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    Asustek XG Station external graphics card

    Discussion in 'Asus' started by Andrew Baxter, Jan 2, 2007.

  1. stimp1000

    stimp1000 Notebook Consultant

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    Justin, it seems as if you have some (inside) information about the XG Station. But I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. You probably can't give away too much (NDA?) but if you have any more info...

    Even if you can't respond, we already know - sort of. Again, it's been posted before, but according to one of the articles linked earlier in this thread, the XG Station with a 7900gs hooked up to a notebook with 945gm integrated graphics will enjoy a 9x increase in performance. That should yield a score of just over 4000 in 3DMark05. A substantial gain, but not close to a 'real' 7900gs which I think scores well over 6000.

    So obviously, this isn't just 'pie in the sky' - it really does work and it certainly already does exist. But on the otherhand, it is indeed hampered by bandwith limitations.


    ...I'm just going to wait for Q2.
     
  2. ltcommander_data

    ltcommander_data Notebook Deity

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    http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=5369

    That 9 times figure comes from ASUS's internal tests. Not to say that ASUS is lying, but generally companies tend to view their products more positively than they may or may not be. All they talk about is 9 times greater acceleration, which could mean anything. If they are running tests that just test the theoretical capabilities of the GPU then the 9 times difference could simply be from the fact that a desktop graphics card is architecturally superior to the GMA 950. I can't wait to hear more when it's actually presented at CES.
     
  3. Silvr6

    Silvr6 Notebook Evangelist

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    I think this is a great product. After reading a few forums it seems like some people can't find even one postive thing to say about this product. I think what some people have to understand is 1. Yes there will be a bandwidth limitation to a certain point but if it was so rotten as people make it out to be why would asus go ahead and spend $$$ on making this concept a reality. 2. Knowing the limitations of the expresscard slot, the people who are going to be buying this are not going to be looking for "extreme" performance. Most likely these people will have integrated graphics and want to play the odd game here and there that would not otherwise be possible with what was built into the notebook. In addition people also have to look past the 3d performance, and think of other features like Dual-Link DVI HDCP and those kind of features. Gaming is not the only reason to have this. Flexible display support is a driving force too.

    I think I will be buying this providing it is released, it will go along well with my W5Fm which I just bought. I've used a few notebooks over the years and since i'm in school right now I decided to have something small and light. (had a w3j before) but i'm picky so I wanted something smaller. This notebook is my only computer and when i'm not at school it spends it's time hooked up to a monitor and keyboard.

    People have to stop harping on the negatives and give Asus some kudos because this is a really great product (in my mind)
     
  4. coriolis

    coriolis Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I don't think anyone was meaning anything negative, but in disappointment, however the fact is, no one has done this before, sure there were 'speculations' and 'ideas' but nothing solid.

    ASUS made something that was just a fragment of an ideal for notebooks into reality, whether it works or not doesn't matter, it's a step ahead where no one else has trod upon.
     
  5. ez2remember

    ez2remember Notebook Evangelist

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    I realised something the bandwidth shouldn't be much of an issue because it only outputs to external montior. It doesn't need to "drive" the laptop lcd where lots of throughput is required especially for something like a 7900GS.

    I don't think Asus will put a 7900GS as an option if the performance is the same as say Geforce 7400 because of the limiting bandwidth of pci express slot (pci e 1x).
     
  6. mujtaba

    mujtaba ZzzZzz Super Moderator

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    But it'll be great with things like MacBooks.
     
  7. ElMatador

    ElMatador Notebook Consultant

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    Im using Maya mainly. Yeah i know the processors handle the rendering, but in complex scenes, the GPU will aid render. I mainly want a good processor.

    So do you think core 2 duo T7200 (2.0GHz) is enough?
     
  8. loopty

    loopty Notebook Evangelist

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    The only time the GPU is used in Maya is for the view port and when you choose Maya Hardware or Gelato for rendering. Both Maya Software or Mental Ray only use the CPU.

