3 BIG Z13 eGPU Problems! Thunderbolt or XG Mobile?

This is an excellent video - it also has implications for choosing whether to use an ROG Ally (XG Mobile) or Legion Go (Thunderbolt 4). It looks like XG Mobile 3080 Laptop is overall the better choice - but would like to see if Thunderbolt 4 performance is Asus specific.

ASUS talking nonsense, they've simply limited third party chargers to be dicks. Genuinely wouldn't be surprised if they're gimping the TB somehow to encourage sale of their proprietary product too.

oculink is the best

any update for current situation using EGPU RTX PC ?

would be nice if there is update sir !

i have had the same problems since March, My device is Asus ROG G533ZM, but suddenly it has a blue screen when I connect the Razer Core X, and now is not usable.

I picked up one about a month or two ago
Ran really well…up until I got the XG mobile 3080

There are times when I go to reset my laptop and it won’t power back on. Only time it does is when I unplug the egpu and plug it back in while it’s booting. Then the software throws a tantrum about me unplugging it while it was powered off (like I had a choice)

Other times, it simply doesn’t power back on at all until later on

Any way I can fix this or do I have to send it in to ASUS?

Hi, I need to use the asus Z13 to switch video with the vMix application, using an external thunderbolt case specifically the Echo Express SE IIIe plus BlackMagic Duo 2 capture cards, in your experience could you please help me with some information about whether would work.

Hi, im an architect, Is less performance caused by bottle neck created by thunderbolt for data transfer!? FPS is clearly affected because the data transfer is more faster and the thunderbolt cannot handle it. But the setup would probably help in situations such as rendering (not in games) when less data transfer is required, right?

would love to see an updated version of this video with the coming 4090 xg version.
also, have seen ROG do a desktop version enclosure called the XG station 2.(which looks discontinued)
im wondering if it would play nicer due to being same manufacturer?

We have completed testing the Z13 with Akitio Node Pro TB3 along with RTX A4000 and A5000 for a year. Application like Resolve Studio, Fusion Studio and Blender runs great on both eGPU A4000 and A5000.

However, we found that battery wear is far worse than HP Mobile Workstation and Dell. Just exactly at 10 months use of balance battery setup at 80% of its capacity, the battery capacity dropped 11% already at 89% now. Our 2 years HP Zbook 17 battery is able to keep the battery capacity at 98% (losing 2%) with HP optimized battery setup.

And replacing the battery only in Indonesia for the Z13 at the auth service center asked us to leave it with them for 5 days. This is unacceptable.

So, we recommend anyone trying to get expensive portables, should seek for further information of the local support, if making it the primary rig, before making the decision to spend heavy $$$.

The Chinese community have for many years managed to get much higher bandwidths exploiting the M.2 slot and PCIe x4.0 slot in laptops and jury rigging it into an eGPU enclosure, yes this is FAR less portable as you need to literally open your laptop up to plug a cable in.
But the performance were quite good only 30% performance hits with 2080 Ti using the M.2 method, although it was also temperamental for what laptops it worked with, real shame I do not speak Chinese because after NBR Forum got deleted, the Chinese forums are only ones left doing this sort of wacho hack jobs on laptops including even desoldering and swapping CPU's LOL

What test bench is that?? Name please 🙏

I’m having trouble even getting egpu to work goes to black screen on boot. When I plug after running the computer will not run on egpu it stays on internal gpu.
Any recommendations?

Can you do the test with the new 2023 versions of Asus Flow's laptops?❤

This was filmed with 2022 ASUS Flow Z13. I'm eager to find out if the just released 2023 models resolved the poor Thunderbolt performance.

ASUS tryin to build walls around their eco-system that SUCKS. remember ROG phones used to get tons of accesories now they just ditched them, WTF!!!!!

Attaching anything by thunderbolt that requires a driver that isn't installed should trigger bitlocker

I got distracted by your clothe. Cool tho!

I had an XG mobile 3080 and sold it and got a steam deck. I was looking at the prices of XG Mobile 4090 incase I ever wanted to get back into gaming on the laptop and its ridiculous, over 2000 USD!

Thanks Man

Asus sucks for not supporting powebanks or other charges but original

Can anyone enlighten me, what if a game already requires more than 16gb DRAM in a 3050 setup, when change it to xg mobile 3080, will it help to reduce the DRAM usage? Because if not, the z13 + xg mobile lose their purpose as it intended to allow users for a better graphics texture and performance.

