Gadgetory

hey how's it going guys this is Dave - Dee the razor core is a super exciting product it seems like a really well-executed external graphic solution something that a lot of people have been looking for years myself included now they've had some hiccups in production they've had some delays and stuff but it's just around the corner they're going to release it soon but there's a couple things I think you guys should be aware of in case you're interested in purchasing one hence this video so the first thing is well what is the razor core it's essentially a box that you can put a desktop graphics card in you connect this box up to a laptop using a Thunderbolt 3 cable and then without even rebooting your laptop can now use that graphics card it's pretty cool right now razor isn't the first company to do an external GPU there's been quite a few of them over the years most of them haven't been very popular or cost-effective the one exception is the Alienware of graphics name that came out last year it works really well it cost $200 but it uses a proprietary PCIe cable which means it's not plug-and-play and you need an Alienware laptop to make that connection happen the Thunderbolt 3 connection on the razor core is a universal port and that can push 40 gigabits per second so it should be amazing right well there's more to the story the technology that allows the razor core to happen is something called X connect by AMD so MD developed this it's essentially driver level support for external GPUs now it's almost like a standard for other vendors to follow if they want to support the whole external GPU thing now ambi developed the X Connect thing Intel developed Thunderbolt 3 ports so that's the connection that makes this whole thing happen but the third part of the puzzle is the software that ties everything together and that was on razor so razor had the gnarly job of making the razor core talk with Razer laptops so on paper Thunderbolt 3 can push 40 gigabits per second a current generation desktop PCIe connection can do 128 gigabytes per second that's a lot more bandwidth than the 40 gigabits per second that Thunderbolt 3 has now there have been tests that show that current graphics cards don't need all of that bandwidth they can't use it the Alienware amp is limited to two gigabits per second and it performs really efficiently so if you have 40 like the Thunderbolt 3 pipeline you seemingly have bandwidth to spare on the back of the razor core there are ports there's four USB 3s and even a jack and a USB C that carries data and power to the laptop so people are going to use these ports they might have a mouse connected a keyboard use the headset an external driver - and Ethernet connection and the more stuff you have connected to the core the more bandwidth you're using up in that pipeline and once that video card renders the data it can send it out to an external monitor without using the Thunderbolt connection but if you don't have a monitor and you want to send it back to the laptop after rendering you use up even more bandwidth setting it back on the quad HD screen needs an extra 5.3 gigabits per second the 4k screen needs almost 12 gigabits per second so what seemed like a roomy pipeline before can get extremely packed depending on what you have connected to the poor but Razer obviously has some really smart engineers working on this they're going to deliver an external GPU and it will work it just might have some limitations because if you choke that Thunderbolt connection too much the video card performance will suffer and if you're wondering how the Alienware amp does it that cable has two pipelines one for the PCIe and then a separate one for USB so there's no competition for bandwidth but you can't plug and play you have to reboot it when you plug in the amp the Razer core currently only works with Windows 10 if you have a MacBook and you want this kind of connection for OS 10 you'll have to wait at launch it'll support the Razer Blade stealth the 2016 razor blade and the skull canyon nook from Intel these all meet the external graphic standards set by AMD so all three of them are going to work to get other laptops to support the razor core vendors are going to need to do some software development they need BIOS extensions they need plug-and-play support for the core I think most big vendors like Dell Lenovo Asus MSI Acer they'll all eventually support it they just need some time to do it right now in terms of video cards current and future generation AMD and NVIDIA cards will work there's already drivers from both companies that support is the razor core doesn't come cheap I was hoping the enclosures would be 250 maybe 300 dollars but it's $500 without a video card there are currently coupons where if you buy a razor system you can save $100 on a core but the regular price 500 bucks now if that's too pricey one of the alternatives is an alienware set up it's not a universal connection and it won't be as thin or as light as a razor set up but it's cheaper and it's still an excellent option if you're looking for a laptop that you can crank up gaming performance externally the other option I feel I should bring up is just to build a mini ITX system it's obviously a solution that's not for everyone if you're looking at the razor corer chances are you want something to plug up to your laptop but just to kind of plant the seed in your mind $500 for the enclosure you could build a really good ITX system for $500 before the video card it won't be as small as the razor core and I mean it won't be as portable but it'll still play games really well that's basically it hope you guys learned a thing or two now as for the technology on the hole it's really cool I think it has a lot of promise it's new I think it'll mature and I think when it does the whole platform will explode and I think will be awesome thumbs if you like this video subs if you loved it it's been nice see you guys next time