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

I don’t have it but I wanted to buy 1060 model, but after I saw on Reddit, here or Razer Forum, 8750H has similar high temperatures anyway but GPU is always lower, and for 144 hz I need 1070 at least. My 1070 max q never show 80 ish, on benchmarks, CPU with appropriate undervolting value sits on low 80ish, almost similar with my old 7700HQ, only on nowaday games that eat cpu crazy like Far Cry 5, AC Origins, FFXV etc I’ve to hold CPU performance and lowering the setting not at ultra (max) since it’ll bump to 90ish on default, of course those are done with undervolting. So in both model you have to play the setting or maybe thermal repasting will help reducing the temperature if you’re doing that right, I’m not at that level atm, I’m playing AC Origins dlc this next week stressing the cpu

 

I bought the 1060 version from bestbuy I also have the msi gs65 from bestbuy with 1070. I going to keep the razer way better build quality and its fast enough. As far as cooling they both are noisy. But that what happens when you put a i7 6core cpu in a thin chassy.

On the razer I am undervolting -150 on cpu and cache and I limit turbo to 3.7Ghz running fire strike I get 10600 temps stay around 76c on cpu and 74c on gpu stock thermal paste

The msi has to much flex on the screen.

PUBG gets 62fps in ultra on the Razer with 1060 fast enough for my use




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When stressing the CPU, where is everyone finding that the CPU PKG power limit is sitting when throttling? Like Lightwire, with optimal undervolting, I was holding 3.7ghz at decent temps stably for prolonged tests and throttling down to 45W. After a few days of this working fine, I'm now being throttle down to 35W and holding ~3.2GHz. Correct me if I am mistaken, but this CPU is designed to hold 45W indefinitely as long as temps stay under the set threshold. I have been seeing more and more people reporting not getting the power they anticipated, and this being tied to 35W throttling.

Razer support has agreed it should be holding 45W, and has claimed they are looking for a cause. I suspect it has to do with the EC firmware, but no way for me to test this

 

I am working with Razer on getting to the bottom of the power limit throttling. You are correct that it should be able to hold those higher clocks if temperatures are in check.

 

It can be the case that the PCH is overheating and to counteract this, the CPU will throttle down.

The problem is that Intel didnt rework the PCH and its still made on an older production process. So it heats up a bit more thansk to the increased CPU load.

 

Do you switch to gaming mode in synapse software? Since the balance mode in Synapse will reduced the power limit of CPU to 35W.

 

Intel is now making some desktop chipsets on 14nm, but it's really slammed for 14nm capacity since their CPUs were long supposed to be on 10nm by now (at a new factory in Arizona, rather than wherever 14nm is right now). Most are still at 22nm (including the Z370).

 

Yeah the 22nm wouldnt be a problem perse but unlike desktop boards they arent cooled by a huge heatsink. I have sewn multiple 8th gen core i7s in laptops throttle like this because the PCH is around 90c under load.

I wonder how the reliability will be of these chipsets in the long run.

 

Thanks for working on this. It’s very odd and both my first RB15 and my new replacement RB15 throttle below 45w despite very cool thermals (circa 80c on the cpu).

 

What’s this all about? Never check on Throttlestop TDP etc, only on HWINFO that showed my CPU cores all running 3,6 gb average while playing games like AC Origins and Far Cry 5, and it stated no thermal throttle there, and on task manager showed also 3,6 stable peak and after closing games it goes to lower to 2,2gb... did I miss something?

 

Hello.

Got mine today - firestrike - 14k stock + synapse game mode = its ok?


Can any one please give screenshot for TS good settings for gaming withiut very high temps?

 

Great, I'm glad I'm not the only one in contact with them on this.

I reinstalled windows from their recovery (reset to factory) and it still Throttles at 35W. I also reinstalled from a completely fresh windows 10 install and it made no differences.

I've also modded the BIOS to enable full TDP control, no difference.

My current hypotheses are EC firmware or the power brick isn't supplying the correct power.

