Razer Core and other external GPU enclosures

Desktops are cheaper than laptops and easily longer lived too. I bought mine 5 years ago and it is still running strong (i5-2500k). I only swapped an SSD and upgraded the GPU twice. Surface computers are expensive but you can always choose something cheaper for an ultraportable.

 

Don't blame the software. It's just a permission setting that Rys configured.

 

There is also this

 

While the ultrabook+external GPU concept is definitely not an obvious "winner" against competing form factors (and that won't change for at least a couple years), I think it's a tall order to say that you can get a Core-sized high-ish-performance gaming machine alongside an ultrabook for meaningfully less than the "equivalent" ultrabook+external GPU setup.

• If you're using Razer's Core, then you should probably pair it with the Blade Stealth. It's no accident that it comes with a higher end 15W CPU and it seems to be slightly chunkier than the thinnest ultrabooks out there - so hopefully cooling is satisfactory.
  • The biggest problem with the Stealth is storage. Half a TB feels like the minimum for your game storage drive. That means you're forced into the priciest $1600 SKU (you can save $400 off that if you can live with a quarter TB).
    
  • The Core, itself, will probably be $200-$400 (just speculating).
    
  • That's a total of $1400 to $2000 before you add the discrete GPU, external mouse or external display (if any).
• If you're going the ultrabook & Core-sized desktop route, then you'll have fun trying to find a full-featured miniITX case that's close to the Core's dimensions. It gets a lot easier (and cheaper) once you release that condition.
  • Silverstone's FT-03 Mini got close enough. I made an illustrative build for a hair over $1000 after rebates without a dGPU (anything <10" fits). Note that certain parts like the RAM & SSD are very skimpy and some people may spend ~$100 more for higher quality "brand-name" parts.
    
  • For the ultrabook, the venerable UX305 series seems like an excellent "bare minimum" option (but a damn good one!). It's ~$700 at the low end, but I think a low end ultrabook is tolerable since you don't need to store games on it. If you need more features, you can get at or above $1000 for a respectable ultrabook. However, since this is a dual-system setup, I think $1000 is a reasonable "cap" for the ultrabook budget.
    
  • That's a total of $1700 - $2100 before you add the discrete GPU, external mouse or external display.

Note that I'm assuming both options would use roughly the same "caliber" of GPU, so that was assumed to be the same price for comparisons sake and can therefore be omitted. Same assumption with an external mouse and external display. I'm assuming that the Stealth has a good enough integrated keyboard that people will be satisfied with that.

At this time, my conclusion would be that it's too close to properly conclude that the Stealth+Core setup is consistently pricier than an equivalently sized desktop+ultrabook. If you are a freak that can live on 256GB of SSD storage (or storage is upgradable), then the Stealth+Core wins by a mile (unless the Core costs like $500+). If you're a normal human being that needs at least half a TB of gaming storage, then it's possible to configure a desktop+ultrabook that's cheaper if you're willing to be selective with your parts (or you already have some parts).

 

Your build is actually a great example in that it is similar price between the two but in one case you get 2 computers, one of which (the desktop) is waaaaaaaay faster than the laptop+GPU setup for a very similar price. And of course you can upgrade it down the road if you want. And if you get a beefy enough GPU you're set for VR on the desktop system.

In reality if you want a "comparable" machine, you should get the cheapest i3 you can find, or even a non-atom pentium. Hell the $70 pentium AA thing is probably faster in practice, particularly with some mild overclocking. Despite the "i7" moniker, there's no magic here: a dual core 15W machine is not going to be competitive with even cheap dual core desktops that have less power constraints. Additionally if you don't get such a high end CPU you don't need to buy a separate cooler so you can easily knock off a few hundred $ here.

