Razer Core External GPU Dock: Supported GPUs, High Price Tag Revealed

[hitman400]

Core i5 6600k($250), Motherboard($100), Powersupply($50), Tower Case($60), 256gb SSD($70), keyboard and mouse($20). Grab an old windows 7 or 8 license key off an old computer laying around the house, install via USB stick, then upgrade to a legit windows 10($0). Total = $550, then also buy your video card as well, and maybe a monitor if you don't have one laying around.

I really don't see the value here for the blade stealth, because you can just buy a cheaper ultrabook or macbook air that does the same thing. Since you need this dock to game anyways, you can just use your desktop when you get home.

With microsoft office onedrive, dropbox and google drive, you can just save all your important work and school files to a folder and sync to the cloud, so transitioning between a desktop and laptop is really no hassle at all.

So you are comparing Desktop prices to laptop prices, which is cheaper like...always? Wow what a revelation *facepalm* The Razer Blade can justify their high laptop prices because believe it or not, not only specs go into making a laptop. That's why Apple has high Macbook Pro prices. There is a reason these laptops cost so much, ppl just don't bother to figure it out because most people are spec whores.

But seriously, who in their right mind buys a $500 PC case with a powersupply (Razer Core)?

 

[gggplaya]

Couldn't you spend the 800 you would be spending on a 970 and the dock towards a better laptop with a 980?

Well of course you could. You could also buy a desktop for that too. But if you are considering those then you aren't the target market. This is for people that want an ultrabook but still want to be able to play games with high settings.
The price will likely come down as non-premium models get made and support expands to other laptops but that'll most likely take a while. Right now though you are paying both for a premium category product and the "early adopter tax".

Everyone is also forgetting that if everything goes as AMD Razer Nvidia etc. expect this is a one time purchase. You will be able to use this any other laptop with a type-c thunderbolt 3 and xconnect. Though of course this could suck as much as XGP did then it'll die but there seems to be a bit more effort behind this version.

ya im definitely taking this out of the desktop group already because most people I don't see wanting 2 setups like other people are suggesting. But I guess people do see a difference between an ultrabook and a laptop. I see anything I have to carry around being the same thing but that's me.
So I guess even at the 500 it still appeals to some people

With cloud drives(i use a NAS) like dropbox, you can create a folder that syncs your work or school documents between computers. It makes it seemless to switch between a desktop and laptop.

 

[clonazepam]

Anyone that wants to demo their VR hardware or (any) software at tradeshows, without hauling a desktop around, is in the market for a device like this. That's a boatload of potential sales.

I almost modded up an external desktop card back in 2004 with my laptop, using the pcmcia slot (pci-express x4 I think it was). Never got around to it, like most things.

 

[George Phillips]

$500 price tag means it's a limited and experimental production run.

 

[megajynx]

It's already been said a few times, but I'll restate it: you could most likely build a shell desktop to house said GPU that matches most laptops specs for around the same price. At least it looks dead sexy, and technically still wins the ultimate laptop dock trophy. Maybe throw in a few more lanes for a SSD optional upgrade?

 

[megajynx]

It's already been said a few times, but I'll restate it: you could most likely build a shell desktop to house said GPU that matches most laptops specs for around the same price. At least it looks dead sexy, and technically still wins the ultimate laptop dock trophy. Maybe throw in a few more lanes for a SSD optional upgrade?

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Don't you still need a monitor with this GPU dock?

Nope, that's the whole point. You can use the laptop's screen. Or both it plus the monitors you connect to the Core. Neat, huh?

It's already been said a few times, but I'll restate it: you could most likely build a shell desktop to house said GPU that matches most laptops specs for around the same price. At least it looks dead sexy, and technically still wins the ultimate laptop dock trophy. Maybe throw in a few more lanes for a SSD optional upgrade?

Shmeesh, when will you people get it that not everyone can or wants to lug a tower around? Or even a Mini-ITX rig! I'm going on the other side of the planet in a few months (hopefully), I'll have like 25 kg (55 lbs) baggage allowance, why the heck would I even consider a desktop at this point? Besides, I need a laptop anyhow since I work away from home a lot, and an ability to just plug the laptop into a graphics amplifier once home would be unbeatable for me.

