Razer Blade 14" (1060 GPU/late 2016) Owner's Lounge

In an effort to get more quality and relevant discussion on the Razer board, I've asked the mods to sticky the latest gen products to the top and unsticky the rest.

Please use this thread to discuss the latest Razer Blade 14" (1060 GPU/late 2016).

 

Razer Blade late 2016 14" QHD+ with Nvdia 1060 running Witcher 3 @ 2048x1152 (source: Ridha @ Razer Insider)



Temps after 30 min of Hitman:

 

Uuuh what are these GPU clocks ?

 

I think those clocks are for the Intel integrated graphics. Otherwise the memory usage/utilization percent don't make any sense.

 

I'd imagine that this is the case as well. Those aren't mine, they are from a poster on the Razer Insider board.

 

Yea I said the same thing on the Razer forums. That's not the 1060 those clocks are completely wrong.


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Anyone have any advice/experience or recommendations as far as a cooling pad goes for the 14? I have a Coolermaster U2 or U3 that I use currently for my Alienware but the thing is fairly big and beefy and I would not consider it very portable. I'm hoping to find something I can slide in my backpack with my Blade when I get it that's maybe around the same thickness or so as the blade that I can easily carry around with me and my laptop all the time.

 

As a heads up.. the way the blades fans work you won't see a big improvement in thermals using a cooling pad. Maybe 2-3c max. I have three different cooling pads for my big boy laptop and the blade barely benefits from them.


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Thanks, maybe I will try using my current one at my house when I eventually get my blade and test the differences with that to see if I want to invest in a second one to carry around with me.

 

Ideally try using the laptop on a hard surface with good heat dissipation - glass, wood, granite etc.

 

The 512gb QHD+ Razer Blade is now in stock on Razerzone.

Thanks to @bradleyjb for the heads up on this!

 

Question for you owners. Do you experience any stuttering on the mouse or trackpad when the GPU switches? A good way to check is by left clicking on the battery icon to bring up the battery percentage and moving your mouse right away after. If the mouse pointer stalls to move, that's what I'm talking about. It's also noticeable when opening certain programs that cause the dGPU to check in.

Only reason I'm bringing this up is because this is one of the few other 1060/Optimus laptops out there and the MSI GS series are all suffering from this issue. I'd like to know if it's an MSI issue or if it's a Optimus/1060 issue. Thanks in advance.

 

Any thoughts on whether there will be a refresh after CES 2017? Or in the spring? I assume Kabylake is a given at some point, but I guess it depends on how much of a drop in it is. Then there are rumors of Nvidia doing a Pascal refresh 20XX series as well. Normally I wouldn't wait on technology, but I just happen to not be in a rush this time, and can go either way. I don't mind waiting until February, but probably wouldn't until May or June like this year.

 

Razer is sometimes iffy on just CPU upgrades, I think that if they do a Kaby Lake refresh it won't be out until March or so, which in effect means most buyers will receive laptops around early May.

CPU performance tends to not change radically generation to generation, and I think this will be doubly so as Kaby Lake is the first "second tock" from Intel.

 

Considering they just released the 1050, I wouldn't expect Pascal 20XX until late next year. It's possible Razer will do a rolling refresh of the Razer Blade with Kaby Lake though. Normally they have been once a year, but they mentioned to me that they are trying to be more competitive and quick to the market with new tech. Hopefully they keep it up.

 

I pre-ordered my 256gb FHD Blade 14" in the first wave in September, about 5 mins after pre-orders opened.

Supposedly, my shipping date is the 14th and I'll gladly do a mini review here. Not too many benchmarks other than Witcher 3, as I won't have the HD space to install and try a bunch of games.

 

Please let us know the cpu/gpu temps under load

 

Will do! I've been charged already, so it's just a matter of time now.

 

Just ordered an FHD 1TB model.

I heard the Razers fall apart pretty easily. Nevertheless couldn't resist so looking into a 3rd party warranty as well.

Should I square trade it or would you make any other suggestions here?

 

Fall apart? I couldn't disagree more... sometimes people complain of battery longevity but otherwise these are built solid. Warranty never hurts but don't think they are cheap either


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Warranty sent a bad idea, but I'm approaching two years and mine is still just about perfect. Haven't heard of the, falling apart at all ...

