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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Swirlser - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Looks pretty, but really any "gamer" that drops several grand on a laptop on the eve of both a gpu and cpu shrink has far more money than sense.Didnt read full article - but if its available now, order it *immediately*, coz if you wait a few weeks its going to be officially past its sell by date on its very first boot up ;-p (not a great start for the "World's first true gaming laptop" o.O)
DelicateThunder - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
On the first page, "6.4 lbs 1.36kg". Seems more like 2.9kg for me.Death666Angel - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
A lot of gimmicks that are not necessarily wanted by gamers, mediocre hardware for the money and for gaming, a price tag that has to compete with more powerful offers and a thinness that I don't think gamers really need.... So who is this thing for?Xuvial - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
So basically this is aimed at people who are willing to shell out stupid amounts of money just so they can get their hands on something that LOOKS different.Got it.
bryanlarsen - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Lots of haters here in the comments, but I think it's a fabulous design.What I'm looking for:
- good portability
- great screen
- excellent CPU performance for work
- nice design that's not exactly the same as every other laptop in the coffee shop
- enough performance to adequately play the occasional game of Skyrim or Civ5.
That trackpad design is absolutely brilliant. Trackpad on the right makes so much more sense than below the keyboard. Topped with a bunch of macro keys in a very convenient location (when your right hand is using the trackpad: most of the time, in other words).
What's turning me off:
- crappy keyboard for work
- irritating fan noise
- lack of Linux support (assumption, but probably a safe one)
looking forward to the ivy bridge / kepler refresh
aferox - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
I do like some of the things Razer has done with this, especially the weight. However, the Razer Blade was obviously designed by right-handed individuals for right-handed individuals. As a leftie, I would consider this design impossible to use. My mouse would be on the left, where all of those ports and that hot air come out. That touchpad on the right? Exactly where I don't want it. Most designs do not really cater to left handers, but they can be used without too much fuss. Not this.snide23 - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
I'm with you. I know quite of few of us leftie gamers who wouldn't consider this setup. But apparently we are a minority.KaRRiLLioN - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
I'm a leftie, but I've always moused with my right hand.pyrthas - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
I understand the complaint, but for gaming, I'd much rather have it on the right, so that I have the extra key under my left hand.piroroadkill - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Yes, exactly. I think the Fn placement is no cause for concern at all.