I'll note that there are cheaper cases and so on as well although I realize your intention was to get something of similar size here. If the size of the enclosure isn't a big deal (which I'm guessing for a lot of people it isn't given that laptop + enclosure takes up a lot of room on a desk), you can save a bunch more money too. Depending on if you're using the internal display on the laptop you would have to buy a keyboard there as well (and there are cheaper keyboards, but that's splitting hairs). I *will* whine about why on earth you would ever want an optical drive these days, even if it was free, so there's $65 back Also the Razor machine is only 8GB of DDR3 RAM, so the desktop is a fair bit better there again (or conversely you can make it cheaper).

I'm not sure if people are ultimately just confused about how much performance they are getting in an ultrabook vs. a desktop or what, but I still claim this doesn't really make sense. You could maybe make some sort of argument if you use the internal display of the laptop, but even there 1080p monitors are pretty inexpensive these days.

Here's a modified build for $740. You could even go cheaper (RAM, CPU, cases, etc) and still be faster than the laptop+GPU setup as I noted above...
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6yCZ6h
With this build you're almost certainly equal or less than the laptop+GPU, still quite a bit faster and you have 2 full computers instead of 1.

 

Spoken like a true believer

So you can install all your old games.

 

At *most* have one USB optical drive forever. Absolutely don't ever pay $65 (!!) for something to put inside a SFF build. Optical is the worst.

 

I want to preface this with a sideways apology. I always hate chopping up someone's post. It feels so passive aggressive and I'm not happy about that. And yet, there's a lot of good discussion that can be had as long as things are kept on-track.

Can't you disable the display and leave the lid open? It's been a while since I've attempted to game on a laptop, but I believe that I've done that before. If we're talking about utilizing a Stealth in our hypothetical scenario, then I'm confident that its keyboard will be satisfactory.

I don't want to sound too hostile, but any self-respecting gamer is not getting a $7 rubber dome keyboard. I grabbed the cheapest mechanical switch keyboard available, just for illustrative purposes. You better believe that Razer won't be putting a garbage keyboard in that $1000+ Stealth. They make gaming-minded mechanical keyboards that sell for upwards to $150. And their keyboards have a fair bit of competition. While I only spent $60 on a boring tenkeyless model, I know more than a couple people that have spent more than $100 on their keyboards. Therefore, I think a $40 keyboard is very thrifty for a gamer.

There's no doubt that a 15W CPU will be strictly worse than a similarly-cored desktop model with a higher TDP and a higher base clock. However, the 6100 that you suggested is a gem. It can game like a champ in its stock configuration (and make the competition weep if overclocked). I would've included that in my illustrative build if you hadn't mentioned "i5" in your proceeding post.

Honestly, I'm fascinated to start seeing some proper benchmarks from all of these external GPUs that are popping up. I suspect that these laptop chips might not be quite as inept as we might anticipate, but obviously we need data to draw any meaningful conclusion.

You don't need an overpriced Skylake quad, but you need an H60. A case the size of the FT-03 Mini basically requires a water cooler, the FT-03 Mini especially.

The truly silly thing is that there are similarly priced air coolers that are generally considered superior to the skinny H60 and I honestly wouldn't do much heavy overclocking with one. However, the H60 is known to fit in the cramped FT-03 Mini and it can get the job done.

I was just attempting to test initial your statement as it was written. To be clear, the FT-03 Mini is a remarkably small case, but it's actually larger than the Core by a fair margin. Honestly, I don't think it's accurate to say that there is any mini-ITX case as small as the Core that can still fit a (mostly) full size desktop GPU. It's really small. I think that would be part of the allure for a lot of people.

And there are some serious concessions when dealing with a case as small as the FT-03 Mini. As previously mentioned, you basically must spend the cash to water cool the CPU as airflow is a nightmare otherwise. The PSU must be of the pricier SFX variety. The required slim disk drive costs 3x what a more traditional 5.25" drive would cost. Oh and the case, itself, is very expensive, as you pointed out.