    As for the processor, it's never enough. :)
     
  9. Chris27

    Chris27 Notebook Deity

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    can you put any graphics card in there?
     
  10. Jumper

    Jumper Notebook Deity

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    The only package we know of for sure is one including an Asus 7900GS card, but there is a rumor it will be sold bare as well, so you could put in any card.

    The main limitation would be the wattage of the power brick.
     
  11. stimp1000

    stimp1000 Notebook Consultant

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    I agree that companies can make exaggerated claims, but I'm not really sure what else "9x faster acceleration" could mean. I actually thought that the article was pretty clear.

    Anyway, the reason why I'm one of the people who actually 'believes' in this XG Station is simply because it is NOT a new idea. As I mentioned in my very first post in this thread, IBM has the Advanced Dock with a PCIe slot that accepts external video cards and has been around for the better part of a year.

    Real, actual test results done by a living breathing person (not a lab) using a Thinkpad T60p and a 7800GTX:
    3DMark03: 9820
    3DMark05: 4039
    3DMark06: 2182

    Changing the video card to a 7600GS yielded these results:
    3DMark03: 7394
    3DMark05: 3351
    3DMark06: 1848

    Please note the 3DMark05 result for the 7800GTX of 4039 which makes a lot of sense since that would correlate with the 9x figure from ASUS' own test results and the fact that a 7800GTX and a 7900GS shouldn't be too different.

    And, again, while I agree that companies can make exaggerated claims, I do not think that ASUS would tell absolutely ridiculous lies and hope that people don't notice. If they're releasing the XG Station in Q2, then they've obviously already designed, built and tested it.

    But as you say, CES will be the real test.
     
  12. usapatriot

    usapatriot Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    So by the benches above it shows that the thinkpad docking station and the interface through which it was connected to the laptop was definetly bottlenecking the card close to the performance of a x1600 or 7600 in a dedicated, mobility form factor.

    i got 2102 3dmark 06 yesterday while OC'ed.

    i get near 4050 with 3dmark05
     
  13. stimp1000

    stimp1000 Notebook Consultant

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    Yes, with the 7600GS installed, it seems to hit scores close to what one might expect (slower than the desktop version, but almost the same as the mobile version - non-OC'ed). But when you go up to the 7800GTX, then you definitely see the bandwidth bottleneck.

    Also, as you alluded to above, the interface between the XG Station and the IBM/Lenovo Advanced Dock are different (Express Card vs. Proprietary solution). I have no idea which one is faster.
     
  14. Redline

    Redline Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

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    One hopes that the Express Card is faster, but I think that it will be faster in the XG regardless, because the video acceleration is going to the external monitor, not the laptop screen, so the bottleneck will be less.

    Also, I think the 7900GS is slower than the 7800GTX by a little bit, but the power consumption is much lower as well (90nm vs 110nm).
     
  15. coriolis

    coriolis Notebook Nobel Laureate

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  16. spitfire

    spitfire Notebook Consultant

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    sucksss.s... they could make some adjustments for those who has only PCMCIA instead of Express slot. I get my G1 in two days..
    So i wont be able to use later, but it woul d be cool to use the geforce 7900 external(
     
  17. coriolis

    coriolis Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Because all new notebooks have ExpressSlot its not surprising its the new format.
     
  18. conejeitor

    conejeitor Notebook Evangelist

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    Yeah, but how powerful can that video card be. I mean, the transference rate of the express card is high, but not that high (~400 MB/sec). So it might help to the internal video card, but I don't think it can be powerful enough to play nowadays games.
     
  19. Bennie79

    Bennie79 Notebook Enthusiast

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    When is it available?
     
  20. Mr. Wonderful

    Mr. Wonderful Notebook Evangelist

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    Wikipedia says it can do about 2.5Gbps using the PCI Express lane. 400Mbps is probably something using USB. Now how about a device that smartly uses both of them for a cool 2.9Gbps? :p

    And for the record, AGP was a slower standard than Express Card's PCIe lane, if this is true.
     
