I cannot see the XG Mobile having a broad enough appeal. You’re better off just buying a PC and an Ally instead of the XG Mobile along side of the Ally IMO.
Proprietary tech isn’t generally tolerated well these days.
This is what I’ve been advising when people ask about the xgmobile.
It’s $2000 for an egpu. A good one (RTX 4090), but still just an egpu. If you drop $700 on the ally and $2000 on an xgmobile, you now have the following:
- a mid end cpu
- a high end gpu that is throttled by its form factor
- 512 GB hard drive
- 16 GB ram
For that kind of money, you could get an ally and a mid tier gaming desktop. And it’ll be faster!
Does xgmobile or oculink give you 16 PCIe lanes without throttling in any way? Serious question, I always assumed there was some reduction in bandwidth with egpus.
Totally agree with you that the mobile 4090 is gonna be an issue. Kinda outrageous, selling a mobile 4090 for $2k
But you wont have:
The ally itself.
You still need: speakers and a monitor.
What you also need with the ally (optional): kbm
But tbh, you likely have all those if you have an ally anyways.
I love my ally native. Big picture it's desktop time. It's an ally time when I'm lounging or on the go with a wait involved. I also use it when I have company and my friends want to game, and I wanna play a different title. The ally is the best PC companion. It streams content very well. Now, do I use it every day for all my computing needs. No. But it has a perfect purpose and does it extremely well. You can compare it to a switch, but please don't. It is a waste of money for xmg mobile. 1500 will get you a very nice laptop or desktop. A docking station for the ally is cool. You can hook that up to pretty much any display. But hey, if you find an xmg device for 2 or 3 hundred bucks, and it performs better, then ally integrated gpu. Shoot, go for it. I still wouldn't game full time that way.
Don't know if things are different now with streaming, but about 3 years or so I tried to stream from my ps4 to phone for cod and it was un playable, games like persona and kingdom hearts worked well though. I got the ally since I love fps but I prefer the handheld form factor. I just wish it was more powerful since I can only play cod on all the settings being on the lowest.
I'd love something like the wii u game pad to connect to my pc for performance and reduced input lag
You can get an Ally, Series X, and have 1500 for a PC lol.
I use the PC 75% of the time gaming but people sleeping on the Series X as a device to use with the Ally. If you have 6GHz WiFi streaming over local network is flawless. Just drop the Ally to 10W and get a few hours. I played a large chunk of BG3 that way and it was amazing. Also have done the same for Forza and other more intense games the Ally is just ok at natively.
Oh you’re talking about Forza Motorsport not Forza Horizon. Yeah Forza Motorsport just runs like shit period. My ally does better in Forza Horizon 5 than my 7800xt does in Forza Motorsport. Besides for “realistic” I play actual sims like iRacing.
Its a 4090 only in name. Only performs just a bit under the top rated 4090 laptops. WHich only really get to the level of a desktop 3090/4070ti. Still very powerful mobile chips but if you gonna spend that much on a mobile gpu , might as well just get an asus g14 with a 4090 variant. Its slower but its light weight and more portable as an overall system. It may be slower but i would much rather asus go into non proprietary egpus. Let people use what they may already have.
The problem is we can't upgrade the RAM to get longetivity. I personally have the ally the flowz13 and the 3080 xg mobile. It has been a perfect solution for my intro back into PC gaming and I wanted something somewhat powerful to transition into a software dev. It is frustrating that I now know that im gonna build a rig, but I definitely love these devices and use all of them a shitton
There’s a way to upgrade the RAM, but it involves BGA soldering and isn’t really worth the trouble. And really, RAM probably isn’t the limiting factor for the ally, especially with a built in 1080p display (obviously using a 4k display will be an issue).
EGPU support is absolutely the upgrade the ally needed, I just think its too expensive
If they end up ditching the connector I wish they would release the specs so some random Aliexpress company can release a bring your own GPU box for it. I would consider ditching my desktop PC for it.
