There is a holy grail of laptop users, a Shangri-La of portability and performance. A pure, platonic theory of everything that combines the universal nature of an ultraportable laptop with the raw, screaming performance you can only get with a desktop that will hernia you if you try to move it. We can’t get there just yet – for now, the best we can do is hook up a pretty decent laptop to an external GPU like the Asus ROG XG Mobile. The latest version of this sleek little piece of hardware has just been officially released, at least in Japan.

As WCCFTech reports, this is the 2023 update of the ROG XG external GPU, packing an incredible GeForce RTX 4090 (the laptop card) into a portable dock connected to select ROG laptops and tablets. It’s the same basic setup PCWorld reviewed a year ago, now with even more pixel-pushing power. At least one Japanese retailer has the GC33Y version of the XG Mobile ready to ship… for a whopping 399,800 yen. If you haven’t already checked your exchange rates, that’s just over $3,000. And that’s just for the dock – you’ll need to purchase a compatible Asus ROG Flow laptop separately, as opposed to a standard non-portable eGPU, which can work over USB-C or Thunderbolt.

Asus

That’s some serious sticker shock. The current model of the dock with a mobile RTX 3080 costs $1,500 at Best Buy. But maybe it’s not that bad. For one thing, comparing US prices to international prices is far from fair due to generally higher sales tax rates, let alone import taxes (Asus is a Taiwanese company). A Canadian listing for the same gadget shows it at $2,500, which is just $1,825 at the current exchange rate, so $1,800 to $2,000 could be a more realistic price point for the ROG XG Mobile Dock if it gets here.

And $400 more than the (roughly) equivalent desktop card for a device that adds some serious graphics pep With an ultraportable laptop, it makes a lot more sense. The dock also makes a pretty great desktop station, giving a ROG Flow laptop full-size DisplayPort and HDMI ports out of the box, three additional USB-A ports, and a full Ethernet port. Granted, you’re still looking at a total investment of at least $3200 and possibly quite a bit more… but a full-fledged gaming laptop with an RTX 4090 costs about the same, and you can’t detach its GPU to stuff it stuffed into a travel bag. Just don’t try to import it from Japan I suppose.