Being a long time alienware fan and having used the amplifier I have been very interested in the razer core. I love the fact that its just USB-c and it can charge the laptop and handle usb/ethernet. Who here is planning on getting a core and if so, what card are you putting in there. The price was just released and it looks like it is going to cost $499 (-$100 if you bundle it with a new laptop). I am a little upset about the pricing, but eh, it looks good and I am sure people are going to buy it.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11224856/razer-core-graphics-enclosure-price-availability
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And the Core is sold out... :-(
For $500, you get a fairly small enclosure, GigE, and four USB 3.0 ports, all across a standard Thunderbolt connection. That makes it usable with not just Razer, but any other Thunderbolt-equipped device.
Alienware's Graphics Amplifier is limited to use with Alienware hardware. It's significantly larger than the Core. If you don't mind those things, the Graphics Amplifier is $200.
MSI's Gaming Dock Station isn't even trying. It's the same size as a mini ITX case and you have to dock the laptop to the top of the case. Also seems to be sold out. Asus's ROG XG Station 2 isn't available yet.
At $400 with the purchase of a Razer system, the price seems in-line with other Razer offerings - a premium-designed product at an elevated price point. If you don't agree with that tier, well, you can go Alienware? -
mindinversion Notebook Evangelist
So that's $275, add in $100 per unit for R&D cost and prolonged testing, and $125 Razer Tax. . . and I think I just shot myself in the foot. I came here to make a disparaging comment about how this thing should only cost about $199, but if you stop and break it down I guess it isn't as grossly overpriced as I thought. Knock off $100 for ordering a stealth [This needs to be applied to the 2016 blade] and it's maybe not as insane as it sounds as you first read it on the page.
If you'll excuse me, I need to go slam my head into my desk for awhile at thinking something Razer designed and produced ISN'T bat guano insanely overpriced >< -
I know that I'll be either going with the Razer Core or ASUS' XG2. If I go for the Core, I will most certainly not be buying a Stealth or the new Razer Blade...I'll wait until it get verified to work with a cheaper laptop. The MSI GS40 is basically the same specs as the new Razer Blade (a little thicker and only has 3GB of VRAM) and it does have a TB3/TC port. I currently have a GS70 Stealth so I'm very content with MSI's build quality. It may not be as good as Razer's but the extra $500 I'll save buying the GS40 over the new Blade will go towards a GTX 980Ti. I will definitely not be buying a Stealth, though. I'm fine with the 5-10% performance decrease over TB3 but I'm not going to let the 6500u in the Stealth bottleneck anything, I'll feel much better with a 6700HQ.
ASUS' XG2 really appeals to me. They have an ultrabook with a 6700HQ, 16GB of RAM, in a good form factor that apparently doesn't throttle. If they can sell it for $1000 or so to match the Stealth and sell the dock for $300 or so, it's an instant-buy for me.hmscott likes this. -
Like I said, you can buy actual complex hardware for the same price. -
Razer's solution is the smallest available, has a 375w PSU, can take a full-length, double-wide video card, and includes GigE and four USB 3.0 ports..Last edited: Mar 17, 2016 -
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You'd end up with a hacked up piece of metal and an external PSU box. Not exactly elegant.
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The initial run sold out but that doesnt mean its good. -
The twice slower Alienware Amplifier with pre-Skylake CPUs was scoring 90% GPU performance compared to desktops. I expect the twice as fast TB3 with Skylake CPUs to score within 95% GPU performance, which is quite acceptable in my book. Maybe with Pascal there'll be more throttling, but then there will be much cheaper options for both laptops and GPU enclosures.
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When I initially posted this I was fishing for a response about the price. I felt that it was outlandish but figured, maybe razer fans accept this and will pay it no matter what. I am glad that I am not the only one who thinks that 499 is way too much. I would pay 299 max, and even that would be a bit of a stretch.
rinneh likes this. -
MSGaldenzi likes this. -
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I really want someone who either owns the new Dell XPS laptops, MSI GS40, or some other TB3 laptops to buy a Core and be the guinea pigs. I'd do it myself but I haven't had too much money to burn recently. Hell, on Razer Insider, there are people who bought the Stealth and then immediately bought the new Blade + Core as soon as it was announced. I want their income!
