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

Have not tried undervolting GPU at all. I suppose it could help squeeze a bit more juice out of the GPU but the CPU seems pretty hard limited to 45W.

 

Maybe a reason Razer originally locked down this model for 6700hq But the greed was bigger than the smartness in the end!!

 

Is the CPU really locked to 45W? Have you tried to edit the PP with Throttlestop?!

Best regards

phila

 

you would need xtu for mobile systems like these

 

Really? I use TS on my machine without any problem?

Best regards

phila

P.S.: I do not like XTU as you can not easily autostart it with the prefered settings...

 

the objective of xtu is only to raise power / current limit
the limit raised is applied on every startup unless you recover from a crash

 

I've only been using XTU, haven't messed around with ThrottleStop at all. I'm positive that the CPU could hold high clock speeds with an undervolt if the power was allowed to remain above 45W. It's this power limit that cripples the CPU. Temps aren't even that bad, especially in-game.

I'm torn on all of the stress-test benchmarks. Sure, they stress the machine to it's max, but I've never seen a game or really any programs I use for work beat a CPU up like a stress test. For work, I run several simulation tools (CFD) and they are reasonably well-optimized and I occasionally render in VRED and 3dsMax. Nothing pings a CPU like a stress test. So while it is dissapointing that the CPU doesn't really perform well in those sort of benchmarks, in the real world, where I work and play, I routinely see the CPU sitting in the 4+ GHz range. I played some Battlegrounds the other day with the CPU clocked to 4.3 (50mV undervolt) and the GPU overclocked by 200MHz and experienced zero throttling or power limiting.

 

So after some additional wait i got my machine today. Havent gotten very far yet, but first impressions are good. No mechanical faults on this one (so far) so thats good.

I really like the screen. The form factor and the overall build seems very solid and exactly what im looking for.

Trackpad is suprisingly good, almost too sensitive on taps. I like the keyboard so far, except for the right shift key beside the arrow keys, keep moving the cursor one row up. But then im not a real typist so i can see how some people dislike it.

Downloading firestrike at the moment and will check that out later so its not completely screwed when loaded a bit. Going away on a trip next week so dont really have time for extensive testing right now. But the way im going to use it, im more interested to make sure its not a faulty system rather than check if i can cream out that last bit of performance.

 

And the power and current limit are kept? This would be one step in the right direction. Still I never got XTU to remember the OC/UV values I set on startup (cf: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-under-volt-in-xtu-without-opening-it.802143/)

XTU should allow you to set the PP as well... I gave my 6820HK a 60W PP budget.

I can not belive that this does not work with the razor at all?

Best regards

phila

 

So i ran firestrike.
Right out of the box i got 14422 but it was pretty obvious that GSYNC had problems so turned that off and got the score below. Probably tons of room for improvement with undervolt and what not, but it seems in line with what others have gotten. Pure specwise its probably disappointing.

The computer feels extremely responsive though, so it will be interesting to see how it performs my everyday tasks that rarely puts it to that level of stress. For now im mainly happy that it isnt a completely failed unit. Dealing with returns and repairs for mechanical issues on a laptop like this could probably break most people.

What i noticed though is that while it runs hot and loud, its in no way worse than my MBP15. Sound is about same under load, the temperature on the bar above the keyboard on the MAC is far hotter. But wristrest is a bit warmer on this one which some have noticed as well. Not exactly hot, but edging towards the uncomfortable zone for longer typing sessions.

Question remains though as to how hot and loud it is under idle and normal, and how hot it becomes when stressed a longer period of time. The Mac is extremely silent and not very warm unless its really stressed, but then it gets very hot very fast.

Also, the stock driver isnt approved. No idea if that has any effect on the score.

 

Do you think this laptop could benefit from a GTX 1080 MAX Q?

 

I think its hard to tell what it would benefit from. Played for a bit now and its pretty obvious that it throttles down at times. Been running stock setup without G-Sync and its running pretty smooth until it suddenly goes under.

Not being an expert my best guess its a combination of power starvation and temperature. It needs more power than the brick can give, but if it gets more power it will get too warm. And it can get too warm even with the power it gets.

A smaller GPU or a more restricted one would probably benefit it a bit. But at the same time it goes down pretty fast in temperature once i close the game. Under certain circumstances it probably benefits a bit from the 1080, under some its probably more of a burden.

The only thing i can say after some hours of use is that it seems to be an amazing laptop for everyday work and some decent level gaming. But if you are looking at max gaming performance or benchmark scores, its clearly the wrong form factor and as such money wasted.

I dont really feel cheated, but then i had read reviews before hand and was mainly looking for the form factor and computing power outside of gaming for which it seems very well suited.

 

The Gtx1080 in this model is almost the same as 1080 Max-Q

 

Just got ahead and unvervolt the GPU. I did this on my machine which also came with a laughable 230w PSU and it will help you along as the the pascal cards can do quite good with low voltage.

