GIGABYTE Shows Off AORUS RTX 5090 eGPU Box Implementing 120 Gbps Thunderbolt 5

[btarunr]

GIGABYTE at the 2025 Computex showed off the AORUS RTX 5090 AI Box, which it claims to be the world's fastest external GPU (eGPU). This is an external GPU box with an ATX 3.1 power supply, and a Thunderbolt 5 interface that also leverages asymmetric bandwidth boost—where the host to GPU transmit (Tx) stream runs at 120 Gbps, while the host to GPU receive (Rx) stream runs at 40 Gbps. GPUs tend to be Tx-heavy devices. The box encapsulates a desktop GeForce RTX 5090 GPU that's cooled by an AIO liquid cooling solution. The box also puts out several docking station I/O features, such as Thunderbolt 5 downstream for daisy-chaining, Thunderbolt DisplayPort passthrough, a trio of standard DP, HDMI, 20 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2, and 2.5 GbE wired Ethernet. The USB ports put out by this box have USB-PD 3.0 quick charge capabilities.



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[Alan Smithee]

This is once again a complete misrepresentation of Thunderbolt 5. eGPUs use PCIe over Thunderbolt, which on TB5 is PCIe 4.0 x4 (4x 16 Gbps or 64 Gbps/8 GBps). The 80/120 Gbps spec is for display streams, not eGPU connectivity. Furthermore, TB5 could never operate in asymmetrical mode with an eGPU because the PCIe would consume 4 of the 8 links.

It's mystifying why Gigabyte would be spouting this 120/80 horseshit when it's so much simpler to say that TB5 (4x PCIe 4.0) has double the GPU bandwidth of TB4 (4x PCIe 3.0) and 2-4x the bandwidth of TB3 (which could be configured with either 2 or 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes).

 

[Tek-Check]

It's mystifying why Gigabyte would be spouting this 120/80 horseshit when it's so much simpler to say that TB5 (4x PCIe 4.0) has double the GPU bandwidth of TB4 (4x PCIe 3.0) and 2-4x the bandwidth of TB3 (which could be configured with either 2 or 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes).

This. Somebody needs to call them out for this BS. I will inform GamersNexus to take a look at their new enclosure. Others can ask Gigabyte directly.

 

[Prima.Vera]

I'm more interested on the enclosure itself. Why not use a 5060 or simmilar, since the bandwidth will be killed anyways by a lot due to the interface.