Asus Just Announced The World’s First Thunderbolt 5 Egpu

This steaming achromatic translucent instrumentality isn’t a gaming PC — instead, it mightiness beryllium nan astir powerful single-cable portable docking position ever conceived. When you plug your laptop aliases handheld into nan just-announced 2025 Asus XG Mobile, it promises to adhd nan powerfulness of Nvidia’s top-flight GeForce RTX 5090 mobile chip, and up to 140 watts of electricity, and 2 monitors, and a USB and SD-card-reading hub, and 5Gbps ethernet simultaneously.

That’s because it’s nan world’s first* Thunderbolt 5 outer graphics insubstantial and 1 of nan first Thunderbolt 5 docks, utilizing nan caller 80 gigabit per 2nd bidirectional nexus to do overmuch things pinch a azygous cablegram than we’ve ever seen before.

And if you’re keeping score, I’m beautiful judge it’s too nan first standards-based portable eGPU pinch an Nvidia graphics chip. While Asus’ last-gen XG Mobile too boasted up to an Nvidia 4090, you could only pat into that powerfulness pinch a proprietary larboard recovered only connected a less Asus devices. (Its USB4 and Oculink rivals personification mostly featured nan AMD Radeon 7600M XT.)

None of that makes it nan astir powerful eGPU retired there, arsenic I presently personification nary capacity figures from Asus, and you tin decidedly spell further pinch bigger docks that tin caller desktop graphics cards alternatively than mobile GPUs. But Asus rep Anthony Spence tells maine that nan Thunderbolt 5 nexus does springiness you up to 64Gbps of bandwidth for its Nvidia graphics — overmuch than USB4 and tied pinch Oculink — and I’m wowed that Asus managed to caller each this and a 350W powerfulness proviso (no outer brick!) into a sub-2.2-pound package pinch a fold-out kickstand.

Asus says it’s moreover 25 percent lighter and 18 percent smaller than nan erstwhile proprietary model. It’s sewage HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 for video output and a brace of 10Gbps USB-A ports, successful suit you’re wondering.

When it arrives later successful Q1, it won’t recreation cheap. Spence says nan top-tier XG Mobile pinch an RTX 5090 laptop spot will costs $2199.99 — meaning you could almost surely cobble together a overmuch powerful (but stationary) solution yourself. That said, Asus does strategy to discarded a lower-end $1,199.99 type pinch Nvidia’s mobile RTX 5070 Ti. Again, you’re paying for compact powerfulness coming alternatively than maximum bang for nan buck.

While it should activity pinch immoderate Thunderbolt 4 aliases USB4 laptop aliases handheld, including Asus’ ain ROG Ally X, you’ll apt want nan still-rare Thunderbolt 5 to get nan afloat GPU bandwidth here. Finding a Thunderbolt 5 instrumentality that doesn’t already personification a powerful discrete GPU mightiness beryllium tough, but perchance immoderate of 2025’s thin-and-light laptops will prehend this opportunity to double arsenic potent recreation desktops.

*We are alert of 1 imaginable Thunderbolt 5 eGPU enclosure, to location a desktop graphics card, but that WinStar has hardly moreover been elaborate yet.