As anyone wanting to put together a high performance PC has likely discovered, the self-build PC market is in a terrible state right now. DDR4 RAM prices are more than double what they were 18 months ago, as demand from smartphones has pressured supply. As for GPUs… well, they’re a mess. High-end video cards are being bought in their dozens by cryptocurrency miners, leaving those who want a video card to actually do graphical things high and dry. It’s enough to make you want to shout with rage.
This situation has made pre-built PCs unusually competitive—components bought at scale, as part of long-term supply agreements, likely have more price stability than those sold directly to end users—but that’s small consolation to those who truly want to build their own machine.
But all hope is not lost; Tom’s Hardware Guide has found another source of, if not exactly cheap, at least cheaper video cards: external GPU graphics docks with preinstalled video cards.
Aimed primarily at laptop users, external GPU graphics docks put a PCIe slot or two and a power supply in a small case. They connect to a PC using Thunderbolt 3, and typically these docks offer USB or other ports in addition to their graphical output. Intended primarily for mobile gamers, some of the breakout boxes are empty—it’s up to you to pick and install a GPU—but others come with video cards preinstalled.
It’s this latter category that offers some scope for saving. THG found the Gigabyte Aorus Gaming Box with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 or GTX 1070 cards preinstalled for $700 and $600, respectively, from Newegg. This compares favorably to the near-$800 that a standalone GTX 1080 will currently set you back.
What makes this even more remarkable is that these Thunderbolt 3 external GPU enclosures typically cost $200-300 on their own. Now, there’s little to no chance that you’d see that kind of money on the resale market if you bought one of these Gigabyte units, kept the video card for yourself, and sold off the enclosure. But even if you just toss the thing in the trash, you’re coming out ahead.
Newegg says they’re in stock, and the company is limiting them to one per customer. So hopefully the cryptocurrency fanatics won’t ruin things for everyone else (again).
