Razer Blade Owner's Lounge

Got to hold one of the new Razer Blade laptops at PAX today. It has little raised metal feet at the back near the air vents, not just large rubber pads. Other than that, it feels the same as an existing Blade.

The mail about the $500 off upgrade option for existing Blade owners will go out next week some time.

 

Was the touchscreen part improved?

 

Is it rude to ask anyone who bought v1.0 if they have a spare code for 500 off v2? Pretty please?

 

lol, not gonna get my code. i'm excited to see how the new blade runs bf3 and max payne 3 personally. those were two games that i really wanted to run at higher resolutions and in greater detail. still think the gen 1 blade is a great machine btw.

always thought the touch screen worked better with the screen protector applied to it.

 

Don't get me wrong whenever you buy technology you can expect it to get out dated quickly. However a new version of the blade with literally 2x the performance within 6 months is a huge burn.

If I didn't pull the plug on my p150em, I would definitely consider this laptop with the new specs listed.

 

i think the blade 1 was out for 8 full months before this refresh. it was announced a year ago. i just hope i get my discount code soon enough to preorder before they run out of first shipments like last time.

 

for early adopters (gen 1 blade owners) $1999 is an amazing deal. definitely not looking at the MBP Retina anymore.

 

Here is the keynote. It starts off pretty slow, but it gets better.

Seems like the new blade will be able to run BF3 on ultra at 30+ FPS!

 

Not sure what you mean. Physically, it is the same as the gen 1 and the two keyboards. Software-wise, Razer is working with third parties to bring support for the Switchblade UI to games. The Firefall integration is pretty nifty.

 

Can anybody give me some hints about these points? Especially about the fan speed(s).

I just would have hoped that the touchscreen/touchpad would have grown a bit. There quite some spare room left. But this was just a wish....screen quality, throttling, battery life and/or fan speeds are much more important for me.

Sadly the battery is not as powerful as the one in the Samsung (60Wh vs 80Wh)

 

Unfortunately, PAX is not a quiet place or we could have properly evaluated the fan noise. I will say that I couldn't hear the fan noise whie it was running Firefall in a small room reserved for conferences with press and exhibitors, so that seems to be a good thing. I'm pretty sure a gen 1 blade running the fans at max would've been audible.

I wouldn't expect the Switchblade UI to change much. It needs to be standardized across all keyboards/platforms to gain traction with third parties.

I am hoping there's a way to shut down two of the CPU cores and that the GPU's performance in power saving mode is equivalent to the GT 555M. That would help with power usage.

 

From what I heard, it was kind of laggy/slow when web browsing while gaming. I wanted to know if its now more sensitive and fluid.

 

would be nice if when you opened the web browser on the touchpad it would bring up a google search window up top and then a scrollable list of favorite links below. that would be super handy

 

moving this post I made in the other thread that details some of the changes.
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Well, it seems they at least answered a few of our calls, we now know for sure that its:

still aluminum

still thin

still light

is lower priced

has MUCH better graphics card (not the best, but a 660 is still decent and at least its better than a MBP)

has an actual quad core i7 now

has a much larger hard drive

has more USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI

-----------------------------

What hasn't happened, hasn't been changed, or is negative:

keyboard is the same. A lot of people wanted to get rid of the gimmicky track pad, or have it as a USB accessory in favor of a normal track pad, larger keyboard, and lower price

no more full SSD, but i guess this had to be a trade off for more storage and a lower price (at least its a hybrid drive)

--------------------------------------

What hopefully has been improved upon or fixed but we won't know until people actually get their hands on the new ones:

better speakers

better battery life (it was already good, but more can't hurt)

better trackpad responsiveness (if were stuck with it, it might as well work good)

less noise

less heat
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I gotta say, Razer has really impressed me this time around. I am getting a gaming laptop next year and I was originally definitely going to go for an AW m17-18x, but if next years razer blade model improves as much upon the current one as this one has on the last, then I might just jump on the razer bandwagon!

 

I'd love to know if the memory and HDD/mSata are able to be upgraded. I really want to replace both those like put a 256GB mSATA + a 512GB SDD. I probably wouldn't care too much about the memory for now 8GB is fine.

 

It's the same sealed design. You can upgrade it the same way you can upgrade the original Blade - void the warranty.

