The 2014 Razer Blade Review
by Brett Howse on October 10, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Notebooks
- Gaming
- Laptops
- Razer Blade
System Performance
The Razer Blade continues to utilize the Intel Core i7-4702HQ CPU due to the timing of the launch. There are a couple of different choices at this time (i.e. i7-4710HQ) that were not around when the Razer Blade was refreshed. Compared to an Ultrabook, the Razer Blade is a full quad-core part with eight threads, so performance should be significantly better than the Haswell U series parts, but of course that is at the expense of power consumption, with the i7-4702HQ CPU rated at 37 watts. Coupled to this is an SSD in the Samsung PM851 and 8GB of DDR3L-1600 memory, which should provide excellent performance for day to day tasks.
With the 37 watt CPU, the Razer Blade falls right where you would expect. Overall, there is more performance than the Ultrabook class machines such as the Yoga 2 Pro and the Surface Pro 3, but other gaming laptops with higher wattage CPUs are a bit faster. Still, for the Razer Blade’s intended use scenario, system performance is great. The M.2 SSD in the Razer Blade performs very well in the PCMark 8 Storage test, scoring very close to the rest of the SSD pack.
WiFi
The new Razer Blade has updated the WiFi card from the previous version that used a Killer Wireless-N 1202 dual-band 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n solution. The new Blade now features the Intel Dual-Band Wireless-AC 7260, which adds support for 802.11ac. This wireless card is a 2x2:2 card offering connection speeds up to 866 Mbps on an 802.11ac connection.
With around 400 Mbps sustained transfer speeds, the Intel wireless card does pretty well with the router close by, but in other tests Ganesh has found that the Broadcom BCM4352 card performs better, especially with some drywall between you and the router. With the Razer Blade 30’ from the router in another room, the wireless speeds dropped to around 270 Mbps, which is still a reasonable result. Still, the Blade has 802.11ac and therefore supports both 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz, so there is not too much to complain about here. The Intel card also performs the Bluetooth 4.0 functions.
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heybrandons - Monday, October 13, 2014 - link
I agree, I've been using it as my primary computer for everything from work to play and it's been great. The only thing I can complain about is that they put the air intakes at the bottom; would have much preferred them on the sides so that they don't get block when sitting on my lap.Connoisseur - Monday, October 13, 2014 - link
I don't think that's going to change in future iterations, even with more efficient CPU/GPU combos. With the amoutn of power this draws, I don't see how a side intake could suck in enough air to cool all the components. I also don't mind the look. Very clean looking on all the visible surfaces.kallogan - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
no maxwell in slim chassis = failConnoisseur - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
The 2014 Blade was released back in May. How do you propose they integrate Maxwell when the parts didn't exist yet? Razer is on a 1 year release cycle so I'd expect a Maxwell/Broadwell machine to come out April/May 2015.Jon Tseng - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
Nice review but wasn't this machine released like, over six months ago??I know you take your time to get the most through reviews out there, but not much point reviewing it now. Especially as 970M notebooks are changing the whole purchasing decision all over again.
By that rationale you should also be getting your Galaxy S5 review up soon, right? :-p
Yorgos - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
I bought a Y410p Lenovo 6 months ago:i7-4700 qm
14" 900p
replaced the 1TB hdd with a 150 CHF 840 PRO 256 GB
w/ 3 years warranty
somewhere 70 Wh battery
Total price: 898.0 $ + 150 chf = 1050 $ (1 $ is nearly 1 chf)
Connoisseur - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
Why even list this machine? It's got a vastly inferior graphics card, screen and CPU. I'd understand if you're comparing value vs. build quality (although I think that's still a dumb comparison), but these two machines don't even share the same internals.Kutark - Sunday, October 12, 2014 - link
I just paid $1340 for an Acer VN7 Aspire Black Edition. Its just a hair less than 1/3" thicker, weighs about 2/5 of a lb more, has an IPS screen, 16gb Ram, 860m Maxwell, so it runs nice and cool and quiet. 256gb SSD, and is almost as good build quality. Now, before you go off, yes, Acer's traditionally had crap build quality, but go read the reviews, this thing is really well made. I can open the screen from the corner and it flexes maybe 1/3". Its very solid. The keyboard is amazing. Oh, and its literally half the price.tipoo - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
There wasn't yet a full review of that Haswell 15" rMBP you had for comparison, was there?Ryan Smith - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
No, there wasn't. That review was unfortunately canceled when Anand retired.