Will a Dual Core i7 6500U Bottleneck a High End GPU

[MaxMunsta]

Hello everyone,

As a high school student and gamer, I have recently been researching a laptop for work and video games. My main choice right now is the Razer Blade Stealth, Razer's new ultrabook that can be hooked up to an external desktop graphics card. However, it has an i7 6500U in it, which is great for an ultrabook, but I afraid to invest in a laptop that, when used for a gaming computer, will bottleneck the gpu I am using. Does anybody have the knowledge of whether a high end dual core processor will bottleneck GPUs? I have only seen videos using i3s  so I'm not sure.

Thank you for any help,

Max

 

P.S. Is anyone else excited for the logitech G900? Way too expensive but I think it looks awesome.

[VinsinityKT]

Yes it will. Any dual core will bottleneck a high end GPU.

[Aytex]

2 minutes ago, MaxMunsta said:

Hello everyone,

As a high school student and gamer, I have recently been researching a laptop for work and video games. My main choice right now is the Razer Blade Stealth, Razer's new ultrabook that can be hooked up to an external desktop graphics card. However, it has an i7 6500U in it, which is great for an ultrabook, but I afraid to invest in a laptop that, when used for a gaming computer, will bottleneck the gpu I am using. Does anybody have the knowledge of whether a high end dual core processor will bottleneck GPUs? I have only seen videos using i3s  so I'm not sure.

Thank you for any help,

Max

 

P.S. Is anyone else excited for the logitech G900? Way too expensive but I think it looks awesome.

Have you thought about this

Why would they even release the blade, and advertising it to be used with good external GPU's if there was bottleneck

[MaxMunsta]

2 minutes ago, VinsinityKT said:

Yes it will. Any dual core will bottleneck a high end GPU.

Thanks for the reply! It seems that Razer would know this and design a possibly thicker or wider laptop that could fit a quad core.  Guess I'll just have to wait until I can get the New Razer Blade, that's too bad I was hoping for portability and a cheaper cost.

[MaxMunsta]

1 minute ago, Aytex said:

Have you thought about this

Why would they even release the blade, and advertising it to be used with good external GPU's if there was bottleneck

Maybe a push for people to get the more expensive blade? I was hoping to get a laptop this year, but I guess I might just wait until the blade stealth "2017", or get the new 14 inch blade they just announced. If only Corsair could make a laptop haha!

[Aytex]

Just now, MaxMunsta said:

Maybe a push for people to get the more expensive blade? I was hoping to get a laptop this year, but I guess I might just wait until the blade stealth "2017", or get the new 14 inch blade they just announced. If only Corsair could make a laptop haha!

so your going to get the latest one either way?

[MaxMunsta]

Just now, Aytex said:

so your going to get the latest one either way?

Yes that or wait until next year. Do you know of any alternatives? The USB type C on the new editions is kind of a deal breaker. 

[Aytex]

Just now, MaxMunsta said:

Yes that or wait until next year. Do you know of any alternatives? The USB type C on the new editions is kind of a deal breaker. 

No, i don't research a lot about gaming laptops,

you should be fine then

[MaxMunsta]

Just now, Aytex said:

No, i don't research a lot about gaming laptops,

you should be fine then

OK cool cool, man first world problems suck lol. 

[Mark77]

The bigger problem, IMHO, would be the limited thermal envelope of an "Ultrabook" laptop, and the high likelihood that the CPU is derated significantly to meet that thermal/power envelope. 

[MaxMunsta]

7 hours ago, Mark77 said:

The bigger problem, IMHO, would be the limited thermal envelope of an "Ultrabook" laptop, and the high likelihood that the CPU is derated significantly to meet that thermal/power envelope. 

Yes, I don't know if this will be the case as the stealth will be hooked up to the razer core, an external gpu dock, which would negate any thermal issues pertaining to the graphics card, and the cpu is passively cooled, but yes that is a good point. DO also believe that any dual core processor will bottleneck gpu? I know it seems like it's kind of set in stone, but I'm just holding out hope that maybe an i7 will make up for the performance deficiency.

[Mark77]

I don't know if I'd use the term 'bottleneck' (although I think Linus likes to stay that).  One can definitely fashion scenarios where a lot of CPU, and not much GPU is needed.  One can fashion scenarios that a lot of GPU and little GPU is needed.  Each particular application or game will rely heavily upon one, or the other, but perhaps not both. 

 

Basically if you're trying to game on an Ultrabook, even if you use the external graphics cards hooked up through a PCI-E interface, you're most likely leaving a lot of performance on the table.  An old i7-2600, motherboard, and PSU doesn't cost that much money and probably will, along with whatever graphic card you intended to put in that external enclosure, still be considerably faster than rigging up an Ultrabook in the fashion you suggest.

 

Connecting a full-sized PCI-E GPU to a laptop is an interesting bit of trivia, but I'm not convinced there's actually a real use case other than showing off one's e-peen.  Maybe for demo-ing certain games or GPU-accelerated applications at a trade show.  But otherwise, really, even hardcore travelling professional gamers are better off building their computers in ruggedized shippable packing cases with proper full-sized components all around than trying to hack something together with a laptop.

[MaxMunsta]

6 hours ago, Mark77 said:

I don't know if I'd use the term 'bottleneck' (although I think Linus likes to stay that).  One can definitely fashion scenarios where a lot of CPU, and not much GPU is needed.  One can fashion scenarios that a lot of GPU and little GPU is needed.  Each particular application or game will rely heavily upon one, or the other, but perhaps not both. 

 

Basically if you're trying to game on an Ultrabook, even if you use the external graphics cards hooked up through a PCI-E interface, you're most likely leaving a lot of performance on the table.  An old i7-2600, motherboard, and PSU doesn't cost that much money and probably will, along with whatever graphic card you intended to put in that external enclosure, still be considerably faster than rigging up an Ultrabook in the fashion you suggest.

 

Connecting a full-sized PCI-E GPU to a laptop is an interesting bit of trivia, but I'm not convinced there's actually a real use case other than showing off one's e-peen.  Maybe for demo-ing certain games or GPU-accelerated applications at a trade show.  But otherwise, really, even hardcore travelling professional gamers are better off building their computers in ruggedized shippable packing cases with proper full-sized components all around than trying to hack something together with a laptop.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply! I understand your point, and I already have built a computer with an i5 4690k and 970 in it and that is my main driver. However, I switch houses week to week, so the Razer Core would sit at the house without a computer, and when there I would just hook up the ultrabook and be ready to go. I'm just wondering if it is going to cause such a drastic fps loss in most games, that it is more worth my money just to get the "New Razer Blade" which is chunkier but already has a dgpu.