Razer Blade 15.6" (GTX 1060/1070, 2018 edition) Owner's Lounge

Just like previous Blade 14 7700HQ, Kick on in random time on idle (usually when down loading something or maybe Synapse is doing something back there), then silent again right? At first time, like a month owning it I had also headache about that, but after that it was slowly gone even sometimes comes but not as often as on first month...or maybe because I was getting used to that Fans behavior But no I think, before I sold it and checked it it didn’t do that, only when downloading something maybe they addressed it from bios update or something like from intel update.

 

Awesome thanks. I'm using balanced and auto. Do I set Turbo Ratio for 35 manually on all six cores if I want 3.5 ghz? Turned off turbo boost and it’s a night and day difference with fan noise. They don’t ramp up at all now when browsing and watching videos. Hopefully doesn’t have a huge impact on gaming. Lastly how do I limit the FPS to 144 so it matches the screen. It’s going well above in most games and causing extra fan noise. Vsync or does this cause a delay and defeat the purpose of the high refresh rate?

 

Seriously 100°C ? Pretty sure with Witcher 3 it'd be the same, anyone else hit the thermal limit on their razer blade ? If yes I will no other choice but to cancel the preorder : I really like how they market the new razer blade with a revolutionary vapor chamber cooling but still reaches 100°C...OMG just go for the quad core i5 at this point ! If your barebone can't handle 6 cores then be it.

 

No, I think AC Origins eat more CPU, it’s also because their new drm protection inside it, have both games Witcher 3 is more cpu friendly, and i think i saw someone saying hacked version AC Origins isn’t so much eat cpu. Actually when i saw Far Cry 5 temperature i feel like it is too high because it is not so demanding games like FFXV or AC Origins. I play Far Cry 5 on 4K (core 1080ti setting, all max) 50~60 FPS though never playing at high 100~ FPS, never see my cpu (7700HQ) reaching 80 but with AC Origins yes it was closing 90, without undervolting and if I don’t limiting turbo boost or lowering setting to high, it should cross 90 and throttle I believe.

 

Yes - set each core to 35 if you want 3.5ghz. If you turn off Turbo Boost totally you will be running at 2.1ghz only, which will impact a lot of games (but it will be very quiet ).

Limiting the fps to 144 depends on the game. I don't think that many games have that functionality (many allow you to limit it to 60 with vsync, but im not sure many do 144).

Using 60hz vync defeats the purpose of a 144 display, correct. I'd also like to have a 144 llimit and control thermals/fan better.

 

Deleted - incorrect information

 

If you want to maximize thermals and still keep high fps, do not disable Turbo Boost on the hard games. Run lower clock speeds using FIVR in Throttle stop, but don't outright disable your ability to clock up. I'm constantly tweaking these settings and paying attention to the changes, and so far running even just 3.0ghz has landed me the same FPS in Fortnite, but not nearly as hot, keeping all my cores at high 70s and low low 80s. Feel free to copy these settings under a seperate profile with Throttlestop and try it out. Your undervolt may not be as high as mine, but if you run these lower speeds even just while gaming, you should see dramatic thermal drops. ***I'm still learning recipes for what optimizes the Blade well, so don't stake me for an idiot just yet. Any changes or input is highly welcome



edit: when i alt-tab and brought up my graph for the screenshot, it affected my displayed fps in the background, i get much higher than 80 fps while in game. The point of the screenshot was to display the temps.

 

Are you still getting 144fps with those settings?

 

yes but using high settings i believe. Epic bounces between 80 and 110

 

Thanks for all the info I’ll try this all out

 

@childprotectorofthenight

You can limit the FPS with RTSS.

 

[in discussions with Razer, will post when updated]

 

That's really helpful posting the actual screenshot of the programs. Thanks!

Do you run your CPU Cashe and Intel GPU at that same -151 undervolt?

 

So the BIOS is easily copied, edited, and flashed, do you have info on what you mean by "like it is on the 14" I'm looking at all the settings available, but there are so many, and I don't know what a lot of them mean, so if someone else has already done the work, it'd be easier to look at theirs.

 

Cache yes, Intel gpu no. I know the Intel graphics accept a small undervolt but I wasn't doing it this time, the laptop stays plenty cool under normal use. Really I only hear my fans when I'm downloading something or gaming

 

And that is a taste of why people say to avoid Razer Customer Support at all costs. And a part of why my 2 blades were bought at MS Store and MicroCenter.

 

I think their support has improved night and day compared to a year ago. It's actually really weird you ( @Petrov ) weren't able to advance RMA the power brick as I have already heard of a few members having success with it.

 

On previous model main things are getting access to ASPM, and disable it directly through Bios, it increased gpu performance on 1060, and Undervolting directly per Bios, other setting like overclocking ram, c state setting etc could be also unlocked to max your Bios setting. Some fellow uploaded which settings have to be changed here.

