Phew. A few more months of nothing and we would've been forced to put this thing on vaporware watch. None of that nonsense will be necessary now, however, as ASUS has finally gotten its act together and officially launched the ROG XG Station. Hailed as the "world's first VGA and multimedia docking station," the ExpressCard-interfacing unit comes bundled with a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT, four USB 2.0 ports and a snazzy display for good measure. Not unlike ASUS at all, there's nary a mention of a price or release date -- so yeah, we're right back where we started.

Gaming-inadequate lappies will soon have the chance to grace their ExpressCard slots with Asustek's performance-enhancing XG Station to run (something) like a legit gaming machine. Between our own first impressions and Asustek's newly loosed set of deets, this external GPU should give laptops a sufficient boost, as they'll be bundled with a varied selection of ASUS PCIe graphics cards -- barebones enclosures aren't an option. Aside from the heightened graphical processing and Dolby Headphone-supported simulated 5.1 surround, the XG Station's sizeable screen displays vital system info including the system's master volume, GPU clock speed, current GPU temperature, Dolby Headphone feature status, current actual Frames Per Second (FPS) information, and GPU fan speed Indicator. You can also tweak GPU core overclocking with the hard-to-miss control knob. Pricing on XG-specific graphics cards and XG Station bundles are still unknown, but units are planned ship soon to OEMs and channel partners, with availability to eligible customers sometime next month.

[Via Notebook Review]

We had to see it to believe it, but the Asus XG Station does indeed turn that wimpy laptop of yours into a somewhat capable gaming rig. The cats at ASUS set us up with a head-to-head demo of two, 'zactly spec'd laptops with awesomely weak Intel GMA 945 graphics processors -- just one of the two was hooked up to an Asus XG Station via ExpressCard. After attaching the external monitor to one of the XG's two DVI connectors, Asus let the gaming demo fly. The stock laptop struggled to keep up with the action with noticeably huge jumps in frames making intense game play a non-starter. The XG-equipped laptop, however, hummed along quite happily. Game play was smooth though a few frames were occasionally dropped. Surround sound is in fact simulated, which is both good and bad: the good is you get pseudo 5.1 surround from any headphones; the bad is you get pseudo 5.1 surround from any headphones. Verdict: the XG Station is ready to game as long as you don't expect it to perform like a dedicated gaming rig. But if you're the occasional gamer who like his lappie ultra-portable and under powered for gaming as a result, then this might be the solution for you. Lots of pics after the break.

Deets are slim, but we like where this is headed. Asustek is prepping its new "XG Station" for next week's CES, which will provide external audio and video processing power to laptops, plus a spiffy volume knob and car stereo look-alike visuals. With laptops getting ever slimmer -- and we're sure this year's batch at CES won't be breaking that mold -- discrete graphics cards are getting to be quite the space-hogging luxury. The XG Station helps out on that front, plus throws in some Dolby surround sound and USB 2.0 ports. No word on how exactly this thing will hook up to you lappy, or if it's some sort of Asus-only operation, but PCMCIA/ExpressCard compatibility seems like a reasonable guess at this point. Luckily, we won't have to wait too terribly long to find out.

[Via Laptoping]