Asus XG Station Pro

[HEXUS]

External graphics finally coming of age?

Read more.

[Kanoe]

The approved list seems somewhat strange because the housing accepts 300mm-plus PCIe x16-connected cards that take up to 2.5 slots. In other words, practically every card under the sun.

Seems an odd statement to make when you used a card that was on the approved list (an nvidia card later than a 900 series). The AMD supported list seems very much more restricted, would be good to know if this was for real and only those three models are supported.

Got any AMD cards in the Hexus Labs you could do some testing with to validate this?

[DanceswithUnix]

£300 seems like money better put towards an ITX board, PSU and case you can plug that graphics card into with a similar footprint and ditching the laptop.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is the lower scores down to less PCI-E bandwidth or the fact the laptop CPUs are lower clocked?

I wonder how the scores with a similarly clocked 4C/8T desktop CPU would look??

[DanceswithUnix]

Is the lower scores down to less PCI-E bandwidth or the fact the laptop CPUs are lower clocked?

I was assuming both of those. TDP effects are probably quite a big thing too, a desktop can easily have half a kilo of heatsink and 25mm deep fans, laptops just can't soak or move heat the same.

[EvilCycle]

86C, no thanks!!

[Strawb77]

Kanoe+

[rominKl]

You commit an error. I suggest it to discuss. Write to me in PM.

[AGTDenton]

£300 seems like money better put towards an ITX board, PSU and case you can plug that graphics card into with a similar footprint and ditching the laptop.

Yes this is why these will never take off. I'd pay £100 at most, for what is essentially 2x fans, a small circuit board and a chassis. The original XG Station cost approx $280 with a mid range graphics card included.

[philehidiot]

This is always going to be a niche product, hence the price.

[kurasov1965s]

So will not go.

[Savas]

£300 seems like money better put towards an ITX board, PSU and case you can plug that graphics card into with a similar footprint and ditching the laptop.

Yes this is why these will never take off. I'd pay £100 at most, for what is essentially 2x fans, a small circuit board and a chassis. The original XG Station cost approx $280 with a mid range graphics card included.

Something doesn't add up here. £300 for an ITX board, PSU and a case.. What about a CPU/RAM? All in the same footprint as well.. The point of this set up is that you have or want to go in the direction of a fast laptop with good specs already. For example you need a laptop for work or study. So I don't believe I'm going to get an i7 Coffee Lake system (like the Hexus Test Desktop has here) all for £300. The reviewer could have added the price and specs of the Hexus Test Desktop..

I do agree, the price is too much for what it is (and neither will I pay this much for it), but when more companies get into making these and it gets competitive, they will get better and cheaper. Imagine Corsair or say Gigabyte coming in and charging what is essentially as you said, two fans, chassi and a board..

I suspect it's the Thunderbolt 3 connection that's taking some of those costs, however it has competition now, I believe in the form of OCuLink. Thunderbolt in the eGPU scene is purely used simply because it was more convinent then hacking out your mobo for that PCIe slot, plus the fastest method, BUT yet it's still a bottleneck so the title for which connection to use is still up for grabs. I suspect the moment that the 20% is reduced to say something like 1% then I think this will become a lot more main stream.

Not everyone can afford a high end laptop and a high end gaming rig at the same time, so this is the answer to this. People need to lay off the blindly suggesting this isn't worth it.