hi I'm leaf Johnson I'm associate editor at Macworld and today I'm going to show
you the razor core ex this is a new external graphics processing unit that
razor released just on Monday and I've actually been trying it out for a few
days here but the main thing I want to show you how simple it is to use this
thing the whole point of an e GPU is to basically boost the graphics processing
capability of your macbook or you know one of razor's own thin laptops but
since we're macro we're mostly interested in how it works with them
with a Mac so the problem is is that you can only use AMD cards so you can't use
in video which is a real bummer especially if you're wanting to use this
for gaming so we've got a whole article talking about the pros and cons of this
but right now let's show you how to set it up it's so easy so the neat thing is
you generally when I've seen other external graphics processing units
they're really difficult you got to goo all this unscrewing this unscrewing this
lay this that's all you got to do you just simply pull that out so what we do
is we have an AMD rx 580 right here this is a pretty good tip on the other side
of you oh that's pretty good card so what we'll do here is the only screw
that you have to worry about is this one right here and like I said usually
there's about 4 so you simply put it in and it's effectively just a PCI Express
slot exactly yes and the thing is it can actually fit one that's three wide which
is one of the big appeal and it also has a 600 there we go
it has a 650 watt power supply which means that you know this thing can keep
you going for the next couple of years and of course I would do that
how many watt power supply using 650 Watts yeah but it can only handle one
card it's only one spot right can it's not like a dual thought that's a lie
whether they can get you a really big card at the same time and the nice thing
is you can see the the fan here you can switch it out so if this one's not
powerful enough for you or something like that or it wears out nice thing is
unlike most Mac's you can customize it and switch out with the one you want so
I'm pretty good with that this is I had a feeling I was going to miss it
with this on the show so it's a little tight for your fingers yeah it is so
there we go got that in now okay now this is the roughest part of it and like
I said though this is just a single screw whereas I've seen others we get a
lot worried about four or something like that and boom that's it and so we're
just gonna put the wires in here yes
bring this one over here now when I first opened this you know this isn't
like an unboxing or anything these were very tightly up against here so I had to
undo that so that added a little bit more time but not much so basically
we're ready to go so what you do you know just do that do that locks it and
so now we find our power supply cable and see the thing is this is only 299
dollars the way they did get around that is the V to that razor also sales would
normally have like two USB ports here Ethernet port here all you got is the
Thunderbolt 3 / USB C port and the power cable that's it everything else is on
the graphics card it has this a window I think it's a mesh screen it is just a
mesh screen it's just a mesh screen so and you know razor stuff usually has all
the swanky chroma lighting which makes it look all cool and stuff you won't get
that with this but that's funny like Dan the USBC yes I did and now I'm
plugging it in to the met book and basically we are set to go so if you've
never actually used one the problem with a u external graphics processing unit
especially on a matte is it only works with an external monitor so we'll plug
in the HDMI cable right here so you can't use it for any internal graphics
acceleration or anything I know apparently it's possible you know if if
the developer wants to do it or something like that but but that's it
but let's see did we turn on here yeah what help yes you simply turned it on
well there was one thing nice thing that I noticed that it's you know I was
actually worried that it wasn't plugged in when I was first messing around with
this turns out the fans and everything don't even start running until
actually plugging in it's like you didn't even turn on so little lights yet
look at your head of the screen the nice thing about Apple support and I didn't
have to install any kind of grant drivers or anything like that see it's
already connected that's what you have to do and the nice thing is if I if I
wanted to disconnect that you know just do it like a drive you know it goes off
and so giving an idea of how simple this is again let's just plug this in again
and hopefully if all goes well it'll just start up again so yeah you just saw
it appear on here so you disconnected it or you turned it off from the from that
menu III what when I turned it off from the menu that was disconnecting it like
ejecting a drive basically okay but so the drive is still technically running
on the box here right so you'd have to shut this down if you really wanted to
shut it down power it off here oh yeah yes but but the nice thing you know it
didn't really seem to be drawing power when it was you know if you wait long
enough like the fans on everything oh cool off it goes completely silent which
is nice but basically that's it it's ready to go if you want to get the best
performance out of it you know use the external monitor entirely and that's
that you know because you're still pulling with this one here but this one
it focuses at all and now this is solely being powered by the external graphics
processing unit and look at that that's it you know a lot of this was chat
that's basically all it took so if you're interested and the the razor core
X that's all there really is to it um basically all you miss was me taking
out of the box so so what else though benchmarks how good is it what went
where can we find that well I do have an article we'll have a review posted
tomorrow and do have an article talking about a GPUs previously the thing is is
I didn't really see any significant differences over the Acadia node Pro
chasis that we were using before which actually cost a little bit more money I
believe it's $349 when I was using some of the benchmarks here you know is
basically amounting to the same games that would struggle to get about 30
frames per second like rise of the Tomb Raider
on native on here we're suddenly getting like 60 and stuff but because I'm using
the same card I was basically getting the same
performance I thought when I was watching the bitch mark like it was
faster or something that when the actual results came in it was about the same so
you know that's that's one way to look at it your performance is going to vary
depending on what kind of card you have on here and if you have like the Vegas
64 or something like this really strong you'll be seeing something better than
that but but once again with max only AMD is supported and just a few a small
selection of them you can look at my review to see that or you can go to
Apple's own support page or or razors nice thing is if you own PC you know you
have access to everything else so Nvidia and all that stuff and you can pretty
much stick anything you want to in here but the thing I love most about the
Razer core X is that you know it's kind of a forward-thinking device it's very
utilitarian very simple but it's got the power supply to handle beefy cards that
may come out in the future it's got the slots for it and so this is something
that you could end up using for a long time and once again it's a good way you
know not only to get better graphics performance out of a unit like a like a
MacBook Pro but it can also you know make it something like an iMac or
something lasts longer than it normally would because you have more you know
up-to-date graphics power powered by something else so it's some ways you
could argue it's kind like a toy or something like that it's expensive one
but that's it that's how easy it is to set up and we'll see you over at
Macworld