Boost your laptop's gaming aptitude with Razer's new Core X Chroma external GPU enclosure

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? Razer on Tuesday welcomed a new member to its external graphics enclosure (eGPU) family. The Razer Core X Chroma is designed to work with a wide variety of Windows laptops and MacBooks, enabling gamers to supplement their mobile rig with a desktop-class graphics card.

The new Core X Chroma now includes a 700W internal power supply capable of driving power-hungry cards from Nvidia and AMD. Qualified Nvidia cards include the RTX, GTX and Quadro series; on the AMD side, Radeon and Radeon Pro cards are compatible with the new eGPU. You can squeeze in up to a three-slot wide, full-length PCIe x16 card in the chassis.

The enclosure additionally packs four USB 3.1 Type-A ports and Gigabit Ethernet. It measures 6.61 inches x 14.72 inches x 9.06 inches and tips the scales at 15.23 pounds (without a GPU).

Note that you’ll need a Thunderbolt 3 port to use the Razer Core X Chroma. Also worth mentioning is the fact that macOS systems running High Sierra 10.13.4 or later are only compatible with AMD cards. Furthermore, the Razer Synapse 3 software used to control the Razer Chroma RGB lighting zones is not available on macOS.

The new Razer Core X Chroma is available from today directly from Razer and select retailers in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany and the Nordics (it’s heading to China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan soon, we’re told). Expect to pay $399.99 for the opportunity.

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[Toju Mikie]

Isn't there some kind of performance loss when using an eGPU over thunderbolt 3? I would like to see reviews of this one.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I doubt I'd want to use my Laptop CPU with a Desktop grade GPU.

I'd have better performance with a desktop CPU with the same GPU than either of my laptops.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I gamed with an eGPU for a few months. Yes, there is a performance loss and it seems to be greater the more powerful GPU you use. I used a GTX 1060 6GB for most of my time but used a 1050Ti for a bit too.

Performance loss is 10-25% relative to a similar CPU in a desktop chassis, dependent on the game. But it's the 1% lows which seem to be more greatly affected so the reduction in perceived performance is magnified a bit more than just the 10-25% number.

 

[Xtreme gamer]

Isn't there some kind of performance loss when using an eGPU over thunderbolt 3? I would like to see reviews of this one.

Yea big loss with some lag on top.
Tbolt 3 is basically gen 3 PCIe x4 speed.
Not good at all.
The USB slots and Ethernet eat into the bandwidth too.
It's even worse trying to run the laptop screen off the E-GPU. The data has to travel 2 ways.
Wait for Tbolt 4 or something.