The 2014 Razer Blade Review
by Brett Howse on October 10, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Notebooks
- Gaming
- Laptops
- Razer Blade
Introduction
Razer moved from being a peripheral maker to a system builder in 2012, with the original Razer Blade. Since then, they have evolved and tweaked their gaming laptop systems several times. While the original Blade was a 17 inch gaming laptop, later on a 14 inch model was introduced that caused a rename of the 17 inch model to the Razer Blade Pro. These two devices are still the only two laptops available from Razer, and in 2014 the Razer Blade got another refresh with the New Razer Blade being released in April of this year. The significant updates over the 2013 model are the display, moving from a (rather poor) 1600x900 panel to a 3200x1800 QHD+ IGZO display and an upgraded GPU to push all of the extra pixels they just added. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M replaces the GTX 765M from the 2013 model.
Razer has achieved this update without changing their design philosophy for the Blade. The Blade is a powerful gaming system packed into a thin and (relatively) light form factor. The 2013 chassis and 2014 chassis are nearly identical in size, with the new model only 1mm (0.039”) thicker and 150 grams (0.33 lbs) heavier than the outgoing model despite the significant increase in performance. Here's a breakdown of the old and new Razer Blades:
Razer Blade 14-Inch Specifications | |||||
2013 (Last Model) |
2014 (New Model) |
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Processor | Intel Core i7-4702HQ (4x2.2GHz + HTT, Turbo to 3.2GHz, 22nm, 6MB L3, 37W) |
Intel Core i7-4702HQ (4x2.2GHz + HTT, Turbo to 3.2GHz, 22nm, 6MB L3, 37W) |
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Chipset | Intel HM87 | Intel HM87 | |||
Memory | 8GB DDR3L-1600 | 8GB DDR3L-1600 | |||
Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M 2GB GDDR5 768 CUDA cores, 797 MHz/863 MHz core 4 GHz memory 128-bit memory bus Intel HD 4600 Graphics (20 EUs, up to 1.15GHz) |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M 3GB GDDR5 1344 CUDA cores, 941 MHz core 5 GHz memory clocks 192-bit memory bus Intel HD 4600 Graphics (20 EUs, up to 1.15GHz) |
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Display | 14" LED Matte 16:9 900p AU Optronics AUO103E |
14" Glossy 16:9 3200x1800 Sharp LQ140Z1JW01 IGZO Multitouch with LED Backlight |
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Hard Drive(s) | Samsung PM841 256GB mSATA 6Gbps SSD |
Samsung PM851 128/256/512GB SATA M.2 |
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Optical Drive | - | - | |||
Networking | Killer Wireless-N 1202 Dual Band 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n Bluetooth 4.0 |
Intel Wireless-AC 7260HMW Dual Band 2x2:2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Bluetooth 4.0 |
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Audio | Realtek ALC269 HD audio Stereo speakers Combination mic/headphone jack |
Realtek ALC269 HD audio Stereo speakers Combination mic/headphone jack |
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Battery | 70Wh | 70Wh | |||
Front Side | - | - | |||
Right Side | USB 3.0 HDMI 1.4a Kensington lock |
USB 3.0 HDMI 1.4a Kensington Lock |
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Left Side | AC adapter 2x USB 3.0 Combination mic/headphone jack |
AC adapter 2x USB 3.0 Combination mic/headphone jack |
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Back Side | - | - | |||
Operating System | Windows 8 64-bit | Windows 8.1 64-bit | |||
Dimensions | 13.6" x 9.3" x 0.66" 345mm x 235mm x 16.8mm |
13.6" x 9.3 " x 0.70" 345mm x 235mm x 17.9mm |
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Weight | 4.1 lbs 1.88 kg |
4.47 lbs 2.03 kg |
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Extras | Webcam Killer Networks wireless networking Backlit anti-ghosting keyboard |
2.0 MP Webcam Razer Synapse 2.0 Software 10-point Multitouch Display Backlit anti-ghosting keyboard |
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Warranty | 1year limited | 1 year limited | |||
Pricing | $1799 for 128GB | $2200 for 128GB $2400 for 256GB $2700 for 512GB |
With a starting price of $2199 for the 128GB model -- and really, let's just skip the 128GB and go start with the 256GB offering, as there's not much point in a gaming notebook with only 128GB of storage -- the Razer Blade is far from inexpensive, but for the price you can get a gaming laptop that is actually portable. There are certainly less expensive systems around, but few can pack this much power into such a small chassis.
