Asustek XG Station external graphics card

Hi,

one advantage of a portable Notebook with an integrated GX-Card and the XG-Station is apart from the batterylife, that you don't produce that much heat (yes you can downclock the GX-Card, but it still produces to much heat compared to an integrated solution).

And i think the heat issue is a big advantage if you want to use a "lap"top *reminds himself of the wining about burnt laps* and if you don't want sweaty palm when writing on the notebook.



Tobi

 

Err... I just noticed that for $600 you could build yourself a MicroATX computer with a Go7950. I don't Know about you but for the same money I think I would rather just get a complete computer that comes with its own CPU, ram etc. Than just a graphics card that will be slowed down by the less than steller speeds of a PC card slot. And the MicroATX case is not much bigger than the XG station though it is a bit heavier.

 

Thats true. For that price though (unless graphics work was key), I would just get an Xbox 360, or a PS3. They will perform better, and will be able to play games for much much longer.

 

Yeah if you just can't get enough Tekken or Virtua Fighter, grab yourself a console.

 

I didn't think about the micro-ATX form computer, though I think if I were build a desktop I'd want it as full-featured as possible, and my notebook to be as portable as possible

 

hey guys sorry but i couldn't remember is someone posted this aready or not
and i didn't want to read through the whole thread again lol
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=5369

 

I have personally been surprised at what you can get in a MicroATX case. Many of the ones made by Silverstone will fit a regular PSU, CPU, ram and even a 8800GTX. Of course the mobo is a MicroATX form factor but there are some good Asus MicroATX boards that are actually decent OCers. Another benifit is that a few of the good cases have fans blowing directly on the mobo, GPU and CPU which is something that would be hard to get in a full size case.

I understand that these cases are becoming popular with LAN gamers as the typical MicroATX case can fit in a small duffle bag.

I am actually seriously considering doing a build, While they are a little bigger than the XG the upgrade path is much clearer. I could get a Go7600GT for $90 and just wait for the 8800 cards to come down a little.

 

I'll have to agree that getting a cheap micro-ATX comp would be a better alternative for now, hopefully once the price comes down on the XG and other companies get their shot we'll see if it balances out more.

 

Well, lets look at this:
Mobo: ASUS P5L-MX LGA 775 Intel 945G Micro ATX $76
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz $187
RAM: Kingston 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) $179
GFX: XFX GeForce 7900GS 256MB $145
Which comes out to $587, not including S/H, without: a hard drive, case, psu, any fans/coolers, optical drives, operating system, etc. Even going down to 1GB memory doesnt save much, you would have to go really easy on specs to get down to $600 for a full system, maybe a PenD 805, 7600GT, 1GB memory, and 80GB hard drive.
I do, however, agree that a desktop would be a better solution; one of the cheaper mBTX retail Gateways with an E6300 and empty PCIE slot for $500, plus a 7900GS seems like a really good deal right now.

 

I was specking a x2 AMD system to be honest when I said $600. And of course it was a base system with something like a 7600GT. BUT because the fastest external interface on a notebook is no were near the speed of PCIe x16 a Go7600GT will probably be faster than the 7900GS when hooked up to an express card slot.

I think for the average Joe a MicroATX comp makes a lot more sense than the XG. The XG will be for people who (1) hate the idea of building their own system (2) don't have the time to build their own system (3) don't want to bother with a second computer (4) are not really serious about gaming or (5) have plenty of spare change.

P.S. I don't want this to sound like I am trying to convince you that I am right and you are wrong, I am most certainly not (we have to much of that on NBR already) I obviously could be wrong in my assumptions and will be the first to admit it. I saw a thread some were that had half the people saying they respected the others opinion. While sounding kinda humerus it struck a cord. suppose everyone respected the others opinion, at least we would never get any of those raging hate posts again Anyway sorry for getting of topic.

Now back to XG vs MicroATX

 

I think you underestimate how much of a PITA it is for anal people like me to keep TWO computers running EXACTLY the way we want...

Not to mention the constant shuffling of files back and forth...

 

Yes, I agree that having a desktop is a cheaper and better performing solution, but as Jumper said, the main problem with that is the fact that keeping 2 computers is a pain, even with jump drives and external hard drives.
I come under reasons 3, 4, and 5 as to why I want an XG Station; I have both the time and inclination to build a desktop, but I do not want to deal with 2 computers as I am doing right now. Of course, I could just have the desktop for gaming, but at that point, I might as well get a PS3 or XBox 360.