However, let's be clear that the moment you release the limitation on a Core-sized chassis, the financial competitiveness of the Core+ultrabook simply dies. A perfectly nice traditional gaming desktop is simply too cheap these days. There's simply no competition if you're going the traditional route.

But if you require that the desktop be the same size as an external GPU (or roughly so)? Then I think the verdict is still out.

 

Oh I don't interpret it that way at all - I actually find it way easier to follow as I know specifically to which statements you are replying. So apologies if you find me doing it passive aggressive; that's definitely not the intention, it's just to be clear.

I don't think they'll cheap out or anything, but the reality is that all ultrabook keyboards are garbage compared to pretty much anything with more key travel. This is another case where the best you can do even in a machine like the Macbook Pro is still worse than something cheap in a less space constrained area. I agree that gamers should generally go for something a bit nicer on a desktop, but I disagree that there's really any laptop keyboard - let alone ultrabook keyboard - that on the gran scheme of things is anything better than the bare minimum, especially for gaming.

From experience, it completely depends on the game. Some games are really light on the CPU and will probably work just fine, while others not so much. It definitely does put a cap on how high end a GPU you should pair with it though, and it obviously puts you out of the realm of stuff like VR.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that for a 45W processor - people generally do massive overkill on CPU cooling, especially at sock frequencies. As long as there is physical space for the stock cooler, I still disagree that you need anything fancier. Now to be fair I've done a number of SFF builds but none in that specific case so it's possible that the stock cooler doesn't fit, but that brings me to the next point.

Indeed there's a question of "similar sized" build, but I'm not totally sure if that's a real constraint for folks who would buy this thing. Also as you note the FT-03 build mini is larger, but it also has an internal PSU and other stuff. You really have to compare the size - and cabling - of the laptop + enclosure + power bricks (2-3 of them depending on which model!) at which point I'd argue that the desktop machine is actually cleaner and lower impact than the other setup.

Right so let's separate out the two cases - can you build something as "small" and can you build something as "cheap". As above I actually think that by any usable definition of "small" when the whole laptop + enclosure is set up, you're already way messier than a desktop unless you are using the laptop's internal monitor and keyboard where I'm willing to call it a draw If you're going to use a real monitor and keyboard and so on I think you're significantly "larger footprint" for any usable definition of that than a SFF desktop.

For cheaper I think we both mostly agree there are better options. Good discussion and interesting points!

 

You make a good point about being CPU limited, especially with a 15W CPU driving a 250W GPU.

Let me make two points.

a) For me, there is a great value in this kind of setup. I can take my laptop and do work on it from everywhere and when I plug in to a dock, I get many more display outs, ie 3 monitors with a laptop display without counting the laptop panel. I don't have to sync anything and this setup is perfect for playing with GPUs. You can program on the go, run test cases on the integrated GPU while you are on the move and when you sit down, you just keep working. This is a niche use case and I doubt there are enough people like me to sustain this market. But this feature is very useful to me.

b) For gaming, even on PC, CPU perf, both serial and parallel is maxed out. So the secular trend in games is to move CPU side tasks to GPU. Now we can issue compute kernels from compute kernels. Going forward, I see launching draw calls from the GPU itself as the next logical step. Low latency demands it. If this happens, then something like this will become very practical.

These points only partially address your points. But I hope thunderbolt3 with eGPU takes off widely.

 

In that case why not just remote into your main rig? It doesn't take much effort to set up syncing files between devices.

I don't really see who would be buying external gpu enclosures. Those enclosures are almost the size of a ITX case...

 

Someone who doesn't want a discrete GPU running all the time when it isn't needed. Like me. As I mentioned before I don't want one to pair up with a laptop. I want one to pair up with my desktop computer.

Either that or for one of the IHVs to come up with switchable graphics for discrete cards on desktop computers such that I can completely power down the discrete graphics card whenever it isn't needed.

I'll take either one, but there's a lot more R&D going into GPU enclosures than there is going into switchable graphics for the desktop. So my only hope in the foreseeable future is for an external GPU enclosure.