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I just had a thought.... Razer could have struck a deal with some company to add video cards at the time of purchase. I mean, at 499... even a measly GTX 950 included would make it sorta worth it. The 950 is better than the HD520 by quite a large margin. It would make it plug and play opposed to having to order/wait/install whatever card you choose. Just a thought and if the RAZER gods are listening.... feel free to use my idea
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Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P -
I have the AWA and its loud and clunky looking performs decent though.
I don't know how loud the core will be but in looks it blows the AWA away and for me I don't mind paying the price. -
Intel developed thunderbolt years ago and it was already a pretty much done experience with only some sleep and disconnect issues which the gpu manufacturers had to solve with their drivers and did recently. They just put it in a box and adjusted their I guess laptop bios for it. I mean PCI express hotswapping is not new at all and years old. The missing link where the videocard drivers.
Also that remark about companies copying the blade. Its a machine with heat issues and not many manufacturers want to take that risk. All thin laptops have the same flaws unfortunately.
I do agree the Core looks great. But you can see where they take the design cues from, the same as with their laptops (I mean they are pretty much black anodized macbooks).
The fact stays that you can buy a wonderful unibody style PC case, full sized motherboard and proper PSU for the same amount of money. It maybe sounds like moderately expensive for the category but in terms of absolute production etc it is overpriced. The manufacturing is not above the standard of a Silverstone fortress 3 ITX case which has the same type of aluminum construction, the PCI express board is nothing compared to a full motherboard and the PSU is pretty much just what it is, a PSU.Last edited: Mar 19, 2016Eason likes this. -
Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P -
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Will the AW function with the same features when the core launches? If so then he's wrong.
Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P -
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Intel created a spec (three revisions of the spec, actually). They did not create a product beyond the controller chips.
nVidia and AMD want their products used in an enclosure. They have to write drivers that'll handle hot plugging. That's on them if they want to hop on the small desktop/laptop bandwagon or not.
Razer has produced the first TB3 enclosure that will fit a GPU, it's smaller than any of its predecesors/competitors, and it's cheaper than existing TB2 enclsoures that can take full size PCI Express cards. There is zero reason for Razer not to take credit for this.
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Thunderbolt was since the lightpeak days already working and sony had a pretty much flawless implementation with the vaio z2 and its external graphics card. The tb2 enclosures were made by extremely small companies with very limited support mostly created for apple macbooks that have no proper gpu drivers support whatsoever. Ofcourse on these machines it has not been greag. For pc it was a different matter and only the hotswap function wasnt available till the graphic drivers were ready.
If nvidia and amd didnt step their game up together with intel on the external gpu issues the razer core wouldnt be what it is today. Intel actively pushed this and they have shown it on multiple trade fairs.
The housing costs are minimal, you can get an equally created silverstone fb3 itx for around 120buck as a consumer and that is a fact. The other housings are just even cheaper. The fb3itx is pretty much a niche case as well. Hell i pretty much expect that the core already sold more units did than silverstone sold fb3itx cases past 6months.
Oh and all the blades run above 85c under full load and cpu's cant even hold their turbo speeds because they touch the 90c to 95c mark. These are heat issues. The solder in these cheaps will surely deteriorate over time. The blade with the 765 was excellent, the 870 version however runs too hot and you can bet that in time more will break down. The units on the market now are just around 18months old which isnt that long. I actually wanted to buy one and that changed when I actually studied the design.
But dell could have put more work in the AWA chassis though I do agree on that. Silverstone made an extremely well don't case with Asus btw which does not cost 1000usd and can handle full size cards 1 year ago.Last edited: Mar 20, 2016 -
I dunno, I've run mine for countless hours (870M) and it's still going strong after 2 years. Do the fans ramp up on an intense game, of course. Does it still run fantastically without throttling, absolutely.
Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P -
I am hoping the cooling is a little better though on the 2016, I agree with HFM my brother has the 870 razer and has gamed hours upon hours and its still rocking, only issue he had was psu adapter was dead when he first bought it but other than that solid.
Me I will keep my all my notebooks love the surface book for work, love the 15r2 I have it set up with the awa in the bedroom on a custom bed desk so I use that when I want to lay back and relax.
