This is the CLEANEST Setup.
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,823 words · ~14 min read
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Full-size desktops are great
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for playing the latest AAA games at high frame rates,
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or if you need the extra muscle for video editing,
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3D rendering, or computer-assisted design.
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But if we're being honest, for most people,
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a thin and light basic laptop
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is more than enough these days
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and comes with the extra benefits of portability
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and convenience that you simply don't get with a desktop.
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The real bummer is when you end up having to buy both,
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a desktop for your gaming or your heavy work
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and a laptop for when you're out and about.
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I mean, why bother having two full CPUs
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installed on two motherboards
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when you can only really use one at a time?
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If only there was a solution
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where just by plugging one cable
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into that laptop you already own,
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you could extend it with a full-size desktop,
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all the peripherals and expansion you could want,
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and even a powerful graphics card.
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And I mean, while I'm dreaming,
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what if wireless charging was simply built
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right into a desk?
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Oh, wait, it is.
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And we did all that stuff.
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And we're gonna show you exactly how it works
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after this message from our sponsor, Origin.
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Origin PC builds custom desktops,
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like this one over here
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that we were actually using for a video earlier,
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and laptops with free 24-7 lifetime tech support
1:29
and high-quality components,
1:30
and laptops with free 24-7 lifetime tech support,
1:30
and laptops with free 24-7 lifetime tech support,
1:30
like Samsung's 970 EVO and M.2 SSD.
1:34
Check them out at the link in the video description.
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So step zero for making your very own
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one cable desk dock thing
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is having a compatible laptop.
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You don't get dual 4K monitors,
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10 gig file transfers,
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and 85 watts of charging
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through a regular old micro USB port and cable.
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No, for this to work,
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you need a laptop with at least one Thunderbolt 3 port.
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And we would strongly recommend finding one
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that has a four by PCI express lane interface.
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So Thunderbolt 3 looks like a normal USB type C port,
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except for this little lightning bolt emblem
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that isn't even always there.
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So the Thunderbolt 3 port
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on our 2018 Razer Blade Stealth, for example,
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is totally unmarked.
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If you need to double check your device,
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you can always search for it
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on the Thunderbolt Technology website.
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Now, for the most important part,
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for step one, plan your layout.
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At a minimum, your desktop is going to need
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a Thunderbolt 3 hub for everything to run through.
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Luckily for us, CalDigit was kind enough
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to send us their flagship TS3 Plus,
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which can provide 85 watts of power.
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That's enough to charge a MacBook Pro.
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And it's got enough ports for your peripherals,
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wired internet, and a 10 gigabit external drive.
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Oh, also up to two 4K monitors.
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Now, you could just get a 4K monitor,
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get a device like this,
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and call it a day with no other parts necessary.
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But to make our setup really special,
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we wanted to add an external graphics card enclosure
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so that our desktop not only makes our laptop easier to use
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with a monitor and peripherals and, you know,
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lots of ports and all that,
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but also substantially more powerful.
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So that ended up making things a bit more complicated.
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For starters, while Thunderbolt 3 does support daisy chain,
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up to six devices off of a single port,
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you can't just plug your graphics card into your dock.
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Unless your eGPU is the first device in the chain,
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you'll get awful latency at best,
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and at worst, random crashes or total non-functionality.
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Okay, so we just switch the order then, right?
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Laptop to eGPU, eGPU to dock, oh.
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So at the time of writing, the odds of your eGPU having two ports
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on it for daisy chaining are pretty low.
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The only options we're aware of are the Blackmagic eGPU,
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which only works with Macs, the Akitio Node Duo,
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which is designed to hold two cards,
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but at only half the bandwidth each,
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and the Akitio Node Pro,
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which is exactly what we ended up using.
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It solves our problems, but it has a gotcha.
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Even though our TS3 Plus hub can deliver 85 watts of power,
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your laptop only receives power
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from the device that it is directly connected to.
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So in our case, that's the Node Pro,
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whose Thunderbolt 3 ports can only deliver
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up to 60 watts of power.
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So machines with higher power demands,
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like the MacBook Pro, could end up trickle charging.
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Fortunately for us, that is not the case
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for my Blade Stealth 2017, so our journey continues.
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Step two then, choose a suitable desk.
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As you can see, our finished desk dock
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is completely stealthed,
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meaning that even though it's got
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integrated wireless charging and a freaking graphics card,
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you can't see either of those things
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when you're sitting at the desk.
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And that is only possible because of the planning
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that we did back in step one.
