The Razer Blade Review
by Vivek Gowri & Jarred Walton on March 15, 2012 3:01 AM ESTThe Blade, by gaming notebook standards, isn’t a graphical powerhouse, but its GT 555M definitely doesn’t count as slow. There’s a number of different GT 555M SKUs using a variety of GPU cores. The Blade’s GT555M has a 144-core GF116 clocked at 675MHz, with 2GB of 128-bit GDDR5 vRAM at a frequency of 2500MHz. It’s one of the highest spec, highest clocked GT 555Ms out there, but compared to the GTX 560M (192 cores, 775MHz reference core clock, 192-bit GDDR5 clocked at 2.5GHz), it’s not nearly as powerful. And the gaming results reflect that—the Blade is solidly 35% slower across the board than the GTX 560M-based ASUS G74SX.
Again, we're still working on fleshing out our gaming charts with the updated gaming suite, but we're now at five laptops. Based on our previous gaming tests, we can extrapolate that the Blade is roughly 10-15% faster than the M14x, which runs a variant of GT 555M using the older GF106 core.
Razer Blade, Value Settings
Razer Blade, Mainstream Settings
In our standard Value and Mainstream tests, the Blade fares pretty well. Medium settings at 768p are dead easy, and high settings at 900p are mostly okay, with only BF3 and Civ5 falling below the 30fps mark. At 1080p, the results are pretty mixed. At medium (Value) settings, the Blade is generally fine, with everything being basically playable. Move the settings to high (Mainstream), and it gets a little tougher; of the seven tests we run, the Blade topped 30fps in four.
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will54 - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
This seems like its more suited for MMO gamers on the go. From the trackpad and programmable buttons to the specs this seems like it would be perfect for WOW , SW TOR or Guild Wars.Roland00Address - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
1) This laptop is for a person who has a lot of money2) Wants to play on ultra
3) Wants a big screen
4) While keeping the weight down
5) For other games this person does not care about, or is willing to play those games on mainstream settings even though this laptop costs over 2.5k
Or maybe I am wrong, maybe the laptop is for people who want to have a pure sexy laptop and don't care what is inside of it?
Roland00Address - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
(sigh, I would kill for an edit button)ShieTar - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
All the images in this article show the keyboard being backlit. Can this be switched off?I already hate that my current notebook has two LEDs that are always on, they really annoy me when I want to watch a movie on it, because they get really distracting at dark scenes.
I can not imagine watching anything on a notebook that has constantly backlit keys.
kevith - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
A 2800$ notebook, very expensive indeed.But what are these people thinking? You pull out this, almost sexy thing. It looks like a million dollars, unique, black, thin and simple, yet advanced.
And everybody goes "Wow" and envy you. And then, as you turn it on, it sounds like a f... hairdryer?!
We could forgive the lack of real gaming-power.
But this is simply not good enough at this pricepoint! Boooh, Razer.
Thanks for reviewing it, because it looks SO stunning, that I would be very tempted to buy it.
But not anymore.
Silma - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
The razer blade looks like a great laptop but not for true gaming. Or perhaps Sudoku or Angry Birds.I'm not buying a laptop to play at anything lower than 1080p and the blade can't do.
In my experience no thin laptop can adequately overcome the heat generated by hours of playing.
That's why I finally purchased an Alienware M17x R2. Yes it's big. Yes it's heavy. But I can play @1920x1200 for hours on end at truly decent fps (>30). It's been 2 years and I don't regret it. Nowadays I would either buy an Alienware or an Asus G but there are very few truly gamers laptop out there.
hotsacoman - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
How do I win this????jigglywiggly - Saturday, March 17, 2012 - link
lack of 120hz is dissapointingotherwise i wud care
also 17in too big for the weak gpu
silverblue - Saturday, March 17, 2012 - link
Wasn't that Interplay's slogan back in the day?Notmyusualid - Saturday, March 17, 2012 - link
So many people here are right, Ivy Bridge & Kepler, and this thing is going to rock.I'm in the market for a new gaming laptop, so I'll be watching this one very closely.
Basically it is the most beautiful laptop I've seen...