Back in August, Aoostar introduced the AG01 OCuLink eGPU docking station with integrated 400W PSU— and today, the company has officially launched its successor, the 500W Aoostar AG02 eGPU docking station, keeping promotional / delayed "Black Friday" pricing of $219.99 until the pre-sale window closes on December 30th. The company says its new Aoostar AG02 eGPU docks will start being shipped "around January 15th" and, like the AG01, they are cross-compatible with the Lenovo TGX eGPU interface by swapping the OCuLink connector.
So, looking over the unit and its dimensions and comparing it to its predecessor, it's apparent that the actual eGPU dock itself hasn't changed much at all. The exact same design down to port location and compact 22.5 x 6 x 11cm physical dimensions are being retained here, with the exception of a PSU that now runs at 500W instead of 400W. Previously, the PSU configuration allowed GPUs with TDPs of up to 250 Watts, capping out around the RTX 4070 Super— but now, the new allotment is up to 350W, setting the new cap on the RTX 4080 Super and other ~320W-class GPUs. Considering the 4080S is currently the third most-powerful consumer GPU in existence, this PSU configuration should do fine for most eGPU use cases. That said, the company does still recommend cards up to a 4070 Super or RX 7700 XT, noting that the bandwidth limitations of the interface will limit the performance of higher-end cards.
Technically, you can still replace the built-in PSU as well, though if you're already planning on doing that it's recommended that you start with a cheaper eGPU dock that also supports user-replaceable PSUs, like the Aoostar AG01.
As an out-of-the-box package, this eGPU dock. including its 500W PSU for just $219, looks to be a compelling choice for lots of mini PC and handheld PC users. OCuLink support allows for the fastest possible bandwidth between the eGPU and the host PC, utilizing 4 lanes of PCIe 4.0 bandwidth at an effective 64 Gigabits per second.
Top-end GPUs will still be bottlenecked by this bandwidth, but these are generally minor losses, so long as your CPU can keep pace. The also-supported USB4 interface is another, slower, story, but should be seen as more of a fallback for compatibility's sake than anything else. It's hard to over-emphasize just how important it is to be using proper PCIe, OCuLink, or an equivalent with eGPUs versus standard USB or Thunderbolt connections— you will lose a lot of performance with the more standard connectors, especially old generations.