I got an constant 1709 Mhz @ 800mV on my GTX 1070 (Clevo) & I get 1798 Mhz @ 875mV on my GTX 1080 (Aorus).

Compare this to the stock settings where the 1080 is allowed to draw around 1000mV and you can guess what undervolting can do for you:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...s-owners-lounge.795090/page-290#post-10356883

Best regards

phila

 

How might I undervolt the 1080? Voltage, power limit, and temp limit are locked down in Afterburner.

 

Open Afterburner and press CTRL + F -> a table mhz/mV Table will open which you can work on.

In the picture below you see, that my 1080 is not allowed to draw more than 875mV. This is achived by completely flattening the mhz/mV Table from the desired point on.
You can do this by manually movin each grey point on the graph to a single flat line. Important! If the graph is not completely straight the UV won`t work.

The secret is about finding the sweet spot between maximum mhz and lowest voltage. To find it you might want to follow the link I allready posted and read it through carefully:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...s-owners-lounge.795090/page-290#post-10356883 I explained how to OC while UV there.

Finally you can save an edited graph to any Afterburner profile like you would with other Afterburner settings.

Best regards

phila

 

Hey guys, I just bought my Blade Pro V2 from Microsoft yesterday and found this thread. I'm trying to read every single comment but it's just way too much.
GPU/CPU temps seem fine for me (BF1 cpu-mid80s, gpu-mid 70s), but CPU usage is going whack. Sometimes it's at 70% and jumps down to 30-50%. Is there a way to fix this?

Also how do I check my current CPU clock speed? And how do I change it?

My temps on idle hover around the 60's for both CPU and GPU. Is this normal?

I've also been scouring the web trying to find out if I can keep the power plugged in at all times and not deter the state of the battery.

I'm a novice when it comes to computers so please don't hate

One more thing, when I lean insanely close to the area between the keyboard and screen, I can hear a very very faint coil whine. Is this normal? I contacted Razer and they said "Unfortunately, there will always be a very slight noise that is emitted from almost all our laptop due to the way the laptop is designed". Should I exchange for a new one? (It's really not noticeable and I do not want to risk getting a more defective RBP).

 

I will let the pros answer your questions on cpu usage and clock speeds.

For the temps, those are normal for that system, but out of 5 RBP I have had, none of them had a coil whine? So unless you have super sonic hearing then I may swap that unit?

Best advise I think I can offer is to buy the microsoft extended warranty, Razer support sucks B*LLS!

Leaving the laptop plugged in all the time is not an issue.

 

Is that in idle or in load? Some amount of coil whine is normal in load scenarios so unless you normally use your laptop by being insanely close to the exhaust area, I wouldn't risk a return for that reason alone (as chances are the replacement might have a louder coil whine among other things).

 

No coil whine here. Don't risk it... keep your unit. You have good temps and no other obvious issues. That's a win right there.

Extended warranty would be my only suggestion.


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The coil whine is tolerable and actually pretty quiet unless you use the keyboard as a pillow.
It's the same volume on idle and on load.

And because the RBP is advertised as having an 'overclocked CPU to 4.3', then overclocking my unit would not void the warranty, correct?

 

Yeah, but from what I've read in reviews, it's questionable if the cooling system will be able to handle it without throttling.

 

Since most games don't fully peg the CPU like a stress test, you can get away with 3.9-4.0 GHz for four cores, maybe more, for every day use. Much beyond that, and you may hit thermal/power throttling.

I have my multipliers set to 43, 41, 40, 39 for 1, 2, 3, and 4 cores respectively. 50 mV undervolt. Nice and safe.


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wouldn't void your warranty, but thermals won't permit it anyway. contrary to what a lot of people have said about razer system support, out of my 9 Razer systems, have had to have 2 repaired under warranty. got mine sent off, fixed and returned within 8 days.

 

Anyone know how to avoid the fan kicking up while doing light tasks such as web browsing and MSOffice? Or is that something I have to live with once I decided to buy the RBP?

 

On my unit the fans keep quiet during idle operation and light tasks, but you should check the task manager to make sure Windows isnt doing something. Its pretty common for it to run background tasks (mainly update operations) that will put some load on the CPU, and with the form factor at hand that will now and then speed up the fans due to temps running slightly higher than "pure" idle.

I have this on my MBP as well when the windows VMs get ideas of their own. All of a sudden fans speed up for a while before settling again.

There might be fan settings you can apply as well, but its a bit like you said yourself. Once you decided to buy a RBP (or that form factor with those components) you kinda threw cool and quiet out the window.

 

For what it's worth, the fan noise from mine is remarkably quiet under light to moderate tasks and completely acceptable for heavy ones. Only under intense gaming or rendering does it become "very loud".


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How'd you buy from Microsoft?