Have changed this, doesn't make a difference.

We are looking at power throttling (measured in Watts), you were looking at thermal throttling (measured in temperature). The CPU is designed to run at 45W as long as temps stay below 90-100C. Many of us are finding the processor Throttles to 35W even though the temps are in the 70s.

14k is fine for stock. You can get it higher by overclocking the GPU with MSI afterburner and undervolting the CPU in ThrottleStop, but these will depend on your individual system. GPU Should be able to get ~+180 on the clock and >+500 on memory. CPU in ThrottleStop, ~-140on clock and ~-130 on cache. Disable BDPROCHOT and speedstep. enable speedshift and set to ~125 (for real use) or 0 (for maximum benchmark scores) or ~180 ( for battery profile). That should be a good start.

 

Thanks I’ll check it, I have only temperature screen on my egpu setting with Blade 15 atm, but gpu isn’t matter right? Is there something wrong here, this is when I was playing Far Cry 5. Sorry if the values too tiny to see, it’s on 4K resolution on external 4K Monitor if it’s matter.
Oh about firestrike, it depends on gpu silicon lottery about OC value, some user can OC 230/700~, and get over 15,3k, mine only 200/600 got 15,1K overall.

 

To check for this issue, it is a lot easier to use AIDA64 and ThrottleStop, but looking at your screenshot, I would suspect you have it also. Yes, it is strictly a CPU issue, not GPU. If you look at your HWINFO screen, you can see all cores have triggered the power limit throttle, despite a max 44W and average 33W. If you did in fact only reach 44W during this session, you should never have power limit throttled.

 

Its normal for a laptop to switch to lower clockspeeds when not stressed. Can go as low as 800mhz.

 

I see.

So with this, on gaming season avarage 44 watt I’ll get better performance? But if it’s higher won’t it be bad for thermal? I think I heard before if I unlock bios I can change the limitation to avoid power limit throttle, maybe it’s per bios locked/set to keep machine cooler.

 

As long as the temperature stays within the designed limits, you would not expect it to cause any issues. 45W will produce more heat, but if it is still in the 80Cs, there is nothing to worry about. There is no way to know for certain how the power limit is impacting your performance. PROBABLY, it is not having a BIG impact, and there is also no way for me to know if you are actually being throttled, or how often, or for how long during gaming. These are all things you would have to check yourself. Particularly, you should install AIDA64 and see if you are actually being throttled at 35W vs 45W. Until you do this, I can't provide any insight.

 

Shouldn't the power not matter if the clock speeds are maintained? I'm imagining an engine running 6000 rpm, as long as the mixture is right, it doesn't matter how much more fuel pressure you have past the regulator.

If I'm maintaining my 3.8ghz, why would I need 45w behind that if 32w holds the clocks?

 

If you are getting that result, great. From what I am finding in talking with other owners, when throttling down to 35W, it is holding ~3.2ghz. If it ran at 3.8ghz at 35W it wouldn't be a problem, but that isn't what is happening for most people.

 

Got it, so that's the issue. Thank you for clarifying. I'll try to post my throttlestop settings this evening so yall can compare your results, I get power throttling using razers balanced mode but not razers performance mode.

 

When I game in majority of the games seem to hold close to 3.9ghz. For some reason xtu shows average clock speed after hour of gaming at like 2.9. But when I monitor it real time via afterburner it shows pegged at 3.9 pretty consistently.

 

If you manage to constantly keep the full 3.9Ghz TB clocks in gaming, then you don't have to worry about any kind of throttling.

Just to be sure, I recommend setting hwinfo to save a log file while testing a game (it's best to have an active software that displays FPS, such as afterbuner with rtss or fraps, so you can capture the FPS in the hwinfo log file) so you can properly analyze the behavior.

@stranula

If I remember correctly, Prema mentioned the 35w power throttling for some laptops, but only in combined loads (CPU+GPU). The "normal" power limit when stressing only the CPU, should be at 45w (with a few seconds up to 56w until the PL2 time limit expires).

