As we walked around the show floor earlier today, we walked past the USB-IF booth and spotted VLI showing off their new portable gaming dock concept. What the company has done, is to take its new VL605 USB-C DP to HDMI 2.1 PCON and combined it with the VL832 USB4 endpoint device, which under normal circumstances operate as a USB4 to USB 3.2 and DP 1.4 adapter and the VL109 which is a docking controller that also supports USB PD for up to three ports. The overall design supports up to 140 W USB PD 3.1 power passthrough as well.

The end result is a fairly small PCB that delivers an HDMI 2.1 port with VRR support, a first for a docking station solution as far as we're aware, as well as a USB Type-C with DP Alt-mode output, two USB Type-C ports with USB PD support and two USB Type-A ports. In itself it's not a unique product, but from our understanding, there aren't many docking stations out there that support VRR combined with USB ports that offer more than USB 2.0 speeds. VLI has tested it with AMD FreeSync as well as NVIDIA G-Sync compatible monitors without any problems and it's also been certified for FreeSync Premium Pro. Overall a neat little solution that could appeal to gamers that want a simple way of hooking up their peripherals to their gaming laptop when using an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.