Hey man, you seem smart af and familiar with these device... my z13 has recently stopped charging whole using the xg mobile. I thought the tb4 in the xg port was bad, but after running some tests. The tb4 still works on the xg port... the xg mobile decides to stop charging when I "engage" the xg mobile link software... any advice or thoughts on what I can do to fix this so it keeps charging while connected to the xg mobile.

Well. Thankfully I have an older system that doesn't have bitlocker. I looked this up because I'm ready to upgrade but idk anymore.

What laptop works best with the egpu ?

Is the thunderbolt problem only with the z 13 or is this normal with all thunderbolt gpus?

Did you ensure you disabled the onboard graphics card in device manager? My eGPU has huge issues if I try to run the internal and external GPUs simultaneously....

Asus should open source their egpu connector to make this a pc wide standard.

Hai jarrod did u ever test this xg mobile vs rtx 3080 laptop?which one is better between xg mobile and 3080 laptop?

You did a great job. Thank you!!!!

TB3 eGPU's performance hit caused by latency. not bandwidth, not cpu. PCI-e tunneling via TB, it needs tb3 controller. It makes huge latency to bus. It Sucks.

Does the z13 and external GPU overheat? I'm thinking of selling my desktop PC and instead hook the z13 up to my monitors but am afraid of heating issues.

Wouldn't it be difficult to resell the XG mobile 3080 compared to a desktop 3080 gpu?

Hi. Can you do a review where the egpu is connected to the thunderbolt port? Based on your setup the egpu is connected to the type C port where as the charger is connected to the actual thunderbolt port. I already have this machine and was planning to buy an egpu or the xg mobile. This will really help me decide. Thank you 😊

Jarrod..... this all testing with the output to the Laptop. What are the results if it's pumped out through the eGPU to an external monitor?

Maybe use i5 version of Z13 will solve this problem because it doesn't have dGPU

What about an eGPU with a Thinkpad X1 fold?

2 months on working with z13 and it went dead lights on but no booting up, geek squad changed motherboard for 3 months first 2 days back on it keeps shutting down randomly and sweating while starting up like needs at least 5 min for it be able open application smooth….maybe I am just unlucky like that but what a purchase🤦🏻‍♂️

Hey jarrod i have a question to ask you and i really thunk you can answer it for me... I have a asus vivobook 15 x512 laptop but i want to use a external graphics card setup to improve on my radeon vega 8 graphics... Do you thibk its possible to do and if so is there any egpu you could recommend to me to get for my laptop

Sure, ASUS might decide to give us an XG dock with a desktop GPU slot (and maybe a SATA port to connect an HDD or a SATA SSD)

But what if we could jury rig one using the cable and connector of the XG Mobile and some soldering on a third-party eGPU?

Why would anyone buy this to use a thunderbolt egpu?

I am so sad to know that it’s no possible. I have a SP8 and Core X with 3070. It works flawlessly. But I don’t like SP8’s CPU, it’s only a quad core and not enough for my use for work. The Flow z13 is the only tablet that has better CPU ( wait, I know Dell has one coming too but my other reason next tells that Dell is not what I want ) and a kickstand. I love kickstand, I don’t use it on my lap and I use it all the time to watch movies or videos when I am standing in kitchen or lying on my bed, without a keyboard. Anyway, I don’t want to throw out everything I have and then buy a z13 with the XG Mobile that is not even future proof. Thank you for the explanation of the problems, it’s very helpful for me to decide not to buy it or else I will have to go full trade in with the XG Mobile.

None of those sound like real problems Mr clickabait

Out of curiosity, did you play test the games on an external monitor connected to the epgu? Or was the testing done with games playing on the z13 direct?

Asus needs to make a egpu case... It would get people stuck in Asus as well not sure why they don't

Very nice video, make me wonder are these issues happens to Flow X13 too?

Cuz I am planning on getting either one for my own, and doesn't want to pair their gpu but mine existing gpu🤔

The machine comes with Win11 home that has no Bitlocker support, so how can it be enabled? Having to run the charger and the enclosure is a hassle though... But it does work fine (for me).
The power limits happen with all kind of 100w USB-PD chargers. They just only allow the turbo profile with the official charger.
You can use ThrottleStop to just override it and set it to 50watt (or more! It turbo's at 90w out of the box, so it can handle it for a while!) though.
I set the GPU mode to 'eco' first (to disable the built-in rtxs3050ti) and then connect a Sapphire Pulse GearBox with a 6700XT in it. I can't compare to the XG-dock since I don't have it, but it performs fine from what I feel.

Hello
what was the cpu inside your z13 ?