ASUS skips Thunderbolt 4 in favor of Thunderbolt 5 for current and next-gen GPU support on its latest ROG XG STATION 3 GPU Dock.
ASUS Shows Off Thunderbolt 5-Equipped ROG XG Station 3 at Computex: Compatible with RTX 50 and RX 9000 Series GPUs as well as ASUS BTF Edition GPUs
ASUS took almost eight years to release another external GPU dock, but it did so with the best possible features. Its last GPU dock, ROG XG Station 2, was released in 2017 and came with the Thunderbolt 3 port, but its latest offering, the ROG XG Station 3, is equipped with the Thunderbolt 5 port, which exponentially increases the bandwidth for the GPUs.
At Computex, ASUS unveiled several of its new products, including the fastest 610 Hz gaming monitor, and to achieve high performance, it also introduced the latest GPU dock to support current-gen graphics cards. The ROG XG Station 3 supports NVIDIA's RTX 50 series and AMD's RX 9000 GPUs and can achieve the best possible performance through these GPUs after the PCI-E 5.0 and PCI-E 4.0 interfaces.
Even though Thunderbolt 5 can't match the PCI-E in performance, it still unlocks a good 80 Gb/s of bandwidth, which helps the ROG XG Station 3 achieve near-desktop performance with GPUs like GeForce RTX 4090. As you can see from ASUS's chart, in some games, the ROG XG Station 3 helps the RTX 4090 achieve desktop-like performance and is significantly faster than the mobile RTX 4090 variant.
All thanks to the Thunderbolt 5 port, users who want to maximize the gaming performance on a laptop can install their favorite GPUs on this dock to gain some solid uplifts. The ROG XG Station 3 also brings several USB ports for connectivity as well, and allows a clean setup for those who want to install ASUS BTF graphics cards. With such a design, one can install powerful GPUs like the GeForce RTX 4090 BTF without having to directly connect the power cables to the GPU's power connector, as you can see from the pics we have captured from Computex.
We haven't been able to determine the exact PSU wattage on this one, but it should be much higher than the 600W present on the previous edition. We expect at least 800W on the ROG XG Station 3, which will be sufficient for higher-end GPUs like RTX 5090, which can consume up to 600W.
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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