Razer Core and Best GPU

[EUdict]

Hey all,

 

  My wife has a '16 Razer Blade and she wants the Core.  I tried to talk her out of it but no go.  You want what you want right?  Anyway.... I'm 

trying to figure out the best card I can put in this thing that will get the best results with the bottlenecking that will occur.  I know this will work with a GTX 1080 but would it bottleneck it to bad and would I get a better back from a lower card.  Thanks for the help!

[DioOmicida]

The core probably bottlenecks transitioning from PCIe to Thunderbolt.
So, no matter what GPU you buy, you'll probably experience hurt performance.
If you've considered a 1080, I'd just get a 1080.

[grit]

9 hours ago, EUdict said:

Hey all,

 

  My wife has a '16 Razer Blade and she wants the Core.  I tried to talk her out of it but no go.  You want what you want right?  Anyway.... I'm 

trying to figure out the best card I can put in this thing that will get the best results with the bottlenecking that will occur.  I know this will work with a GTX 1080 but would it bottleneck it to bad and would I get a better back from a lower card.  Thanks for the help!

I've spent TONS of hours trying to answer exactly this question. I was hoping Linus' Core review would tackle it, but it didn't.

 

From other posts I've read, people have overclocked a 1080 inside their RB Core and STILL gotten a frame rate increase. So, it doesn't seem that there's a true bottleneck. However, there is some kind of performance penalty (likely from converting from PCI-E to TB) of around 15%.

 

So, you won't get desktop performance out of your GTX 1080, but you MAY get enough performance (depending of course on what resolution she's gaming at).

 

Here's a link to a Razer forum post where a user tested a 980 Ti on his desktop, a RB Stealth, and a RB 2016 at 1440p resolution and all the eye candy turned up.

https://insider.razerzone.com/index.php?threads/some-core-benchmarks-with-the-blade-14-and-stealth.14072/#post-249471

If you read through the thread, he eventually tested Doom with (originally without) the Vulcan patch. On the TB Stealth in particular, patches that move up to DirectX 11 and the Doom Vulcan patch seem to offload more of the 4-core CPU requirements out to the graphics card. The other running theme seems to be that the more work the GPU needs to do (more eye candy, higher resolution, etc), the closer the performance is to a desktop. When much higher frame rates are possible, the desktop continues to pull farther and farther away from the RB Core implementation.

 

I'd REALLY hoped Linus would address this in a video, but he seems done with his RB Core review, and only a brief mention of graphics at 1080p. 

[RyGuy99]

2 hours ago, grit said:

I've spent TONS of hours trying to answer exactly this question. I was hoping Linus' Core review would tackle it, but it didn't.

 

From other posts I've read, people have overclocked a 1080 inside their RB Core and STILL gotten a frame rate increase. So, it doesn't seem that there's a true bottleneck. However, there is some kind of performance penalty (likely from converting from PCI-E to TB) of around 15%.

 

So, you won't get desktop performance out of your GTX 1080, but you MAY get enough performance (depending of course on what resolution she's gaming at).

 

Here's a link to a Razer forum post where a user tested a 980 Ti on his desktop, a RB Stealth, and a RB 2016 at 1440p resolution and all the eye candy turned up.

https://insider.razerzone.com/index.php?threads/some-core-benchmarks-with-the-blade-14-and-stealth.14072/#post-249471

If you read through the thread, he eventually tested Doom with (originally without) the Vulcan patch. On the TB Stealth in particular, patches that move up to DirectX 11 and the Doom Vulcan patch seem to offload more of the 4-core CPU requirements out to the graphics card. The other running theme seems to be that the more work the GPU needs to do (more eye candy, higher resolution, etc), the closer the performance is to a desktop. When much higher frame rates are possible, the desktop continues to pull farther and farther away from the RB Core implementation.

 

I'd REALLY hoped Linus would address this in a video, but he seems done with his RB Core review, and only a brief mention of graphics at 1080p. 

Dave Lee on YouTube did a great video comparing the core to the alienware proprietary connector and desktop. It also came out a decent time after the core's release compared to Linus' I thought we wouldn't see this summer... 

[EUdict]

Well, she decided to go with the GTX 1070 for the cost savings. If possible she's 

planning on playing stuff at 1440 through her Acer Predator. I'm thinking there shouldn't be an issue but we shall see. Her Core says boxed right now on Razers site so shes pretty excited. 

[grit]

That's REALLY impressive, since the sight says they won't ship until Sept 16th! Please keep us updated on shipping and performance.