 

"Here are the results after playing Quantum Break @ 1080p mediu-high settings (fps between 45-60 fps) for about 45 minutes:"

CPU 90 GPU 95

https://insider.razerzone.com/index.php?threads/razer-blade-2016-gtx-1060-benchmarks.17082/page-2

nope nope nope nope

 

Damn those are some terrible temperatures.....

I know it is within spec of the CPU and GPU but the hardware around it still would heat up too much (battery especially).

 

Just an update for you guys he's having issues with his blade do not I repeat DO NOT take his benchmarks to heart. Very good chance he needs to RMA either the power supply or laptop itself. He was getting higher fps and lower temps while unplugged from the wall.

He has since taken down his bench videos since they are inaccurate.


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If they didn't update their cooling fans, It's no surprise it's going to get that hot. Everybody else added a second fan or more heatpipes between generations for the 1060.

 

Any ideas on how long it takes for the Microsoft store to start selling these online? I prefer that route with the 10% off and extended warranty plan. When I got my 2015 Blade it seemed immediate, but I notice the models since have lagged. thanks

 

My USB ports have pretty poor build quality. Second motherboard now and all three are still horrible. Disconnects easily at the slightest touch or bump on the wire. As it's out of warranty the replacement would cost bout 800 dollars.

EDIT: I'm using the Razer Blade 14 circa 2014

 

This review just showed up. Sounds like his temps are in check without issue. Nice! I also have the same machine and everything looks good for me as well.

 

Received my shipping notification, laptop should arrive here (US) on Friday. Shipping from Hong Kong, I ordered the FHD 256gb model.

 

This is killing me lol, I have had the money saved up for a laptop for the past month. Ordered an OLED x1 Yoga until I realized this or MSI were an option for a laptop almost the same size but with a GPU to play video games, so I cancelled that. Was going to order an MSI but read about all the microstuttering issues on their 10xx series laptops and I can't spend that much money for something that doesn't even run correctly in Windows. I finally decided on a Blade, despite the mixed reviews and experiences people have had with them I am willing to take that risk but I don't know where from! I don't even care a whole lot about the MS student discount (although it doesn't hurt, that's for sure) but I am mainly interested in their extended warranty which Razer does not seem to provide and would cost quite a penny from Squaretrade. I cannot get any information from MS about when they might receive the new models, they don't even have the old one on display so I can't drive an hour out of my way to at least look at the display model and get an idea about the mixed reviews and "grainy" screen. Do I just buy one now and say F it and pray I have good luck and never have to deal with Razer or do I just wait and keep my fingers crossed that something changes soon with Microsoft?

Wat do, any advice for someone in my position? lol

 

I ordered using my Costco credit card which comes with a 2 year warranty after the manufacture's expires. I'm hoping this is the same as purchasing an extended warranty.....I hope to never find out.

 

I didn't wait and ordered from Razer. Especially because MS store probably won't offer the FHD model.


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Does anyone know from experience how long it took previous Blades to make their way to Microsofts websites or retail stores? Every day I find myself browsing various Blade forums and threads and reading reviews and watching them and the more I do the more I just want to get it over with and commit and buy it lol. Is it usually a week? A month? I cannot get any information from MS or the rep I was speaking to at the store and according to them they haven't heard anything about getting new ones and his go to resource to check is their website...

Just wondering if at this point if I want it asap if I'm better off just taking the risk and ordering from the Razer store and hoping nothing happens, and I guess then I have a shorter warranty to hold onto my 256gb ssd for before I put it in another machine?

 

Well, turns out I spoke too soon about never having any issues. My 2015 is showing weird spots on the LCD panel. Looks like pressure points from the keyboard and in front of the logo. I'm really thankful for that two year warranty from MS and will be taking it there tomorrow. Think I'm going to wait until they have it again.

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I just RMAed my 2015 for the same issue; it looks like it happens due to heat, I used to plug in my external motinor while at home, closing the lid, and it has probably heated up the display till those spots happened to appear.

