Razer core v2 – Thunderbolt 3
razer core v2 review
The razer core v2 is one of the more well known in GPUs on the market. Razer heavily market this product alongside. Their blade stealth Laptop is the perfect solution for transforming the slim & light machine into a proper gaming system. As this allows you to take a gtx 1080 TI & hook it into a laptop & that in turn allows you to play high end games. Razer Core v2 also function as a hub of ports having 4 USBs & a LAN part on the back as well as whatever display outputs your graphics card has.
razer core v1 vs v2
The core itself is extremely well made. The Razer core v2 is little bit bigger allows you to put a little slightly larger card in it. The big difference between the Razer core & Razer core v2 is that, the v2 adds a second thunderbolt 3 controllers so that the GPU & USB ports have their own dedicated PCI express lanes that means the USB port should function properly & not limit the GPU bandwidth like the core v1.
Moreover the original Razer core ran into lots of bottleneck issues preventing you from using USB outputs & full graphical capability of your external card on your internal monitor. So it was hard to get good performance unless you had an external monitor. It was hard to get good performance out of your external GPU.
Thunderbolt technology
thunderbolt 3 external gpu
The Razer core v2 is an empty external graphics enclosure, in other words you need to purchase the graphic card separately. Moreover you can also install a spare graphic card, you have lying around. The core v2 attaches the Laptop via Thunderbolt 3. The core v2 does work for most of the Thunderbolt 3 equipped Laptops provided a GPU support is enabled.
razer blade thunderbolt 3
As they moved to a dual Thunderbolt controller which sees the PCIe slot through the graphics card attached to one controller. While the USB port & Ethernet jack get a separate controller. The dual controller setup allows everything to function more reliably than they did in the past.
The core v2 is now compatible with a large range of graphics cards. Literally the GPU area is more than a centimeter than in the previous core & can accommodate any GPU less than 14.5 centimeters tall, 4.3 centimeters wide & 30 centimeters long.
GPU installation process
razer core external gpu
The Razer core v2 is designed to fit most graphics cards on the market. The unit itself is quite large in comparison to the compact horas gaming boxes. The larger section of the core v2 exterior is single piece of machined powder coated metal & it is installed by large fins & vents along most edges. Moreover the fans are couple included along the bottom edge drawing air from the gap along the bottom & providing cool air to the power supply & graphics card. The GPU also gets a large vent along inside which makes the core suitable for blower & open air GPU coolers. An RGB strips illuminating the graphics card on the side along with another strip at the front.
Port wise the core v2 does come with Thunderbolt 3 for connecting to your Laptop, PC or other device. Along with the 4 port USB 3.0 hub & Gigabit Ethernet. It’s nice to get Ethernet port on the core.
Read Similar: What does a Graphics card do for gaming
Razer core v2 installation
As installing a graphics card is quite easy with the new design of the core v2. It is completely tool less by simply flip out the handle on the back & slide out the interior section. Now remove the port cover slot in the GPU attach the power cables. You can just slide the interior back inside, flip back the handle & it’s good to go.
So it is super easy to open, a handle that flips out to unlock the mechanism & the tray slides out. The power supply is enhance as its 500 watts.
Gaming Performance Razer core v2
razer gaming computer
As this is entirely determined by the graphics card you choose to use with the core v2. There is no inherent performance among each GPUs. Moreover you are going to get much better performance using core v2. The 105 frames per second is plenty good enough to actually get good solid competitive game play.