 

[gggplaya]

Don't you still need a monitor with this GPU dock?

Nope, that's the whole point. You can use the laptop's screen. Or both it plus the monitors you connect to the Core. Neat, huh?

It's already been said a few times, but I'll restate it: you could most likely build a shell desktop to house said GPU that matches most laptops specs for around the same price. At least it looks dead sexy, and technically still wins the ultimate laptop dock trophy. Maybe throw in a few more lanes for a SSD optional upgrade?

Shmeesh, when will you people get it that not everyone can or wants to lug a tower around? Or even a Mini-ITX rig! I'm going on the other side of the planet in a few months (hopefully), I'll have like 25 kg (55 lbs) baggage allowance, why the heck would I even consider a desktop at this point? Besides, I need a laptop anyhow since I work away from home a lot, and an ability to just plug the laptop into a graphics amplifier once home would be unbeatable for me.

I travel quite a bit for work, i've been all over the world in a single suitcase. I can tell you, even with a standard full size suitcase, i still get it over 55lbs with just clothes, i had to throw a couple jeans away one time. Most of the time, i get it between 50-55lbs. I can get it into the 40's when packing just summer clothes, and with winter clothes i have to be really careful and use my bathroom scale to measure it. So, considering this dock will probably weigh 15-20lbs, you're going to have to make sacrifices to keep it in your luggage.

You're best bet is to just buy a normal gaming laptop and bring that in your carry on backpack. The lenovo Y700 is really thin, i own the older Y50 which the Y700 replaces. Because it's so thin and light, i saw no need for an ultrabook other than maybe a few more hours of battery life(5 hours currently) because i would use the same backpack for my business travel.

Really i only see a very few niche people using this dock. You can build an portable mini ITX computer with more power than any ultrabook for as much as this thing costs. You can simply use the tv in your hotel room, dorm or home to play on.

 

[bak0n]

Priced right close to where I thought they would (my guess was $400). Glad I bought myself a Alienware 15 R2 instead now that I'm seeing it.

 

[FITCamaro]

Hoping the cost on this kind of thing comes down. $200 to me sounds right. Don't need the USB and ethernet ports either. I would think that would only degrade the GPUs ability to talk to the system since it would take up bandwidth on the USB-C port.

 

[gopher1369]

Shmeesh, when will you people get it that not everyone can or wants to lug a tower around? Or even a Mini-ITX rig! I'm going on the other side of the planet in a few months (hopefully).... an ability to just plug the laptop into a graphics amplifier once home would be unbeatable for me.

What I don't get is why would you buy a Stealth + Core which would only allow you to play games at home but allow little or no gaming when you're on the other side of the planet (because Intel HD 520 graphics), when for about the same money you could buy a Blade and game anywhere.

 

[atheus]

Such an awesome product with such a painful price. This is the thing that needed to happen for gaming laptops and NUCs — a way to allow them to take advantage of not just current, but future high-end GPU's so they can be competitive for gaming today, plus an extra few years in the future. Although it's not something I could use right now, I definitely feel like I'll be buying something like this within the next 5 years or so.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

So, considering this dock will probably weigh 15-20lbs, you're going to have to make sacrifices to keep it in your luggage.

You're best bet is to just buy a normal gaming laptop and bring that in your carry on backpack. The lenovo Y700 is really thin, i own the older Y50 which the Y700 replaces.

There's no way it will be THAT heavy (my Mini-ITX NAS with a bigger case, a full-sized PSU and two 3.5" HDDs is lighter), and even if it will, that's about the weight I can spare. I don't want to overpay for a gaming laptop, and definitely won't get a Lenovo one, read the review of the Y700 on NBC and am thoroughly unimpressed with it (especially the screen). I'm looking to get the next-generation Asus ZenBook Pro - wish that it could come with only integrated graphics, but alas no...