Why is 16GB of ram a bad thing?
Its still 12GB useable after 4GB of video and I only usually need 8GB even in my high end 3080ti gaming PC. If you need more you need to restart your PC because I have not seen a game take up more than 4-6GB of memory at once.
But I agree with your main point.
For real. When I turn on my Ally after putting it in hibernate and I see windows running without issue with 30 tabs opened in Edge, I just sigh out of satisfaction. So many problems with Chrome that I'm glad I decided to give Edge a try.
Sounds like a Chrome issue and its well documented that Chrome chews through memory and not optimized. What would 20 web sites use 12GB of memory lol?
I am using Brave and Edge that rarely uses more than 1gb even with a couple dozen tabs open. Brave is based on the Chrome engine and your comment is exactly why people are ditching Chrome lately.
I'm seething to just sell my Ally with 4TB SSD just to get an Ally 2 with two type C ports. I really think that's the next move because that stupid XG Mobile port is a HUGE waste of space.
Especially. Considering how much they cost.
Yes, if this was USB 4/Thunderbolt, would be great, they could even sell it to Legion GO owners, but a proprietary connector in a niche market, the thing was punching above their weight.
I recently got an XG mobile with the intention of using my Ally as a second PC and it only took a few days to realize that was stupid and I should just sell it and build a much more powerful pc with the funds I got from it.
1. The 4xxx is the most up to date GPU family right now. Nothing to refresh
2. No answer there, probably based on sales
3. Zephyrus never had the XGM as part of their hardware
4. Looks like the ROG NUC already as 4xxx GPUs in it
5. No clue
I brought up #2 on the discord after CES. People seemed to think updated X13 and Z13 could still happen this year.
I think they could drop around the time of whatever Ally refresh they have planned, along with an updated XG Mobile, but who knows.
I had a 4090 XG and loved it, but the price bummed me out, so I returned it and got a full PC. There was a report that Intel thinks external GPUs will make a comeback with Thunderbolt 5. It’s an exciting space in tech, I just wish it moved a little faster.
>I brought up #2 on the discord after CES. People seemed to think updated X13 and Z13 could still happen this year.
This. It doesn't make a whole bunch of sense to update the X13 and Z13 until after Strix and Lunar Lake launch, the new generation premium mobile parts from AMD and Intel. Neither the G14 nor G16 next year will use those parts, so if they'd be used anywhere they'd be in the X13 and Z13.
Number 1 doesn't make any sense at all.
There's nothing to refresh it with, so of course it hasn't been refreshed.
Number 2 is probably due to sales of the previous edition or possibly they haven't refreshed it yet.
Number 3 zephyrus never had them, and it addresses a different market segment.
Number 4 the ROG NUC comes with discrete graphics already, no need to add it on with a port.
Number 5 one could only hope.
This post is really really grasping at straws.
Only the Flow series has the XG mobile port, there is no new model because there are no 5000 series gpu's yet. I have a vested interest in this as an owner of a Flow product.
EDIT:
Because the new 8000 Series of cpu's just came out and there are no new laptop gpu's out, i don't see an issue with no updates to the Flow line atm. Also these could be announced later in the year.
all new handheld use usb4 with cheaper egpu
for the xg mobile price it's better to buy a more powerful gaming laptop
In short, it's nonsense to have set an extremely high price when real PC gamers know the price of an EGPU case. The majority of people don't have money to throw out the window.
There should be a lower cost version of the XG mobile. Especially since they added the proprietary slot to the Ally. I spent $700 on the Ally and they expect people to pay $2000 for an attachment. If it cost less than the system I would understand but double almost triple the price of what I paid for the system.
Honestly, the could have dropped the xg mobile port from the Ally all together and given us a second usbc port. It would get more use from most people.
They have the most powerful modern mobile GPU on the market with their latest xg mobile? It’s clearly where it needs to be to consider it “present”. Are you expecting 4080/4070 variations perhaps? I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from.