 

Just finished watching that. In the process of testing those changes...

 

Mine was bought at MS too - so I can replace it within 30 days, but I'd still be without a laptop. And similarly, MS don't do replacement components (eg power supply_, they just replace the whole laptop (at least that's what they told me today regarding the RB15 - that they can't request a specific component/part).

 

Maybe it won’t bump the gpu performance since it is already above average, but maybe undervolting through Bios will be better than throttlestop, there’s thousands setting on that you can ask @Vistar Shook or @jlp0209for other details, i was mentored by them.

 

I've put this on reddit and the Razer forums, I think it warrants investigation.

After a fair amount of benchmark testing, I'm seeing a lot of inconsistency in how the CPU in the new RB15 performs.

Using Fire Strike, the GPU performs completely proportionately to how it's clocked. I have had my graphics score range from 15,611 (everything stock) to 16,897 (overclocked GPU).

In stark contrast, the Fire Strike physics score has ranged from 8,112 (everything stock, automatic fan), and between 9,527 and 16,598 (both these scores using stock voltage, multiplier and with manual 5,000 fan). Ambient temperature has been a steady 72F (air conditioned house).

To have CPU physics scores ranging from 9.5k to 16.6k, both with: stock voltage, stock turbo multipliers, max manual fan is...very puzzling.

The result of this inconsistency is overall fire strike scores ranging from just under 12k, to almost 14.5k - all on the same (my) RB15 laptop, all with stock voltage, and all with max manual fan speed (5,000).

Any ideas what might be the cause of this? I have a crackling power supply...?

Here is an image showing how the CPU throttles up and down during a completely stock/balanced/autofan 3dmark fire strike run: https://imgur.com/a/CGGWatA

 

On the 14 it is possible using AMIBIOS flash utility. Basically you'd need to copy / save your stock bios file from within the utility. Then edit the appropriate values. Such as power limit or cpu voltage offset, etc. Then you save it and flash your modded bios, which ideally will then have the settings you want enabled when you go into your bios settings. As long as you are able to save a copy of your bios and then edit it, you can enable whatever you like.

@Vistar Shook is the man when it comes to this. If you're able to copy and then open your bios image with the utility, people here can probably tell you what to edit. Based on comments people have posted, it seems like the cpu power limit is the setting that needs to be modded this time around vs. GPU power management on the 14" last year. But then again, if you mod / increase cpu power limit, the thermals will be out of control as others have said. Really close to just keeping my little X1 Carbon for work and buying an open-box Clevo P650HS from Microcenter for $850(!) with full 1070, g-sync, and old 7700hq. Until I see that the Blade 15 can for sure be bios modded, and that it will actually make a difference, this nonsense isn't worth $2600 to me. I'll keep lurking, still fascinated by the Blade nonetheless, living vicariously...

 

I see you made insider account with user name opposite than here The difference on physical score i think it happened because of thermal throttle? 9,5k is under previous 7700HQ score, so far I saw mostly cpu temperature that uploaded here is closing 90ish so probably it throttled and decrease physical performance. Hmm have to dig more to keep it low 80, did you try setting maximum power state on processors power management in power options to 99%?

 

Amazon's online, too, but will send a new one to you and give you a certain amount of time to return the old

I also noticed something similar in that my overall firestrike score was really lowered due to the physics component.
That was fixed for me by updating the gforce gpu driver. I didn't notice this issue afterwards.
I didn't know the physics score is only tied to the CPU, so I didn't think much of it at the time...

 

I doubt altering the PL limits in the BIOS will have an effect, since it is probably controlled by the EC firmware and not the BIOS. There is a method to trick the EC firmware into "thinking" it is drawing less power than it actually is, as a result the CPU can clock higher with more watts available. But all this is pretty much useless on these 6 core generation in the thin and light laptops, since mostly the issue is thermal.
Intel is basically releasing "new" CPUs every year, but really the process is just a refinement on skylake 14nm. So there hasn't been a great enough energy efficiency gain to put a 6 core CPU in a 45W package limit and mantain the higher turbo boost clocks.
Now, what we see in Intel's marketing but ignored in the past, as base clocks and up to.....i.e. 7700HQ, base clock 2.8GHz up to 3.8GHz, but in practice it can mantain 3.4GHz on all 4 cores no problem under 45W. The 6 cores released now, there is a problem, not possible to mantain the higher turbo clocks for long, and all 6 cores will eventually settle at a lower turbo boost to stay within 45W, but Intel will guarantee only base clocks.....so whatever above the base clocks depends on each machine design, cooling capacity, Bios limits and EC firmware limits. The i9 which costs a lot more, is just a mess, with most laptops considering the higher turbo boost clocks as an overclock already, so actually overclocking beyond the up to 4.8GHz (or ignoring marketing, 4.3GHz for all six cores) is not feasible in most machines being released at the moment due to cooling limits of the designs.
Concluding, we will have to wait some time, a year to two, to see what the 10nm process can do with energy efficiency gains.