 

[DivergentMoon]

This is nowhere near outrageous. As someone who has been following this scene, the DIY TB2 version of this based on a recent build costs around $370 (see link below for this build and many threads on this topic). $400 to get it in a VERY nice box and TB3 instead of TB2 is an amazing price point. $500 is still not outrageous to buy the kit as is. With this I now have a modular solution making my laptop upgradable and can operate as my main system. I was hoping Apple would have come out with something (given their TB2 laptop ports have been used heavily for this solution in the enthusiast community and how Apple loves bringing "innovation" by adopting enthusiast community solutions - i.e., iOS features). I may be buying a Razer after a LONG string of Macbook Pros...

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/9534-2012-macmini-i7-26ghz-geforce-gtx970-10gbps-tb1-akitio-thunder2-os-x-10105-gosmond/

 

[gopher1369]

This is nowhere near outrageous. As someone who has been following this scene, the DIY TB2 version of this based on a recent build costs around $370 (see link below for this build and many threads on this topic). $400 to get it in a VERY nice box and TB3 instead of TB2 is an amazing price point. $500 is still not outrageous to buy the kit as is.

Case: $50
PSU: $80
Dock: $100

That's $230 at full retail price, the BOM to Razer who are paying wholesale prices will be way, way less than that. $299 standalone, $199 bought with the Stealth, that would be a resonable price.

I just read that link you gave. Guy there quoted $670 inclusive of a Geforce 970. The 970 retails at around $370 so according to your link it should be $300. And that's a single, bespoke build, Razer will buy the components in bulk which will reduce the cost significantly. Therefore you've actually proved that $500 is absolutely outrageous!

 

[wilshing]

This is nowhere near outrageous. As someone who has been following this scene, the DIY TB2 version of this based on a recent build costs around $370 (see link below for this build and many threads on this topic). $400 to get it in a VERY nice box and TB3 instead of TB2 is an amazing price point. $500 is still not outrageous to buy the kit as is.

Case: $50
PSU: $80
Dock: $100

That's $230 at full retail price, the BOM to Razer who are paying wholesale prices will be way, way less than that. $299 standalone, $199 bought with the Stealth, that would be a resonable price.

I just read that link you gave. Guy there quoted $670 inclusive of a Geforce 970. The 970 retails at around $370 so according to your link it should be $300. And that's a single, bespoke build, Razer will buy the components in bulk which will reduce the cost significantly. Therefore you've actually proved that $500 is absolutely outrageous!

This is nowhere near outrageous. As someone who has been following this scene, the DIY TB2 version of this based on a recent build costs around $370 (see link below for this build and many threads on this topic). $400 to get it in a VERY nice box and TB3 instead of TB2 is an amazing price point. $500 is still not outrageous to buy the kit as is.

Case: $50
PSU: $80
Dock: $100

That's $230 at full retail price, the BOM to Razer who are paying wholesale prices will be way, way less than that. $299 standalone, $199 bought with the Stealth, that would be a resonable price.

I just read that link you gave. Guy there quoted $670 inclusive of a Geforce 970. The 970 retails at around $370 so according to your link it should be $300. And that's a single, bespoke build, Razer will buy the components in bulk which will reduce the cost significantly. Therefore you've actually proved that $500 is absolutely outrageous!

This is nowhere near outrageous. As someone who has been following this scene, the DIY TB2 version of this based on a recent build costs around $370 (see link below for this build and many threads on this topic). $400 to get it in a VERY nice box and TB3 instead of TB2 is an amazing price point. $500 is still not outrageous to buy the kit as is.

Case: $50
PSU: $80
Dock: $100

That's $230 at full retail price, the BOM to Razer who are paying wholesale prices will be way, way less than that. $299 standalone, $199 bought with the Stealth, that would be a resonable price.

I just read that link you gave. Guy there quoted $670 inclusive of a Geforce 970. The 970 retails at around $370 so according to your link it should be $300. And that's a single, bespoke build, Razer will buy the components in bulk which will reduce the cost significantly. Therefore you've actually proved that $500 is absolutely outrageous!

