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Thunderbolt the wicked fast interface developed by Intel which you can learn

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more about here has always been based on

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PCI Express yes the same PCI Express

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that you use to add internal expansion cards to a desktop computer so to say

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that I've been amped about the idea of being able to staple a video card to a

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laptop for a long time would be an

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understatement well it's finally a

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reality let's take a look then at the razor

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core the Phoenix otor is a full-sized

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minimalistically designed keyboard complete with goldplated Cherry MX Brown

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switches check out the link in the video description to learn more laptop CPUs

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have for about three generations now been available in quad core variants

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that boast sing SLE threaded performance that's fast enough for them to avoid

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being a gaming bottleneck while being power efficient enough not to require a

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nuclear reactor strapped to the bottom of your computer to run for more than an

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hour or so laptop gpus or video cards

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while they've made enormous strides are a different story

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altogether relatively speaking they are hot either thermal throttling during

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real world use or requiring large cooling systems and they suck so much

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power that if you're running on battery they not only drain it during operation

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but in the case of very high-end ones they can't even run at full capacity if

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they wanted to due to battery power delivery limits well that's easy lonus

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just buy a desktop I mean yeah you could do that but not everyone wants more than

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one computer and lots of people actually

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prefer to use a laptop and this problem

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of how to satisy the people who value portability and battery life and who

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also like PC gaming is one that the industry has been trying to solve for a

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long time some of these Solutions never

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made it to Market this really cool prototype from Gigabyte used proprietary

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connectors on high-end shielded cables to take a full PCI Express 16x interface

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to an outside box While others did

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Alienware designed a proprietary PCIe 4X

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cable and and interface that was implemented on a couple of their gaming

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laptop models and the MSI gs30 Shadow

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rocks a PCI Express 16x connector hidden

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by a dust cover on the back that plugs into a proprietary box that not only

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supports an expansion card but also additional storage and IO neat but while

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they both addressed the heat power and

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upgradability issues that plague gaming notebooks they introduced cost

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compatibility and usability ones since

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PCI Express cannot be hot plugged requiring a full system shutdown

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whenever the user wanted to unplug it or plug it back in enough history lesson

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though let's take a closer look at the core razor solution that promises to fix

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everything including doing away with proprietary interfaces in favor of

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Thunderbolt 3 using a USB type-c

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connector man these guys are good at industrial design this thing could be in

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a cardboard box with holes punched in it for all the difference that would make

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to Performance but instead Razer turned out what is in my opinion a shockingly

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attractive piece of high-tech art that I would be happy to have on my desk it's

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constructed almost entirely from thick black anodized aluminum with two LED

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lighting zones on the bottom and on the inside by the left side mesh window that

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can be configured to any color and effect you want from with synapse even

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off if you care less about the Flash and more about the dash on the subject of

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speed I couldn't actually believe how fast it was to get started with the core

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a complete graphics card installation can be done in less than 5 minutes even

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if you've never installed a graphics card before just open the lock at the

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back that doubles as a handle pull it out revealing a single PCI Express 16x

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physical slot and a customized 500 W enhanced power supply remove the back

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plate screw slot in your new video card plug in the power connectors screw it in

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and bippity boity Boo that is it thanks

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to ample Headroom and the inclusion of two 6 Plus TW pin connectors you can

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install almost any graphics card on the

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market though it wouldn't be a terrible idea to consult razer's compatibility

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list before making a purchase for my part I went ahead with a GTX 1080

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Founders Edition that wasn't on the list but worked just fine though your mileage

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may vary with the graphics card installed we can take a look at the

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business end of things the back here you'll find a standard PC power input a

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USB type-c connector that is carrying Thunderbolt 3 four USB 3.0 ports and

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Hallelujah a gigabit Ethernet port yay

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setup was actually pretty straightforward you'll need the latest drivers for the video card you installed

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from AMD or Invidia website you'll need Razer synapse driver utility and in the

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case of the blade 14 but not the blade stealth you'll need the GPU Switcher app

