(upbeat music)
- Hey guys this is Austin and this
is The Ultimate Thunderbolt Setup.
This is how our project started a few months ago
when I had a conversation with Intel's Thunderbolt team
about what really to me felt like
a very obvious use-case for Thunderbolt.
A single cable powering an entire
crazy, over the top, gaming setup.
Luckily they agreed and alongside Dell, Intel was able to
sponsor this entire setup and make it happen.
The setup is built around the Dell XPS 13.
This is a terrific ultrabook.
Not only is it powered by the latest
eighth generation Core i7 processor
but you have great battery life,
a good screen, all the normal kind of laptop stuff
but what it lacks is some dedicated graphics for gaming
which is where Thunderbolt comes in.
The XPS is connected to the Aorus GTX 1080 gaming box.
This little enclosure here houses not only
a full GTX 1080 graphics card but it also
has a power supply to power not only the graphics card
and the laptop but it also has USB ports
for the rest of our accessories.
What's great about this is that with a single
Thunderbolt 3 cable your thin and light Dell
that you carry around all day long
turns into a full proper gaming setup.
There are a wide variety of Thunderbolt 3
enclosures available most of which
have graphics cards built in and those
start at around 350 dollars or so.
But there are also other options without
the GPU that you can add yourself.
So these start at around $200 and one of the ones
I recently took a look at was the Razer Core X.
This supports a full-size graphics card
with plenty of power for pretty much
anything you want to put in there.
The reason we chose to go with the
gaming box is for a few reasons.
First of all the a GTX 1080 is a lot of power
paired with an ultrabook like this
but it also has some additional features.
So first of all we have a series of USB ports
on the back which is helpful because we wanted to make sure
that all of our accessories could be wired in
with just that single Thunderbolt cable.
And on top of that this does support
a full 100 watts of power delivery
which means we don't have to charge our laptop either.
It really is one single Thunderbolt 3 cable
to make this entire setup work.
To take advantage of all this gaming hardware
we have three full monitors.
And by monitors I mean TVs.
These are TVs, they're 55 inch 4K HDR panels
so this in hindsight may have been
a little bit of overkill but I mean come on
we're building the ultimate Thunderbolt setup.
Overkill's kinda what you're here for right?
Paired with this are my favorite
gaming peripherals right now.
First of all we have the Razer Huntsman Elite keyboard.
I did an entire video about that
you should definitely go check it out.
This is straight up my favorite
keyboard that I've ever tried.
Alongside this we have the Zowie,
what is it the BenQ Zowie, FK1 I knew it it's the FK1.
This is actually the mouse I've
been using for like two years now.
Not only do I use it for editing and general use
but it is really great for gaming as well.
I probably should have know the
the name of the mouse shouldn't I have?
All this is backed up by my favorite game pad right now,
the Xbox One wireless controller.
Now this has seen a few revisions over the years
most notably it now has Bluetooth
and you can also do a cool design lab version
which maybe doesn't match with the setup but I don't care
'cause it's my custom Austin not Duncan one.
But the cool thing is this going to be
a nice benefit for when you want to play
racing games or stuff that doesn't
work well with a mouse and keyboard.
(buttons clicking)
- [Camera Man] Don't do that, that won't.
Don't do that. Stop.
- What's really cool about this is when you
sit in front of it and you realize just how immersive it is.
I mean look at this we've got three displays
all running in surround and it's so seamless.
I mean yeah the TVs have a little bit of a border
but I mean come on this is so cool.
It's almost like sitting with like a
VR headset on as opposed to three giant TVs.
Oh dude, dude (laughing) are you serious?
What? This is the point of the video
where I'm just like freaking out the whole time.
So we're playing on full epic settings too.
So right now the resolution's set to 5760 by 1080
but it's full epic basically everything.
And frame rate wise we're doing pretty solid.
I mean we're pretty much around 50 to 60 fps.
See I do a lot of videos with Fortnite right
and a lot of the time I'm playing on like
$200 PCs or like seven frames per second
on ultra low settings but this totally feels like cheating.
I mean sure when I'm looking ahead
it looks like a fairly standard field of view.
But I look left and right I could
have such a competitive advantage.
The only slight downside is that
some of the information is all the way over to the left
or all the way over to the right such as the mini map.
I mean sure you could go build
an incredibly expensive gaming PC
and get this sort of permanent setup going
but the greatest part is as soon as I'm done with this game
I unplug this single cable and I've got
my normal ultrabook that's completely portable
that I can take with me to school or work or whatever.
Wow dude this is like trippy (laughing).
It's like almost enough to get you
motion sick it's so immersive.
Alright let's do this.
I'm comin'.
(gun report)
There we go I can be helpful.
You have a very cool cape.
Dude this is so immersive I mean it's crazy
just how into the game I feel.
This feels incredibly dangerous.
I shouldn't be hiding underneath this tree right now.
I'm just gonna run, running is always a good option right?
Oh yeah. Ha ha, I like this.
(gun firing) (Austin laughs)
No, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
That's not how this works.
That's not how this...alright well it's fine.
We came in number two.
I cannot go back to playing games on a mere single display
or a phone or a switch or a $200 laptop.
Ken don't make me go back.
Can I just do this now?
I actually might get good at Fortnite
if I play on this setup.
Next up we have Forza Horizon 4.
Not only is this one of my favorite games out there
but the PC version's actually really good this year.
Which is especially helpful when you have
three giant TVs in front of you.
If you wanna be lame you can drive outside the car
and I mean I guess that's fine but nah.
This is the way to do it.
Something I'm noticing is that the mirrors in the game
I never really paid that much attention to
playing on like Xbox but it makes
a big difference here on PC.
Not only are the reflections nice and high quality
but I can really see especially with this
right hand mirror when people are behind me.
It's a small thing but it really kinda
goes to show just how useful a setup like this can be.
See nope, nope, nope that was too aggressive.
That was too aggressive that's okay I made it.
Oh no you don't, there we go.
Little bump never hurt anybody right?
I do have the same problem as I did with Fortnite
and it's some of my information like the hud
is way too far away but I mean come on it's fine.
It's like a real race I don't need my mini map
I can just kinda drive by the
seat of my pants and the voice of the GPS.
Of course Thunderbolt is useful for
more than just purely playing games.
So not only are we adding a ton
of extra graphics horsepower to our system
but we do have all the extra USB ports and power and stuff
and we also have the ability to hookup multiple 4K monitors.
So that's something that's going to
make a big difference in things like
video editing and racing games.
But mostly video editing and creative
professional activities like drifting.
And that is the ultimate thunderbolt setup.
A lot of work went into not only our brand new set
but getting this all together.
A huge shout out to everyone here and of course
massive thank you to Intel and Dell
for sponsoring this video.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go
do some real work on my tiny XPS 13.
(hip hop music)