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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cptcolo - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
Please make a 15" version similar to the MacBook Proj5689 - Sunday, February 22, 2015 - link
This review has me thinking about getting a Razer Blade Pro when they release an updated version of that. A 14" screen is too small for me but the Pro is also missing the QHD+ screen so it's a tough choice. In the 17" range, Alienware might be a better deal too, they come with most of the same stuff and a 1TB HDD plus the optional GTX 980M for around the same as the 2014 Blade Prosna1970 - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
1- No HDMI 2.0 ?2- no PCIe SSD ?
3- No Killer LAN ? No Killer WLAN with Class one Bluetooth (100m range) many people miss the 100m Bluetooth part , Intel is 10m Range only and 100m range headsets Exist and are wonderful.
4- No Mechanical Keyboard ?
5- No Docking Station with Dedicated High End Card.
ummm Razer are being lazy lately.
SourDo - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
I own a 2013 Razer Blade 14". Does anyone know if there is an option whether from Razer or some source for upgrading the built-in LCD panel (extremely crappy 1600x900 TN) to 1080p IPS? My laptop is already out of warranty, so voiding warranty is not concern. Thanks! Fingers-crossed hoping for a miracle.deeps6x - Wednesday, March 4, 2015 - link
Of course the major hurdle is to get a high quality 1080P IPS matte screen version of the laptop at a reasonable price. Yeah, QHD checks some marketing checkboxes, but it isn't something that 90% of the buyers would actually prefer (at least not if they could use both for gaming and compare).Blame Microsoft for not solving the scaling issue. At least if it was quad full hd 3840x2160 (ah who are we kidding, it should be 3840x2400), you could scale it back to a usable 1080P for gaming and non-gaming both, and have it remain sharp. But even then, scaling would be a bugger of a problem in a lot of programs/websites. Nope, imho, it should only be offered with an excellent 1080P, non-touch screen. At least until Microsoft catches up to Apple on scaling abilities.
My two bits. Otherwise, nice laptop.
nasqb112 - Thursday, March 5, 2015 - link
So I'm thinking of ditching my main pc/gaming rig and replacing it with the Razer Blade. About 90% of the time, I'd hook it up to a HDTV/monitor and would like to use my mechanical keyboard and gaming mouse. The other 10% I'd take it with me while traveling/vacationing. Is this feasible? I'm curious if anyone can comment on performance when hooked up to an external monitor. Would the performance suffer? Thanks!Majeh3363 - Saturday, March 7, 2015 - link
Is the battery removable? So we can carry a additional battery with us n if yes what will be the price of the battery? Or an extra source so that it can last longer without any electric ports near by ......... Please help really curiousGolddiggie - Sunday, March 8, 2015 - link
Can the SSD's be upgraded? That way one could buy the 256GB version today, and upgrade to bigger SSD's later once available (at a good price point).I'm also trying to decide between this laptop and the MSI GS60 GHOST PRO 4K-079 15.6-Inch... Both have the same GPU, close to the same thickness (MSI is thicker) and weight. I'll be using the laptop for more work tasks (VMware Workstation, Photoshop CS6) and maybe get into some video production tasks (not sure how much of that I'll be doing). I could see getting into gaming on the PC again with this system. Of course, I'll also want to upgrade the video card in my tower if that's the case.
Wask - Sunday, March 22, 2015 - link
Anyone who buys a macbook pro to use as a gaming machine needs a good slap around the head with a large slimy trout... Be good to see how much more battery life the 1080 spec gets? Who needs 2k on a 14" screen? shame about only having the 8gb memory option...LordSnow55 - Friday, May 1, 2015 - link
There's a free giveaway for a Razer Blade going on right now. Only takes a second to enter http://bit.ly/1I34DRF