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ASUS unveils external notebook GPU

Published on 9th January 2007 by Wil Harris

The ASUS XG Station - external notebook graphics.

Is your laptop struggling along with integrated graphics? A new external add-on from ASUS claims to allow you to connect an external monitor to your laptop via an external graphics card which connects to the laptop via the ExpressCard slot.

The XG Station has a 7900 GS graphics card built in, and has a HDCP compatible HDMI port. It also has a USB 2.0 hub and an external soundcard with Dolby Headphone Technology whacked in too - essentially a mini gaming hub to plug straight into your notebook.

Even more crazy, a massive knob on the front of the XG station allows you to ramp up the clock speed on your 7900 GPU just by cranking it up - and an LCD display tells you the current GPU clock speed and temperature.

The XG card is going to launch in April or May, but we don't have a confirmed price on it yet.

Whilst ASUS claims this will be 9x faster than integrated graphics, do you think this will actually work? Can you see it actually improving your gaming experience if you have an integrated notebook? Let us know your thoughts over in the forums.

29 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

EQC 9th January 2007, 03:16

I'm guessing the knob won't give you *too much* control over the GPU speed...

but it'd be funny if it did...at a LAN party, you casually stroll past some kid who keeps fragging you, turn the knob on his graphics card to max and run away while it fries itself.

Crazyglue 9th January 2007, 03:20

i think this is a great idea. i have 2 laptops that have a 6200 and a 9600 in them, getting this, i would finally be able to do some decent gaming on my lappy! im curious to see how much it is. seeing as how normal 7900gs's are ~$160ish, this will prolly go for $200+. but hey, thats fine.

great idea asus! ;)

Stuey 9th January 2007, 03:33

Excellent idea, but that means zilch if the implementation sucks.

<--- *waiting eagerly*

$800 laptop + $350 (guestimate price) gaming adapter < $2000 gaming laptop.

This product has a LOT of potential...

Tyinsar 9th January 2007, 03:54

Eagerly awaiting test results

Woodstock 9th January 2007, 04:32

Intersting, about time something is done to give laptops a chance at being a main gaming pc without a large price bracket

Gravemind123 9th January 2007, 05:38

Makes me want to get a good laptop and just use it all the time!

Edit: What I mean is a good laptop, but I don't have to pay an arm and a leg for the graphics, and they are upgradable!

JADS 9th January 2007, 07:12

Ah now I wondered when we were going to see these! Anyone for an external box that can house 3 liquid cooled 8800GTX cards that uses a cable to connect to a single PCI-E 16x card in your PC? It'd be nice if it could be integrated into the back panel IO connectors leaving you up to 7 free PCI-E/PCI slots in your PC :)

Matkubicki 9th January 2007, 08:30

The article implies it'll only work on an external monitor which is a shame. Would be great to be able to plug something like this in but still stay reasonably portable.

David_Fitzy 9th January 2007, 09:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matkubicki
The article implies it'll only work on an external monitor which is a shame. Would be great to be able to plug something like this in but still stay reasonably portable.

kinda like MXM :D

WhiteKnight 9th January 2007, 09:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by JADS
Anyone for an external box that can house 3 liquid cooled 8800GTX cards that uses a cable to connect to a single PCI-E 16x card in your PC?

Something along these lines you mean...

http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadroplex.html

sinizterguy 9th January 2007, 10:08

This product would be brilliant for playing BD/HDDVD on a LCD TV using a laptop. Depending on price, it has potential.

Duste 9th January 2007, 11:01

Doesn't this inevitably defeat the purpose of a laptop/notebook entirely? That is portability. From what I understand, this external GPU -requires- an external monitor to go along with it, yes? So that means you've got a normal laptop, which already has a monitor, and the external GPU PLUS another monitor.

DougEdey 9th January 2007, 11:09

but if you don't want two seperate machines, this is perfect.

IccleD 9th January 2007, 11:31

It looks very much like something that could be called a "Graphics Docking Station", even so far as maybe requiring external power?

http://asus.com/999/images/news/01062007/news-0106-d1.gif

Or simply look here: Asus Website

JADS 9th January 2007, 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteKnight
Something along these lines you mean...

http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadroplex.html

Well that is what I was refering to, but a consumer version that supports an extra card for physics processing and doesn't cost $17,000 for the entry version ;)! A box that cost a few hundred might be a bit more palatable!

LoneArchon 9th January 2007, 16:36

Looks great for a LAN party. Bring this a laptop and a monitor instead of your complete desktop.

I very interested in it as my current laptop is the MSI S271.It is a Dual core laptop but the integrated graphics makes gaming very limited. With this it would make lan parties easier that lugging my main gaming computer that is water cooled

unrealhippie 9th January 2007, 16:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duste
Doesn't this inevitably defeat the purpose of a laptop/notebook entirely? That is portability. From what I understand, this external GPU -requires- an external monitor to go along with it, yes? So that means you've got a normal laptop, which already has a monitor, and the external GPU PLUS another monitor.