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So we limited our options to ones
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with enough cabinet space and thickness
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to contain all of our devices and our cables,
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with obvious cable management runs for bonus points.
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This one fit the bill nicely,
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and we're mostly thrilled
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with how the finished product looks.
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But we're gonna stop short of a recommendation here
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because the desk's build quality
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is a bit of a disappointment.
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It's basically Ikea level.
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It even uses the same dowels and hardware,
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but it was at least twice what you'd expect to pay
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at the blue and yellow store.
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And it is full of little oversights,
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like these holes here that aren't even big enough
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to accommodate the screws that are included with the desk.
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Now it's time for power tools.
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Step three is to hide the eGPU inside the desk somehow.
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Our desk arrived before our eGPU did,
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but the on paper specs indicated
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that it was just a bit smaller than the cabinet.
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That is as long as the drawers weren't in the way.
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So we made room by shortening the drawers.
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This created an empty space at the back of the cabinet
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while maintaining the original look.
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And what's really cool is that these drawers
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can still be used to hold a couple of pens
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or like a single banana.
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When it actually arrived though,
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we did find out that once you accounted for cables
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and drawer rails, there really wasn't enough room
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for the giant eGPU chassis.
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Fortunately, we were able to extract the parts that matter
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and then prop them up on a janky frame made out of scrap wood
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that did fit inside the hollowed cabinet.
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One more thing, we learned from our last desk project
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that cooling is super important.
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So we used a hole saw to bore a four fan breezeway,
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then used fan splitters
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to connect our fans to the single fan header
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that was already on the Node Pros PCB.
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Step three was installing an invisible wireless charger.
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Now the original plan here was to simply cut
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a charging pad sized hole in the top of the desk
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and then have the exposed pad kind of poking through.
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But then we remembered,
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hey, we have a giant CNC router and an Alex.
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So he programmed a basic design, including a cable channel.
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And after a couple of test cuts to make sure
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that this low quality chipboard didn't just explode
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on contact with the blade,
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we were able to carve out a recess for the charging pad
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to nest into from the bottom,
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leaving the surface of the desk intact,
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but as thin as possible
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to maximize the charging pad's effectiveness.
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Then we added these classy dots
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to show you where the heck the thing is.
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Cool, right?
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Step four was mounting the Thunderbolt 3 hub.
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So the TS3 Plus has IO on the front
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that we wanted to be able to access.
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And the TS3 Plus has IO on the back
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that we wanted to be able to access.
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So we had to use Velcro tape on the top
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to mount it to the underside of the desk.
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This gives us both a discreet, slick looking finish
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and the ability to pull the device off easily
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instead of contorting our spines
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in the event that we need to plug something into the back.
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Step five, cable management.
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Our desk did come with cable management holes in the middle,
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but we added a few more of our own
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so that we could route all of the cables
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from the inside of the desk and the cabinet,
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and the table leg.
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Once you're done then,
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the only loose cable that you should ever have to interact
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with is the Thunderbolt 3 cable
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that you plug into your machine.
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And this is cool.
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It can actually go on either side of this divider down here,
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thanks to the hole that we drilled at the back.
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That means that it doesn't matter which side of your device
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your Thunderbolt 3 port is on.
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So that's how we did it,
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but let me show you guys how it works.
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So first, I have to configure my laptop
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to not go to sleep when I close the lid.
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Obviously, I could have set up the desk
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so that the laptop goes here,
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and then it just stays open
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and I could use it as a second monitor or whatever else,
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but we were going for the cleanest setup.
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So once it's powered,
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I can go ahead and close the lid
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and it's not gonna go to sleep.
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You can just kinda tuck it in there.
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Now we give it like somewhere between five and 10 seconds,
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and our monitor should come to life.
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Our peripherals should, come on baby, start working.
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There we go.
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And check this out.
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If I hop over to device manager,
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we might even be able to catch it showing up here.
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Nope, it's already there.
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GeForce GTX 1080 TI.
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So because this is a quad core Ultrabook,
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that means that we are actually in a position
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where we can play AAA level games on our Ultrabook
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just with this one cable.
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So I'm gonna go ahead and fire up Rise of the Tomb Raider.
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One other really cool thing
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that I don't actually have set up here
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is that with some of the other high-speed USB ports
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on the back of this CalDigit device,
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you could also do something like have a high-speed
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either SSD or hard drive that you've got pre-attached
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and then just like, I don't know, taped to the top
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or even just hanging out back there,
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like plugged into something like this.
