Asus Readies External Graphics Card for Notebooks

Notebook users will soon be able to take full advantage of powerful dedicated graphics cards. Even though NVIDIA's and ATI's latest mobile GPUs deliver decent frame-rates and good overall image quality, they can't really compete with dedicated graphics cards that usually belong in a PC. Asus is ready to change all these limitations with the upcoming XG Station external graphics card for notebooks. Previously announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, the XG Station will not have retail availability, but ASUS plans to ship the XG Station to OEMs and channel partners.

ASUS states that the XG Station is not intended to be sold as an external graphics card barebone enclosure. The XG Station will only be bundled with ASUS PCIe dedicated graphics cards and pricing will vary according to the graphics card model.

As an external solution, the XG Station takes advantage of a notebook's ExpressCard slot to provide a PCIe x16 slot for improved graphical processing capabilities. Earlier this year, at CES 2007, Asus showcased an XG Station powered by an EN7900GS graphics card, but the external enclosure is ready to house all the latest GeForce8800 series cards.

Apart from dedicated graphics capabilities, the XG Station features audio output capabilities, as well. This does not mean that the enclosure is capable of 5.1 output. Instead, the enclosure comes with a headphone output connector and support for the Dolby Headphone technology, which simulates six-channel surround sound audio.

The front panel of the XG Station includes a large LED display to monitor vital system information, such as:

- System master volume;
- GPU clock speed;
- Current GPU temperature;
- Dolby Headphone feature status;
- Current actual Frames per Second (FPS) information;
- GPU fan speed Indicator.

Also, on the front panel, a control knob allows users easy overclocking options, which are, however, limited to GPU core clock.

The XG Station will be available to customers next month. Pricing information on XG Station-based graphics cards is unknown due to the number of variants that will be released. For a rough estimation, XG Station bundles will cost slightly more than an ASUS graphics card itself.