External Graphics Card Dock?

[thejayhawk619]

I need a laptop for school (Next year) that will have a good battery life while doing basic productivity stuff. It should also be light (anything lighter than 6 pounds, the less the better). I also play a lot of games in my free time, so currently I am debating whether I should get a razer blade stealth then later get the core or get a nice gaming laptop. If I get the blade stealth I would probably get a r9 390 for the core (When the core comes out). I love the idea of an ultrabook with an external graphics card dock but I'm not sure if it is worth it. What option would be best for me? Again, I like the razer blade stealth option best. Would it be worth it?

[thejayhawk619]

Ok, I will look in to that.

[ashonk33]

The core is probably going to be very expensive and honestly playing on a 12.5 inch screen doesn't sound great. I looked into bring my PC to college next year, honestly I wouldn't do it. That is a pain. I'd say pick up a Dell XPS 15 and run the 4k at 1080p. Or the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro is like $1530 with a student discount on Microsoft's website. It has a 970M and is pretty damn nice. Only downside to the MSI is the three hour battery.

[little_shiet]

You really need to think if you need horse power on the go and yet have great battery life. That's just expensive to combine. 
And forget about Razer Blade Stealth Ultrabook because it has only 8GB RAM and dual core and for the money it's just not worth it. 

 

Current generation of Thunderbolt has almost none bottleneck.

Spoiler

You got with Thunderbolt 3 PCIE 3.0 x4 connection and it has from 1% to 6% bottleneck with 980 - that's like nothing.

Information from here
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/21.html

Personally I'm waiting to see (not yet released name) Asus laptop with Asus GX2. In my opinion it has better cooling even for open non reference coolers and more room than Core (just my guess from pictures). Also MSI is working on Thunderbolt eGPU. 

This can finally start this interesting solution and I'm going to buy eGPU box and maybe another laptop.

 

Now let's get back to your question what should you do now. First thing is do you need it right now? Yes, buy cheap laptop that can handle all your work you need on the go. 

If you need only something to write notes and be online chromebook is way to go. It's cheep you can buy Acer Chromebook 13 (around 200$) and build your own gaming PC.

But if you need powerful laptop you won't have batterylife, you can try to pick prebuild laptop (like normal in any eshop) or have you own custom build one. I got XMG (Clevo) and it's great for my use case.

 

Try to find at your place closes custom laptop maker for better support my friend has OriginPC laptop from US and it cost a lost for fast shipping repairs.