Shuttle I-Power GXT External PCIExpress/USB adapter is a pretty interesting device for notebook and netbook users who might need more horse power for gaming or some other tasks that needs more graphics power. Graphics-Boosting External Docking Station can house a single and a dual-slot PCI-Express graphics card and it doesn't pick favorites, meaning it will run both Nvidia and ATI cards. Note that the design of the box is not yet final.



It connects via a connector that looks like a HDMI but is actually Shuttle's special GXT connector, and it is connected to the notebook via a PCI-Express x1 lane. i-Power GXT is a part of Shuttle's new i-Power Technology, which is actually a collection of new technologies that are designed to enhance the user experience with Shuttle SPA and SPA (Micro SPA) based notebooks, meaning you can use it only with Shuttle based notebooks.



The drawback is that you need external power supply that is capable of providing 90W of power, meaning you can not use high end graphics cards, as it would be even pointless to pair one of those with a CPU on a notebook. Still, this is a nice thing that offers far superior graphics compared to integrated graphics processors in most notebooks.



It's well worth noting Asus has tried this concept before but it decided to drop it as it didn't result in great performance and PCIe 1X was simply not enough, at least for Asus.