Back in the summer of 2008, ATI launched an interesting mobile graphics concept, dubbed External Graphics Platform or XGP. Basically it was an HD 3870 in a box and it was supposed to offer extra performance for XGP compatible notebooks.

It worked quite well, but the only trouble was that nobody was interested. Fujitsu Siemens supported the project and, eventually, it was the only vendor to launch an XGP compatible notebook.

The new XGP sticks to the old concept, but now it features HD 5830 DirectX 11 capable graphics. The unit uses a PCI Express 2.0 connector to connect to a notebook, but we're still not sure whether vendors will embrace the concept this time around. It features HDMI and DVI digital outputs and features all the tech usually found in ATI's 5xxx series cards.

You can check out a video of the revamped XGP here.