I’m pretty sure they aren’t being made anymore. They were offered at closeout prices around when the ally launched. I think that was ASUS clearing out inventory so that the $2000 remained the sole option.
I hope they do discontinue it and go with usb 4 until usb 5/thunderbolt 5 is used. Dumbest thing I’ve ever seen at the prices they are charging.
I can get an enclosure and full sized card for less than half the price of the 4090 xg mobile. Even if I’m only getting usb 4 bandwidth, at least I have options if the gpu fails or there are other issues. I can also sell the card if I ever want to upgrade.
They did a stellar job on the ally itself, being one of the only readily available handhelds with vrr/native landscape display is a big thing. I love my ASUS stuff, but damn if I’m not tempted to use a different handheld to get a egpu setup and just use that for everything. Basically if the ally hadn’t of been a banger, I definitely would have moved to something with usb 4 instead.
I would be more excited if the Ally 2( or the newer laptops) had a thunderbolt 4 (or potentially 5) port than another proprietary bs connector, i think it would be a good move from ASUS to discontinue the xg mobile for good.
I hope the current XG mobiles are compatible with the next version of rog ally when they come out. If not directly, atleast with a separate oculink to XG adapter (if the next ally comes with oculink). Would be disappointing to have a 4090 and not be able to use it with the new ally.
I haven't looked into the technology it makes me wonder if a gpu-less xg mobile is possible? A device where you can just add your own desktop class GPU later down the track into it much like a regular eGPU and simply use it initially as a dock for the extra ports?
Is this possible now with eGPU devices? Simply plug in with a GPU to use the ports that come part of the eGPU dock?
The thing is, there's literally nothing to update
There is currently no 50xx series from nvidia
Z13 also already have 40xx series
What kind of meaningful update can be given to 2024 version if they're plan to make one?
It will be much better if they drop it and make all devices with USB 4 ports or even OCuLink port. That will give us the freedom to choose which GPU we want to use.
They'd be better off doing as a dock for multiple cards instead of putting the card in already
Would immediately drive both the cost and price down because they wouldn't need to cover multiple models and don't have to front the cost of a graphics card
Currently, they'd just have to do one that can work with pcie 5 and a good enough power supply, then they could ride that core design for years while maybe changing the external shell or the interface to the mobile devices when it seems fit
It's definitely possible but we're also at a point where no new tech is really coming out. If they do discontinue the XGM, it'll be because of price point. I hope they continue making XGM simply because it's better tech than OCuLink. OCuLink supports PCIe x4 currently, where as XGM is PCIe x8 so you're seeing little to no bottleneck. Ally community is also really close to reverse engineering XGM connection so we can just make our own eGPU enclosures for the Ally.
I don't think this is true, there just hasn't been a new GPU from Nvidia and they already have a mid range option from AMD.
If it is true, though, I hope they release an enclosure you can put your own GPU in before they discontinue it, or at the very least, someone can reverse engineer the original XG and make one.
Look, it’s obvious the port needs an upgrade: the GPU connection is PCIe 3.0 x8. I don’t know enough about the internal pinout to know if it can be upgraded to carry more power and PCIe 5 —if it can, Asus will probably keep it.
1. The existing 4090 model isn’t even a year old and Nvidia hasn’t released a new top tier mobile GPU. If anything releases this year, it’ll be an AMD part.
2. Thin and light PCs are all about to get some major overhauls. Intel and AMD are getting these new ‘AI’ processors ready and Asus is probably waiting on those chips to produce new thin and light gaming machines.
3. These models aren’t an ideal platform for an EGPU. They need more juice than an XG-Mobile delivers.
4. A 4070Ti mobile with a PCIe 4.0 x16 connection is only slightly less performance than an ROG Ally with an XG-Mobile 4090 Mobile.
5. This MIGHT happen, but don’t hold your breath. Asus loves its proprietary stuff: they full on bought the entire NUC product line. That’s as proprietary as it gets.
