It doesn’t take long for a laptop, even one in the gaming tier, to start feeling long in the tooth. On the PC, there’s no upper limit on the hardware required for optimal gaming performance, and this is often to the laptop’s detriment. Razer’s Core series has been trying to find a workaround for that for a few years now, creating external graphics card cages that let you give your laptop a shot in the arm. That hardware series is about to come back with a bit of a refresh — the Razer Core X.
So here’s what you get in the box:
- Connection to PC: Thunderbolt 3 using included 40Gbps cable
- GPU Type: Up to the 3-Slot wide, full-length, PCI-Express x16 graphics card
- GPU Max power support: 500 watts
- Razer Core X max inner dimensions:
Length: 12.99″/330mm
Height: 6.29″/160mm
Width: 2.36″/60mm - Compatible graphics cards include Nvidia GeForce, Nvidia Quadro and AMD Radeon
- Input & Output Thunderbolt 3 (for connection to PC)
That last dot point is an important one. You need a Thunderbolt 3 port on your laptop in order for the Core X to beef it up. This is great news for Mac owners and slightly less so for those with Windows laptops below the Ultrabook tier. That said, if you do have a Windows machine with a Thunderbolt port, you’re set to go.
You’ll also, obviously, need to provide your own graphics card for the Core X to run. I used to work in retail — I just know someone is going to buy this thing thinking it’ll beef up their computer on its own. It won’t. The Core X is what you’re buying. The graphics card is BYO.
We don’t have a confirmed local release date for the Core X just yet, or a price beyond the $249 USD price point. It wouldn’t shock us to see this device get up around the $450 AUD mark, but we’ll have to see what Razer’s got to say there. Keep an ear out, we’re sure they’ll be announcing any day now.
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