I haven't seen this 35w power throttling for the blade in this thread (though, it's possible that I missed it).

For those that want to test for this kind of limitation, they can use aida64 with the following config:

1 start aida64, go to tools and select aida stability test,

2 in the stress test window click preferences, go to general an select 1 sec for the sensors refresh rate, so it matches the throttling refresh rate,

3 tick the following boxes: cpu+fpu+cache+memory+gpu (don't tick disks),

4 select the Unified tab to be the main active tab,

5 on the left side you have a button that can be dragged downwards, drag it until the grid values on the left show 0 to 100 instead of 0 to 200,

6 stretch the window in all directions for better viewing,

7 start the stress test and capture a pic just before the graph reaches the other side of the screen,

8 post the pic using this: https://postimages.org or the app https://postimages.org/app

 

The clockspeed is one part of the equation. try prime95 heaviest benchmark and you see the powerdraw skyrocket.

 

Hello, I'm wondering how long does it take for Razer to start implementing changes to the blade 15 and producing them to fix problems with it? Also where can I find out what changes they have made?

 

I just tested cinebench to see any performance er

The real QC issue to me is Backlight Bleeding and ac adapter buzzing sound imo, I’m lucky to get perfect ac adapter but got minimum BLB, maybe it’s because high refresh rate ips Panel nowaday, as other manufacturers also have, on previous Blade I had FHD it was free BLB but with only 60Hz panel. 8750H cpu overall runs hot under max loading, undervolting and disabling turbo boost may solve the issue. Doing those tweaks doesn’t reduce in real world gaming or work performance, I use balance and auto Fan profile on daily usage to keep it quiet and cool. Idk about power thermal throttling that recently being talked but I can achieve Zephyrus full gtx 1070 performance with tweaks that doesn’t show thermal throttle, that’s good enough for me.

 

Razer Blade 15 vs. MSI GS65 vs. Gigabyte Aero 15X vs. CUK P955ER Comparison Smackdown
MobileTechReview
Published on Jun 20, 2018
It’s a 4-way 2018 thin and light high end 15” gaming laptop smackdown! The Razer Blade 15, MSI GS65 Stealth Thin, Gigabyte Aero 15X and Computer Upgrade King P955ER all with an 8th gen Intel Coffee Lake Core i7-8750H processors, NVIDIA GTX 1070 Max-Q dedicated graphics with Optimus, DDR4 RAM, NVMe SSD and 144 Hz displays are compared. All weigh 4.5 lb. / 2.0 kg or less, have metal casings and subdued looks that work for the office.

Our review of the 2018 Razer Blade 15: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYOxy...
Our review of the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2FtP...
Our review of the Gigabyte Aero 15X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJYDC...

 

Can anyone measure the decibel reading on their blade under load if they get the chance? I was getting around 70db.

 

70dB!? On my old Blade 14 2017, Max noise under load with undervolting was 51fb, phone directly put on hand rest area. I didn’t measure my new 15 because it’s definitely quiter, I saw notebookcheck review mentioned 49db playing Witcher 3, maybe reviewer doing that on gaming mode and manual Fans profile. I tested Witcher 3 and played AC Origins and Far Cry 5 on balance Auto profile and it was quite, don’t think it was high 40ish dB. I’ll measure max 5000 Fan and gaming mode later though.

 

Thanks! Balance and auto would be perfect I’m trying to decide if I should reorder the blade or go with the new 4K aero. This will help me out

 

I was wrong it isn’t low 40ish, max 47dB on benchmarks AC Origins max Setting with Balance and auto mode, and performance and manually max fan profile is 57dB both has similar results 64FPS and temperature maybe lower on max Fans 5000 Profil but on Balance Auto HWINFO64 Shows no red values and no throttle with max only one Core 86. It’s with turbo boost disable (processors state 99%) and undervolting-150mV, cpu only no cache.

 

Awesome thanks for all the details!! that’s not even close to what I was getting. Definitely revauluating after that!