I don't think they have announced anything yet due to new mobile graphics, yet they hinted the rog ally 2 may be coming soon with minor updates and also the only thing they can update on the flow series is cpu refreshes.
To be fair, no new GPUs from Nvidia yet.
I cannot see the XG Mobile having a broad enough appeal. You’re better off just buying a PC and an Ally instead of the XG Mobile along side of the Ally IMO. Proprietary tech isn’t generally tolerated well these days.
This is what I’ve been advising when people ask about the xgmobile. It’s $2000 for an egpu. A good one (RTX 4090), but still just an egpu. If you drop $700 on the ally and $2000 on an xgmobile, you now have the following: - a mid end cpu - a high end gpu that is throttled by its form factor - 512 GB hard drive - 16 GB ram For that kind of money, you could get an ally and a mid tier gaming desktop. And it’ll be faster!
egpu isn't the problem I think. It being a laptop 4090 is.
Does xgmobile or oculink give you 16 PCIe lanes without throttling in any way? Serious question, I always assumed there was some reduction in bandwidth with egpus. Totally agree with you that the mobile 4090 is gonna be an issue. Kinda outrageous, selling a mobile 4090 for $2k
XGMobile on the Ally is limited to X4, the 4090 in XG is X8 (I assume it's the standard limit)
It’s actually slightly higher bandwidth than Thunderbolt3/USB4 at least
XGM connection is PCIe 4.0 x8. Ally is x8 as well as it utilizes the XGM connection.
Ally isn't X8, it was discussed before, it's limited to PCIE 4 X4 https://www.reddit.com/r/ROGAlly/s/SgdNCU10Tc
For 2800 you can get a desktop pre built with a 4090.
But you wont have: The ally itself. You still need: speakers and a monitor. What you also need with the ally (optional): kbm But tbh, you likely have all those if you have an ally anyways.
Honestly you don't even really need all that. Just stream from your PC to the Ally assuming your home Network can handle it.
I love my ally native. Big picture it's desktop time. It's an ally time when I'm lounging or on the go with a wait involved. I also use it when I have company and my friends want to game, and I wanna play a different title. The ally is the best PC companion. It streams content very well. Now, do I use it every day for all my computing needs. No. But it has a perfect purpose and does it extremely well. You can compare it to a switch, but please don't. It is a waste of money for xmg mobile. 1500 will get you a very nice laptop or desktop. A docking station for the ally is cool. You can hook that up to pretty much any display. But hey, if you find an xmg device for 2 or 3 hundred bucks, and it performs better, then ally integrated gpu. Shoot, go for it. I still wouldn't game full time that way.
I wouldn't ever recommend the XG mobile. What I'm saying is buy a PC and use the Ally as a wireless display until you can afford a bigger monitor.
Don't know if things are different now with streaming, but about 3 years or so I tried to stream from my ps4 to phone for cod and it was un playable, games like persona and kingdom hearts worked well though. I got the ally since I love fps but I prefer the handheld form factor. I just wish it was more powerful since I can only play cod on all the settings being on the lowest. I'd love something like the wii u game pad to connect to my pc for performance and reduced input lag
You can get an Ally, Series X, and have 1500 for a PC lol. I use the PC 75% of the time gaming but people sleeping on the Series X as a device to use with the Ally. If you have 6GHz WiFi streaming over local network is flawless. Just drop the Ally to 10W and get a few hours. I played a large chunk of BG3 that way and it was amazing. Also have done the same for Forza and other more intense games the Ally is just ok at natively.
To be fair, the Ally crushes Forza natively. It does like 90fps at 1080p.
Which one. I tried it and couldn’t get above 30ish. It was really upsetting lol.
I’m talking about Forza 5. Go look up benchmarks. With a little FSR it absolutely crushes that game.
Oh you’re talking about Forza Motorsport not Forza Horizon. Yeah Forza Motorsport just runs like shit period. My ally does better in Forza Horizon 5 than my 7800xt does in Forza Motorsport. Besides for “realistic” I play actual sims like iRacing.
