Does anyone know how much this thing will cost?

This is just about guaranteed to be good. ASUS makes great hardware.

Nice, definitely going to keep my eye on that.

Brilliant!

Awesome! I've wanted to play so many PC games, but have been hindered by the shit graphics card that came with my laptop. Now, just waiting on the price!

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this too, although it's worth noting that the picture above is just the control box, you also have another box that houses the graphics card and an external power supply to power it.

Why hasn't this already been done? Genius idea! To top it all off, it's ASUS gear, so it'll be good, but any idea on price point? Inquiring minds want to know.

Awesome news. Now I'll never have to hear my girlfriend say "let me face the wall so I can get a better framerate while healing", ever again.

very neat idea, hopefully it works out, since i'm gonna be in the market for a labtop soon.

awesome i cant wait!

Why do girlfriends always choose to be healers? C'mon ladies, be a mage for once.

It's not pcmcia/pc-card based. That standard lacks the bus speed to pull this off. It uses the significantly newer express card standard, which has only really been appearing on laptops within the last 10 months on mid-to-high end models. The express card standard supports bus speeds up to 25 percent faster than agp8x, so it can do reasonably well.

nice. i just bought an hp dv6000t. 2G core 2 duo, geforce go 7400, pc xpress slot. should be ok for gaming, which i dont do on pc's, but i love it when i have options. go asus!

I hope I'll be able to switch in and out easily of using this device because, as absolutely fantastic as it sounds, I don't want to be lugging around a couple more boxes with my notebook in my carrying bag.

If they do that, then this is an instant buy for me. I've had three laptops (in reality, two that I really used) and I always hated that, even though I bought them new, they'd always have outdated and lame graphics cards.

How much do you think this will cost?

"Why hasn't this already been done?"

Put simply, because it's not a completely internal solution. If they could come up with a way (no, I don't think this is possible) to pull off a high-end graphics solution that consists _solely_ of a standard-sized PC/E card, then it'll really take off. Until then, you'll be stuck with having to either lug around a bunch of extra peripherals, or gimp your system for travel. I upgraded my laptop before my desktop because my old janky bought-it-used-for-$300 laptop had gotten to the point where adjusting the screen angle would cause it to turn off. No shutdown procedure or anything, just suddenly the screen goes black. A year later, I upgraded my desktop, and most of what my laptop sees in terms of use is internet (might as well make sure that only one of the two computers gets regularly congested with spyware) and travel. Granted, that means it sees more use than my desktop, but I use that for anything that requires more graphics power (games, LDraw) or a bigger screen (watching DVDs at home).

What would make more sense at this point would be if they could start making graphics cards that come in a very standardized external-access module, not unlike hard drives. The only problem with that, of course, is that you'd lose even more real-estate on the increasingly more utilized edge surfaces. It'd probably have to be something that's only accessible from the bottom surface, like RAM.

Wow, I can't wait to see it in action. My aging nVidia 6800 GO is gonna need a reprieve at some point, and I think I'll definitely look into this doohicky before buying a new PC.

This is a dream come true! I CANT WAIT...no more being limited to 15fps playing WOW on low detail...let alone being to WOW at all!

If the cost is worth it, it's definitely a buy. I love my Dell laptop and it's a shame that it can't get a 6800 for some mid-end gaming on the go.

As a side note, did anyone else notice that the LCD readout looks like its heavily based on the countdown timers used variously throughout the Battlestar Galactica show?

My Dell XPS M170's GeForce Go 6800 Ultra is also getting to age. Worst part is I bought this laptop literally two months before the M1710, and that had a 7800 GT in it. So this should be quite interesting. Considering my laptop is a DTR, I wouldn't mind hooking up a box and power supply to it. When I need to get on the go, I can just unplug it. This ASUS hardware is simply fantastic and I can't wait to hear reviews from people who have used it. I'll be sure to get me an 8800GTX for that little box. lol

I know this is probably a loaded question but...

Does it work with GNU/Linux?

Wonder if this work on a Mac Notebook Pro?

"Wonder if this work on a Mac Notebook Pro?"

Not if it doesn't have a PC card slot. Not even running Bootcamp.

by Notebook Pro you mean Macbook pro then yes it will work as it has a ExpressCard/34 slot

Please, please, please let this be good. I want one, and now!

aegies:

The express card standard supports bus speeds up to 25 percent faster than agp8x, so it can do reasonably well.

PCI Express supports speeds higher than agp8x, but I'm pretty sure express card is just a single PCI Express lane with a USB 2.0 connector. It will be the equivalent of putting your nice x16 card in an x1 slot.

I'm still anxious to see benchmarks-- it may be useful even with the huge bottleneck.

I still think you're going to need an external monitor for this, resulting in a huge sigh from the laptop gaming community

Call me interested. If the price is right, I'll bite. :-)

lets clear up a few things shall we? This little gizmo does seem to be good, but yes you will need an external display to connect it to, it will also roughly sell (OEM only) for around $600 including a 7900GS so not a bad deal, however as the performance will only result in PCIe x1 there will be bottlenecks there, there will be another version coming out that will deliver PCIe x16 speeds and loopback to laptop display "The next generation XG Station will have full x16 bandwidth, smaller form factor and is able to output to notebooks for display" - http://www.vr-zone.com/index.php?i=4728. alternatively AMD/ATI are workin on their version which includes crossfire support!