Asus XG Station Pro
PRICE £386
There’s a slight catch with most EGPU enclosures. They’re big. A few are as big as a (mini-itx) desktop PC, in particular the Razer and Sonnet enclosures, reviewed overleaf. That somewhat negates the point of an EGPU. If you can render faster on a real Windows PC that takes up the same space, why not just get a PC?
But Asus has kept things seriously slim with the design of its XG Station Pro, teaming up with chassis and cooling brand In-win to produce the smallest, quietest and most attractive EGPU enclosure we’ve tested, by some margin.
It measures just 10.7cm wide, and can slot neatly into (well-ventilated) nooks and crannies around your work area. Being so small it weighs just 2.95kg, around half that of the Razer or Sonnet.
Its all-aluminium build feels very high quality, a light shade of silvery grey, with a latch that opens to allow the sides and top to be easily removed.
LEDS at the bottom provide illumination for your graphics card and slightly shine through the side. There’s also a USB-C port for additional connectivity, perhaps storage expansion.
It’s also the only enclosure with dual fans, which is a very welcome addition that keeps both temperature and noise levels down. That was an issue with some of the enclosures we tested, but the XG Station Pro stayed near silent even during heavy 3D work. That could be a big draw for many people.
Asus also supplies Windows software to configure the XG Station. You are able to change the LED colours as well as adjust the fan speed and performance, as with a typical desktop graphics card.
It all looks good so far, but unfortunately there’s a very large (and heavy) caveat. In order to reduce the unit size, the power supply comes as an external brick, with the emphasis on being a brick. It’s embarrassingly huge.
The connector is also not a typical two- or three-prong offering, but a custom design Asus has come up with, which means if you lose it a replacement might be tricky to come by in a few years.
And the 330W power supply isn’t very capable. Only 300W is available to graphics cards and only 15W via Power Delivery over Thunderbolt.
This is a shame because the XG Station Pro left a great impression and would be a good choice for people who need their enclosure to fit into a small space. These flaws prevent us from rating it higher than other enclosures though.
That said, plenty of people may still be willing to trade low noise and a slim design for raw performance, and thus may not care about the large power brick, or the potential GPU limitations.
VERDICT