Regards,
SB

 

Serious question but for what purpose? I can only think of noise or power consumption. Noise can be fixed by buying a card with a decent cooler, getting watercooling or putting the pc in a other room. All three options probably won't cost more than a gpu enclosure. Even my Gigabyte R9 290 is pretty much inaudible unless you are sitting next to the case in a near silent room when idle.

As far your electricity bill, I went from a netbook to a i7 with a 560 to a R9 290 if the GPU caused a 5 dollar increase per month over the netbook then its a lot. You probably wouldn't even save 2 bucks a month with the gpu enclosure so that doesn't make much sense to me as you have to buy the enclosure as well. Many ways you can save that kind of money over a much shorter period of time.

 

Because of my crap financial situation ive often been in the position of having a decent gpu and a really old cpu and games have run remarkably well

 

Having an external enclosure only hinders this goal, not really helps. Today you can already install a dGPU but plug your display into the iGPU on a desktop. When not using the dGPU in a game or similar it will be "off"/completely unused. Feel free to disable it in the device manager if you want even

That said modern GPUs are pretty reasonable with respect to power and noise - you can definitely get ones that turn off their fans and go into very low power modes when just being used for the desktop.

 

Sure but we're not talking about *old* (desktop) CPUs, we're talking about *low-power* ones, which is a very different ball game. It may surprise folks to know that a number of games are CPU-limited today when running on 15W processors using the iGPU... think about that for a second.

 

A remote rig is going to much more expensive vs an enclosure. PSU +cpu+ram+ssd+mobo+...

 

That would definitely surprise me. Do you know of any articles/reviews that cover that topic?

And does this generally occur on both Intel & AMD CPUs? I assume it would be more likely to occur on the "2+3" Intel CPUs and the AMD APUs as they both tend to have a healthy dollop of GPU muscle for their meager 15W budget.

Wouldn't that introduce a healthy amount of input latency? Many popular games today are "twitch" multiplayer games (FPS, action, etc) that tend to be sensitive to that sort of thing.

 

Wait, I don't need to have my monitor plugged into the dGPU to have the dGPU render the game? I'll have to look this up. If that allows me to completely power down the dGPU when not gaming, I'll be quite ecstatic.

I did a quick search just now but not finding anything, if you have some links that could point me in the right direction, I'd be forever in your debt.

Power (heat) and noise. There isn't a cooler on the market with acceptable acoustics. My room is very quiet, especially at night. I live in an area with very little ambient noise, so the sound floor is lower than your average household, much less your average apartment. I have 1 fan + GPU cooling system for my desktop computer. Even at idle the GPU fan is extremely loud because the room I use it in is extremely quiet. There is no GPU fan in existence for a mid-range or higher graphics card that doesn't sound extremely loud, even at idle, in my room. Even watercooling setups with large fans are audible.

Regards,
SB

 

Correct, but a lot of games simply query the "first" 3D adapter in the list rather than letting you choose which one to use. The "first" adapter will be the one connected to the display in most cases. It definitely does work though if you can get a game to pick the right adapter - I do it every day here There are hacky things you can do for games that don't support selecting an adapter (Optimus style hooking), but ideally games would just support selecting it.

I'm not sure there's much online... while these configs are common in laptops they try to hide them behind software like Optimus. Only recently have these sorts of configs become more common desktops and since they have focused on stuff like just enabling QuickSync, the assumption is still usually that the display is plugged into the dGPU. You can disable/enable adapters from the Device Manager as you launch things but that can get messy too.

I distinctly remember that there are cards now whose fans entirely shut off when on the desktop... will have to google around again to find links but I have a pretty clear memory of reading this

[Edit] Here's a link to one that does - surprisingly even a 980 Ti (and apparently the R9 Fury as well) I'm pretty sure the other Asus 900-line cards are able to do the same but look around: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_980_Ti_STRIX_Gaming/29.html