  21. thegooner

    thegooner Notebook Enthusiast

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    Are those scores obtained with clocks of 500/400 as in your sig?

    Because overclocked fully I get scores of 2,239 in 3dmark06 & 4,386 in 3dmark05 and that's with a T2300.

    Anyway, that external graphics solution looks great and I hope it becomes available for a good price.
     
  22. HM88

    HM88 Notebook Consultant

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    What about power supply??
    Is this really DX10 possible??
    Can somebody explain?
     
  23. MilestonePC.com

    MilestonePC.com Company Representative

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    Consider this as a mini docking station, that connects via the Express Card Slot.
    Of course it has its own power brick/supply, and you will need to plug it into an AC adapter.

    Is DX10 possible? Yes in the future, there may be more XG Station like devices that will be offering newer and better graphic cards. Asus's XG station is paving the path for a new breed of technology.
    The 7900GS is not a DX10 video card, the only ones are the 8800GTS and 8800GTX, and remember those cards are 500+$ USD, while the 7900GS is very cheap.

    This device connects to your laptop, uses the hard drive, cpu, ram, but then uses the XG station's GPU to supply graphics to an external monitor, so that you can game or do graphic intensive work.
     
  24. CoDnut

    CoDnut Notebook Evangelist

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    This certainly is going to be incredible even though there will be limitations, I mean c'mon anything is better than an IGP.
    In response to the dx10 inquiry- I don't think that you could put in a 8800GTX due to the fact that it is really long and my not fit on top of the fact that it requires two pci-e power connectors, but mby a gts from what I have read it only draws about 200some watts-I'm not sure.
    What I'm interested in is the rumor that they will make an MXM version-because that means at least someone has plans to make universal MXM cards which is good for people who actually have the internal capabilities (whistles innocently).
     
  25. ElMatador

    ElMatador Notebook Consultant

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  26. Jumper

    Jumper Notebook Deity

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    Look at that little W5 go!!!

    [​IMG]
     
  27. londez

    londez Notebook Evangelist

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    any word on the price?
     
  28. The Niles

    The Niles Notebook Geek

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    It's a lot bigger then it looked on the previous pictures. Tweakers.net mentioned a rumour of a $600 price but honestly that seems high.
     
  29. ubercool

    ubercool Notebook Deity

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    It's huge! :eek:

    And if that's the cost, it's over-priced! :rolleyes:
     
  30. CoDnut

    CoDnut Notebook Evangelist

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    well the size seems reasonable if you have to fit a full sized pci-e card in it plus all the other stuff it is supposed to have.
     
  31. coriolis

    coriolis Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    They can charge anything they want since they built it, and by the looks out it, didn't hold any expenses back :p
     
  32. HM88

    HM88 Notebook Consultant

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    Thx! :)
    .'. External monitor?? not lappy's monitor :(
     
  33. Emerican_Idiot

    Emerican_Idiot Notebook Consultant

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    I'm so gonna buy this, I hope I can find it in Canada or find a site that will ship it to Canada. Anyone know how much this will cost. This sucks I was actually going to try to invent this and when I mean invent pitch the idea to a company like Ati or something like that I've been talk about an idea like this to people I know for weeks now, but I'm sure this has been in development for months maybe years. How is this tgoing to hook up to a laptop? Via usb? Or that notebook slot thing?
     
  34. mastha212

    mastha212 Notebook Evangelist

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    One word : H U G E. And the price?! 600$?! Waaaay to much IMO. But maybe it's just the rumor.
     
  35. stamar

    stamar Notebook Prophet

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    It is as small as it can be and hold a desktop gpu.
     
  36. mastha212

    mastha212 Notebook Evangelist

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  37. Bhima

    Bhima Notebook Consultant

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    But really though...who is going to buy this if they are FORCED to use an external monitor? The whole freakin idea is to give your LAPTOP the 3D juice it needs to play games and extend its useful life. I wonder if you can just reroute the VGA cable back to the other monitor output on your monitor and switch the view to that monitor...like fooling it into believing its another monitor its hooking into but its just rerouting to your laptop.

