The 2015 Razer Blade Review
by Brett Howse on February 11, 2015 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Razer
- Razer Blade
- Notebooks
- GTX970M
Gaming Performance
The move to the GTX 970M should bring a substantial increase in graphics performance. Although the 2014 Blade was powerful, the GTX 870M could struggle if gaming at the native resolution of the panel. We will compare it against last year’s model at that resolution, as well as against other laptops in our standard gaming benchmarks.
We will start with our synthetic tests, and then move on to the game benchmarks.
On the 3DMark tests, Fire Strike is the most potent. Here we see a 53% jump in performance over the 2014 Blade with 870M. We ran Cloud Gate several times, and could not get a better score. It is difficult to explain what is going on with that particular benchmark as it seems to be an outlier.
As you can see, the new CPU and GPU combination bumps up the performance quite substantially, with some of our real world benchmarks around 50% faster on the 2015 Blade. This is a good step over last year’s model in all of the tests. But, one area where the 2014 Blade could struggle was high resolution gaming. When you buy a laptop with a 3200x1800 display, you tend to want to take advantage of that if possible. We showed with last year’s model, that using the GeForce Experience menu, you could pretty easily achieve a balance of speed and features that would allow for gaming.
3200x1800 Gaming Testing
GeForce Experience on last year’s Blade gave us the following settings for Tomb Raider at 3200x1800.
This let us achieve a frame rate of 38.4 frames per second in the built in benchmark for Tomb Raider on last year's model. Certainly playable, especially in this genre of game, but not the 60+ FPS preferred for smoother gameplay. GeForce Experience does allow you to customize the framerate for performance versus quality, and we stuck with the default for 3200x1800.
Going through the GeForce Experience for the 2015 Blade actually resulted in a lower framerate. Our benchmark this year with the default 3200x1800 GFE was actually only 33.8 frames per second. However, due to the extra graphics power available, Post Processing was enabled by default for this year. Disabling Post Processing to get to the same settings as the 2014 Blade used resulted in just over 50 frames per second. Almost six million pixels is a lot of pixels to process, even for the latest single GPU mobile parts. However, if 50 frames per second is still not enough, you can easily adjust the slider towards performance and try again.
Really, to take this laptop to the next level for gaming, G-Sync would be a perfect fit since the GPU is plenty powerful, but could use a bigger safety net when the framerates do dip. This is not something we have seen officially on any laptops yet, but with the desktop monitors trickling out, it will only be a matter of time before it ends up in a laptop as well.
As a gaming laptop, this section is likely the most important to prospective buyers. The new CPU and GPU combo both add quite a bit more punch to the Razer Blade, and make for a better gaming experience at the high resolution of this display.
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Oxford_Guy - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
For me 14" is the perfect size, not too big, not too small. 15.6" laptops have become even more bloated these days, as everyone seems to add a pointless numpad to thempuppies - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
Is "only" 8GB of RAM really a problem? What % of people that buy these machines ever get close to utilising anywhere near that amount? These are gaming machines, i'm sure the odd graphics designer buys one for 3d rendering but i'm sure that 99% of people that spec the 16GB haven't got a clue that it does nothing to speed up BF4 and facebook.sviola - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
Well, I was to buy a laptop a couple of weeks ago, and did not buy the Razer because it did not have a 16 GB option. Part of my decision was based on the price (at this price, 16 GB is a must) and, more important, due to my usage of the laptop (I'm always running at least one VM, a app server, ide and db server, so 16 GB do come in handy).MGSMiami - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
."...$2700 for 512 GB. It is a lot of money for a 14” gaming laptop. Luckily the quality of the components really are top notch. For the money, you get a great display," Personal preferences aside, I don't believe the kind of gaming experience for which this laptop is built can be savored on a 14" high-rez screen...So many people use their laptops as desktop replacements, I just can't imagine the experience of the game on an itsby-bitsy weeny-teeny screen with all those powerful components aside. I game on a 55" LG and the experience is thrilling. My notebook is 17.3" Asus ROG and that is about the limit for screen real estate, resolution issues aside. I'm not a fan of razer products, nor their marketing strategy...Now let's wait for a similar review for the new iteration coming in February of 2016.DanB1 - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
This laptop is obviously a niche product, and whilst you have selected a 17" as your choice, I'm sure there are others that this laptop would suit better. I've had a 17" gamin laptop, and it's hardly what you would call portable for a day to day role. Additionally the size of a 15" laptop can be a drawback also in terms of specific size requirements for carriage, in my example, I don't want to carry around a larger backpack just to facilitate the size of my laptop. The 14" size for me is great. In my view this laptop fits into what I would like in a laptop, the ability to casually play the latest AAA games at night whilst I'm on the road, combined with just enough battery to facilitate my work needs during the day. Combined with the build quality, tiny PSU and the fact it isn't a Mac makes this one of two laptops I am currently considering purchasing. I think I would prefer the 1080p version, especially it provides slightly longer battery life, although as with all gaming laptops I am not expecting to be able to game whilst unplugged... you can't even do that in a 17" example...GekkePrutser - Saturday, February 14, 2015 - link
One thing I really don't get: why didn't they go for Broadwell??Brett Howse - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
The quad-core Broadwell CPUs are not out yet. Just the dual-core 15w versions.Shadowmaster625 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
$2199.99 for 128GB QHD+ Model$2399.99 for 256GB QHD+ Model
WTF Why are companies still pulling this kind of crap in 2015? Two hundred dollars for 128GB?
Coldkilla - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
When can we expect to find this on Amazon? I have $200 in gift cards I'd like to apply to purchasing one of these but all I see is the 2014 model currently.colint13 - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
Will there be a review of the Gigabyte P34W v3? Similar specs as the 1080p 2015 Blade but for $300 less.