AORUS launches its new external RTX 5090 GPU featuring Thunderbolt 5
If you are in a market for the most powerful external graphics card solution, then you have several options. These include buying your own RTX 5090, finding a supporting external GPU dock or enclosure, and ensuring that your system supports either OCuLink or Thunderbolt 5, the latest connection standards that minimize the bottleneck.
Most RTX 5090 cards are either 3‑ or 4‑slot thick, which means that the choice in eGPU docks is limited. Even if one finds a compatible dock, there’s still an issue of the power supply, proper cabling, system compatibility, and perhaps most important factor, the actual physical footprint.
Source: Gigabyte
AORUS AI BOX powered by a desktop RTX 5090 GPU is much smaller than most eGPUs powered by high‑end RTX graphics cards. It is a custom solution equipped with Waterforce liquid cooling, has the power supply built in, and also has additional ports such as Ethernet or USB. This box uses Thunderbolt 5 connection, which theoretically enables the same bandwidth as OCuLink. In reality, and as shown by recent tests, Thunderbolt 5 is actually slower than OCuLink.
Thunderbolt 5 has several advantages, though, including the ability to transmit power (it can both charge a laptop and enable the connection), it can also be daisy‑chained and used for external monitors, plus its cable is much smaller than OCuLink.
AORUS RTX 5090 eGPU is now available for sale at $2,999, which is exactly the same price as the AORUS Master White edition offered by the same store (Newegg). Unfortunately RTX 5090 cards in the US are still overpriced, but compared to desktop cards, it is not much pricier:
The same day the AORUS BOX launched, Notebookcheck published their review of this system. In synthetic tests the box is 18 % slower than the desktop RTX 5090 Founders Edition, which is not bad considering it was tested on a laptop connected to the eGPU dock, while the desktop card was installed in a Ryzen 7 9800X3D system. As highlighted in green, it is also significantly faster than the laptop variant (24 GB memory and RTX 203 GPU). In gaming the gap widens, the AORUS AI BOX RTX 5090 is 27 % slower in games than the desktop RTX 5090.
Synthetic (left) & Gaming (right) AORUS AI BOX 5090 Performance, Source: NotebookCheck
The AORUS AI BOX is quite frankly absurdly expensive, but it will definitely find its niche market. It will allow users on laptops to use their own eGPU for AI with larger 32 GB memory or simply enjoy gaming at higher frame rates shown by these tests.
Source: Newegg , Notebookcheck