computer meets checklist
External graphics cards:
Dead, or dormant?
Stillborn,
or still relevant?
Well,
we've got two identically specced laptops,
and both of the top external graphics docks that are ready to battle it out.
Each armed with a top-of-the-line NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti.
But will the identical specs yield identical results for once?
No,
no they won't.
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First we need to explain why we're using such OP graphics cards. The goal here was to
expose any weaknesses or efficiency differences between these two
by eliminating the graphics card itself as a bottleneck and
also to make sure that both of them can keep even the power hungriest cards safely fed.
Each are equipped with plenty of power.
The Razer Core sports a custom 500 watt power supply
While the alienware graphics amplifier has a hunt key 460 watt ATX power supply that was
clearly made for a full system and repurposed for this. The coarse aluminum
chassis feels solid and opening it up to insert the graphics card only takes a couple of minutes
Whereas the Graphics amplifier, well?
Everything about that setup frankly felt a little janky. The build is all
Plastic and although, I had the right idea for opening it
I actually ended up having to consult the user manual because it felt like I was going to break it
Oh, God!
when it got stuck halfway
I mean there isn't even RGB lighting on this one, for crying out loud
and if you thought the poor ease of use for the amplifier was over, think again. The connectors on the
proprietary cable that carries a PCI Express
3.0 X4 signal from the computer to the dock
have these latches that can actually get caught if you're not careful when you're removing them, not to mention
that the alienware solution requires a restart of the laptop whenever you connect or disconnect it
so that the internal, dedicated graphics card can be activated or disabled
Razer on the other hand keeps up their strong performance in this area.
just lug in a under bolt three cable into the blade notebook of your choice
They don't officially support third party laptops, but we'll discuss that more later
Install the NVIdia drivers, and you're good to go
Every part of the process felt smoother and more polished on the razer side
Though if it's performance can hold up
I suspect many will forgive the alienware graphics amplifier for its lack of a
spit and shine given that it retails for
200 bucks a whopping three
hundred dollars less than the core
Though in razers defense with the purchase of a blade laptop you do get $100 off
So I guess it's only twice the cost of the graphics amplifier
Let's get to the test
Every game Benchmark was run ten times in a row to reward strong thermal performance
And we recorded both the average and the minimum frame rate that was maintained
97% of the time
We used identical drivers and settings and a Asus' 240 Hertz gaming display for both systems
Everything between them was equal except for one thing
gaming performance
For rise of the tomb raider and for honor the alienware pulled out a bit ahead of the core
While the core actually pulled slightly ahead in the all-important minimum FPS metric, but where things really got interesting
Was in Ghost Recon Wildlands and Deus Ex mankind
divided where the alienware graphics amplifier showed that it has the potential to
absolutely
spank the core delivering buttery visuals compared to the
Questionably playable performance on razer solution and as a troubleshooting step then we tried
Comparing them using the built-in laptop display rather than an external monitor
But this changed nothing for alienware
And then generated even slightly lower performance for razer due to the extra display
Signal Data being carried back to the blades display something that we actually
Tested more thoroughly in the razer core deep dive which you can check out here. So what gives?
Well, we could only think of two differences between these solutions that might affect performance
one
thermals either of the CPU in the laptop or the graphics card in the enclosure and
two the connection to the graphics card
So to see if thermal throttling was the issue we booted up ida 64
And monitored temperatures on our blade while gaming it got hot but it was nowhere near
Overheating then to rule out the laptop
Entirely we gave our 7600 HQ equipped blade pro a shot, but it performed nearly
identically within our Margin of error
No dice
Let's move on to that connection then the theoretical bandwidth of the two should be equal in GPU-Z
Both have the same number of Pcie lanes and the same reported 40 gigabit per second Bandwidth is
There some way that we could pin this on Thunderbolt 3
what if the gigabit ethernet controller on the core is sucking up resources we used disabling device manager and
It was not very effective
So it was time to go spelunking deep into the depths of the specs
Searching for a single difference between the two and finally we found one in the dark crevices of the device manager on
the Alienware amplifier the GPU gets connected directly to the PCIe controller on the
CPU so the lanes that it gets are solely devoted to
Graphics the razer core on the other hand gets connected through the motherboard chipset
Meaning that the graphics card has to share its pcie lanes and perhaps more importantly the DMI interface
with things like networking usb ports and
Probably the biggest Bandwidth sucker
storage
But can we prove one and for all that the lanes are causing the bottleneck?
for a complete apples-to-apples
Comparison we needed to be able to connect the core to the alienware 13 something [dale] doesn't want you to do in
spite of the 13th Higher end four-lane implementation of the Thunderbolt 3 Standard
good news though it turns out that if you disabled enough alienware services it will be grudgingly let you use a razer core and
In games the alienware 13 connected to the core recorded results within our Margin of error
Proving then that the bottleneck wasn't in the laptop, but in the connection itself
so final pros and cons list then
Razer has some big advantages there simple setup
And hot swap ability will definitely win over customers who value Ease-of-use and the excellent
compatibility enabled by using a standard
Thunderbolt 3 Connection in spite of advertising the core is only working with their own blade and blade stealth
Makes them the default winner for many
But if you're willing to look the other way on build quality a little bit you're willing to shell out for a matching alienware laptop
And you want the best no compromises performance out of your graphics dock at a much lower price
The amplifier comes out way ahead
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