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And then what would happen is
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even if you didn't have a ton of storage on your laptop,
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you could plug it in and boom,
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your Steam library with hundreds of gigabytes of games
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would automatically be remapped.
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And then accessible to you.
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That's something that actually already works fairly well.
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So let's go ahead and continue our game here.
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So this is Rise of the Tomb Raider running at mostly high.
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I've got motion blur disabled
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and a couple of other things that I just kind of prefer.
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But this is that mostly high details running at 75,
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70 to 75 frames per second.
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And the coolest thing about it is actually something
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that probably won't be obvious
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to you guys watching right now.
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And that's this.
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So my microphone's right here.
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It's basically silent.
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So for peace of mind, next time around,
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I'd probably put an 80 millimeter fan in the back
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and just have it draw some air across the laptop.
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But honestly, we left it running
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for over an hour yesterday in a game
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and our CPU never hit above 65 degrees.
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So it was chilly in our warehouse,
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but basically at room temperature,
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you'd never see above about 75.
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And then our GPU stayed downright frosty
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with all those cooling fans circulating air in the cabinet.
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Honestly, the loudest fan in this thing
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is the one in the included power supply
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from the Akitio Node Pro.
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So to do it again, I do the cooling fan
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and then probably swap out that power supply.
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Silverstone has some really great options
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for semi silent units.
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They've got like an 800 watt
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that I think the fan only turns on
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if you draw over like two or 300 watts of power.
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So something like that would make this whole setup,
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not just stealthy to the eye, but also stealthy to the ear.
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All right.
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Well, because we kind of have to,
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let's fire up Fortnite and have a look at what it thinks
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will be the ideal settings for our system here.
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50% off what?
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Do I have to pay for that?
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You gotta be kidding me.
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What is this?
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So it has defaulted us to our,
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I don't know why there's a frame rate limit.
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You know what?
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I'm just gonna do this myself.
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Motion blur, off.
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No, God, why would anyone want that?
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All right, not bad.
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So we're running in the neighborhood
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70 to 80 FPS.
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I've seen dips down to 55 or 60.
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Let's go ahead and jump out of the battle bus here.
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Yep, so around 50 at the lowest as we're falling.
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So I could probably improve that
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by dropping a couple things down to medium,
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but overall, very playable.
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And remember, this is at 3840 by 1600 resolution
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running off of a laptop CPU.
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Super impressed.
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I mean, I could take his plane, right?
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Yeah.
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Wee!
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Bye loser.
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I'm definitely getting a little bit of chop
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that I wouldn't be expecting.
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I think there's a little bit more tuning required
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to get this running as smoothly as I would expect
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for the FPS that we're getting.
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We gotta get out of here.
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We gotta get out of here.
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Oh, damn.
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So maybe a couple more things to tweak here.
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Now that I've seen this fall down once,
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some kind of reinforcement so it stays in place better.
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Probably a good idea.
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Also, using a mouse directly on a desk surface
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is not something I'd recommend.
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If we had thought for certain
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that there was no way we were gonna damage the table,
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what we would have really wanted to do
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was route out exactly the shape of a mouse pad
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and then have it recessed in the table.
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That's something we'd probably wanna do on a V2,
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but I mean, other than that,
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I'm super proud of the result here.
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I gave James the task of creating the cleanest setup,
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bar none, and as far as I'm concerned, mission accomplished.
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I think the only thing left now
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is maybe to do like an updated version
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for our MacBook user viewers
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with maybe a couple of the tweaks that we've talked about,
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but we'll see.
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Let us know in the comments
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if you'd like to see a follow-up.
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And now I wanna thank our sponsor
14:35
for today's video, Massdrop.
14:36
They collaborated with Koss
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to bring their original 1984 design
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and update it to make it modern and durable
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while remaining light.
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So these are portable on-ear headphones that can be used,
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that can be folded up in different configurations
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They use oxygen-free copper voice coils
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It's backed by Koss's lifetime warranty,
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and you can join the drop today
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and grab yourself a pair of these for $37.99
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at the link in the video description.
15:16
So thanks for watching, guys.
15:17
If you disliked this video,
15:19
you can hit that button.
15:20
But if you liked it, hit like, get subscribed,
15:22
or maybe consider checking out
15:23
where to buy the stuff we featured
15:25
at the link in the video description.
15:27
Also down there is our merch store,
15:28
which has cool shirts like the one I'm wearing,
15:30
and our community forum, which you should totally join.
15:33
And yes, the animation smoothness is way better
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as soon as I dropped the render resolution
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down a little bit.
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I think it was just struggling a bit at basically 4K.