The New Razer Blade: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Vivek Gowri on October 3, 2012 5:40 PM ESTRazer Blade (late 2012) - Gaming
I gave a pretty thorough breakdown of NVIDIA’s midrange mobile GPU lineup on the first page, so I’ll just give you a quick summary here. The new Blade comes with the entry level GTX-class GPU, the GTX 660M. It comes with a GK107 core with 384 CUDA processors, 2GB of GDDR5 video memory, a core clock speed of 835MHz, and memory clocks of 2500MHz. Additionally, the GTX 660M can boost clock speed up to 950MHz when gaming. This is essentially the same GPU as the GT 640M and GT 650M except with higher clock speeds, so there is some question as to whether or not it deserves the GTX label.
With that said, the 600M lineup has shaken out as such and this is really the only viable chip for Razer to have chosen, at least until the quiet release of the GK106 based GTX 670MX/675MX earlier this week. Since those parts likely weren't available for testing and validation in time, the only other option would have been the awe-inspiring GTX 680M. GK104 has a TDP of 100W, which is roughly the same as the power envelope of the entire Blade system. So, not really an option.
As for GK106, the GTX 670MX and 675MX chips just showed up as a pair of Kepler-based replacements for the Fermi-based GTX 670M and 675M, but we don’t have too much in the way of firm information on the new chips yet in terms of performance or power characteristics so speculation isn’t really worth it. Most likely those chips will be roughly half way between the GTX 660M and GTX 680M in terms of TDP, which may or may not fit into the Blade's thermal envelope. Since we don't have them, however, let’s focus on what we have in front of us.
The GTX 660M performs roughly 15-20% faster than the GDDR5 variant of the GT 650M, which is pretty much in line with the clock speed difference. It’s pretty solid, actually, topping the 30fps mark in our enthusiast gaming suite (albeit barely in several titles) in all of the games except Battlefield 3, and being comfortably playable in our entire mainstream suite, never dipping below 40fps. It’s a bit more powerful than the GTX 560M, but obviously gets blown out of the water by the GTX 680M.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
59 Comments
View All Comments
VivekGowri - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
rMBP + Windows?Flunk - Thursday, October 4, 2012 - link
I've considered it, a lot of people have told me that it has throttling and overheating issues while gaming in Windows. Also the native resolution is really inconvenient for running windows programs on.Imp@sse - Thursday, October 4, 2012 - link
Why didnt you compare the MSI GT70 ONE?JarredWalton - Thursday, October 4, 2012 - link
You mean the iBUYPOWER CZ-17? Or are you talking about a different GT70 chassis?AppleRules123 - Thursday, October 4, 2012 - link
I can't believe how much this sucks. This laptop is a blatant rip-off of the MacBook Pro from Apple. This is exactly the same as the MacBook Pro 2010 model, and the 2010 model is more powerful than this load of garbage. Who the heck do Razer think they are? Stealing Apple's designs for their laptops and making them worse. I'm getting sick and tired of industry clowns stealing Apple's innovations. Apple should definately sue Razer for this joke of a laptop.piroroadkill - Thursday, October 4, 2012 - link
If you're not a shill, I feel pity for you.Still, great comment.
VivekGowri - Thursday, October 4, 2012 - link
That comment made my day.TareX - Thursday, October 4, 2012 - link
This laptop is exactly what I want: A portable, good looking 17" laptop with enough horsepower to play most my games at decent fps. That's it. Of course I know it's no 680M, but there are currently no laptops with the 680M that aren't as thick as bricks. I'm buying this as soon as I can afford it, which should be within the next two months. If a similarly (or comparably, at least) thin laptop with a 680M makes an appearance, I'll get that one. I'm not interested in Switchblade UI or the extra panel (unless you can use it for foreign letter input, which Razer hasn't implemented yet), so I'm really getting this because of the extremely unique blend of good looks and good specs. The price comes with the rarity of this blend.NeBlackCat - Thursday, October 4, 2012 - link
Can we please have a 1920x1200 product please?AppleRules123 - Friday, October 5, 2012 - link
Get a retina MacBook. It's way better than this load of garbage.