The Razer Blade Review
by Vivek Gowri & Jarred Walton on March 15, 2012 3:01 AM ESTOur Enthusiast tests, which run at 1080p with maximum settings and 4xAA enabled, makes the GT 555M look pretty bad—Portal is the only result over 30fps, though overall the results weren’t too much worse than the GTX 560. Even low amounts of anti-aliasing seem to really kill the framerates and overall smoothness of gameplay, so I’d definitely recommend disabling it.
Razer Blade, Enthusiast Settings
The Blade wasn’t meant to be a GPU monster, only to offer adequate gaming performance in a portable package. And the GT 555M holds up the adequate side of that bargain, with reasonable performance in mid-level gaming modes . I’d liked to have seen a GTX 560 instead to provide more consistent performance at 1080p, but it’s likely that a higher end GPU wouldn’t have fit within Razer’s thermal design constraints.
It's also worth mentioning Kepler here. Though much of the new 28nm GPU is still under wraps, we did benchmark the GT 640M earlier in the Acer TimelineU M3. It's about 5-10% slower than the Blade's GT 555M but that's with DDR3 vs. GDDR5. Without being able to share more details about the graphics core, clock speeds, or anything else, it's not a comparison that we can shed too much light on. Kepler is the next generation of NVIDIA's GPUs, so as such, performance and efficiency are expected to improve. I'd like to see a midlife refresh of the Blade with a Kepler-based GPU inside; it would go a long way towards quelling the fears about GPU performance especially in the long run.
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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.