Razer Blade Pro 17" GTX 1080 GPU/7820K CPU 2017 Owner's Lounge

The 3.9/110mv looks like the best configuration as a high of 87c is not bad.

 

Yes, 3.9/110mv is stable and the temps are actually in the low 80s during FS in my latest test ( http://www.3dmark.com/fs/12456454) (in my screenshot I might have not cleared the stats from the previous test).

There's one glitch I noticed and I'm curious if others are encountering it as well: the screen flickers and changes gradients during splash screens ( fire strike, civ6, witcher3 etc.) when gsync is on. I think a similar problem was reported in the past by other owners and it got fixed with a driver update. I guess I'll wait for it. Not a big deal for me.

 

Awesome! Im still waiting for them ship it, been in process for about 29 hours. Just wondering if this is done with XTU or is there actually something to do in the BIOS with this machine?

 

I used both XTU and Throttlestop to undervolt (separately).

 

Whats the GPU running at? is it at stock? The GPU score seems under performing. CPU scores look fine.

 

Placed my order. I'll use it primarily for CPU intensive simulation and occasional VR.


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It's not a good idea to put a laptop into service as a computational simulation tool on a project of any importance or size.

You'll lock up that laptop doing high load work 24/7 just to get a project done, and that will keep you from being able to use it as a "laptop".

You might as well buy or build a computational server dedicated to the tasks - and put it behind a sound proof door in a climate controlled room. Treat it like the computational server that it is.

Get a nice desktop or laptop of modest means that you can use to run jobs remotely on the server, that way you can use that interface PC for other work while the computation simulation jobs are running on the server(s).

Spoiler: Long example

There was a time I was consulting at a large company to fix DB performance through infrastructure upgrades.

As part of the work I needed to scope out what was installed and operational, and to figure out where to build out the replacement in the DataCenter and what expansion was needed to get the new servers online quickly.

As I walked through the DataCenter, I noticed there were a couple of dozen laptops all arranged in racks - like they were servers. They were all whining loudly as I approached them - 100% usage. I commented to the staff that was with me how odd that was.

I asked why they weren't using servers for the work? Except for a few other instances where the laptop's are needed for regression work to test drivers for laptop hardware, there's little need to press laptops into service as servers in a DataCenter.

They said that it was "punishment" for a group that thought they would invest their server $$$$$ in high end laptops - so they could do their compute work and also benefit from using the laptop as their work and home computer.

As it turned out, at 100% load for CPU / GPU computational work those laptops were screaming at the top of their fans for weeks at a time to get the work done on time. I could hear them from about 10 feet away in a DataCenter, that's loud.

Their work cube mates tried to put up with the noise at first, but as the computational work started to run on all the laptops all day long, they all revolted and complained to their managers that they couldn't get work done because all those "damn crazy laptop's" - their words (they were just a bit jealous of those cool laptops too) were making noise all day distracting them from their work.

So then the laptop's were assigned to run only at night doing the computational work, so as to not disturb the rest of the staff during the day. Now their laptops were locked up on their desktops each night instead of coming home for fun and games.

Unfortunately their computational work needs to be monitored - at least part of the day - so that job errors can be found, jobs can be stopped and restarted. So at least some of that team needed to shift their schedule and work partially at night.

They tried to make job management tools, they should have used already available tools out there, and they kept falling behind in their schedule.

Eventually it became clear to that team that they weren't getting to use their new laptops during the day for work, or home at night for fun, and they couldn't keep working day / night shifts because their spouse's were complaining, so they finally secured DataCenter space to use all their laptops as servers.

Of course, now they didn't have desktop machines, and there was no budget for additional new laptops or desktops, so they all needed to scrounge for abandoned computers - real dogs - just to get something to use to access their laptops remotely - like they would have done if they'd bought compute servers in the first place.

So, the moral of the story is, computationally adequate laptops are screamers, you can't use them at work - you can't take them home - so you might as well buy a better computational server and take a pool laptop instead - it's gonna end up worse than that in the end otherwise.

