Asus has officially today announced the ROG XG Station,
a VGA and multimedia docking station for notebooks.
Asus showcased the ROG XG Station for the first time at
CES last year. The device is actually an external
graphics card, providing the power of a dedicated 3D
graphics engine to laptops.
The device is powered by an EN8600GT/HTDP/256M graphics
card, running at 540MHz, while the 256MB GDDR3 on board
memory is clocked at 1.4GHz.
The ROG XG Station can be connected to a notebook through
an Express Card interface. It also features enhanced
audio and video functions with incorporated Dolby
Technology ? which encompasses Dolby Headphone, Dolby
Virtual speaker, Dolby Digital Live, and Dolby Pro
LogicIIx. This allows quality audio to be achieved
during PC gameplay, music or video playback. The Dolby
Headphone enables 5.1 surround sound through any pair of
headphones, while the Dolby Virtual speaker lets users
experience 5.1-channel surround sound from just two
speakers. Dolby Digital Live enables users to enjoy
audio from the PC or game consoles through their home
theater setups, and Dolby Pro LogicIIx transforms any
stereo or 5.1 channel source into 6.1 or 7.1 channel
surround sounds. Furthermore, with the XG Station,
real-time overclocking can be easily controlled with the
ergonomic knob design for simple GPU clock speed
adjustments.
It also comes with a large LED screen, displaying
critical system status statistics that include
system master volume, GPU clock speed, current GPU
temperature, current actual Frames Per Second (FPS) and
gPU fan speed indications.
A dedicated control panel lets users control the
settings through a GUI based interface; and can also
switch modes between the notebook screen and the
external LCD monitor.
The XG Station also provides a standard PCI Express slot
for additional graphics computing power for notebook
computers to deliver VISTA Premium graphical
performances. It also accommodates HDCP.
Lab experiments made by Asus on a notebook based on
Intel 945GM and 965GM graphics connected to the XG
station showed a 12 and 6.7 times faster graphics
acceleration respectively.
Asus did not provide pricing details for the new
product.
Specifications