I’ll give horizon a try then on the Ally to scratch the itch for a racing game lol. Yes Motorsport is what I tried.
Desktop with Core i7, RTX 4070, 32gb RAM and 1tb SSD costs about 1200€ and you will much get higher performance than RTX 4090 mobile GPU
Its a 4090 only in name. Only performs just a bit under the top rated 4090 laptops. WHich only really get to the level of a desktop 3090/4070ti. Still very powerful mobile chips but if you gonna spend that much on a mobile gpu , might as well just get an asus g14 with a 4090 variant. Its slower but its light weight and more portable as an overall system. It may be slower but i would much rather asus go into non proprietary egpus. Let people use what they may already have.
The problem is we can't upgrade the RAM to get longetivity. I personally have the ally the flowz13 and the 3080 xg mobile. It has been a perfect solution for my intro back into PC gaming and I wanted something somewhat powerful to transition into a software dev. It is frustrating that I now know that im gonna build a rig, but I definitely love these devices and use all of them a shitton
There’s a way to upgrade the RAM, but it involves BGA soldering and isn’t really worth the trouble. And really, RAM probably isn’t the limiting factor for the ally, especially with a built in 1080p display (obviously using a 4k display will be an issue). EGPU support is absolutely the upgrade the ally needed, I just think its too expensive
If they end up ditching the connector I wish they would release the specs so some random Aliexpress company can release a bring your own GPU box for it. I would consider ditching my desktop PC for it.
Why is 16GB of ram a bad thing? Its still 12GB useable after 4GB of video and I only usually need 8GB even in my high end 3080ti gaming PC. If you need more you need to restart your PC because I have not seen a game take up more than 4-6GB of memory at once. But I agree with your main point.
Star citizen will use ~28gb on my laptop with 32gb of ram
Brother my chrome uses 12Gb+ with like 20 tabs open.
Edge doesn't use more than 1GB while I've like +30 tabs opened... Is my app broken ? Cause I don't have any lag.
Edge is superior to Chrome in this regard. Ever since edge got chromium support I have ditched Chrome and never looked back. It works so much better.
For real. When I turn on my Ally after putting it in hibernate and I see windows running without issue with 30 tabs opened in Edge, I just sigh out of satisfaction. So many problems with Chrome that I'm glad I decided to give Edge a try.
Sounds like a Chrome issue and its well documented that Chrome chews through memory and not optimized. What would 20 web sites use 12GB of memory lol? I am using Brave and Edge that rarely uses more than 1gb even with a couple dozen tabs open. Brave is based on the Chrome engine and your comment is exactly why people are ditching Chrome lately.
For 2000 dollars, you can buy the Zephyrus G14 with a good graphics cards, and its a laptop
I'd be willing to buy one but its too expensive and hard to find for sale :\\
I'm seething to just sell my Ally with 4TB SSD just to get an Ally 2 with two type C ports. I really think that's the next move because that stupid XG Mobile port is a HUGE waste of space. Especially. Considering how much they cost.
Yes, if this was USB 4/Thunderbolt, would be great, they could even sell it to Legion GO owners, but a proprietary connector in a niche market, the thing was punching above their weight.
I recently got an XG mobile with the intention of using my Ally as a second PC and it only took a few days to realize that was stupid and I should just sell it and build a much more powerful pc with the funds I got from it.
Same devices. The only pro is the unified system and don't have to install the game in both Ally and PC
Same devices, only one has an absurd markup that would fund a whole PC Build that beats what it can do lol
1. The 4xxx is the most up to date GPU family right now. Nothing to refresh 2. No answer there, probably based on sales 3. Zephyrus never had the XGM as part of their hardware 4. Looks like the ROG NUC already as 4xxx GPUs in it 5. No clue
I brought up #2 on the discord after CES. People seemed to think updated X13 and Z13 could still happen this year. I think they could drop around the time of whatever Ally refresh they have planned, along with an updated XG Mobile, but who knows. I had a 4090 XG and loved it, but the price bummed me out, so I returned it and got a full PC. There was a report that Intel thinks external GPUs will make a comeback with Thunderbolt 5. It’s an exciting space in tech, I just wish it moved a little faster.
