CES is jam-packed with bulletins, and Asus has introduced the thunder with a refresh of practically all the things underneath its gaming manufacturers. That features a world first, with an replace to its ROG XG Cell exterior graphics card. It’s obtained a serious bump in specs, now coming with an cellular Nvidia RTX 5090.
The XG Cell line has been round since 2021 and gives a method of equipping your laptop computer or PC gaming handheld, such because the ROG Ally, with a robust GPU, with out the necessity to match the GPU inside your system. As a substitute, it makes use of a cable to connect with your system and supply its GPU processing energy externally.
Initially outfitted with a laptop-grade RTX 3080, Asus up to date the product in 2023, equipping it with an laptop computer RTX 4090. Nevertheless, each these variations of the XG Cell required an XG connector. This proprietary connector fused PCIe and USB-C into one, and whereas it labored properly, few units had one. On the ROG Ally, it’s the massive black connector on prime of the system.
So meager was the connector’s help that when the Ally X launched in 2024, it didn’t even include the connector, as an alternative choosing two USB 4 ports.
All of which brings us to the brand new XG Cell 2025, which jumps as much as the mighty energy of a laptop computer RTX 5090 and sees Asus change to utilizing a Thunderbolt 5 connector. These connectors use the identical bodily port as USB-C however use a barely totally different communication protocol that permits for just a few extra features. Crucially, although the port is backwards suitable with Thunderbolt 4 and aspect suitable with USB 4 units, opening it up massively for use with a variety of laptops, handhelds and extra.
It ought to be famous straightaway, although, that you just’ll want a quick model of the connector to get anyplace close to peak efficiency out of the RTX 5090. Exterior GPUs of the previous have notoriously been underwhelming as a result of bandwidth limitations of utilizing an exterior connection, and the identical may occur right here. You’ll additionally want your system to have a decently quick CPU to once more guarantee it’s not a serious bottleneck for the GPUs efficiency.
As to that efficiency, the 5090 inside is likely one of the newly introduced RTX 5090 laptop computer chips, which though not as highly effective because the full-fat desktop RTX 5090, continues to be a mighty succesful chip. It homes 10,496 CUDA cores which is a small improve on the 9,728 CUDA cores of the RTX 4090, however you’re getting the most recent high-speed GDDR7 VRAM – 24GB of it – and the assorted architectural enhancements that include the RTX 5090’s Blackwell structure, similar to DLSS 4 help.
Maybe crucially for a lot of potential patrons, the XB Cell received’t solely are available an RTX 5090 model. Asus is planning two cheaper variations, with a 5070 Ti mannequin additionally on the way in which.
Asus isn’t simply stopping at packing the XG Cell eGPU with the most recent graphics although. It’ll help DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1 for prime refresh price displays, in addition to act like a USB hub, passing all that knowledge to your cellular system through the one cable. There are two USB 3.2 Gen2 Sort-A ports, a 5-gigabit Ethernet port, and an SD card reader.
One of many decrease key greatest options is that Asus has managed to keep away from a large, unwieldy energy brick this time round. Inside is a 350w energy provide, making it far more moveable.
In fact, as with many new {hardware} bulletins from CES, there’s no exact launch date simply but. Nevertheless, we do have pricing, with the Asus XG Cell worth set at $2199.99 for the 5090 model and the Asus XG Cell 5070 Ti priced at $1199.99.
CES has introduced a tonne of bulletins, and we lastly have the total rundown of the Nvidia RTX 5090 and the remainder of the RTX 5000 collection too. Because the present goes on, we’re certain much more neat additions to your {hardware} setup will make their approach on-line.
