Asus introduces housing for external graphics card

Asus has announced a housing with which a video card can be connected externally to a computer by means of a Thunderbolt 3 connection. The case only works in combination with some Asus laptops.

The Asus ROG XG Station 2 features a 600-watt power supply, which is enough to power any existing graphics card. Officially, Asus offers support for graphics cards in AMD’s R9 and RX lines and Nvidia’s GTX 9 and 10 series. It is not clear whether older graphics cards will also work.

The housing must be connected to a laptop with a Thunderbolt 3 connection and can therefore supply it with 100 watts of power. It is also equipped with a gigabit Ethernet connection and four USB 3.0 ports. The housing can be connected to the laptop with an extra USB 3.0 cable for extra bandwidth, but this is not required. The RGB lighting can be controlled with Asus Aura Sync.

Asus showed the predecessor of the case in 2007. The first XG Station featured an Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT and was connected to a laptop with an expresscard connector. At the time, that device cost 349 euros. It is not yet known what the successor will cost. It is known that it will be available worldwide from the beginning of 2017.