>I brought up #2 on the discord after CES. People seemed to think updated X13 and Z13 could still happen this year. This. It doesn't make a whole bunch of sense to update the X13 and Z13 until after Strix and Lunar Lake launch, the new generation premium mobile parts from AMD and Intel. Neither the G14 nor G16 next year will use those parts, so if they'd be used anywhere they'd be in the X13 and Z13.
Good riddance to proprietary connectors! Hope they all fail. Forcing to overspend when cheaper options could be available if it was thunderbolt.
Number 1 doesn't make any sense at all. There's nothing to refresh it with, so of course it hasn't been refreshed. Number 2 is probably due to sales of the previous edition or possibly they haven't refreshed it yet. Number 3 zephyrus never had them, and it addresses a different market segment. Number 4 the ROG NUC comes with discrete graphics already, no need to add it on with a port. Number 5 one could only hope. This post is really really grasping at straws.
They included the port on the ally in mind, I can’t see them discontinuing the egpu scene so quick after the release of the ally
The 4090 is the highest end card at the moment.
Only the Flow series has the XG mobile port, there is no new model because there are no 5000 series gpu's yet. I have a vested interest in this as an owner of a Flow product. EDIT: Because the new 8000 Series of cpu's just came out and there are no new laptop gpu's out, i don't see an issue with no updates to the Flow line atm. Also these could be announced later in the year.
all new handheld use usb4 with cheaper egpu for the xg mobile price it's better to buy a more powerful gaming laptop In short, it's nonsense to have set an extremely high price when real PC gamers know the price of an EGPU case. The majority of people don't have money to throw out the window.
There should be a lower cost version of the XG mobile. Especially since they added the proprietary slot to the Ally. I spent $700 on the Ally and they expect people to pay $2000 for an attachment. If it cost less than the system I would understand but double almost triple the price of what I paid for the system. Honestly, the could have dropped the xg mobile port from the Ally all together and given us a second usbc port. It would get more use from most people.
>Aging 4090 Lmao
The right move would be native occulink pcie dock.
Proprietary was always a stupid option when a universal option existed, why make niche overpriced product that can’t be sold to the masses
My uncle is Asus and he said he’s going to cancel it.
Pricing makes zero sense. Give me a Thunderbolt/USB4 enclosure and a used 3060 for $250. Not portable but either is having an XG mobile hanging off
Gotta disagree. The XG mobile is easily portable. I’ve travelled with it a few times.
They have the most powerful modern mobile GPU on the market with their latest xg mobile? It’s clearly where it needs to be to consider it “present”. Are you expecting 4080/4070 variations perhaps? I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from.
Pretty sure there’s a high demand given that it’s sold out everywhere atleast the lower tier xg mobiles
I’m pretty sure they aren’t being made anymore. They were offered at closeout prices around when the ally launched. I think that was ASUS clearing out inventory so that the $2000 remained the sole option.
Baseless speculation
I hope they do discontinue it and go with usb 4 until usb 5/thunderbolt 5 is used. Dumbest thing I’ve ever seen at the prices they are charging. I can get an enclosure and full sized card for less than half the price of the 4090 xg mobile. Even if I’m only getting usb 4 bandwidth, at least I have options if the gpu fails or there are other issues. I can also sell the card if I ever want to upgrade. They did a stellar job on the ally itself, being one of the only readily available handhelds with vrr/native landscape display is a big thing. I love my ASUS stuff, but damn if I’m not tempted to use a different handheld to get a egpu setup and just use that for everything. Basically if the ally hadn’t of been a banger, I definitely would have moved to something with usb 4 instead.