 

Download nvidia inspector , open it and at the bottom right corner it says overclocking; enable multi display power saver and itll run at a lower clock speed and use less power . Just disable it whenever you need to use your full GPU

 

This is my overall impession as well. I have seen some videos with the fans sounding like a jetplane but as far as ive noticed so far the max sound is about the same as my MBP. But then it seems to have max sound more often (thanks GTX1080).

I did have a windows task (some update most likely) keeping the CPU and fans occupied for a while just after i got it up and running. It died down after a while though.

 

Microsoft Store Online now carries the Razer Blade Pro 1tb. They also gave me a 10% discount for being a student!

Heres a link to the USA store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/d/razer-blade-pro-rz09-gaming-laptop/8nqcv3jhp4zh/
Their return policy is 30 days as well

 

Could be just me, but enabling game mode in win 10 for the games I play seems to noticeably reduce the fan noise.

Anyone else tried it?

 

And you get same performance? Tested? Less noise means usually less heat. Less heat = Less performance!!

 

I'm not at my machine right now so I'm asking the community. Does the RBP come with bios CPU performance mode enabled?


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No, it comes set at factory 3.9, and if you play with Synapse on putting at 4.3, most likely you will at some point go into bios and reset to factory default since the software is so buggy, Mine got hung at 799mhz until I did a reset.

 

Gotcha. I read a post yesterday (can't recall where now on notebookforum) about a bios setting which allows the 6700/7700/7820 to draw more than 45W. Can't find it for the life of me now.

Not that it should matter too much in games though. I have yet to see the processor draw anywhere near 45W in-game. In battlegrounds, my 7820HK holds a constant 4.3 GHz while never exceeding 35W. At 3440x1440 neither the CPU nor GPU exceed 85C while returning 75-120 FPS.


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Question: How do i set custom resolutions in 16:9 ratio? I want to play games at 2,560 x 1,440 but it doesnt give me the option on Windows or the game itself

 

@iunlock , any update on your full tear down and review?


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Has anyone attempted to overlock the GPU yet?

 

RBP? Oh wait..where is it? Ohh there it is...haha.. (<-- joke)

I have all the pics done...just need to finish the review. I've been really busy lately and traveling... I promise it'll be up in due time.

 

No rush! Just love talking about/reading about hardware. Part of my line of work involves using simulation tools to predict performance and optimize thermal behavior of electronics systems. Curious what you find on the inside of the RBP.


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Anyone care to share their GPU undervolting/over clocking success?

I'm gathering some data on power consumption at the moment. Running Valley at various resolutions to see how this thing ticks. Looks like CPU power drops a lot at 3440x1440 vs 1080p. 5M pixels vs 2M.

I've got my RBP hooked up to a power supply with wattage/current readouts. It appears that the resting power draw of non-CPU/GPU components is 20 watts plus about 5 for the unloaded CPU and 45 for the unloaded GPU. I'm using an external monitor so that LCD panel is one variable eliminated.

Will post some numbers from the testing soon.

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have you tried to lock the gpu to 0.925 or 0.9v?


can use msi afterburner curve editor

 

I've read a few guides on doing that and I'll admit, I'm still a little unclear. What I know for sure is that I can bump up the clock speed 200 MHz in AB and everything runs just fine. Anything above that and I have crashing.


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It seems like you are just overclocking the whole curve by 200 MHz....what you want to do is lock a specific MHz at a specific voltage. In AB do a ctrl+F, it will bring up the MHz vs Voltage curve...
looks like this...
http://imgur.com/a/fL1pR

If you want to lock the voltage at 0.925v for example...the points after that voltage have to be flat.
Example,
http://imgur.com/a/P7yTA
In this case the voltage is locked 800mv and 1740MHz

 

As Vistar Shock said, you should flatten out the curve after the desired voltage. 1798mhz at 875mV is a sweetspot for me,

YET: you should not flatten out the complete line (if you do not want to underclock) -> this will allow the card to react to very jumps in load or very high load.

If you want you can take a look at the following link: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...s-owners-lounge.795090/page-290#post-10356883

Best regards

phila

 

@phila, thanks for the clarification. I think I've got it.

Side question... how does the system determine what to shoot for? I assume that's in the vbios? Given the ~150W power limit, is it requesting the largest voltage possible?


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Re: chroma lighting and synapse. Is this software junk or what? I assume that it frequently loses its connection to the cloud or something when it just defaults to solid white or just FN keys lit in white. I would guess that the lighting is not functioning properly 50% of the time. I recently took Synapse "offline" to see if that has an impact.


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Yeah Synapse is very buggy....try setting up new profile/new account and see if it helps.

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1822MHz @ 900-950mV seems to work well. Basically a 186MHz overclock with a max voltage of 950mV. Achieving consistent 16300+ in FS and it's definitely saving a few watts.


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