Recently, HP unveiled its Omen gaming PC, a complete laptop said to ship with an AMD Vega 10 graphics card and configured with either one or two GTX 1080 chips in SLI, or RX 480/580 in CrossFire. At the same time, the brand new HP Accelerator was announced, a new external GPU under the Omen gaming brand, one that can handle graphics cards with up to 300W TDP (thermal design power). The point of using this full-sized desktop GPU is to offer the option of overriding the integrated or dedicated graphics your current HP laptop has, in order to provide better performance.

The Accelerator comes with an internal 500W PSU and integrated battery charging port. That way, your notebook can get its charge at up to 60W. Other than that, the Accelerator features 4 USB Type-C ports, and a single USB 3.1 Type-C, which is Thunderbolt certified. It can be configured with Nvidia and AMD graphics, including Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060, or its GTX 1070; plus AMD’s Radeon RX580 in pre-configured models.

Since your wireless card may need a more stable, faster connection to keep your system running as smooth as can be, HP put in an RJ-45 network port on the back of the unit. Unlike most units, the Omen Accelerator also houses a 2.5-inch drive bay, with either a 256GB SSD or 1TB HDD on deck. That’s a lot.

Finally, if you want to add your own hardware, you can- meaning you can get a sans-storage and GPU version, something HP claims to easily manipulate out with the enclosure's easy-access door. HP’s timing on releasing its new Omen Accelerator eGPU was pretty much in line with most other big-dog computer companies, many of which have already released their own, or are getting ready to. HP couldn’t let go of it’s edgy style with the Omen Accelerator’s red and black design, colors that almost always signify power, or some serious gaming. Coming early this August and starting at $300, it is obvious how much energy and design effort HP has put into this eGPU.