around, not just because those cables are likely to be slower and increase the risk of crashes, but in some cases they can actually damage your hardware.In all, I'm very happy with my Sonnet eGPU Breakaway Box, and would recommend it to anyone who was contemplating an eGPU setup. Just be sure to do the necessary research to determine if the card you intend to use supports eGPU in general, that it's on the hardware compatibility list for the enclosure (on Sonnet's website), and that it's supported by your OS.

I was a bit concerned based on some of the reviews here however the sonnet 550w breakaway box has worked flawlessly and is so easy to use.Firstly the box is whisper quiet and relatively easy to install. Once installed sure the back of the thunderbolt cable sticks out a little bit however it has never fallen out nor does it feels loose, no issues there, just a visual thing.I already have a 1050Ti as a dGPU all i did was download the nvidia drivers for the GIgabyte RTX 2070, installed them and that is all. Nvidia has a taskbar icon which shows you which gpu is acive and you can connect or disconnect it through there. It is literally plug and play. I plug the thunderbolt cable in and the egpu intiates. To disconnect i click on the nviida taskbar icon and hit disconnet. Easy. Box is quiet, temps reach a max of 74c with only a dual fan gpu and 15% overclock on the card. I get about a 20% loss due to thunderbolt 3 as expected. Also works plug and play when used just with my laptop as oppose to laptop and external monitor. No issues. All the plug and play issues seem to have been ironed out as the software side from drivers, bios etc are matured now.

I have a MSI GS63VR 7rf (7th Gen 7700HQ @ 2.8GHz, 32 GB 2400MHz Ram, 2 TB Solid State Storage) with an external EVGA FTW GTX 1070 8GB.I tried an HP Omen Accelerator, and it didn't work I suspect because it only had 8 + 6 pin power connector. The 8 + 8 pins on the 550w Sonnet solved the problem. Computer recognized the Omen, but couldn't use it.I updated the BIOS and Thunderbolt 3 firmware/drivers as per MSI's product support page for my specific laptop--MSI's support, btw, is amazing. There is 100% control over fans and RGB lighting, but overclocking will only cause the laptop to reboot. I e-mailed them and discussed whether or not an eGPU would work. They didn't think it would. I proved them wrong!!I have 3x improvement in FPS @ QHD w/ Ultra Settings in just about everything I play (~80-90 FPS in Ghost Recon, Final Fantasy XV, Call of Duty series, Battlefront, etc.). I have 2x improvements, ~40-60fps @ Ultra in games like For Honor in 4k.Even Oculus Rift works, plugged into the HDMI out of the eGPU/laptop USB for the Rift and 2xUSB3.0's for the sensors.Time spy scores jumped from 3700 to 5500.I heavily recommend if you have an already pretty decent setup. It'll turn into an amazing setup.

Most of the time this works great on my Mac mini running Catalina with a 5700 xt installed in it. I have all 3 of my monitors connected to the egpu. Occasionally the monitors don’t wake up with the Mac, I have to power cycle the Mac and will usually see a crash report dialog after I log in, this is very rare though. One time the monitors were a patchwork of the entire desktop, a square of monitor 1 in monitor 2 and so on. It took a while to figure out how to navigate the mouse through it but I was able to cleanly reboot and the issue resolved. I don’t know if the problem is the enclosure, the gpu, or Mac OS in combination with an egpu. I never had issues with the 3 monitors connected directly to the Mac. One other thing, the case fan included is very loud even when the gpu is not stressed despite it being pwm, the gpu fans even turn off when it’s not hot, I replaced the fan with a thermally controlled fan and put the thermistor near the gpu, it’s now much quieter when idle and even under load, I have verified the temperature of the card does not get any higher than before and is far from throttling