 

Ok I did exactly this and this was interesting. My setup was undervolted by -130mv cpu/cache, otherwise all stock, gaming profile, auto fans.
- CPU Power package spiked to 65W quickly for a few seconds, then settled back down to just under 45W where it sat for about 4 mins, then it fell to a hair under 35W
- Cores jumped to 38-39x for those initial few seconds, then settled back at 30x (yes, only 30x!!!) for the 4 mins that the power package was 45W
- Temps on the CPU slowly rose over those first four minutes, peaking around 97C only after 4 minutes of stress testing - it was at this point that (I think) some thermal throttling kicked in and the power package fell to 35W
- As I watched the HWInfo63 readout, it was showing that the power limit throttling had kicked in from very near the START (it read YES for all cores), even though core temps were still in the mid 80s at this point.

I think it's clear that there is some power limit throttling going on for some odd reason. The fact that it was only pushing 30x multiplier across all cores despite all core temps (and PCH temp) being in the 80s during this time...well I can't understand that.

 

This behavior is "normal".

-that 65w power spike was during the time window for the short power limit (which is usually 56w or 1.25x PL1) and the combination of 100% load (with some instructions such as avx from the fpu test) with your current cpu voltage at max clocks, resulted in that power draw, after that time window expires, PL1 (at 45w) kicks in and downclocks you cpu in order to maintain a sustained power draw of 45w (all "normal" up to this point),

-as I previously mentioned, some laptops have a 35w power limit under combined loads (only when you stress test both the cpu and the gpu, if you only test the cpu, then you should be limited at 45w under sustained loads), but what I didn't clearly get... did the max power draw remained at 35w until the test finished, or was it just a temporary thing and it continued to be just under 45w until you stopped the test?

30x isn't out of the ordinary under those circumstances, those clocks were the max that could be sustained under that load with that voltage, to have a power draw just under the limit (but I didn't understand if you were 35w or 45w limited before you stopped the test).

Could you take a pic (make sure you have the Unified tab active) a few minutes after the test started (use max fans during the stress test) and one before you stop the test and post them here using https://postimages.org or the app https://postimages.org/app (with imgur I find them a bit difficult to be read).

 

Here are a couple of pics I took at the time of stopping the test - I didn't wait for it to get across the screen as I had other stuff to do. Short version - the 35W stayed in place until I stopped the test (and even after temps had falled back to the mid 80s). What I don't know is if/when it would have gone back up to 45W.

https://postimg.cc/image/avyelc0pj/
https://postimg.cc/image/7p3v1sgaf/

I wasn't using the unified tab as it wasn't telling me anything I couldn't see from either my hwinfo or throttlestop task bar temperatures.Throttlestop says I hit 100C, but hwinfo said 97C.

 

I don't exactly find it normal. On my 7700HQ as long as temps were in place I could hold max turbo clock speeds under any gaming condition. I could have the gpu pegged 99 percent and the CPU would hold it's max turbo on all 4 cores the entirety of any gaming session.

This is a premature power limit put in place even at temps in the 70s and 80s that's happening with these machines. Razer is aware of it and I'm waiting for some updates on the situation. I actually linked this thread for Razer to read over and are evaluating everything.

Note that is doesn't always happen... I have had gaming sessions where I have stayed at 3.9ghz despite gpu load.

 

Off the general temp/clocks topic, but I did order the razer 15.6 sleeve. Wow, what the actual F was Razer thinking when they made this? It's almost the size of my OMEN X laptop. It literally doesn't fit in any 15" backpack I own. Returning it would likely be a complete buttache, I'm going to get it sewn and trimmed to fit. How incredibly stupid.

 

I think returning it will be less of a hassle than sewing it...how is the sewing going to hold up over time?

 

Same as theirs, its literally just fabric sewn together. A sewing machine and strong thread will do the job. Wouldn't razer charge return shipping?

