This smoky black translucent box isnt a gaming PC instead, it might be the most powerful single-cable portable docking station ever conceived. When you plug your laptop or handheld into the just-announced 2025 Asus XG Mobile, it promises to add the power of Nvidias top-flight GeForce RTX 5090 mobile chip, and up to 140 watts of electricity, and two monitors, and a USB and SD-card-reading hub, and 5Gbps ethernet simultaneously.Thats because its the worlds first* Thunderbolt 5 external graphics card and one of the first Thunderbolt 5 docks, using the new 80 gigabit per second bidirectional link to do more things with a single cable than weve ever seen before. The 2025 XG Mobiles ports and a standard AC power connector, because the power supply lives inside. Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeAnd if youre keeping score, Im pretty sure its also the first standards-based portable eGPU with an Nvidia graphics chip. While Asus last-gen XG Mobile also boasted up to an Nvidia 4090, you could only tap into that power with a proprietary port found only on a few Asus devices. (Its USB4 and Oculink rivals have mostly featured the AMD Radeon 7600M XT.) None of that makes it the most powerful eGPU out there, as I currently have no performance figures from Asus, and you can definitely go further with bigger docks that can fit desktop graphics cards rather than mobile GPUs. But Asus rep Anthony Spence tells me that the Thunderbolt 5 link does give you up to 64Gbps of bandwidth for its Nvidia graphics more than USB4 and tied with Oculink and Im wowed that Asus managed to fit all this and a 350W power supply (no external brick!) into a sub-2.2-pound package with a fold-out kickstand.Asus says its even 25 percent lighter and 18 percent smaller than the previous proprietary model. Its got HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 for video output and a pair of 10Gbps USB-A ports, in case youre wondering.Note that it comes with a little vertical stand, too. Image: AsusWhen it arrives later in Q1, it wont come cheap. Spence says the top-tier XG Mobile with an RTX 5090 laptop chip will cost $2199.99 meaning you could almost certainly cobble together a more powerful (but stationary) solution yourself. That said, Asus does plan to sell a lower-end $1,199.99 version with Nvidias mobile RTX 5070 Ti. Again, youre paying for compact power here rather than maximum bang for the buck.Yes, that Asus ROG logo is light-up, programmable RGB using the companys Aura Sync. You can also make out the top-mounted SD card receptacle. Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeWhile it should work with any Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 laptop or handheld, including Asus own ROG Ally X, youll likely want the still-rare Thunderbolt 5 to get the full GPU bandwidth here. Finding a Thunderbolt 5 computer that doesnt already have a powerful discrete GPU might be tough, but perhaps some of 2025s thin-and-light laptops will seize this opportunity to double as potent travel desktops. *We are aware of one possible Thunderbolt 5 eGPU enclosure, to house a desktop graphics card, but that WinStar has barely even been detailed yet.