Even just closing the lid right after a gaming session might cause it, probably.

I sent it over for repair, along with a MB substitution request cause of an AC plug problem, but they tried saying the display was fine, so I kept insisting and they said they will "check on it" before sending my unit back.

Note that most of the spots were visible only on white backgrounds and from huge angles of view, while one could bee seen even looking directly on any kind of clear background.. Yet they didn't "notice" it at the very begin, even if I added an "issues" list to the package.

 

I would like to see full HWinfo on the CPU core clocks and CPU temperatures after at least 5 minutes of Prime95. Seems like this kind of basic information is hard to find.

 

I had the same problem on my blade. Caused by heat of the chassis when you close the lid.

 

I make it a practice to let the laptop cool down a bit and never shut it off right after gaming session and close lid.


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Yep, that's exactly it. Though you can see them as darker spots when looking straight forward, so fairly obvious in my case. Just in case though, thats why I decided to take it in and not mail it in. Fortunately I have an MS Store nearby.

Thing is, I dont even game on it much. Problem I have is that I close the lid or explicitly put it to sleep before putting it into my bag, then find out an hour later that it woke for some reason and is running full blast fans and hot inside my laptop bag. But thank you and @Eason for confirming the cause. If/when I get a new one, guess I will let it col and shut it all the way down.


Update: Went by the MS Store and no issues at all. They immediately saw the problem and agreed to let me swap out for any laptop in the store. Unfortunately the closest they had was an MSI GS73VR which while nice, is too big (I already have a DTR). So I will be patient, and hopefully they will get the Pascal Blades by the holidays and I can swap out then. If you have any choice at all, I definitely recommend waiting for MS and buying from them.

 

I do get this, yeah. You get it during Battery info polling and I think when accessing some functions in GeForce Experience, so it might very well be some kind of firmware/SMI event kicking off for a second or so. I want to find out a bit more about what's going on.

 

Update on the same issue: Even if they claimed to haven't seen the dots before I sent in pictures showing the exact position, Razer support is now going to install a new display on my notebook.

Whole process is going to take a month, which is unacceptable, proving for me the voices about their lack of professionalism in supporting customers.

While they said it'd have took this long and that they had to change motherboard and display I asked them to just send me a new unit, even with lower SSD (I'll install a 1tb version in a month) cause I couldn't wait for this long as I need it for work and studies, pointing that they are going to keep it for 10% of the warranty period which makes me laugh, and they absolutely refused, saying they won't swap systems.

 

They probably don't Q/A their systems thoroughly enough at least to the extent that I believe apple Q/A's their system. I say that because while Razer appears to be making constant updates which we can all appreciate the fact that they release as many as they do within a short period shows that they don't actually test their systems for long periods of gaming and wear & tear.

Gamers play long hours and I guess your mileage may vary, lol... But I can understand why now apple decided to go with the AMD polaris chips as compared to back to Nvidia. They probably want low power drawing, low temp cards outfitted in their systems.

 

Have anyone bought this device yet? Can you show us the picture of the heatsink and removing the heatsink so we can see the thermal paste.

 

I have a FHD 256 GB model coming in this Friday, I can post a picture if no one else has done so by then.

 

Unless something has changed, removing the heatsink is not recommended. There was a thread here and on the Razer forums a couple of years back about someone who did this, and apparently Razer has some funky way of putting down the paste (between the copper bars and directly on it) and maybe their own paste. I recall the guy struggling to get it to perform like stock again.

This was a while ago, I dont know if people have had more luck re-pasting since then. I remember the CEO coming on the Razer forum and basically saying we know what we're doing


Edit: here it is: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/repaste-those-razer-blade-2015s-at-your-own-risk.771707/

Looks like he got it to work, but has some advice about it.

 

rip in peace

 

You are so cool, I wish I was you.

 

FYI - These seem to be in stock online at Best Buy (including FHD 256gb).

 

Thank you so much for posting this. Snagged a 512 with 18 months same as cash and next day delivery. Now let's see if they really do have them in stock. LOL

 

i know instantly who you are toalking about. i think could even direct a link to the videos he created talking about it. He had a hard time from people on the razer blade forums for what he did aswell.