Gigabyte RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Box - An external graphics card being liquid cooled
Gigabyte has announced an external video card, and not something simple. The Thunderbolt communicating Aorus RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Box is the first external video card that uses liquid cooling.
The unit has a relatively compact size at (173 x 149 x 300 mm, height x width x depth) that is made of black metal, accompanied by its own 450-watt power supply and a network card. The card inside is the WATERFORCE and a lot of RGB lighting of course.
The AORUS WATERFORCE all-in-one cooling system integrates a large copper plate, a 240mm aluminum radiator, and two 120mm fans. With an optimized pump and water block, it provides the most efficient water flow and cooling performance at a lower noise level. Powered by the GIGABYTE Geforce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card, AORUS RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Box transfers the Ultrabook laptop PC into a gaming platform and delivers incredible performance for real-time ray tracing and graphics-intensive games. A network chip that allows you to connect to a wired network is built into the Game Box. You don't have to worry about transmission interference during the game. Install AORUS engine and RGB fusion 2.0 to adjust the performance and RGB lighting according to your preference.
The price of Gigabyte's Aorus RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Box is not yet announced, we, however, do know that the video card used already costs around 1500 euros. Add another 300 for the box?
Review: Gigabyte GTX 1660 SUPER GAMING OC - 10/29/2019 03:01 PM
We review the Gigabyte GTX 1660 SUPER GAMING OC 6G, a product with a triple-fan cooler as well being factory tweaked with a Boost allowance of 1860 MHz. Read article...
Review: GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER - MSI, ZOTAC, Gigabyte and PALIT - 10/29/2019 03:00 PM
ZOTAC joins the GTX 1660 SUPER launch party with their AMP edition, a compact product with a capable cooler as well being factory tweaked. The SUPER edition card comes with faster GDDR6 memory but rem...
Gigabyte's new GA-PICO3350 Pico-ITX motherboard fits in your hand - 10/23/2019 08:58 AM
Meet the th new Pico-ITX motherboard, GA-PICO3350. Powered by the Intel Celeron N3350 dual core processor with a low-power consumption of 6 watts. The board supports SO-DIMM which is scalable for up ...
Gigabyte outs PCIe Gen 4 AORUS card for PCIe4.0 M.2 SSDs - 10/22/2019 08:44 AM
The card can combine four PCIe4.0 M.2 SSDs connected to PCI-Express 4.0 (x4). The external interface is PCI-Express4.0 (x16), the internal interface is PCI-Express4.0 (x4), and the form factor corr...
Gigabyte Aorus Threadripper 3000 motherboard reveals active cooling and massive VRM - 10/21/2019 09:09 AM
Gigabyte has decided to jump embargo one again by silently leaking a darkened photo of their new Threadripper board, which you can easily brighten up with Photoshop of course. It's one of the many ti...
Senior Member
Posts: 7440
Joined: 2012-11-10
Might as well have put a Quadro in there. This thing is going to starve for bandwidth to be of anything that isn't using CUDA or OpenCL.
Senior Member
Posts: 331
Joined: 2017-02-16
Yep, even a GTX1060 was edging towards bandwidth saturation on TB3. This is a massive waste of money.
Senior Member
Posts: 1029
Joined: 2015-06-27
Youll be surprised actually

TB3 40gbps = 5000 MB/s
PCIe 3.0 x8 = 7880 MB/s
PCIe 3.0 x4 = 3940 MB/s
Based on this 2080TI Scaling guide
4K Resolution:
3.0 x16 = 100%
3.0 x8 = 98%
3.0 x4 = 94%
1440p Resolution:
3.0 x16 = 100%
3.0 x8 = 98%
3.0 x4 = 92%
Considering the above and the fact that TB3 is tad faster then PCIE 3.0 x4, you can game comfortably in 1440p and 4K with almost the same settings you can on Direct attached PC, some minor tweaking, some GPU overclocking and you wont feel the difference.
Gigabyte already has product page with spec and images.
P.S. Everyone can agree its better then nothing and based on scaling above not THAT bad actually, and for people that ACTUALLY need such device its godsend.
What we need is update to TB protocol that can use a pair of TB connections in unison to double the bandwidth, it will remove all the bottlenecks
Senior Member
Posts: 331
Joined: 2017-02-16
Youll be surprised actually

TB3 40gbps = 5000 MB/s
PCIe 3.0 x8 = 7880 MB/s
PCIe 3.0 x4 = 3940 MB/s
Based on this 2080TI Scaling guide
4K Resolution:
3.0 x16 = 100%
3.0 x8 = 98%
3.0 x4 = 94%
1440p Resolution:
3.0 x16 = 100%
3.0 x8 = 98%
3.0 x4 = 92%
Considering the above and the fact that TB3 is tad faster then PCIE 3.0 x4, you can game comfortably in 1440p and 4K with almost the same settings you can on Direct attached PC, some minor tweaking, some GPU overclocking and you wont feel the difference.
Gigabyte already has product page with spec and images.
P.S. Everyone can agree its better then nothing and based on scaling above not THAT bad actually, and for people that ACTUALLY need such device its godsend.
What we need is update to TB protocol that can use a pair of TB connections in unison to double the bandwidth, it will remove all the bottlenecks
All those numbers are great, but they don't match what actually happens with these boxes. Every review of them ever published has shown that putting anything faster than a GTX1060 in one results in a massive loss in performance, and the faster the card the worse it gets.
For one thing, TB3 is a super talky protocol, with overhead percentages in the double digits under the worst conditions. The more traffic, the worse it gets, and video cards generate a lot of traffic. If you plug in storage to the USB on the box and/or use the Ethernet port, it compounds the issue even more.
While it's true that a TB3 box is better than nothing, you are wasting a thousand bucks putting a 2080ti in one. Stick with a 1660 class, or a 2060 at the highest end.
Senior Member
Posts: 3408
Joined: 2013-03-10
Pretty much the only point of the liquid cooler is being able to use an existing product. Otherwise an air cooler customised for the enclosure would be just as good with no need for the liquid and pump.