Besides, a thin laptop with poor cooling, and no special compute capabilities (heavy duty CPU cooling) like the Razer Blade Pro, is a poor choice as a computational simulation server in the first place

 

As the saying goes... ain't my first rodeo. I've had 5 Dell Precisions and one HP Elitebook (15" and 17" variants) over my career. I'm fully aware of how these machines work. Anything I run locally on my machine would be considered a small job of short duration. With cloud access now, I offload approximately 99% of my simulation work (mainly CFD). In a pinch, it will be handy to have the 7820HK for a job, but it will not be used like I burn up cloud credits.

Even professional grade machines from Dell and HP are not immune to thermal issues. The Elitebook was horrendous. One fan and heat sink for both the CPU and GPU. At idle, the GPU would hover around 60C and could only handle a full load for around 45 seconds before dropping clocks.


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Yeah, the manager of that "laptop computational group" had a stack of "dead" Alienware laptops in his office - they were failing from the 24/7 100% load.

He had many years computational experience and lots of high end laptop experience too, that's how he convinced management to buy all those "computational" laptops with desktop CPU's.

I met with him because I was asked to see if I could help them get their computational work done sooner, OC'ing their laptops and finding optimizations in their work to shave some time off.

I did what I could, but even with the DataCenter forced cold air cooling to help stabilize the OC, I could only gain about 20% faster completion. Surprisingly they were running at stock defaults.

I suggested he "borrow" some of the servers I was decommissioning to press into service as compute servers, but they were Sun hardware, so it would have been too much work to get his project converted from Windows. He didn't have any budget left to put any people to that task, but he would in the future.

He didn't have any Cloud options available at that time

You might check out the Clevo / @Donald@HIDevolution P870 or @Eurocom Support F5 / F7 (coming soon) with a socketed CPU that you could upgrade later to Coffeelake 6 core CPU's when they arrive later in the year.

With the soldered CPU in the Blade, there's no upgrade without turning around the whole laptop.

 

Coffeelake 6 core CPU confirmed to work on Clevo/Tornado F5??

 

You might check out the Clevo / @Donald@HIDevolution P870 or @Eurocom Support F5 / F7 (coming soon) with a socketed CPU that you could upgrade later to Coffeelake 6 core CPU's when they arrive later in the year.

With the soldered CPU in the Blade, there's "ABSOLUTELY" no chance of upgrade without turning around the whole laptop.

 

The RBP is now available and in stock at BestBuy.

 

It may be a good idea to wait for Razer to incorporate the latest rumored 1080 Max-Q.

Lower power GPU could help with overheating / throttling / fan noise and ideally price.

Acer just announced the Predator Triton 700 with a lower power variant of the GTX 1080 1080 Max-Q.

It is 19mm thin laptop, and apparently the cooling system is sufficient for this new 1080 Max-Q. Linus made a video.

 

From waht the benchmarks say, that were shown in the presentation, the said-to-be Q-Max is on par with a 1070 notebook

https://www.notebookcheck.com/Analy...vidia-GTX-1080-Max-Q-Grafikchip.214788.0.html

O.k. the Razer Blade might allow for better cooling, but I am not sure about this. Especially as it will take some time until Razer reacts.

And then it wont be to long until Volta shows up. If I`d waited (which I did not) I`d waited for a Razer Blade Pro with Volta inside.

By then the chips will be energy efficient enough to show really good performance in a RBP!

Best reagards

phila

 

I guess 1080 Max-Q could be better in some scenarios than the 1070.

 

Not according to the benchmarked performance:

A 1.4% increase over a stock 1070 is noise.

The RBP PSU @ 250w won't allow any OC worth a spit, even with a "real" 1080.

 

Perhaps they could try and put a GTX 1070 Max-Q in the RB 14, although I think it would be a bad idea, since cooling is already stretched as it is.

 

There's already a "1070 Max-Q" in there, it's called a GTX1060

 

Is 1280x720 a good comparison point for these cards?


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I guess the Max-Q thing then is just marketing if the performance is not that much better than the card below. I agree with you, might as well wait for volta.