 

It seems that most laptops this generation with six cores will require liquid metal, to be able to come close to maintaining 3.9GHz on six cores, if the power limits can be increased in the BIOS or bypassed. Most will be running around 3.2 or so. I saw one review of another laptop brand where the temps were great but runnning at 2.6GHz! Still above base clocks though, so tecnically allowed by Intel and by design.

 

I’ve added a picture to my previous post showing how the cpu throttles during fire strike, causing the wide range of physics results.

My processor state max is 100%, never changed it on this laptop.

 

Change it to 99% even it will disable turbo boost but you’ll maybe getting lower temperature that translates to more stable performance, hopefully. I did that on my old 7700HQ, and physical score always stable on 10,4K~. Never down to 9k ish, of course with undervolting to keep it under low 80 celcius.

 

Since the physics score is basically CPU, it will vary when thermal throttling or power throttling. To better observe the behavior of your CPU, it is easier with Cinebench 15 and HWiNFO. Run the CB15 multicore test and right away reset HWiNFO, observe the clocks speeds, temps, and package power. Run CB15 5 times in row or more, with no rest time for the CPU, and record your scores and your observations in HWiNFO. This way you can see power or themal throttling in action and the limits of the CPU and adjust settings accordingly.

 

This looks terrible to me: check out this graph of all 6 cpu core clocks ( and cpu core temp during one single run of fire strike at full default settings (ie out of the box settings).

You can see that most of the demo/test the cpu cores are sitting at around 1.3-1.7ghz! And then it has segments where it spikes up to 4.1ghz, albeit not for long.

No wonder the fire strike scores and physics scores in particular are all over the place.

EDIT (re ran with correct y axis): https://imgur.com/a/rfiaQp5

 

Only the physics test stresses the CPU, the other tests stress the GPU so the CPU can downclock if set to balanced mode.

 

Here is a graph including CPU package power, core clocks and max core temp during a single fire strike default demo+test run: https://imgur.com/a/rfiaQp5 (corrected y axis)

Again, you can see the cpu power package is all over the shop. I will run Cinebench 5 times or so and repost the same graph.

 

Here are the core max temp, core clock and power package graphs from five runs of Cinebench 15 CPU test. The scores ranged from 967-816, with no specific pattern. A lot of volatility in the power package again. As you can see, even with cinebench running the cpu clocks were very rarely if ever at full turbo, even though core temps were low!
https://imgur.com/a/cExwUTr
EDIT: Reran 5 runs with corrected hwinfo core clock y axis - even worse message now (HWinfo had previously set the y axis clock speed to 3000 max, so it was clipping off any clocks above 3000).

 

Take a Torx T5 screw driver with you and see if they have a replacement unit in stock at the store. If they do, swap the SSD and you are good to go.

 

haha! I like your style - I did indeed check if they had them in stock at the store, but they do not.

 

Any reason why my fans turn on and stay on as soon as I plug in the power chord. They ramp up and down even after an undervolt of -140mv and a decrease at 34 turbo ratio on each core

 

I would like to know how are the fun and the thermal in "normal" usage. Here what is for me normal:

1. Running Text processing software or IDE
2. Running Browser with several tab opened
3. Video (Netflix, youtube)
4. Running 1 or more Virtual Machine

Maybe all what mentioned above at the same time.
I am an occasional gamer and it is acceptable for me to have high thermal (but not heavy trhttling) and fun noise when playing demanding games. I don't want this for not demanding games like turn based strategic games and wargames. I don'T want this AT ALL when using in the normal way mentioned in the above list.

 

After having the laptop for a few days I can safely say it's not worth over $2000. Maybe for some people that really need light and portable, but outside that this laptop is pretty bad without major tweaks. Thanks to everyone that helped with questions. I safely undervolted and changed all the power settings and was getting decent performance. Sorry for the semi rant starting now. Ok the fact we have to tweak this laptop for "standard" performance is kind of insane. The fans are always turning on and off unless you disable turbo boost. The noise levels get annoying after a few minutes. Don't even get me started on what this thing sounds like gaming #jetengine. The key travel distance completely fudges you up every so often. THE PALM REST TURNS INTO HELL. In other words use an external keyboard when gaming. Sometimes I don't have that option available and the fact that it gets this warm near the battery can't be good. The screen is not as great as I thought it would be. The speakers aren't great at all, this trackpad sucks. All in all I really wish this laptop had met my expectations. It's unfortunate because I know there aren't many other options like this. I may just go with a heftier 17in or 15in that can actually cool properly and doesn't annoy the hell out of me with fan noise. Thankfully Razer made the return pretty easy. Here are screenshots. I also got the aftercooler Assault was talking about and it helped dropped by about 4 degrees which I guess is decent. Can we also talk about how frustrating the trackpad is? Especially when pressing space

 

Daaang dude most the stuff I like about this laptop, you don't! I get some palm rejection when typing now and then, but the surface texture and function are now at the top of my list above the XPS 15. I'd rate the keyboard like a 7 or 8, and the screen a 9 (I only wish it was QHD and glossy). The palm rest getting hot is the only issue I see often. I hardly know when my fans come on or off, they're always so quiet under regular use that I never hear them. Basically, this pc checks off most my boxes as my daily driver.

