Gadgetory

welcome back to hardware unboxed recently we've been getting back into a bit of external GPU coverage and the one product that caught my eye is the new razor core v2 as it's one of the more well-known a GPUs on the market razor heavily market this product alongside their blade stealth laptop is the perfect solution for transforming the slim and light machine into a proper gaming system but does it actually work as advertised and is it the best option on the market let's find out so like its predecessor the razor core v2 is an empty external graphics enclosure in other words you'll need to purchase a graphics card separately this is a bit different to the orison gaming boxes we've talked about on the channel previously which included their own GPUs however the court vetoes no installed GP approach does allow you to buy whatever GPU fits within your budget or you could even install a spare graphics card you have lying around the core v2 attaches to laptops via Thunderbolt 3 just like most a GPUs and it's not just restricted to raise the laptops despite the advertising on their website the core v2 does work with most Thunderbolt 3 equipped laptops provided a GPU support is enabled those with Razer laptops can take comfort that any modern razor laptop with Thunderbolt 3 is known to work as this is a new version let's go through the differences between the razor core v2 and its predecessor that launched a few years back the key change is the move to a dual Thunderbolt 3 controller which sees the PCIe slot through the graphics card attached to one controller while the USB ports and Ethernet jack get a separate controller both controllers do eventually funnel down into the one Thunderbolt 3 stream and cable Moroso claims the dual controller setup allows everything to function more reliably than they did in the past the internals of the case have also been redesigned such that the core v2 is now compatible with a larger range of graphics cards literally the GPU area is more than a centimeter taller than in the previous core and can now accommodate any GPU that's less than 14 point five centimeters tall four point three centimeters wide and 30 centimeters long I'll talk a bit more about the GPU installation process in a moment as the core v2 is designed to fit most graphics cards on the market the unit itself is quite large at least in comparison to the compact horas gaming boxes it's not the biggest a GPU enclosure I've seen but it Dwarfs the gaming box in both size and weight this is an enclosure you'll want to keep on your desk while the gaming box could easily be transported around if maybe the bill call it like the first iteration remains outstanding and in line with the metal chassis Razer uses for their laptops the largest section of the exterior is a single piece of machined powder coated metal and it's complemented well by large fins and vents along most edges the seamless integration of these necessary cooling components gives it that premium finish you'd expect from a razer product as far as fans are concerned that are a couple included along the bottom edge drawing air from a gap along the bottom and providing cool air to the power supply and graphics card the GPU also gets a large vent along inside which makes the core suitable for both blower and open-air GPU coolers did I mention the core v2 has RGB lighting well of course it wouldn't be a razer product without it and there's an RGB LED strip illuminating the graphics card on the side along with another strip at the front for some sneaky highlights towards otherwise a stealthy front panel port wise the core v2 does come with Thunderbolt 3 for connecting to your laptop or other device of choice along with a four port USB 3.0 hub and Gigabit Ethernet considering a lot of ultra portables simply don't have the space for Wired networking it's nice to get an Ethernet port on the core installing a graphics card is ridiculously easy with the new design of the Cauvery 2 and is completely toolless simply flip out the handle on the back and slide out the interior section from there remove the port cover slot in the GPU attach the power cables there's support for up to two eight pin cables and screw in the GPU using the thumb screw then you just slide the interior back inside flip back the handle and it's good to go the GPU is also very easy to remove thanks to a large leave of racer is included just under the power supply speaking of the psu the unit he is rated for 500 watts and razor with support for up to 375 watts of GPU power theoretically you could use a monstrous power sucking jewel chip you cut in here like the AMD Radeon Pro duo though you would be much better off with a good single GPU card instead of the e GPUs I've used this is the most elegant and easy way to slot in a graphics card and even the internal layout is great enough about the design and features let's talk a performance as you can install any graphics card you like I am going to leave a gaming performance to the very end there are a couple of other things I want to talk about first I was most curious about the dual Thunderbolt 3 controller in the core v2 I did have some problems hooking up USB peripherals reliably to the Auris gaming boxes on some laptops though I can say I've had no such issues with the core v2 which is good news as they did switch to the dual controls specifically to address