    But in all honesty, this product will go NOWHERE if Asus doesn't get their stuff together and make this work with the laptop entirely...not this halfassed-use-an-external-monitor BS.
     
  38. loopty

    loopty Notebook Evangelist

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    Plenty of people will want this. This isn't something you take with you all the time. This is for places (home, office..) where you can sit down and hook up a large LCD.
     
  39. bbzidane

    bbzidane Notebook Guru

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    i think people sometime forget that there are a lot of desktop replacement notebooks out there, and for the majority of the people that recently bought notebook due to the low price rarely ever use it on the go.
    im not saying that there arent people that actually want a portable solution, but i guess for now, this isnt the solution
     
  40. lunateck

    lunateck Bananaed

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    Err... does the Asus U1 hav express slot?
     
  41. CalebSchmerge

    CalebSchmerge Woof NBR Reviewer

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    It seems that some people don't quite get the point of this. It is large, requires its own power supply, and is desinged for gaming and for graphics work. Most people that do those want light machines that they can move, but still need powerful solutions while they are working. This allows them to have both. The monitor issue won't be a huge deal because alot of those people have an external monitor already.
     
  42. coriolis

    coriolis Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I see this as a great product, just the price will be what determines if it goes or fails.

    Rerouting to the notebook screen is quite stupid, sure it 'can' be mobile, but whats mobile when you have to lug the XG itself around? It's mean to be a 'basestation' for the notebook, I mean, set it aside on top of a dock(or cooler pad), connect it to the XG, external gaming keyboard, external 24" LCD, and boom, right there is all you need. If you need to go, just unplug the 12" notebook and away you go.
     
  43. Redline

    Redline Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

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    If the $300 price tag is accurate, that is an awesome deal.
    If it comes in under $400, it will be a success.
     
  44. CalebSchmerge

    CalebSchmerge Woof NBR Reviewer

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    I don't know if I will buy one, just because I already don't need more than the Go7400 I have, but I know that this will open alot of doors in the future, especially if they make ExpressCard with more lanes and an XG Station to go with it.
     
  45. The Niles

    The Niles Notebook Geek

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    I'm getting more and more excited about this device. I ran 3DMark05 on my own computer last night and found I could get 3400marks with it. Not bad and right now all I need but it would mean that this set-up gets 700marks more then my desktop. I was planning on buying a Tablet PC anyway but with something like this I would sell my desktop and have a single computer for work and play.
    Now if only we could get some real reviews. I am still not convinced this gives smooth game play. One of those previews mentioned the device dropped some frames. Hopefully that can be solved with further development.
     
  46. stamar

    stamar Notebook Prophet

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    Id be all over this.

    Unfortunately, I dont believe a 7900 gs in a xg station is going to keep up with the 7700 go I have.

    As soon as an xg station is an improvement over the gpu I have Ill get one. If it can be done.

    What I really really want to do is just go back in time and get like a panasonic y5 or even a w7j and a xg station.
     
  47. asolarian

    asolarian Notebook Guru

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    Pretty sure the y5 doesn't have an express card slot though, in fact I don't think any panasonic notebooks do :)
     
  48. stamar

    stamar Notebook Prophet

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    oh thanks.

    Um.... asus w5 I guess.
     
  49. bbzidane

    bbzidane Notebook Guru

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    the external graphic card is definitely a good product, but what i want to know is how limited it is by the expresscard connection and how well does it perform with games like company of heroes

    hope the reviews come out soon
     
  50. Redline

    Redline Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

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    I also am waiting for actual benchmarks to come out, I don't want to rely on this '9 times better than GMA' figure that Asus is giving, no matter how accurate it seems. Also, I want to see if it is a decent replacement for a graphics card, and if it cant outrun a Go7700, then theres no way that I am getting it. I would rather get an A8Js.
     
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