PC gaming has been one of the bright spots in the rough computer
market the past few years. Mobile gaming is also on the rise as
technology continues to improve the performance of laptops. The issue is
that laptops still cannot match the performance of traditional desktop
systems. It has gotten butter especially for the larger gaming systems
but consumers are starting to want smaller and more compact laptops.
The problem is smaller systems mean less space for the graphics solutions and the batteries required to run them.
This
ends up contrary to the hardware requirements most gamers are looking
for. In general they want to have the best performance possible with
very high resolutions. In fact, many high end gaming laptops are
shipping with 3K (2560x1440) and 4K (3840x2160) displays.
This is where the external graphics solutions help solve a problem. Sure, mobile graphics
can provide good performance for those willing to run their games at
1920x1080 resolutions or lower. but if you want to go any faster you
need desktop class graphics. The ability to hook up a laptop system up
with a desktop graphics card may make the systems less portable but
provides them with desktop class performance when they are used at a
home or location that you wish to bring the external dock or bay to.
Early Efforts
The idea of running an external desktop
graphics card is not a new one. The conecpt was first really brought
about back in the days when laptops offered the ExpressCard
expansion slots. This interface in essence allowed the PCI-Express bus
of the processors and motherboards in the laptop to hook up to external
devices for expansion.
By creating a docking bay with an adapter that
plugged into the ExpressCard slot you now have access to a full desktop
class graphics card. Of course, it wasn't that simple.
The big problem was that ExpressCard solutions required an external PC display
be hooked up to the graphics card in the bay. This may have been
beneficial for having a larger display especially when most displays
back then were 1366x768 resolution or lower. Requiring the external
display made the graphics bay a little less portable. You might as well
have gone with a small form factor
gaming system as that offered better performance and was just as
portable. Of course, Express Card did not catch on with many consumer
laptops either.
Proprietary Options
Manufacturers did not
give up on the idea of external desktop graphics for laptop systems.
Alienware is a great example of this with their Graphics Amplifier. This
was similar to many early external docks in that it was an external box
to hold a desktop graphics card but it had the advantage of not
requiring an external display. This makes it a bit more useful for those
looking to take their graphics with them as well. The drawback is that
this is a system only works with certain Alienware laptops featuring the Graphics Amplifier. The dock is also extremely expensive at $300 without a graphics card.
ASUS announced at the 2016 CES a GX700 laptop
with a custom docking station. The large docking station would be
equipped with a liquid cooling system and GeForce GTX 980 graphics card
that would help provide it with high resolution graphics. The problem is
that this system only works with the one laptop. At least the Alienware
system could be used with multiple computers from the company. The
system is also a bit less portable than some of the other external
solutions because of the added bulk of the liquid cooling system. The
advantage was that it provided a quieter system than most high
performance gaming rigs.
Thunderbolt Opens Up New Possibilities
When Razer first announced its new Blade Stealth
laptop, it seemed to go against the whole gaming focus of the company.
The tiny 12.5-inch laptop that features either a 2560x1440 or 4K display
only came equipped with Intel's integrated HD Graphics on the
processor. This essentially meant that the system on its own was
effectively an ultrabook without any real gaming potential. The
different is that the laptop is really designed to be used with the
Razer Core external graphics card dock.
So, how is this different than previous propriety solutions? The Razer Core works using a standard Thunderbolt 3 interface using a USB 3.1 Type C
connector. This gives it the potential to be used with any number of
laptops and not just Razer's Blade Stealth. The key is the data
bandwidth that Thunderbolt provides. With its potential for up to 40Gbps
of data bandwidth, it can carry four times the data of USB 3.1 which is
enough to drive two 4K displays. The Razer Core dock also offers
additional USB 3.0 ports for adding additional peripherals and a
dedicated ethernet port critical for many gamers. It also functions as a
power delivery system for the laptop as well.
While this may seem
like a great open standard, there are still restrictions that people
need to be aware of. The most critical of these is the requirement that
the Thunderbolt controller has support for the external graphics
standard or eGFX. Even if the Thunderbolt may support this, the
motherboard BIOS and the software also have to. Even with all of this in
place, the early implementations of the system essentially function
like a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 slot meaning that the graphics cards will not be getting the full supposed bandwidth that a desktop system would provide.
Razer
is not the only company looking to product Thunderbolt based external
graphics systems. More computer manufacturers are expected to start
releasing laptops and even small form factor desktops
that support the standards. Peripheral manufacturers are also expected
to release their own external Thunderbolt 3 Graphics stations. This
competition should be good as most of the early systems mention in this
article carry a fairly high price tag. After all, spending $300 to $400
for a graphics docking station without corresponding graphics card can
mean spending as much as building your own low cost gaming desktop system.
By Mark Kyrnin
PC Reviews Expert
