The ASUS XG Station 2 was an impressive external GPU enclosure that would connect via. the Thunderbolt 3 port of a Laptop to be able to run a Desktop GPU on that Laptop. ASUS has refreshed the XG Station 2 at this CES with a slimmer but, more powerful XG Station Pro. At least that’s what ASUS claims.
Though, the XG Station 2 was dedicatedly build for gaming, the XG Station Pro isn’t made only for that. This time it has been also targeted towards creative professionals who want that Extra Graphics Horsepower in their Thin & Light laptops.
The chassis occupies an area of just 4.3” x 14.8” which is noticeably less when compared to the XG Station 2 & the looks are also cleaner. So if it is on a desk, it should complement professional laptops pretty well. The XG Station Pro uses a 330W Power Adapter with is similar to what we saw on the RO GX800 so, the Power Supply isn’t sitting into the Case itself which allows the case to be this thin.
Talking about the Connectivity, the XG Station Pro uses a Single Thunderbolt 3 Cable to connect with a compatible laptop. There is a dedicated USB C Port for the Thunderbolt 3 connection, an extra USB Type-C USB 3.1 Port for connecting or charging peripheral devices with upto 15 Watts of Power.
Once you open that black hatch, there are two HDMI ports, two full size Display ports & one DVI-D Port. Lastly their is the DC-in port for connecting the 330W Power Supply. The Power Button lies above the DC-in Port.
The supported GPUs include, all the desktop versions of NVIDIA & AMD variants starting from GeForce GTX 900 and Radeon R9 series to newer GPUs including the NVIDIA 1080Ti & 1070Ti and AMD RX Vega 56 & Vega 64. However, using ROG GPUs with ASUS AURA integration will allow RGB Backlighting via. Aura Sync.
The XG Station 2 can also stay silent if it’s not being used heavily. ASUS does this by turning on the Dual 120 mm Fans only when the internal temperature exceeds a predetermined threshold. So what that means is that, the users can keep it connected all the time if they want & the Fans will only Start Spinning when doing GPU intensive Works.
The price for the XG Station Pro will be about $329 & it will be available starting this month (January 2018) in the United States. Availability in other countries still don’t have any announcement time but, hopefully it’ll come to most other countries somewhere in the First half of 2018.