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that sits in the system tray it's beta right now but functionality wise it does

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what it's supposed to allowing you to select which dedicated video card you

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want to use and even remembering your preference through a system reboot or

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you can just leave it on auto mode but

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how much of a performance boost can you expect how well does a video card

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operate over this Rinky Dink little cable the short answer is well I guess

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it depends on what graphics card you put into it and the long answer is much more

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complicated and actually looks like I'm sorry it's going to end up in a separate

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video but in the meantime here are some numbers with a GTX 1080 as a point of

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comparison against the 970m that I use in my blade 14 let's talk about the

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usability a bit though notably absent from the core is a power switch instead

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it simply detects when the device that it's plugged into turns on and Powers up

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alongside it this is the first thing that stood out to me as a potential area

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for improvement for the Next Generation it would be nice to be able to power up

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just the USB hub and Ethernet port to use the core as a more basic dock which

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is something I actually wouldn't desire if it weren't for complaint number two

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the core is not very quiet and surprisingly it doesn't seem to be the

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video card's fault I mean it's certainly quieter Under full game load than a

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blade 14 under full gaming load using its dgpu but the enclosures fans are

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significantly louder at idle than a blade 14 at idle making light

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productivity applications kind of frustrating number three is both praise

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for the core and a huge complaint about the blade 14 2016 I assumed the core

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would require an external display connected to the back of it to work but

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it actually doesn't which is awesome you can use the power of your

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external video card to drive that 3200

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by 1800 onboard display sick

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unfortunately the type-c connector is on the right on this laptop meaning that

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the cable can get in the way of using the mouse and this is made worse by the

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pathetically short cable that Razer includes in the box and there are other

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niggles at the moment as well mostly to do with transitioning between your IG

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dgpu and what I'm going to call egpu the

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one in here the Switcher app can be hard to dismiss sometimes um I plugged in

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while the computer was asleep and my trackpad buttons weren't working until a

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reboot once running fire strike back to back on dgpu then egpu yields a massive

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Improvement in scores but going the other way resulted in a black screen

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after the first segment of the second test until I rebooted the system I was

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able to repeat that several times and there were a few little things like

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that but with that said my experience

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using it now and we're still a bit early by the way gives me a lot of Hope

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performance improvements are real thermals look great and while at CES

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2016 I managed to force a hard reset on

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the demo system by pulling the plug while running

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a 3D application impressively 6 months

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later with Heaven running not only does the system not fully lock up but after a

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little while oh no it did crash that time I've seen this work though after a

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little while Heaven actually managed to get back up and running albeit slowly on

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the igpu a lot of progress has been made

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and while Esports titles will probably be fine with a blade 14's built-in

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graphics for years to come making the future proofness argument for spending

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this kind of money a moot point for a

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gamer who wants to play the latest AAA titles and heaven forbid VR games on his

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or her notebook the core looks on the surface like a superbly elegant albeit

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expensive solution but as I alluded to before

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there are a lot of deeper questions that I found myself asking about this product

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during my time with it so many in fact that I'm going to set aside a

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significant chunk of time four the core is available to you guys to buy to

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attempt to answer them all speaking of

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answers you were probably asking yourself wow where did lonus get that

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sexy pink skin for his razor blade to

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which the answer is of course from dbrand dbrand is your source for awesome

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vinyl skins for your phone tablet console controllers and more they're

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affordable and they ship worldwide but the best thing about dbrand is the

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configurator on their site you pick your device you pick all your colors and you

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can actually mix and match colors which I personally think looks freaking

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awesome but your mileage may vary with that you get to preview what it's going

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to look like you place your order and boom their robots pack it and ship it to

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you and if there's anything wrong their customer service robots are Ace so go

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ahead and check out the link in the video description and start skinning your devices today so thanks for

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watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or

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check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured at Amazon in the video

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description also linked in the description is our merch store which has

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cool shirts like this one and our community Forum which you should totally

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join now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to

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watch next so click that button in the top right corner to check out our latest

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video over on Channel Super Fun