The razer will be my travel system for when i want more power on the road than the surface book can offer, the aw15r2 is just too bulky for my travel needs.
And the core? Not sure I will use much? But I am still buying cause I am a whore when it comes to notebooks.
Hi My name is Darkhan and I am a notebook whore. -
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Acer has made a tiny little 135W dock with a geforce GTX 960m built-in for 350 EUR: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-G...ernal-GPU-support-for-notebooks.161328.0.html
I think this will hit the sweet spot for a lot of people who only want one computer but don't want a giant heavy box or need desktop gpu power. -
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rinneh likes this.
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http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/29/sony-vaio-z-review-2011/
Rumors have it that it's Intel which blocked eGPU attempts by everyone (MSI, Asus, Silverstone, etc.) in the past. TB1 and TB2 were never fully baked to realize an eGPU solution that would work reliably outside restricted configurations. Intel seems to have known this and blocked sale. As they're the only source for TB ASICs, it wasn't too difficult for them to do so.
TB3 is a radical overhaul of TB as we know it. Between getting rid of expensive cabling and the protocol updates (PCIe 3.0, HDMI 2.0, DP 1.2), it's finally ready for wider adoption.
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Not sure about the hot swapable portion as the internal dGPU is still disabled. Unless Alienware makes an update on their BIOSes, Graphics Amp software and Command Center, I'm not sure if hot swapable is possible. Would like to see if the claim holds up, though (I can test if necessary).
Given that the Blade 2016 is Core-verified, I would like to see how it handles hot swapping with an AMD eGPU given it has an Nvidia dGPU. -
The solution was hot swap as long when a user disconnected the card in software. SOny was infact one of the first that supported graphci switching without restarting a laptop and could do it on the fly. Except when you were using the GPU at that moment. The switching software was put on hold then to prevent bsods.
It was idneed a set gpu but it showed the concept years before now.
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My blade had 7.6-10.2% battery wear after about a year. It depended on the mood battery bar was in. I will never buy another laptop that hot.
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I don't quite get why there is rage against Razer (or any manufacturer) for high prices. If you don't like their product or price, then don't buy it.
Prices are always high for the first-generation tech product. And then they come down over time. If the manufacturing cost of an eGPU enclosure is a lot less than the $500 that Razer is charging, then some competitor will come in and offer an alternative product at a lower price. That is good for everyone.
You also can't compare the Alienware Amplifier to the Razer Core, because the Alienware Amplifier only works with Alienware laptops. Dell isn't *forced* to make a profit on every AWA unit sold, because they can make that money up through laptop sales. And if someone owns an AWA that only works with Alienware laptops, then it will increase the chance that customer will buy an Alienware laptop in the future. It could very well be part of an "ecosystem lock-in" strategy, much like how gaming consoles are sold for loss on the hardware.
With the Razer Core, someone can buy that product without ever owning / buying a Razer laptop. So Razer is forced to make a profit on every unit sold.
I'm not some Razer fanboy who thinks everything they do is magic. With any company... If you don't like their products or prices, don't buy their stuff.
Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk -
BUt it is still a discussion board. People do give their opinions about products.
Oh and dont think that Dell doesnt want to make a profit on the AWA as well. They most definitely do.
Its jsut their marketing that make people believe that. just like they claim they made the first ultraportable gaming laptops......... -
Disappointed in the price of the Razer Core. I only really wanted to get one because I wanted a way to bring some extra power with me if I wanted to go over to a friend's house and play games. I might as well just build a cheap mini PC for that price. That Acer Graphics Dock, however, looks pretty cool. Here's hoping it will work with the Razer Blade Stealth.
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With Steam In-Home Streaming, what would be the advantage of the Razer Core? If I can have a solid gaming PC tucked away at home, and can access my Steam library from my couch with the Stealth (or any other ultrabook), why would I want to get a Core and be limited by a dual core CPU?
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Ordered my 999$ Stealth,and 399$ Core. Grabbed a Samsung 950 512gb Pro for 269 and a MSI 980 Ti Golden,to bad the Core won't be shipping for a bit.