They're using NVELO's caching solution. It may be possible to use the 64GB SSD and 500GB HDD as individual drives instead of configuring the 64GB SSD as a cache.

 

The only competitor (apart from the rMBP) which I can see is the new 15" Zenbook: Asus ZenBook U500 review - Hands on | Expert Reviews
The standard version will be cheaper than the new blade and I expect that sound and battery life will be much better. But the 650m will give it a bit lower game performance but maybe that step will also keep the heat as low as necessary for such a thin notebook. We'll see.

 

i have a zenbook ux32vd, the 13" with the 620m. added an 256gb ssd and 10gb ram and its my little mba killer. wish razer would target the 13-14" market too.

 

I expect Razer will eventually branch out to the 15 inch market once they have solidified themselves a bit more in the laptop market and perfected their design a bit. I am betting on 2-3 generations from now.

 

Looks like the blades new processor was announced now:

Core i7-3840QM 4 / 8 2,8 GHz / 3,8 GHz ? 8 MB HD 4000 45 W $568
or
Core i7-3740QM 4 / 8 2,7 GHz / 3,7 GHz ? 8 MB HD 4000 45 W $378

// I think 35W CPU would have been better....but this one has more cache.

 

Use msconfig to turn off two of the cores. Better top turbo speed, lower power usage.

In theory, anyway...

 

A 45W CPU still will consume more power even when you turn off 2 cores. I would have suggested a 35W quad i7 ;-)

 

The 35W i7 quad (i7-3612QM) doesn't consume that much less than the 45W quad. It's all marketing and binning of the chips. At idle or light loads a quad consumes no more power than a dual core nor a 35W vs a 45W, and very similar with a 35W or 45W quad. Using msconfig to turn off two cores does not work. It messes up speed step so it won't turbo like it should or idle at the lower clocks like it should.

I am actually impressed that they are offering the 3740/3840QM, although the 3840QM really offers nothing over the 3720QM other than a 100 MHz clock speed and costs more. Real world performance difference will be negligible.

 

@ HTWingNut
Maybe the new CPUs have a bit less real live power consumption....we'll see.
So there is no proper way (if bios does not support that) to deactivate 2 cores? I doubt this would reduce heat anyway because the turbo would pump up the other two cores to the limit then until the same heat is generated again.

 

Only way would be through the BIOS so it's up to whether or not Razer will support such a function.

 

yes! got my $500 off Blade Customer Appreciation email today. Registered and waiting for confirmation to pre-order! Pumped.

 

Looks like Intel has release some new core i7 extreme mobile processors ( here). I am hoping (but doubting) the new blade has the Core i7-3940XM (clocked at 3.0GHz ) I have already put my pre-order down the second they made it available online! The end of September wont come fast enough!

 

doubt its the 3940XM as well. anybody been watching amazon's press conference? 250MB a month with the Kindle Fire for only $50 a year is stellar.

 

They have the laptop on display (and on sale already) in certain stores here in Singapore. I went and check yesterday, and it was running on the Intel i7 3632QM, which is basically the 3612QM but 100Mhz faster
so 2.2Ghz quad core with 35W TDP

 

It's 600Mhz off base and 300Mhz off top turbo compared to the i7 2640M in the original Blade. Guess we have to hope that the 22nm and 3D transistors in the new CPU can make up for the clock speed loss.

 

I thought I saw somewhere that it would have i7-3720QM? Even if the 3632QM, it's still a quad vs the dual core i7-2640m. It's difficult to make up in clock speed what you can gain with more cores. If anything you should gain performance in games with the quad core.

 

That's backwards. The majority of games don't make use of more than two cores. Extra cores don't help if games don't take advantage of them. Most don't take advantage of them.

 

I just ordered the new Razer Blade! The end of September/ early October is gonna be great.

I'm new to gaming laptops (I'm selling my tower because I will be moving around a lot in the next 3 years) will the system work with windows 8?

I need to get a second power adapter, would any 120v adapter work? Or do you all recommend I use the bundled ac adapter?