 

HS! That is ridiculous.... How can they release that. I am going to start a RMA for a refund even before it gets here.
EDIT it looks like a pro would fit there... OMG
Anyone could recomend a hard case like they used to have for the early gen Blades?


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The 35w limit is probably maintained until the gpu load ceases.

Judging from the delay it kicks in, there should probably be minimum interference in gaming loads (especially if you keep the undervolt, because games don't constantly draw that much wattage from the CPU).

Yes, you are right, this isn't normal but currently it's "normal" (with the quotes) behavior for quite a lot of laptops (especially the thin ones).

The TDP and power limits for the kabylake series included the TB clocks, for this gen, the TDP is only for stock clocks.

You also have to consider the extra cores that generate a higher power draw under the same circumstances.

For eg: 7700HQ with an undervolt and max TB clocks, can maintain a relatively high load without exceeding 45w, while an 8750H with the same clocks, at the same voltage, under the same load, has a higher power draw so either it has a higher power limit so it can maintain higher clocks (if the cooling system can handle them, if not, then it thermal throttles) or it lowers the clocks to maintain a sustained power draw under 45w (that the cooling system was designed to handle).

Like I previously mentioned, in gaming it kicks in rarely because there isn't a constant power draw above the limit, you only have sporadic spikes above the limit.

I'm against throttling and I agree that the throttling mechanisms should be more simple and user unlockable, but from the previous stress test, it's clear that the cooling system with that paste job (I don't know if it's the stock paste) can't handle sustained loads that result in a constant power draw above 45w (that is under combined loads). With LM you should have more thermal headroom and it might be worth the effort to increase the power limits so you can maintain higher clocks even under more strenuous sustained loads.

The 35w limit is just an additional throttling limit added to an already complicated throttling mess.

 

When I was throttling properly, you are right that both iGPU and CPU stress throttled lower, but not for some of us, CPU alone is still throttling at 35W, and for me, it NEVER goes above 45W. It instantly throttles at 45W, then after some time drops to 35W.

 

@stranula

This is even worst!

If it isn't triggered only when stressing both the CPU and GPU, then I don't know what triggers it.

I don't know if this limit can be disabled/bypassed somehow, this might be something that only razer could sort out (if they are willing to do this).

 

Thanks a lot for taking the time to analyse it and explain it, much appreciated. I am running stock paste - the only mod done is adding the thermal pads to the SSD.

 

No problem!

I just hope that you (all of the razer owners) are lucky enough to get a fix (at least for the 35w throttling) from razer!

 

I thought I posted in this thread as a reply to you that the sleeve was ridiculously large.

I have a sleeve I use for my Dell XPS 15 (x2) and I will verify a little later than the Razer fits. XPS 15 fits like a glove. Fairly certain they are about the same exact size laptop.

 

You did, I didn't forget. ;] I was trying to meet the free shipping threshold since I was already ordering some other junk, and decided to give it a shot. I though worse possible scenario I could fold it over the edges but holy cow this sleeve is stiffer than I thought. Did you return yours? I'm going to end up stitching mine smaller

 

Mine went back with my original laptop RMA. I received credit for it and free shipping associated with any order with that credit. I plan to use it towards a second power brick when they become available. Then I guess I play power brick lottery sending them back and forth to try to get some that don't crackle.

 

I want a spare brick also. Hope theyre problem-free when avaliable, mine isn't making noises currently.

 

I don’t really get it, sorry slow learner. But how important is it to stay stable 45 Watt in real world usage? I just tested with my games benchmarks, and this game is worse than prime95 for cpu. I even had 25 Watt sometimes but I don’t see performance drops, lagg etc. Is it because Laptop adjusting the wattage that are used, we have Optimus technology here, maybe it’s a reason for that? Here’s some pictures from benchmarks gpu performance is even increased at the end benchmark scenes that actually eat more cpu (city and quick scenes), any opinions would be appreciated.

 

This sleeve fits like a glove: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BUICFDA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's very nice. Soft inside and plenty of padding. Look for Macbook Pro 15" sleeves for your RB15. Basically the same size.