 

LOL #5 is always a nice one to come under. But I can see were you would have a lot of people who would not want to have to transfer data between comps. As to the PS3 or XBox... well I am a PC gamer personally (I alike to be on the cutting edge of things at all times)

Honestly there is still a lot that is not known about the XG at this time, such as will the GPU be upgradeable or will you be stuck with a soldered GPU, is it really going to be limited to the PC slot etc. So it is kinda hard to say how the XG compares. I think if the GPU is not upgradeable well... the GPU goes out of date in about 6 months so do the math, thats about $100 per month to game on a machine that is not very good at it (compared to a PC or Console)

in the end it will probably play wow fairly well and games on that level but when you start getting into games like Oblivion or BF2, well it will croak. But then most notebooks do anyway.

 

It will in all liklihood be GPU upgradeable, because they are going to sell one without a GPU installed, only a free PCI-E slot. So, you pay $600 for the one with the GF 7900GS, and 6 months later you can replace it with a GF 8800GTS or whatever you want, and so on.

 

Say were did you hear that? could you provide a link? If you could get one without a GPU I wonder how much that would cost.

 

What about running Windows or whatever on two displays? I mean can I for example play game on my external lcd and have windows desktop on laptop's display? Or using XGS means that notebook's screen will be disabled? Anybody?

 

The 'barebone' version of the XGS was noted earlier in the thread, on page 12 or so. There was a website that stated that there would initially be two flavors of XGS, one with the EN7900GS and one without a video card. Pricing, I would think maximum $150 less than the one with the EN7900GS, becasue the EN7900GS is $200.

mastha212: I would think its the first one, its almost like hooking up a second monitor. There are probably settings you can change, so it probably could be either of the two.

 

I hope you're right. I'm just getting 19" wide Samsung LCD so it will be sweet to play Heroes 5 on it and check NBR forums on laptop's one

 

Maybe if you are using a desktop switcher but I doubt it. As far as I know of all the other external monitor GPUs currently on the market you are just seeing what you would see on the Notebook screen

 

No, sadly, the image on the screen of the laptop and the external LCD will be the same, I think. I saw an image on AnandTech with the W5+XGS in the middle of a game, and both screens showed the same image.

 

Any news info on this? Anyone know the price for the package without the 7900? Also since my integrated card is taking ram from tge main system, if I use the XG Station with a dedicated card, will the integrated card no longer take up ram?

 

From my understanding the Price of the XG station with the 7900 is $600-$700 while the one without the 7900 is $200 less, like $400-$500.

In my opinion the dedicated GPU in your laptop should litterly turn off, since the XG station will now how to power Windows and the graphics on the external LCD. Meaning the XG station will utilize the system ram to do so, not your laptop integrated card. (This is how it should work in my opinion)

 

Would I have to use an external keyboard or can I use the keyboard on my laptop?

 

You will need to use the laptop as "Dock" to supply your CPU, RAM, Hard Drive and optical drive. Plus you will need the laptop for the keyboard and mouse to operate it with the XG station. This is because the XG station doesn't have ports for those components.

I do suggest you use an external keyboard, be it wireless or wired, since you don't want to wreak your keyboard after hours and hours of gaming daily. But this is up to you, and depending on your usage.

 

Whats this i hear about the XG??? ... "It provides upgradeability up to dual PCI-Express video cards with its standard PCI Express slots"...

How is this possible or even any use with the limitations of the Express card tech?? ASUS must have something up their sleeve that know1 knows about to have that much power going through a 1X express card slot and still being usefull!

 

Asus Road Show in 3 days, hope to see XG there and MAYBE they will let me do some tests wish me luck

 

Lucky Polska...

 

It would be excellent if you can get some benchmarks of the XG there...

 

Ok, today I went to Asus Road Show. Of course I asked guy from Asus about XG Station price and availability. And what he told me is they should launch XG in Q2 (which wasn't a surprise) and it should cost about 400$...for version with card!! And that is good information IMO. Version without GPU will be available later this year so I guess price should be somewhere between 200 and 300$ which is acceptable if you ask me. Hope this assurances wont change much.
cheers

 

This is awesome!!
I'm shure sooner or later asus will build laptops with "video in" so we can use the xg station with the laptop monitor (and no external)

Im just hoping that the benchmarks won't disappoint due 2 the bandwith of the epxress slot.

 

Only $400 with the card in place? that is very impressive! I would certainly take it at that price.

 

--> Count me in too! Fantastic Idea from a solid manufacture. 400USD sounds like a sweet spot, the orange/ on red color isnt bad either.

 

Sounds awesome, but don't get too optimistic

 

Question is, how much of an improvement in graphics can it give over my x1600?

 

Yan: I think not too much, maybe I'm wrong but I would expect that XGS willl deliver mid-end (X1600/GF7600 class) performance so it will be great solution for low-end or integrated chips. But if power increase will be higher (on desktop 8600GT level) that I will buy it for sure.

