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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1ceTr0n - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
but then I took a reality check arrow in the walletnathanddrews - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Great review. Finally, a gaming notebook that looks like it was designed by adults.I have to say that I find the use a 1080p panel on a notebook (especially a gaming notebook) without the power to feed it as a wasted expense - no matter how beautiful it may be. Is there an option for a similarly gorgeous 1600x900 display instead?
Snotling - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Seriously? have you ever looked at a 17" 1080p panel? it's the minimum acceptable resolution. below that you're in smartphone territory.Flunk - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
The pixel density on high end smartphones horribly destroys even the most high end notebooks. The Galaxy Nexus has a 720 x 1280 (720p) screen that's 4.65" across. There isn't any competition there. 316 ppi vs 127 on the notebook.aleyon - Monday, March 19, 2012 - link
the gnexus has a pentile display, which, aside from sucking, doesn't possess quite as many real pixels as specified.you probably hate apple, but a truly high pixel density is the realm of the 4/4S/new iPad.
DareDevil01 - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
You seem to be forgetting The HTC Rezound & Sony Xperia S which both have 720p screens and are below 4.3"Excerpt from Xpereia Swiki page:
"The capacitive touchscreen display measures 4.3 inches with a resolution of 1280 x 720 and at 342 ppi, is tied with the HTC Rezound for the highest pixel density in any mobile phone released."
Spunjji - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
No no no no no. Apple invented high resolution displays! Especially on laptops. Silly person! ;)Special people are special.
b3nzint - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
yes, but if they use that high density into 14' that would increase the price way high, just dont sells!drew_afx - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
well, i'm not sure if you thought about gaming on that laptop..all those high end games that will come out soon is gonna take
more than GT555M, especially at 1080p
you need enthusiast level of graphics to run 1080p smoothly on a laptop.
CPU's definitely not the bottleneck, but the thermal requirement for
that thin laptop is keeping Razer from using power sucking gpus
santiagodraco - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link
Adults that don't understand what gamers really want, performance first.Sure it looks great and has lot's of glitz and glamor, but I'll take my much better performing M17x R3 thank you very much.
Now if Razer can figure out who to put proper performance hardware into that thin a package and keep it cool then I'll be impressed. Well at about 900 bucks less along with it.