Razer Blade Stealth: Rely On External GPU

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At CES 2016, Razer released the latest gamer notebook more revolutionary, the Razer Blade Stealth. At first glance its shape, you may not believe this gaming notebook. Because gaming notebooks are usually big and heavy. Well, Stealth Razer Blade is similar as thin ultrabook. Weighs only 1.25 kg, with a thickness of 1.21 cm. Well, why such a small notebook can play the game?

The secret is the Razer Blade is the Stealth has a "tandem" named Razer Core.

Razer Core is basically an external GPU enclosure for. In it, there is a slot for a graphics card installed regular / desktop. You can install a graphics card from Nvidia and AMD, as long as the power consumption is below 375 Watts. Power supply to power the graphics card has also been provided in the Razer Core, so practically you only need to plug the GPU into an available slot. If so, plug the Razer Core to Razer Blade Stealth via Thunderbolt 3 and you can play the latest games on this notebook.

The concept of such an external GPU is on the rise lately. Because this solution could overcome the problem of limited space in the notebook. During this time, a gaming notebook should be large because it accommodates the internal graphics card issuing high heat. As a result, it takes a large cooling system so it's pretty cool the internal graphics card. Batteries for notebook gaming must also be large because the internal graphics cards tend to be power hungry.

Now with the "issuing" special casing to a graphics card like this, the notebook can be designed thin and sleek like this Stealth Razer Blade.

The concept of an external GPU is also possible thanks to the large bandwidth offered Thunderbolt interface 3. The standard connection can stream data up to 40Gbps (actually 5Gb / s). By doing so, the data must be processed notebook graphics that can be sent to an external GPU without having to face a bottleneck. Sure there is a penalty of it this way because 40Gbps roughly equivalent to class PCIe x4 (not x16 offered a desktop PC). So if used for gaming resolutions and high detail, there will be a decrease in performance compared to when the GPU operates at a desktop PC. But at least, you can play the game over in the notebook class.

Razer Blade Stealth itself has a screen size of 12.5 inches, with a resolution of 2560 × 1600 pixels or 3840 × 2160 pixels. Processor using Intel Core i7-6500U, 8GB of memory, and PCIe-based 512GB. The internal graphics card itself to perform "minimally", ie Intel 540 Graphic Iris.

While Razer Core itself has a size large enough, ie 10,5x34x21,8 cm. So this device is somewhat inconvenient if need be taken everywhere. Razer Core itself of its hot-plug, an alias can be removed / installed without the need to restart the notebook. Besides Thunderbolt 3, the device also has various other connections such as USB 3.0 (4 pieces), HDMI (2 pieces), and DVI (2 pieces).

Unfortunately, Razer has not released official pricing Core. However Razor Blade Stealth themselves priced starting at USD $ 999, so couples Stealth and Core this certainly will not be cheap.

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