AMD’s incredible XConnect tech brings desktop graphics to notebooks

This has been a problem since I was reviewing laptops at LAPTOP Magazine almost a decade ago: laptop computers are awesome for gaming if you’re willing to throw down the cost for a beefy gaming system. But, for most of us, our laptops just can’t game as well as a desktop. AMD is going to try to fix that with new XConnect technology, which is being worked on in collaboration with Intel and Razer.

AMD XConnect uses a Thunderbolt 3 connection to connect to an external GPU enclosure that’s outfitted with a Radeon R9 300 series graphics card. That card is then able to power games on the laptop computer, and it’s what powers the Razer Core system that we first saw at CES. The Razer Core is an accessory that enables the Razer Blade Stealth, and otherwise thin and light notebook, to run the latest games. That’s just one laptop that will work with the XConnect tech, but we should expect many more, in addition to other enclosures and graphics cards.

Sadly, the pricing wasn’t announced yet, but we shouldn’t expect it to cost much more than a Radeon R9 300-series graphics card since the rest of the tech is under the surface. Cool stuff.