Thoughts on AMD XConnect?

[GPUEnthusiast]

As somebody who lives in an incredibly tiny apartment and was enamored by the MSI GS30 Shadow with GPU dock, I am incredibly excited by AMDs new XConnect technology.

It seems like Thunderbolt 3 from Intel is going to be the best standard to do this to me.

Thoughts? Do you guys think this will flop or change the game?

I know that right now Thunderbolt 3 is only in incredibly high end notebooks, but for this to work, we're going to be talking about laptops with high end CPUs anyway. I guess the idea of having a light and portable business ultrabook with a Skylake i7 for school and work, and coming home and plugging it into a dock with a Fury X in it is incredibly exciting to me!

I've heard they've already partnered with Intel and Razer for this idea, too. Pretty big names, one of whom just released their own gaming dock at CES 😉

 

[wh3resmycar]

The prototype is incredibly huge. If its razer, its going to be mightily expensive as well. Razer wants to be the apple of the peripherals market.

 

[GPUEnthusiast]

The prototype is incredibly huge. If its razer, its going to be mightily expensive as well. Razer wants to be the apple of the peripherals market.

This is true. Thankfully though, Razer does not have exclusive rights to XConnect docks, anybody seems to be allowed to make them. I am not a fan of Razer myself to be honest, but I like seeing stuff like this succeed, so if it needs to start off in the dudebro RGB Razer territory, that may be beneficial to bolster early adopters.

 

[renz496]

AFAIK Xconnect is just the tech AMD named for their solution. I don't think it has any relation to razer gpu dock because the connection still handled by intel thunderbolt universally. And i see some people think this solution only viable with AMD GPU while in fact nvidia already supporting this feature much early in their driver and without any fancy name to boot.

 

[JUICEhunter]

A few things to consider: It currently only works with the Razor laptop so far which starts at $2k but comes with a 970m on the laptop for when you are not docked (slightly faster than a desktop 960). You get a $100 discount on the $500 GPU dock when you buy the Razor laptop ($2k + $400 + GPU).

You can also buy the newest Intel NUC that has thunderbolt 3 and all the bios certifications for external GPU docks for about $1k (+ $500 + GPU), keep in mind this isn't a laptop with a 970m that can game decently on it's own and you'd need a monitor at work/school to plug into when on the go.

Note: You can't use the Fuxy X because of the AIO cooler that needs to be mounted but every other AMD (3xx or Fiji) and NVidia (the entire 9xx series) will also work so you're not required to buy AMD GPU.

http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/Razer-Core-External-GPU-Enclosure-Pricing-and-Availability-Announced

 

[GPUEnthusiast]

There should be more docks than just Razer's soon. But yeah, I still really like the idea 😀