ASUS ROG XG Station 3 brings desktop GPUs to notebooks

ASUS Republic of Gamers expands the upgrade possibilities for notebooks with ROG XG Station 3, an external dock designed to house desktop graphics cards and connect them to the computer via Thunderbolt 5. The interface achieves a bidirectional bandwidth of 80 Gbps, which can reach 120 Gbps with the Bandwidth Boost function, designed to handle particularly intense video streams.

Compatibility includes NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50, RTX PRO 6000, AMD Radeon RX 9000, and Intel Arc GPUs. This solution aims to bring desktop-class graphics performance to laptops without having to replace the computer.

Open structure and support for BTF cards

The open frame structure leaves the graphics card completely exposed, promoting cooling and transforming it into a visible element of the setup. ASUS has also integrated a GC-HPWR slot, which allows the installation of compatible BTF 2.5 graphics cards, such as the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 BTF OC Edition and ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 BTF Edition, eliminating the need for a visible power cable. The dock also offers Aura Sync lighting and a range of connections designed to expand the notebook's capabilities.

The main connection provides up to 140 W of USB Power Delivery. There is also a second Thunderbolt 5 port, which can be used to connect USB-C monitors and support up to 3x 4K displays in a daisy chain. The latter delivers up to 36 W for mobile devices and peripherals. The setup is completed by 2x 10 Gbps USB-C ports located on the front panel. ASUS has not yet announced the price and availability of the ROG XG Station 3.