If I were you, I'd start looking at an Asus Zephyrus, or their SCAR II. If you can handle some bulk and weight, my OMEN X laptop has by far the best keyboard I've laid my fingers on (in a laptop) and it's always a complete pleasure to use. Lenovo is launching their new LEGION line here soon, they look amazing. Or just get a Huawei Matebook X and a desktop, then thermals will never ever be an issue

 

Picked up the new Razer 15 from Microsoft store last night and I think I got a bad laptop. This thing reaches temps over 100C 99c on all cores 104c cpu package and GPU goes up to 91C just running firestrike and thats with -130 undervolt and fans at max speed. Ive tested this with and without gaming mode and it doesn't make a difference same high temps. All games ive tried just stutter and are unplayable guess ill be stopping back at the Microsoft store this afternoon.

 

Damn the luck, that's totally unacceptable. With Microsoft, you typically have 2 possible options, they may give you a new unit in store, which was my case with Alienware, or they may try to send it out for repair or replacement which takes about 2 weeks. Hopefully since you Just got it yesterday, they just give you a new one. If not and you don't want to wait you can just return it.

 

I would do new unit in store or refund. No reason to roll the dice with a brand new $2700 laptop on a repair.

 

Before you return t would you mind running fire strike with turbo limited to say 35 via throttlestop, and using your under voltage?

I just ran firestrike with max fans, undervolted like you and no turbo limit. My CPU peaked at 87C, but when I went into the detailed temp graph from hwinfo, you could see that it was only one core (core 0) that hit 87, the highest of the other cores was 82C. In addition, it was only for one polling interval that it hit 87 - the rest of the time all the cores (including core 0) where around 80C. It would be interesting to see if your core max temp hit 91C on fire strike very briefly, or if it was consistently around there (and if so, all cores on only a single core).

I think there is something weird when we use the Balanced synapse profile (or maybe it's when turbo is set unlimited) with regard to core speeds and power package. Core clocks and power package are all over the shop in fire strike, but if you change to game mode and/or set turbo limits to mid-high 30s, then the core speeds stay consistently high. This has nothing to do with thermal throttling.

 

I forgot to mention I also disabled turbo boost and ran firestrike again and it was running fine until half way through the first test and it started stuttering again so I stopped the test and temps were back up in the red all cores at 99c, the GPU was a bit lower but still was kinda high at 85c. Im wondering if its just a bad heatsink or something. Im not going to bother opening it up and just go back and exchange or return it.

 

Oh wow, yeah there’s something wrong there. GPU shouldn’t hit 85 on fire strike and CPU certainly shouldn’t be anywhere near the high 90s if you’ve got turbo boost disables.

Definitely return it. I’d personally get a new one as the next one is not going to be anything like your lemon.

 

IMHO Faulty heatsink and/or thermal paste => return it asap don't open it or anything.

 

I had to make a new account since I haven't been on these forums since the AW m15x days, but just wanted to share some info

I just got my Blade 15 in the mail and it looks like the buzzing chargers are a known issue since I went on Razer support chat and the first thing the person said was "Is it the Blade 15" I said "Yup" and he said we'll send you out a new one immediately.
The person also asked if I had any laptop/performance issues and I said I've only had it for 2 hours so I'm not sure yet. He said if I do, to make sure I reach out to them as soon as possible.

So I'm wondering if there's a lot of issues going on with this laptop...one thing is for sure though their support definitely got better.
So if anyone needs a new charger I'd give the chat a chance so they can mail one out to you.

 

First thing I’d do is check for any physical problems - but you’ve done that.

I’d recommend loading up 3dmark (get it from guru3d.com - really fast). Run fire strike completely stock. Post scores (please), including overall, graphics and physics scores.

Then get throttlestop. Limit turbo multiplier to 36x (on the FIVR settings page in throttlestop). Re run fire strike and post scores (including overall, graphics and physics scores).

Then undervolt cpu and cpu cache by say -125mV. Keep turbo limited, re run fire strike again as above and post.

Note max core temp for all theee runs and post these too.

P.

 

Chiming in. Blade 15 is dead after 24 hours. Shutdown after a blue screen while web browsing. Now it won’t turn on or show that it’s charging. High quality gear here for sure. So thankful I bought from Microsoft.