This is nowhere near outrageous. As someone who has been following this scene, the DIY TB2 version of this based on a recent build costs around $370 (see link below for this build and many threads on this topic). $400 to get it in a VERY nice box and TB3 instead of TB2 is an amazing price point. $500 is still not outrageous to buy the kit as is.

Case: $50
PSU: $80
Dock: $100

That's $230 at full retail price, the BOM to Razer who are paying wholesale prices will be way, way less than that. $299 standalone, $199 bought with the Stealth, that would be a resonable price.

I just read that link you gave. Guy there quoted $670 inclusive of a Geforce 970. The 970 retails at around $370 so according to your link it should be $300. And that's a single, bespoke build, Razer will buy the components in bulk which will reduce the cost significantly. Therefore you've actually proved that $500 is absolutely outrageous!

EVGA SuperNOVA 550 $80
Akitio Thunder2 PCIe Box ~$218
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 970 ~$300

You just overlook the cost of Thunderbolt 2 board.......
and it's thunderbolt 3 now

 

[gopher1369]

You just overlook the cost of Thunderbolt 2 board.......
and it's thunderbolt 3 now

No I didn't, I allowed $100 for it. Although having looked online TB docks are more like $200. Wowzers. They put a real premium on TB products.

So I'll recalulate:
$200 for the thunderbolt dock
$80 PSU
$50 case

$330 full retail price. Emphasis on "retail price".
It really doesn't cost $200 to manufacture 4 USB3 ports + a thunderbolt port, it costs pennies. I'd guess the single biggest cost is probably the licensing fee to Intel to use TB. I'd be surprised if the dock portion of the Core cost Razer more than $25 total.

FYI I was a Procurement Officer for an IT department for 3 years (Changed jobs about 6 months ago). Laptop manufacturers make almost 0 profit on the laptop itself, their main profit comes from peripherals* . I suspect the Razer Stealth laptop doesn't actually make much (any?) money for Razer, their margin is likely only a couple of percent at best. The Core, I'd guess the total bill of materials is under $100 and the rest is recouping R&D costs + marketing + distribution and the bulk is their profit.


*also the reason you get preinstaled bloatware on laptops, again this is where the manufacturers make money.

 

[BulkZerker]

I do not see why you are so skeptical about the quality of the PSU. For the most part, the difference between a crappy PSU and a very decent one is simply switching the caps from Fuhjyyu to Nichicon/Rubycon/United Chemi-Con/Panasonic/Epcos/etc. Upgrading the caps only adds something like $2 to manufacturing cost to make the PSU last over three times as long. Out of that $500, you have maybe $100 for the PCIe-to-Thunderbolt bridge, $100 for the fancy enclosure due to low production volume, which leaves $300 for profit and the PSU. A top-notch 500W PSU costs less than $100, which leaves them with over $200 in gross profit margin per sale.

Also, if they put a crappy quality PSU in an enthusiast-oriented device, they will get a bashing when someone eventually gets around to doing a tear down of the thing.

Because it's razer and they have a reputation for cutting costs. that $2 per unit adds up when you start moving thousands of units. And a site "bashing poor quality components" won't do much to disuade the iSheep mentality of people that buy Razer products.

 

[DivergentMoon]

This is nowhere near outrageous. As someone who has been following this scene, the DIY TB2 version of this based on a recent build costs around $370 (see link below for this build and many threads on this topic). $400 to get it in a VERY nice box and TB3 instead of TB2 is an amazing price point. $500 is still not outrageous to buy the kit as is. With this I now have a modular solution making my laptop upgradable and can operate as my main system. I was hoping Apple would have come out with something (given their TB2 laptop ports have been used heavily for this solution in the enthusiast community and how Apple loves bringing "innovation" by adopting enthusiast community solutions - i.e., iOS features). I may be buying a Razer after a LONG string of Macbook Pros...