 

So anyone got this laptop ? If so how it is guys ?

 

You can pick any comparison point you like, 720p, 1080p, 1440p, 2160p, they are all valid

 

From what I've seen, high-end graphics cards tend to show greater variance at higher resolutions. Also 7700K versus 7700HQ isn't exactly apples to apples.


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The point is for most games, you won't notice a difference, and the higher the resolution the more the load shifts to the GPU - fewer frames for the CPU to feed - so you can balance out a "weaker" CPU by using higher resolutions on high end GPU's.

There are some CPU intensive games, even at 1440p / 2160p

Still the higher the resolution the less load on the CPU so the 7700HQ can suffice most of the time.

Where are you going to miss a 7700K?, over 4.0ghz, maybe 4.2ghz for a 7820HK OC.

You need to be system OC tuning savvy to use a 7820HK, while a 7700k will be out of the box higher performance, but still benefit from OC from 4.2ghz-5.1ghz depending on the CPU sample.

If you want a slimmer lighter laptop, the 7700HQ is the best - a 7820HK is going to run too hot at OC and might not be stable due to not enough cooling.

A 7820HK can be good in a thicker laptop with better cooling.

The desktop CPU's like the 7700K need a much higher level of cooling, so the larger frame's do best - you'll see people hardware hack the 15" desktop CPU models to get that same cooling performance as from a stock large frame model.

 

Just to add onto this for what my two cents are worth--I had a built desktop with a i7-4790k OC'd @ 4.4GHz and a GTX 1070. I parted most of it out and bought an Alienware 15 R3 (7700HQ, GTX 1060) along with Alienware's eGPU box and stuck my GTX 1070 in there. If I was gaming at 1080p, CPU intensive games would run with about 10% less frames but most of the time, the difference between the 4790k/1070 and the 7700HQ/1070 was less than 5% even with the eGPU connection. I recently just bought a GTX 1080 Ti and 4K monitor and I've been using it with the Alienware eGPU box. From what I've seen, my 7700HQ/1080 Ti setup is still running within 5% of most desktop builds at 4K but if I drop down to 1080p, the difference gets much higher because much more strain is on the weaker CPU, usually along the lines of 20%.

 

So my order has been placed through HID Evolution. I went with the 2TB version and optioned to have HID chuck RAID0. Since this is my primary work machine, I also got the two year warranty.

Anyone have experience with HID in the past? I'm hoping that they fire up the machine and make sure it is in top working order before shipping out to their customers. I have to imagine they are aware of some of the issues customers are facing with bad apples.

 

Have a read through the Sager/Clevo reseller feedback sub-forum and judge for yourself.

 

Sounds like folks have good experiences. Unfortunately, the order had to be placed through my company procurement system which means I didn't get to have direct contact with HID. There are about 5 middle-men between me and the vendor. This means my laptop could show up tomorrow or in two months and there really isn't any way of knowing.

 

It'll probably be at least a week or two before it ships since they'll need to perform your customizations and test it.

 

You could contact @Donald@HIDevolution now and give him a heads up again directly when the order goes in from your procurement department so you can be informed of the progress - unless there are rules against that at your company.

 

Well after an hour and a half of playing prey this morning *awesome game reminds me of half life* system ran great, probably the best speakers I have heard on a laptop and the screen is amazing, keyboard is not bad but takes a little getting use to.

not OC and running -110mv temps hit max 92CPU Max 86 GPU I like the system and will keep it. Sending it off to ma boy @iunlock to work his magic next week.

 

Just to confirm, you are planning to repasting using liquid metal?

Very interested in how much improvement for temps and fan noise.

 

Please get some 3dmark runs for before and after if you can

 

Yes. Liquid Magic is the only way.

You can count in it... Stay tuned...