Darkhan likes this. -
1) They need a laptop (for work / school), and they also play games. They COULD build a separate gaming desktop, and buy a non-gaming laptop.
But for whatever reason, they prefer to buy a single system (so all of their data, applications, and games are in a single location), rather than buying / building / managing two separate systems. They know buying a single system + eGPU is probably more expensive than buying a separate mid-range desktop + laptop, but are willing to pay that price for the convenience of having a single system.
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2) They are tech enthusiasts, and get caught up in the excitement of playing with new toys. And a universal Thunderbolt 3 eGPU dock is just another shiny new toy.
Personally, I'm with you on this. I think eGPUs are a cool concept, but I can't seem to think of a use case where eGPUs do the job better than owning a separate gaming desktop + laptop.hmscott and gametime10 like this. -
Core's currently back up for pre-order, shipping after April 29th:
http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-core
Now time to go look for a GTX 980 Ti... -
I'd hold off on looking for a GTX 980 Ti for now.
Rumor is that nVidia is going to announce information about Pascal in the next few weeks. It's not the product launch, but at least the announcement will give some more info on what to expect, and when.
So unless you absolutely need to have a 980Ti right now, there's never any harm in waiting. At worst, prices & availability are goign to be exactly the same as today. At best, you might find some kind of sale / promotion / rebate going on a few weeks down the road.hmscott likes this. -
mindinversion Notebook Evangelist
I'll tell you why I'm REALLY excited for this piece of kit, though. Imagine a desktop computer the size of an Intel NUC or Gigabyte Brix. It has a current gen Hyper threaded quad core with enough cooling to allow overclocking, support up to 32/64Gig DDR4 and has a razer blade sized external 100w power adapter. Oh, and it has Thunderbolt 3 out. Sure, the only ports on it are two USB 3.0 on the front, USB-C on the back and the power connector..and for grins we'll throw in an HDMI out, but it's compatible with the core. Also, because it's relatively bare bones. . it's also in the $500-$600 price range to start, with mass production OEMs driving the cost down within 5 years. Small foot print disposable computing. Now basically you have something with the power of a Blade with WAY more room for thermal cooling in the chassis, mobile quad core [you could probably kit socketed boards for home builders, with possible added size] but it shrinks the hell out of the whole process. No more giant ugly ATX towers, just an elegant, relatively inexpensive modular component connected to another relatively inexpensive [in 5 years or so, when the OEMs catch up] modular component.
And before you complain about "needing" desktop level performance, let's be honest here: Have you actually ever MEASURED CPU usage? I know [via the stats managing app on my wife's 2014 Blade pro] that most of the games and apps my family runs use less than 15% and/or 2 cores at any given time. Granted, that's some light steam gaming, Blizzard games, but still: 99% of the time I feel like I'm just wasting electricity when I'm on my desktop: overclocked 4770k for what. . writing this post? The ONLY time I ever push the processor is when transcoding in handbrake, and statistically that's maybe an hour or three a year.
What we're seeing is the beginning of the evolution of modern computing. It may not seem as rational NOW, when the majority of people still have a giant overpowered desktop in their home, but in 5 years or so, with advances in mobile processor tech I suspect the entire landscape is going to change.
As a long time home system builder I'm not sure how happy I am about that from an enthusiast standpoint, but realistically what I NEED is a lot closer to where they're going than what I'm building.IKAS V likes this. -
When I play the division i see CPU usage by the way around 60 tp 70%. The Witcher 3 does the same for example. CPU usage is slowely but surely becoming higher.hmscott likes this. -
The thing is, games nowadays do use your CPU. With a Titan X (similar performance to the 980 Ti some want to put in the core), you can see up to 60 fps gains just by going from an i3 6100 to a i7 6700k in games like The Witcher 3, Far Cry 4, Ryse, etc. The CPU in the Razer Blade stealth is lower performance than the i3 6100, so putting a 980 Ti is largely a waste because of the huge bottleneck. In my opinion, I really think it would just be better for someone to build a small, cheap Intel i3 system, since it is a similar price for better performance.
hmscott likes this.
Razer Core discussion & benchmarks
Discussion in 'Razer' started by MSGaldenzi, Mar 16, 2016.