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/9534-2012-macmini-i7-26ghz-geforce-gtx970-10gbps-tb1-akitio-thunder2-os-x-10105-gosmond/

 

[wilshing]

Now we are talking about eGPU for laptop/ultrabook.

Why thunderbolt 2/3?
Because its bandwidth is 2~4 times that of usb 3.1. It is how it makes eGPU possible.

And thunderbolt has always been a premium option. eGPU is also not a cost-effective solution at the moment.

If anyone follows the eGPU scene and does some searches, the cheapest/most common solution is:
AKiTiO Thunder2 PCIe Box
PSU
macbook pro
.....and some mod power/PCIe cable.

It costs you ~$300 (excluding macbook, graphics card)


And you can also search for others Thunderbolt PCIe dock/box (some people use them for eGPU too, most of them have PSU included, and some support hdd/sdd too):

Sonnet Echo Express lll-D ~$780
Sonnet Echo Express SEII ~$380
Netstor NA211TB ~$849
Magma ExpressBox 1T ~$499

So Razer Core as a integrated solution and costs $499, you just don't have to read tons of articles to study how to make eGPU works.........

I don't think its price is ridiculous. It's just meaningless to calculate manufacturing cost. If so, apple products is more ridiculous in all ways.


**Alienware Graphics Amplifier (9R7XN) ~$180
(It's cheaper, but it uses proprietary cable which could only be used by Alienware laptop)

 

[gggplaya]

So, considering this dock will probably weigh 15-20lbs, you're going to have to make sacrifices to keep it in your luggage.

You're best bet is to just buy a normal gaming laptop and bring that in your carry on backpack. The lenovo Y700 is really thin, i own the older Y50 which the Y700 replaces.

There's no way it will be THAT heavy (my Mini-ITX NAS with a bigger case, a full-sized PSU and two 3.5" HDDs is lighter), and even if it will, that's about the weight I can spare. I don't want to overpay for a gaming laptop, and definitely won't get a Lenovo one, read the review of the Y700 on NBC and am thoroughly unimpressed with it (especially the screen). I'm looking to get the next-generation Asus ZenBook Pro - wish that it could come with only integrated graphics, but alas no...

First link in google shows about 25lbs for a light mini ITX build: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1zdpe7/folks_with_miniitx_pc_how_much_is_the_weight/


My readynas weighs 11lbs, that's much smaller than this dock, and the power supply is external. We'll know when it comes out i guess. 15-20lbs is my estimate, but even if it weighs 10lbs, that's still 20% of your luggage allowance. If it weighs 20lbs, that's 36% of your allotment. Either way, that's big chunk of your suitcase. Unless you're going somewhere hot, where you can pack just a couple shorts, underwear and tshirts. You'll have a tough time keeping it under 55lbs with 2 weeks worth of clothes.

 

[atheus]

Putting this thing in one's luggage is probably not a use scenario they're trying to cater to. For one, unless you're packing along a monitor as well, you're at the mercy of whatever tv or monitor you can find at your destination. Two, unless the enclosure has some serious bracing, it's not safe to move any system around with a big heavy graphics card installed. You'll crack that flimsy PCIE slot right down the middle and have yourself a $500 door stop and you can hope you're lucky enough that the graphics card survives.

 

[Morgan_6]

I bought the stealth. I'm not impressed with the finish and feel with windows 10. Also the unit was doa and had to be replaced. Also you can't buy an extra power cord.

All and all i'm sticking with the macbook air for travel and work. Windows 10 and my worries about the quality just are too much.

Anyone want to buy a barely used model?

 

[ErikVinoya]

Not a fan of Razer, but I wouldn't be judging the overall quality of a brand's products just because of one bad hardware.
Manufacturing and delivery does not occur in a perfect world, and there will always be that one bad stock. Now, if they're prompt to respond to an RMA claim, I'd say that's good service.

 

[SkyBill40]

Wow. That's STEEP for what you're getting. Not all that surprised seeing the premium Razer puts on just about everything they make. $1k+ laptop and another $500 on top of it for this, all with no card? No way. You could build a smoking desktop for that roughly $1800 or so.