Not really, If I got a laptop I would still use it on my 24" monitor at home, so simply having this in the loop wouldnt be any hassle and turn a compact portable day laptop into a decent gaming machine.

Very promising, out of interest, what is the bandwidth limit on the ExpressCard slot? Just wondered if it would be a limiting factor...

sandys 9th January 2007, 17:02

I think its a PCIe 1x 250Mb/ bi directonal not quite the upgrade you might envisgae, you won't be doing highend graphics with it.

TomH 9th January 2007, 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by unrealhippie

Very promising, out of interest, what is the bandwidth limit on the ExpressCard slot? Just wondered if it would be a limiting factor...

As mentioned above, there's dedicated support for both PCI-E 1x and USB 2.0 via ExpressCard, so forgetting the USB 2.0, that's 2.5Gbit/s of bandwidth.

Not quite the 20Gbit/s bandwidth experienced via PCI-E 8x (or slightly more from AGP 8x).

I'm going to guess that the 7900GS will be choked-up tbh, but it could still be better than most of the basic integrated graphics given by laptops. Power requirements would be through the roof on the battery, so I'm not really suprised that it's been designed more as a docking peripheral -- it'd be pointless on the move anyway.

g3n3tiX 9th January 2007, 21:42

They have tried it @ engadget : http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/hands-on-with-the-asus-xg-station-external-gpu
It seems to work...and quite well !! But we don't know if you can stick the card you want inside, and it appears you can't use your laptop's monitor (seems logical)

ralph.pickering 9th January 2007, 23:39

The fact it's an ExpressCard and not plain old PC Card it going to limit its appeal to people with fairly recent notebooks. And to be honest, if you bought a notebook recently with the intention of gaming on it, you'd be daft to have bought one without a graphics card like a 7800 / 7900 built in.

Duste 10th January 2007, 03:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by unrealhippie
Not really, If I got a laptop I would still use it on my 24" monitor at home, so simply having this in the loop wouldnt be any hassle and turn a compact portable day laptop into a decent gaming machine.

Very promising, out of interest, what is the bandwidth limit on the ExpressCard slot? Just wondered if it would be a limiting factor...

But still in the sense of portable gaming, it's defeating it's purpose.

kickarse 10th January 2007, 16:37

An Expresscard is connected directly to the PCI-Express bus... My TurionX2 1.6 system also has one, an ExpressCard 54.

AGP 8x is 2.1GB/sec... PCI-E 16x is around 4.1gbs (probably more in the future). It'll be slower but you'll never notice it. You also have to remember that Video Card bandwidth is different than AGP/PCI-E bandwidth.

Looking at the pictures though, damn it's big...

sandys 11th January 2007, 00:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Hill
As mentioned above, there's dedicated support for both PCI-E 1x and USB 2.0 via ExpressCard, so forgetting the USB 2.0, that's 2.5Gbit/s of bandwidth.

Not quite the 20Gbit/s bandwidth experienced via PCI-E 8x (or slightly more from AGP 8x).

I'm going to guess that the 7900GS will be choked-up tbh, but it could still be better than most of the basic integrated graphics given by laptops. Power requirements would be through the roof on the battery, so I'm not really suprised that it's been designed more as a docking peripheral -- it'd be pointless on the move anyway.

PCI x16 is 4Gb a second meaning the 1x slot bandwidth available via Expresscard is Not 2.5Gbit/s

TomH 27th January 2007, 19:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandys
PCI x16 is 4Gb a second meaning the 1x slot bandwidth available via Expresscard is Not 2.5Gbit/s

No prizes for not understanding the difference between GB/s and Gb/s.

BYTES AND BITS. I even used 'Gbit/s' to avoid any confusion!

Please read before flaming !

:(

ikra 27th January 2007, 19:59

lol... bytes and bits...

My gramps once said "what? is that how slow it is nowadays? in my time internet was 10megabits ow its just 2?"

:D

dire_wolf 14th February 2007, 13:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by ikra
lol... bytes and bits...

My gramps once said "what? is that how slow it is nowadays? in my time internet was 10megabits ow its just 2?"

:D

Haha quality :)

TomH 14th February 2007, 14:28

Hmm.

Well it looks like Asus jumped the gun a little.

True external PCI-E 16x. And even talk of Crossfire

zr_ox 14th February 2007, 21:00

This sounds fantastic.

For me this would be perfect, I have a Dell Latitude D620 with a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB Ram and horrible 945G Graphics. The laptop rocks at everything but gaming, the build quality is top notch and the size is spot on.

I don't want to buy a laptop with a built in 78/7900 series card due to the size. For me the essence of the laptop disappears since the size increases exponentially when you add one of those cards. I don't game on the move so using this "docked" at home would be great, not to mention the improvement on poor laptop sound that this device will/would bring.

I cant wait and would be happy to be an early adopter.