ASUS ROG Flow X13: ultra-portable notebook with external RTX 3080 GPU

ASUS has just unveiled its new 13-inch ultra-portable gaming laptop, that the company has used a custom-built external docking station with an interesting PCIe 3.0 x8 interface designed specifically for the new ASUS ROG Flow X13 ultra-portable laptop.

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This is the new ASUS ROG Flow X13 ultra-portable laptop, inside it packs AMD's new Zen 3-based Ryzen 9 5980HS processor (8 cores, 16 threads) at just 35W which can boost up to 4.8GHz when pushed. As for the external GPU dock, ASUS has called it the "ROR XG Mobile" which is a custom graphics card that looks like a power brick with a stand.

Inside of the ASUS ROR XG Mobile is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card with a beefed-up 16GB of GDDR6 memory. ASUS offers a thin 15.8mm laptop that weighs just 1.3kg, while offering a 13.4-inch 16:10 display at 1080p @ 120Hz or up to 1440p if you want to spend more money.

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ASUS has used a 62 Wh battery that it promises is good for up to 18 hours of "mixed operation" or up to 10 hours of continuous video playback. Charging is done through a 100W USB-C connection, which is nice to see on this laptop, ASUS.

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Here we have some up-close pictures of the external GPU and its ROR XG Mobile goodness, with the station acting as an I/O hub with 4 x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, an SD card slot and GbE while the GPU itself has some DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.0a connectors -- no HDMI 2.1 here, folks.

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This is how thin the new Flow X13 is against the Zephyrus G14 gaming notebook.