the problem however the use of dual controllers it doesn't increase the bandwidth available to the GPU through the Thunderbolt 3 cable whether the USB ports are utilized or not the GPU is still limited to pcie 3.0 x 4 which is a thirty two gigabit per second protocol and then further reduce by Thunderbolt threes overhead and limitations to around 20 to 22 gigabit per second in my testing there was no real-world difference in GPU bandwidth or performance between the dual controller core v2 and what I believe is the single controller or ass gaming box even while performing a file copy from an SSD attached to the a GPU the situation with both boxes is the GPU bandwidth is reduced if you use any of the USB ports or Ethernet functionality well the dual controllers appear to solve is bandwidth allocation on the GPU itself ensuring enough room is given for USB devices and so forth before the data is sent through the Thunderbolt 3 cable crucially it appears these decisions occur at lower latency such that peripherals support is much better and that's really the advantage to the design there as for thermals and noise levels this is almost entirely determined by the GPU you to use the additional fans in the core v2 are going to be quieter than the GPU found while gaming in almost every case and of course the GPU is also the main source of heat at idle the razor core v2 isn't super quiet with the silent GPU installed the Auris gaming box is quieter but it's not going to burn your ears out either and you could just unplug it while you're not using it which does shut off the unit entirely so I've left gaming performance to the end because this is entirely determined by the graphics card you choose to use with the core v2 here I've tested with an nvidia geforce gtx 1066 gigabyte as it's one of the most popular GPUs on the market and will likely be a popular choice for those buying a razor core v2 as there's no inherent performance difference among each GPUs if you're interested in GT X 1080 performance check our coverage of the Auris GT externally gaming box I did hook up the core v2 to the razor blade stealth with the core i7 8550 you inside which I also use for testing the horas gaming box I'll be going into more detail on the eye 78552 plus GTX 1060 EGP combo in a separate video but the basic gist is the combo is well suited to 1080p gaming though not always at the maximum detail levels stuttering is an issue in some games due to the Thunderbolt 3 bandwidth limitations but most games run well provided you choose the settings to suit the hardware this combo does clocking 20% slower than a true GTX 1060 gaming laptop on average due to a range of bottlenecks though oddly you can eke out more performance by slow lenient or faster GPU something like the GTX 1080 is going to be 33% faster than gtx 1060 EGP combo we tested with this is a strange result and does suggest latency is the main cause of slowdowns with a GPUs but we'll have to do some more benchmarking to understand the bottlenecks in a bit more detail in general though if you have an ultraportable laptop with that a gaming capable GPU something like the Razer core v2 will significantly improve the gaming performance and actually make games playable in almost all cases even if you don't get the full performance of the GPU you choose to put in the core the performance you will get is world's better than having no GPU at all so for most of this video I've been pretty positive about the core v2 you know it's a well-made box it works as advertised and in the case of USB peripherals even better than other GPUs and it supports a wide range of GPUs but the absolute killer and the reason I simply can't recommend the e GPU enclosure here is the price tag Razer is charging 500 US dollars for this enclosure without a GPU installed which is quite frankly ludicrous assume graphics cards were available at their MSRP which does seem crazy right now but bear with me I've raised a core v2 with the gtx 1060 would cost you seven hundred and fifty dollars gigabytes or gtx 1080 gaming box has an MSRP of 700 bucks and includes a gtx 1080 both a GPUs work with Razer laptops yet the Auris offering provides 33% more performance for $50 less or of course you could get the gtx 1070 gaming box which retails for $600 just a hundred bucks more than the Razer Calvary 2 yet it includes a full gtx 1070 of course right now the Auris gaming boxes are a bit hard to find with the GPU shortage in full swing but even then you can get other Thunderbolt 3 GPU enclosures from roughly half the price of the Razer core v2 this icky geo node unit doesn't look as nice as the core v2 from a build quality perspective but the 230 dollars you save could go directly to a better GPU it just makes it so hard to recommend a product as expensive as the core v2 when there are plenty of other alternatives that do basically the same thing for less money and that's where I'm at with the core v2 were this product 250 or even just $200 cheaper it would be a decent purchase considering all the things it does well but $500 is simply not a competitive price tag if you are interested in buying a GPU I strongly recommend getting something more affordable there are links to some sensible options in the description below what else do people say at the end these it is oh yeah well I can subscribe and do all that good stuff and have course our season