Is there anyone out there who would pay $1,999.99 strictly for the laptop version of NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4090 GPU? That seems to be the question that ASUS ROG is asking with the XG Mobile (2023), a new version of the company’s external GPU and hub accessory that not only features NVIDIA’s flagship Ada GPU for mobile gamers, but also a $2K price tag, making it even more expensive than many of the GeForce RTX 4090 desktop graphics cards that can be found on today’s market. What’s even better is that this eGPU is exclusive to ASUS’ ROG Flow laptop family (e.g., the ROG Flow X13)—the hardware is combined via a proprietary PCIe (3.0 x8) connector that is said to offer up to 63 Gb/s of theoretical bandwidth, higher than Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gb/s).
ASUS ROG XG Mobile (2023) Specifications
- Model Name
- GC33Y
- Color
- OFF BLACK
- Connection to PC
- ROG XG Mobile interface and USB Type-C combo port
- Ethernet Connection
- Gigabit Lan 10/100/1000 Mbps/2.5Gb
- I/O Ports
- 1xHDMI2.1 FRL
- 1xDP 1.4 support G-SYNC
- 1xRJ-45 LAN port
- 1xDC input jack
- 3xUSB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A
- 1xSD Card reader(Standard)/UHS-II(312MB/s)
- 1xUSB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C
- Power Supply
- 330W Power Supply
- Dimensions
- 21.7 x 16.5 x 3.26 cm
- Weight
- 1.3 KG
- Graphics Card Support
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, GDDR6 16G
- Accessories
- 1x Power cord
- Model Support
- ROG Flow X13(GV301/GV302)/ROG Flow Z13(GZ301)/ROG Flow X16(GV601)
From an ASUS Shop listing:
All members of the ROG Flow laptop family have a secret weapon – the XG Mobile. ROG’s exclusive XG Mobile ecosystem of external GPUs provide amped-up horsepower and offer a built in I/O hub, allowing higher bandwidth to Flow devices with a proprietary PCIe connection. The XG Mobile features an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU with a max TGP of 150W, allowing you to transform your Flow device from a mobile gaming laptop to a true battlestation.
Discussion (8 replies)
Join Discussion →OH I'm sure there are some rich boys out there that will throw down $2k for this
It's more than the card, don't forget it's the enclosure, power, and cooling for the 4080 as well.. Sorry 4090 portable version... (Easier to cool I imagine a real 4090 would cost 400 more.
I read somewhere that the mobile 4090 is really close to being the same as the desktop 4080. I don't know if that's true but if it is then that's pretty powerful for a mobile card and the laptops that come with these already weigh in ~$3000-$5000 depending on everything else.
I would still avoid something like this just because you end up being locked into one card with little or no option of an upgrade. I'm sure a part of the price is that PCIe connector as well. Makes sense since I read a lot of bad things about lag/delay for external cards connected through USB/Thunderbolt over the years. Depending on the generation there were some improvements but I heard it was still not that great so shoehorning a PCIe connector is a step in the right direction. If someone could come up with a standard, instead of a proprietary, form of this that could be a really cool thing for laptop users. Beyond that, you'd just need enclosures with better power options and designed so you could just drop a 3-4 slot monster in them.
This is not for me, but I am curious if this is for the mobile 4090 or the desktop 4090.
Apparently there is not longer parity, with the mobile 4090 variant being MUCH slower:
...which shouldn't be a surprise. You aren't going to put a 450w GPU in a laptop...
That's also pretty clearly not a actual 4080 either. I would expect the performance delta between a 4080 and a 3080 ti to be much greater than 20ish FPS.
Well you aren't really putting anything inside anything, its just extra boxes with extra power. Honestly seems not that big really, so I aint knocking it too much.
Well seems this is its own chip (?).. Does make me wonder how a full blown desktop variant deeply declocked would do against this .
It follows NVIDIA's usual mobile GPU formula, so it's based on AD103 and would compare to a neutered desktop RTX 4080 in terms of performance. I don't really pay any attention to laptop graphics, but the naming convention is consistent with what I've seen in the past.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/laptops/#specs
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/40-series/rtx-4080/
That's because its a mobile 3080 Ti.