 

It's not backwards. Windows manages multiple cores very well. Other apps and tasks can be relegated to other cores while gaming. Plus, most games are not CPU limited, and the ones that are, are optimized for four or more cores. And a majority of newer game DO make use of more than 2 cores. I'm in the middle of doing benchmarks between i5-3360m (2.8GHz to 3.5GHz boost) and i7-3610QM (2.3GHz to 3.3GHz boost) in the Clevo W110ER with GT 650m and the quad is more or less offering best performance. The Razer has similar components so should show good comparison if Razer offers the option or not, but likely it will be a single CPU.

Not to mention this benchmarking I did a couple years ago with a Core 2 Quad (2.0GHz) vs. Core 2 Duo (2.8GHz) and the quad came out same or ahead in most every instance: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...er-np8662-comparision-core-2-duo-vs-quad.html

 

I'm not talking about windows, I'm talking about games. I'm not sure what you do when gaming, but when I game I don't run anything else that's processor intensive.

The issue is nowhere near as cut and dried as you're making it out to be. Read Tech Report's latest article on the impact a CPU has. When Lynnfield dual core CPUs are beating AMD's latest 4/8 core CPU in several tests, well, you don't really need much more evidence that the issue isn't as simple as you're making it out to be.

The fact that you're saying "more or less" shows that the issue isn't as cut and dried as "more cores == bettar!" Also, if you're not doing latency testing there's not much point to the benchmarks.

It's like benchmarking nVidia and ATI video cards. The benchmarks never showed the problems with ATI until Tech Report started doing latency testing.

Your benches appear to be quite GPU-limited. Not really a good test.

I want a portable gaming system that will run for an extended period on battery. I don't need Origin blowing up in the background while I'm playing a Steam title and me not finding out about it (which is what happens when you have too many cores available). The newer CPU's extra 2MB of L3, 22nm process node,and 3D transistors may help provide equivalent performance and power, but it doesn't answer the question of what if that CPU was replaced with a dual core 22nm CPU with the same extra features.

 

IceStorm take a look at these benchmarks comparing dual cores to quad cores for Guild Wars 2. If you look at more of their reviews, you will see many games use the power of quad cores.

Do CPU Frequency And Core Count Matter? : Guild Wars 2: Your Graphics Card And CPU Performance Guide

A desktop I3 (dual core) got 10 fps LESS then a desktop I5 (quad core) at the same speed.

I will take a quadcore over a dual core anytime.

 

play a big RTS like Shogun TW 2 on a dual core, and then on a quad core...

 

Have you looked in your processes tab in task manager? There's tons of stuff running in the background. I'm not saying encode a video. But just leaving tabs open, a handful of handy apps. Things that can result in intermittent pauses with a dual core.

AMD is like a quad core Atom. It's not even close to the performance of an Intel Ivy Bridge. We're comparing Intel to Intel here.

LOLWUT? What does latency have to do with anything? Nobody ever even noticed an issue, it only shows quality of the FPS not related to total FPS. Even that article tested only quad cores. Not sure the relationship here. Latency is an interesting concept to measure performance quality, but it's really irrelevant to this. And just because Tech Report started testing it doesn't make every single benchmark in the history of mankind null and void.

This was 3 years ago with what was more or less a high end GPU, same relative performance that 660m is to today's top end. 800MHz difference in clock speed between quad core and dual core when clock speed mattered more than it does now. It shows that a 40% increase in clock speed with a dual core had no bearing on game performance.

How does Origin "blowing up" in the background have anything to do with number of cores you have? It can run regardless of number of cores.

I'm currently running i5-3360m vs i7-3610QM testing on the same platform with GT 650m, so I think it will offer highly relevant results. Same machine. Same drivers. Only difference is quad versus dual. So far quad core has better performance and similar battery life with light use.

 

And the dual core i3 beat the pants off the multi-core options from AMD so... again, not necessarily more cores == bettar!

On a desktop? Sure, assuming it doesn't limit your GPU budget.

On a mobile system hamstrung by non-desktop graphics? That's a far less cut and dried proposition.

Yes, and when well-behaved those processes do nothing when the system is not idle.

This would indicate you haven't read Tech Report's series of articles on frame latency...

Speak for yourself. I noticed issues with ATI, despite benches telling me that average FPS was the same as similar nVidia cards. Switch back, problems "go away".

No, it didn't. An i5-655K is a dual core CPU.

You're entitled to your opinion. I find reviews that don't check latency are not useful for determining the overall gaming experience.