As a comparison, The Alienware 14 inch laptop with a 1080p panel and GTX 765M GPU looks downright portly compared to the Razer Blade, with the Alienware having a 41.7mm (1.64”) thick body and 2.77 kg (6.10 lbs) in weight. In case the numbers don’t make it obvious, the Alienware is 2.3x thicker and 1.37x as heavy for the same 14 inch screen with a less powerful GPU. The Alienware 14 with a 256GB SSD does cost $450 less, but portability is clearly the strength of the Razer Blade. It is not as light as an Ultrabook, but if you need a more powerful system that you can still take with you, this is the laptop to consider.
Looking at the rest of the internals, there is not a lot to complain about if performance is what you are after. The Intel Core i7-4702HQ is the same Haswell quad-core 8-thread 37 watt chip found in the 2013 Razer Blade, and it features a base clock of 2.2 GHz with a maximum Turbo of 3.2 GHz. The only options for storage are all M.2 based SSD drives, with capacities from 128GB to 512GB. The Samsung PM851 found in the Blade is the same OEM version of the 840 EVO as the Surface Pro 3, and has excellent speeds as we will see later in the review.
The wireless card gets an upgrade to an 802.11ac model with the Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 model, which is a 2x2:2 card for a maximum connection speed of 867 Mbps. The only real complaint about the Razer Blade is the amount of RAM available. 8GB of DDR3L-1600 is generally enough for most gaming tasks, but for a laptop at this price point it would be nice to see at least an option to add 16GB or more. While the Blade is not a workstation class machine, the CPU inside does support all of the Virtualization options from Intel, but with only 8GB of memory the number of virtual machines you could run on here is pretty limited. One might also consider the ALC269 audio codec as being low on the absolute scale, but in is one of Realtek's highest 2-channel audio solutions with an embedded speaker amplifier.
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lyeoh - Saturday, October 11, 2014 - link
What's the display and other IO latency? What tests did you use for your graphics ghosting test?Calista - Saturday, October 11, 2014 - link
Hi Brett!How well does the screen deal with gaming at non-native resolutions. A major advantage of high-dpi displays is obviously the fact it brings us closer to the way a CRT screens behave with fixed resolution all. With such high pixel density and a normal viewing distance of >60 cm I would expect also odd resolutions to look great in their own right.
Brett Howse - Sunday, October 12, 2014 - link
I only ran it at 1600x900 which is a perfect 2:1 interpolation, and it looked fine. Hard to say if it would be as good as a native 1600x900 panel but to my eyes, it looks good enough if you do need to run it at that resolution. Gaming at 3200x1800 was absolutely fantastic though it was an amazing experience. Everything is just so sharp.fancypr007 - Sunday, October 12, 2014 - link
What's funny is how the previous model used a 1600x900 TN panel screen and at the time the excuse Razer's CEO gave for using it vs using a superior IPS panel was; "this is a gaming laptop and we wanted to use the best screen for gaming."Now they're using a panel that for modern games, you'll never be able to push at anywhere near native resolutions with the included graphics card. Marketing doublespeak.
CaptainCupcakes - Thursday, October 30, 2014 - link
The reasoning for the new QHD+ display was to prove a point of what Razer is actually capable of. The logic behind last year's screen resolution was that if they used a screen that could not outpace their GPU, that the computer would have great performance. They answered the cry of the people with the new display.vol74 - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Best laptop I've ever owned. But Razer made one glaring oversight - they didn't provide a way to disable the trackpad. It's pretty aggravating when a stray thumb triggers it when gaming. Razer support recommended disabling it via the device manager. Unbelievable. Hey Razer, how about an option in Synapse to disable the trackpad when an external mouse is detected?HiTechObsessed - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Crazy expensive. You can get the CyberPowerPC thin-and-light with an 870m for $1100, and even has a slightly better CPU. This is ungodly expensive, for lower gaming performance.synaesthetic - Monday, October 20, 2014 - link
What's the point of that absurd resolution if the GPU can't even push games at 1920x1080 to a decent framerate? You're just going to have to play the games in 1600x900 anyway to get any kind of decent performance, so why bother with the super-high resolution panel if it's not even going to get used?The only logic I can detect behind this decision is that the resolution is exactly four times that of 1600x900 and would scale down to that resolution without interpolation.
ins1dious - Wednesday, November 5, 2014 - link
Seeing as how you compared the 2014 Blade to an rMBP on weight, build, battery etc... can you include the gaming scores for the rMBP as well? Obviously under bootcamp... curious as to how far behind the rMBP's 750M performance is