 

well if the performance were like the card that comes with it I would buy it tommorow. But it has to be impossible.

 

let's just wait for the benchmarks

i ordered my compal hel80 core2duo T7200, 2GIG, 80GIG 7200rpm, AND nvidia 7600go

i wonder if i can plug in a 8800 gs with a big increase in performance .. or will it be bottlenecked..

can't wait for the benchmarks

 

I'm little curious; according to the Asus website they measured 9 times acceleration compared to an intel 945 chipset. So if a GMA945 showed ~170points on 3d mark, would that mean the XG Station (w/ EN7900gs) would only get ~1530 (170 * 9)?

Also, from what i've heard, video cards today may not use all 16x bandwidth... is that correct? If so, how much bandwith do video cards generally take?

EDIT:
I came accross an older comparison from Tom's Hardware. I dont believe 1x PCI Express should cripple the card too much, although the article is quite old the results may be more skewed with newer videocards.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/22/sli_is_coming/page4.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/11/22/sli_is_coming/page10.html

 

That's an interesting but yes, old article showing older games didn't require so much bandwidth in order to play. I'm sure now, the gaming industry would definitly benifit from X16, but it is really hard to say how well the XG station will perform. I know we are all eager to know, so am I.

Also many have taken the 9x more performance as you stated, take the integrated GPU and multiply by 9.

 

dailytech has some information about the xg station. it looks like it will be shipping to partners and oem's next month. there is no word on retail availability of the product. there will not be a barebones product, only bundled with whatever card you choose. i hope you will be able to upgrade the card instead of having to buy a new bundle every time you want to upgrade. no details on pricing.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6313

 

i found a new article about the xg staion

http://vr-zone.com/?i=4728&s=1

 

The article states that a second version will be made available, that can use the notebook's own LCD as well as house a DirectX 10 capable chip? That sounds very exciting.

 

The rumours that it will be $300-400 instead of $600+ have made me want one more than I did before. The 2nd generation with the full PCI-E x16 bandwith sounds awesome....

 

Yeah, please make a version where we don't need an external monitor, thats really retarded.

 

Agreed.
Let's see, with their first generation, we have:
1 x notebook
1 x Asustek XG station
1 x external keyboard (probably don't want to game with notebook keyboards to avoid wear on the irreplaceable and fragile keyboard)
1 x external mouse (playing FPS with touchpad doesn't usually earn high ranks on servers)
1 x external monitor

so basically, what's the difference between that system and a desktop system? Can pull out like 5 cables and take the computer? If I were to go to a LAN party or something I could bring the XG station along with a notebook and a mouse, but an LCD monitor is just going too far.

 

I guess I am slightly different than the rest of you, in that I have a highly outdated desktop that I want to replace, but I have a killer monitor and peripherals for it, plus I use a steering wheel for all the games I play. It makes way more sense for me to get an ultraportable/tablet pc (S6Fm/R1F) plus the XG station than a cheaper ultraportable (Lenovo V100) and a new desktop.

 

Excuse me, but am I the only sane one around here?

We want *less junk* not more! I'm already drowning in doodads and add-ons!

Please, keep this stuff and give me a powerful notebook with indestructable keyboard!

 

I'm guessing this "2nd Generation" XG station, will need to have access to the PCIe-E interface... meaning in a year or two, computers w/ express-slots would be out-dated for this purpose. This ultimately means if one would like 16x speeds they would need to by a new notebook anyhow.

if the 300~400 price range sticks, count me in for this round. all in all the XG station will serve at a pseudo docking station while I'm at home, ill keep my 14" form-factor while I’m in class. LAN parties are great and all, compared to some 100+ lbs "supercomputers" the XG station doesn’t seem so bad. Then again, that is just my opinion.

--> I would love to see some benchmarks

 

I hope most of you realize that Asus is NOT going to be able to make a second generation version that utilizes the screen on any current laptops, right? It's not because they're 'retarded'; there is no way to easily connect the laptop screen's input.

The second generation, as BankBen says, will not use ExpressCard. No current laptops will support it either, unless Asus develops an ExpressCard that supports an external PCI Express interface.

 

It appears that you are already under the assumption that you are the only sane one, but at least I am realistic.

Find me a 4lb laptop with a 20" screen and Go7600 or equivalent graphics card (for gaming) plus a separate numpad and real mouse, please. Or find me a desktop that weighs 4lbs.

The XG Station is like a docking station thats got a Go7900 in it...and what do docking stations do? Add more ports so that there can be an added external monitor and peripherals...which is what is happening here.

If all you want is a powerful and durable computer, then get an E1705 or a Clevo... Some of us here actually care for portability in a notebook.