It was high end perhaps for a laptop. It was never "high end" for a GPU. It was a G9x derivative, not a GT200 derivative.

Because when Origin's CPU load shoots up on a system with dual cores, it's noticable in a game. When it does so on a quad core, it isn't.

It can, draining the life out of the battery that much faster.

That's not what you said earlier.

I'm done with this sidebar discussion. If you want to believe that quad core is a must have on the GPU-limited landscape of notebook gaming, that's fine. I'll stick wtih hoping that Razer is just playing lip service to the masses and has actually tested the new CPU to verify battery life isn't harmed before having selected it.

 

i'm hpoing for a slightly better battery life as well, even though its a quadcore, given its kepler/ivy bridge. we shall see. I did like the fact that the original blade with its matte screen was bright enough to run even at 30 percent or so and was still comfortable on the eyes. that was a nice powersaving feautre imho.

still waiting on my discount code so i can pre-order, supposed to be 7-10 days.

 

IceStorm, you cant compare an Intel to an AMD. Intel is so far advance it's not even funny. You could compare an AMD duel core to an AMD quad core and see the difference. The graph has that information also;

Lets see; (cpu's are at same freq)

AMD Llano Duel Core = 19 fps
AMD Llano Quad Core = 27 fps

Look at that even on AMD's quad cores give you more FPS. So once again Quad Cores are the way to go since 2 years ago.

 

Hey guys. I am new to the website but I have been following this forum since it was created. I appreciate everyones input and advice. johnnobts, yours in particular helped me reach the decision the Razer Blade.

I bought mine a while ago and was surprised that they refreshed it after releasing the original just this year. At first I was very upset but I can understand what they are doing and I am looking to pick up the new one once I get my voucher. Has anyone received their codes yet?

 

Glad that my comments helped you in your decision-making process. No, haven't received my code yet, it said 7-10 days on the online confirmation though. 7 days will be tomorrow, so maybe then. I just don't want to miss the first wave of shipments. Managed to get the blade on day 1 last time. Eager to see how it fares against the original in my review with regard to battery life, fan noise, game benchmarks, and sound volume/quality. Been playing Sleeping Dogs like crazy on my little ASUS 32VD zenbook though. Will love playing it with settings maxed out.

 

I'm not going to argue any more IceStorm. Believe what you want, but you're basing your "knowledge" and ideas on ten year old CPU speed tech where speed solely mattered. It's totally different now due to improved hardware, thermals, and software at the OS and app level. And dismissing entire history of benchmarks because of one site's "latency" testing is ridiculous. It's like dismissing 0-60mph car testing because of the tires people were using weren't perfectly round. I don't know why people seem to believe quad cores are these uber battery draining devices. At peak load they drain more, but they also get a lot more work done per cycle. And as far as gaming on battery, limit your CPU speed and cap your FPS and you will likely get BETTER gaming battery life because it can do more work in the same amount of time as the dual core which would need to run faster, draining more energy. Mobile devices are even going multiple cores because of similar reasons.

It's called "race to idle". Google it. Lots of interesting matter on the subject.

In your "Origin" example, it will still run whether on dual core or quad core and still be consuming energy. I don't understand your reasoning behind this at all.

 

you entertaining a Blade HT? I think this is the only 17" I'd go with.. Be nice to have a P370EM, but it's not realistic for me size wise. Might consider picking one of these up if I could get one of those nifty vouchers lol

 

Just wondering, does anyone want an unboxing video? I ordered it the day it was announced so I should be getting mine in the first wave, I assume the boxing will be the same as the first, but if anyone wants it anyways I could and post the link here

 

Hey so I am thinking about buying the new razer blade but my mom wont buy me anything more than $2000 unfortunately so my best option right now is the rmbp. Could someone possibly give me the $500 code if they dont plan on the buying the 2nd version?

 

this is razer's way of rewarding us early adopters. when registering to receive a code it required very specific information, these codes aren't being generously generated and passed out to the masses. i doubt any first gen blade enthusiasts will simply give away their code.

 

Unlikely, yes, but worth a shot in the dark! I wonder if I can offer anything in exchange? My HTC sensation? Does anybody need anything laser cut or 3d printed? The code is the difference between me getting one and not getting one :-(.

 

lol, good luck. just got my code today. in for my blade 2.0.