Wolfe External Thunderbolt Graphics Box For MacBooks Promises Gaming And VR Prowess
That’s where Wolfepack Inc.’s Wolfe external graphics enclosure comes into play. The project hit Kickstarter yesterday and it has already reached its funding goal of $50,000. In fact, the project has already amassed over $145,000 from over 400 backers.
For $450, you’ll get a Wolfe Enclosure which includes a Thunderbolt-to-PCIe PCB, a 220W mobile power supply, a Thunderbolt cable and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 graphics cards. If you pledge $550, the Wolfe Pro enclosure ups its performance level with a GeForce GTX 970. If you’d rather buy an enclosure and add your own graphics card, that’ll set you back $269.
Backers will be able to select from Thunderbolt 2 or Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, which allows plug-in-play operation. The Wolfe Manager allows you to easily install necessary drivers and software, and allows you to select between your internal GPU and the external GPU. And if you want even more power, you can hook up multiple Wolfe enclosures.
Whether you consider the $450 Wolfe or $550 Wolfe Pro, either option would be far faster than what’s available on the current range of top-end MacBook Pro notebooks. Even if you were to buy a maxed our 15-inch MacBook Pro, you’re still going to be saddled with an AMD Radeon R9 M370X GPU. There's only so much thermal headroom inside of Apple's notebook platform.
But what if you want even more performance? That’s definitely a possibility, with Wolfepack writing, “What about NVIDIA's 10-series GPUs? As of right now, The Wolfe Pro includes an NVIDIA GTX 970. However, it's more than likely that Wolfe Pro level backers will be able to opt for the new GeForce GTX 1060 in our post-campaign survey for even better performance.”
The solution is a lot like what we've seen on the PC side of things from products like Alienware's Graphics Amplifier or even more akin perhaps to the Thunderbolt-connected Razer Core.
Wolfepack is expected to ship its enclosures in March 2017, with early backers receiving them in February.
