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

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Wow that is expensive! It's not that difficult to put together a cheap i5 build with an OS for under $500 (before you add the graphics card). I realise this has the benefit of portability if you already own the laptop, but wow... that's a lot of money. I can't imagine the BOM is anywhere near $500, so hopefully competition and recouped R&D will see prices drop significantly in future.
 
$500? Are you kidding me? You can get a full desktop for that price without the GPU, and the GPU is additional cost anyway.

I also find it funny their "500W" power supply supports cards up to 375W. Sounds like this $500 premium doesn't even come with a good quality power supply.
 

thexjacob

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I have to say, I'm not shocked at all I had it at being about that much, I assumed that the entire set up without the graphics card would cost about as much as razer blades have cost in the past, which is about 1500-2000 dollars.
 

afgpdd

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$500? Are you kidding me? You can get a full desktop for that price without the GPU, and the GPU is additional cost anyway.

I also find it funny their "500W" power supply supports cards up to 375W. Sounds like this $500 premium doesn't even come with a good quality power supply.

It also needs to supply around 100W to the notebook, so it's probably a pretty good PSU.
 

RonRave

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This seems insanely high (coming from someone who was already expecting a premium price). Ostensibly, the only proprietary tech here is some sort of PCIe to Thunderbolt converter - I can buy a Micro ITX case, 500w PSU, GTX 970 for $500 - all you'd need it whatever allows that conversion.
 
I don't think it powers the notebook, only the cards. And no, PSUs like this are basically never good. Just look at prebuilt computers, do you ever see a good one in those? Maybe once in a blue moon, in a $2500 machine, but typically they are poor.
 
$500? Are you kidding me? You can get a full desktop for that price without the GPU, and the GPU is additional cost anyway.

I also find it funny their "500W" power supply supports cards up to 375W. Sounds like this $500 premium doesn't even come with a good quality power supply.

That is about right that 500W PSU powers the GPU, dock, USB peripherals and the notebook itself plus a little overhead so it isn't running at 100% all the time. 500W is about what it should be. Little less than what some of those cards ask for in a desktop.
 

InvalidError

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Technically, 375W is the maximum that would be theoretically possible for cards that follow the PCIe spec: 75W from the PCIe slot + 2x150W from the 8-pins PCIe connectors.

Then you have the Thunderbolt/USB hub, the Ethernet port, fans, other connected devices and possibly other stuff eating another 50W or so.

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.
 


Ya that is about what I figured for a first gen product that is at the moment only paired with premium ultrabooks. That is about what my dad paid for a Sony VIAO with the external dock back on an earlier attempt at this.(AMD XGP i think it was called god that thing sucked though)
 

dragonjujo

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$500? Are you kidding me? You can get a full desktop for that price without the GPU, and the GPU is additional cost anyway.

I also find it funny their "500W" power supply supports cards up to 375W. Sounds like this $500 premium doesn't even come with a good quality power supply.

That 375 Watts also correlates with current power standards on PCIe 8-pin connectors (150 Watts each x2) and PCIe slot power delivery (75 Watts). Wow that adds up to 375 Watts.
That is about right that 500W PSU powers the GPU, dock, USB peripherals and the notebook itself plus a little overhead so it isn't running at 100% all the time. 500W is about what it should be. Little less than what some of those cards ask for in a desktop.
 

amk-aka-Phantom

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No way. You could build a beastly desktop for the roughly $1800 it would cost to buy a Blade, this, and a 970. Razer puts a premium on just about everything they make but this is just ridiculous.

Well let me put it in this way: I already have a GTX 970 and am looking to get rid of my beastly desktop because I am going abroad soon and can't be tied down by a 20 kg tower and a monitor (plus the country I am visiting can tax me if I try to bring a desktop in). The only thing that's stopping me from ordering the Core is that Razer refuses to clarify whether other systems will support it too. Sadly, Razer doesn't produce a laptop that fits my requirements, so I would rather get something else. So I am hoping that very soon we will see alternatives from others - and not the pathetic locked down stuff Acer and Asus released so far.

TL;DR this product isn't for you, mentality of "you can get a desktop X times more powerful for this price" is getting boring because no one thinks of situations other than their own.
 


I was not under the idea that this thing powered the notebook, too. Now that I know it does, it makes sense.
 


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.
 
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.
 

hdmark

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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
 

c4s2k3

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Well let me put it in this way: I already have a GTX 970 and am looking to get rid of my beastly desktop because I am going abroad soon and can't be tied down by a 20 kg tower and a monitor ...

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