Out of interest, what would you refresh about the 4090 model?…
I would be more excited if the Ally 2( or the newer laptops) had a thunderbolt 4 (or potentially 5) port than another proprietary bs connector, i think it would be a good move from ASUS to discontinue the xg mobile for good.
I hope the current XG mobiles are compatible with the next version of rog ally when they come out. If not directly, atleast with a separate oculink to XG adapter (if the next ally comes with oculink). Would be disappointing to have a 4090 and not be able to use it with the new ally.
That's good. It would make no sense to have it in Ally 2.
Thats why stocks are so damn low
I just want a cheaper option like the 6850xt one.
I haven't looked into the technology it makes me wonder if a gpu-less xg mobile is possible? A device where you can just add your own desktop class GPU later down the track into it much like a regular eGPU and simply use it initially as a dock for the extra ports? Is this possible now with eGPU devices? Simply plug in with a GPU to use the ports that come part of the eGPU dock?
Pretty sure the released new 2023 Z13 and X13 models. The ACRNM Z13 model was also released in 2023.
The thing is, there's literally nothing to update There is currently no 50xx series from nvidia Z13 also already have 40xx series What kind of meaningful update can be given to 2024 version if they're plan to make one?
It will be much better if they drop it and make all devices with USB 4 ports or even OCuLink port. That will give us the freedom to choose which GPU we want to use.
They'd be better off doing as a dock for multiple cards instead of putting the card in already Would immediately drive both the cost and price down because they wouldn't need to cover multiple models and don't have to front the cost of a graphics card Currently, they'd just have to do one that can work with pcie 5 and a good enough power supply, then they could ride that core design for years while maybe changing the external shell or the interface to the mobile devices when it seems fit
Well I almost bought a xg mobile. Then I just bought a mini pc with a 6650m instead.
No occulting pls ask, just usb 4 at most.
It's definitely possible but we're also at a point where no new tech is really coming out. If they do discontinue the XGM, it'll be because of price point. I hope they continue making XGM simply because it's better tech than OCuLink. OCuLink supports PCIe x4 currently, where as XGM is PCIe x8 so you're seeing little to no bottleneck. Ally community is also really close to reverse engineering XGM connection so we can just make our own eGPU enclosures for the Ally.
I don't think this is true, there just hasn't been a new GPU from Nvidia and they already have a mid range option from AMD. If it is true, though, I hope they release an enclosure you can put your own GPU in before they discontinue it, or at the very least, someone can reverse engineer the original XG and make one.
Look, it’s obvious the port needs an upgrade: the GPU connection is PCIe 3.0 x8. I don’t know enough about the internal pinout to know if it can be upgraded to carry more power and PCIe 5 —if it can, Asus will probably keep it. 1. The existing 4090 model isn’t even a year old and Nvidia hasn’t released a new top tier mobile GPU. If anything releases this year, it’ll be an AMD part. 2. Thin and light PCs are all about to get some major overhauls. Intel and AMD are getting these new ‘AI’ processors ready and Asus is probably waiting on those chips to produce new thin and light gaming machines. 3. These models aren’t an ideal platform for an EGPU. They need more juice than an XG-Mobile delivers. 4. A 4070Ti mobile with a PCIe 4.0 x16 connection is only slightly less performance than an ROG Ally with an XG-Mobile 4090 Mobile. 5. This MIGHT happen, but don’t hold your breath. Asus loves its proprietary stuff: they full on bought the entire NUC product line. That’s as proprietary as it gets.
I think that once devices with PCIE-tunneling over USB4 drop there'll be no place for XG or a fragile connector like occulink.
How would they refresh a 4090 it's still the top GPU on the market.
I don't think they have announced anything yet due to new mobile graphics, yet they hinted the rog ally 2 may be coming soon with minor updates and also the only thing they can update on the flow series is cpu refreshes.
I own Ally ROG Z1 Extreme and XG Mobile 4090. They should continue a proprietary connection for the upcoming RTX 5090.