::iunlock::

 

Thanks to you Mr. Shoe I ordered the RBP V2 from Best Buy and received it last Tuesday! As you can see in my sig I had originally owned the RBP V1. I thoroughly enjoyed using it for 4 months. However I'm a huge alienware fanboy (gear and clothing just ask my staff at work lol). So I purchased the AW 13 r3 with Oled about a month ago. I have been using it and sold my RBP V1 for $3,800 two weeks ago. However I have not enjoyed using the AW 13 nearly as much as I enjoyed the RBP. So I went out and got the RBP V2 and am thrilled I did! I do have an awesome gaming desktop, but still would rather have the 17 inch screen (so beautiful) than the tiny 13 inch. Also the RBP suits all of my needs, gaming and at work. I also got a year of Geek Squad support to ensure any problems will be handled locally . So the haters/envious can keep on drooling, I love my Blade!

 

How is the 1) temperature and 2) fan noise compare to V1?

 

I'll have both side by side next week. I have one now.... I'll get the dB measurements and report back / include it in my review.

 

Holy crap you sold it for 3800? Nice! Post some 3D marks firestrike with gsync and vsync off please !

 

I just got my AW17 and now I'm gonna be tempted to get the RBP again

 

Well Im selling one for 3700 at the moment in Hong kong and plans to get V2 as well.. Sadly I know no technicians like @iunlock so will probably need to just deal with the fact that its hot

 

Yeah I was trying to sell mine and could only get liken 3350 on eBay. Wish I sold mine for the that not much

 

I drive a 17R4 for my daily gaming rig...

::iunlock::

 

After a VERY long and hard look both the Blade Pro and the AW R4 17", I just pulled the trigger on the Blade. As nice as the Alienware is, I'm going to be travelling all over with this thing, and for my needs the "crippled" performance isn't something that is going to affect what I do in the least. Also, delivery June 2nd?

However, I'm still very tentative on this purchase. I went through 3 Skylake Blade Pros, and each had issues with random shutdown [not heat related] -- All in Heroes Of The Storm. I eventually returned.

So I figured I'd jump on here and plainly ask: What are the current issues with the Kaby Lake Blade Pro? I've read Gsync not working correctly... Did Razer ever get the 1080 device ID added to the Nvidia WHQL drivers, or is the Blade pro still not signed off by Nvidia? 7820HK is OVERclockable, but can I UNDER clock it? [obviously I have some measure of control with power options] Is the random shutdown issue still prevalent? [Yea, I saw mobiletechreview's video, but that was a skylake machine. Granted, this looks like an nvidia software compatibility issue...]

Is there anything else I should know about aside from the usual thin/light temp issues or Razer's legendary sub par customer service? Speaking of, WITHOUT overclock, is the CPU still running in the low to mid 80c range that the Skylake was running?

Appreciate any additional info, as well as any fixes that may help alleviate any of said problems. Wanna walk into this one with my eyes open this time.

 

Yep nvidia finally signed the blade pro 1080

 

Oh dear God not again. So again, the 1080 GTX is performing like a 1070 in this RBP v2??? My wallet is ready but I'm not paying that kind of cash for a 1070 laptop. Looks like I'll have to wait for the Aorus X7 v7 in June.

 

Mine is scheduled to arrive tomorrow via UPS. I'm off on vacation the next day for 11 days so I hope I can post up some benchmarks in the 4 hours I'll be able to play with it before I jet. Again, my build is coming from HID Evolution and will have the SSDs un-RAIDed. What free benchmarks should I grab?

 

Please run wPrime v1.55. Make sure to go to advanced settings -> change your cores to 8.

Then run the 1024M test with hwinfo64 open to record the max temps, package power etc...

-

Next, run Fire Strike and Time Spy several times. Please run some with hwinfo64 open so that we can see the temps of the CPU and GPU.

-

Please post as many screen shots as you can, but it is highly advised to use a third party photo site like (imgur) as uploading pics here often times go broken...it's a hot mess... third party image services are better and more reliable.

Looking forward to the screen shots. I'll be posting some up soon as well.

Thanks

 

...

 

@iunlock, just waiting for your repaste results to decide on buy or skip.

Got my the checkout page on my browser and ready to pull the trigger.

 

Hang tight...

::iunlock::