The new Razer Blade Pro 17 gaming laptop is more than just a larger version of the Razer
Blade 15, with higher levels of performance and better cooling let’s see just how well
this machine performs in a bunch of different games, and see how it stacks up against other
gaming laptops.
Just quickly before we jump into the benchmark results I’ll cover off the specs in my unit.
My model has the Intel i7-9750H CPU, 100 watt Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics, and 16gb of
memory running in dual channel. The Razer Blade Pro 17 is available with different specs
though, you can find examples as well as updated prices linked in the description.
I was running Windows 10 with the latest Nvidia drivers available with both CPU and GPU performance
set to high. Compared to stock, this will overclock the graphics a bit. Out of the box
my unit was also undervolted by -0.1v and the 2070 Max-Q was running at 100 watts, so
we’re expecting some good performance here.
We’re only covering gaming performance here, so if you’re new to the channel you’ll
want to get subscribed for the thermal testing and full review. Alright we’ll start off
by going through all 20 games at all setting levels, then afterwards see how the Razer
Blade Pro 17 compares with some other gaming laptops.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode and not in multiplayer mode, as it’s easier
to consistently reproduce the test run. Maxed out at ultra settings was only just below
100 FPS with RTX off, shown by the purple bars, one of the best results I’ve ever
seen from a laptop. The RTX on results weren’t too bad either, higher than most other machines
and still pretty playable at high settings.
Battlefield 1 was also tested in campaign mode, and like always it’s running well
and performing a bit better than the newer Battlefield 5 just shown. At ultra settings
144 FPS averages were possible, a nice match up for the 144Hz screen even maxed out.
Apex Legends was tested with either all settings at maximum, or all settings on the lowest
possible values, as it doesn’t have predefined setting presets. It still played great at
ultra settings with 100 FPS, however we could boost average FPS by 42% with minimum settings.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, the results from this
test were looking excellent even with higher settings, while the lower frame rates were
above average too, likely due to that out of the box CPU undervolt, but we’ll compare
this title against other laptops shortly.
Far Cry New Dawn was tested with the built in benchmark. This game seems to be fairly
CPU heavy, so with our default CPU undervolt we’re actually seeing higher levels of performance
than many others with higher tier 2080 Max-Q graphics.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the built in benchmark, and the results were ahead of the
newer Far Cry New Dawn just covered, and we’ll see how this one compares to some other laptops
later, the results are kind of crazy due to the modifications Razer are doing, you won’t
want to miss them.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and while I have to regularly refresh the
replay due to updates I test in the same area, so results should be somewhat comparable to
my past tests. This game runs on basically anything, so we’re seeing very high frame
rates even with epic settings, while low settings is giving us 1% lows higher than the refresh
rate of the display.
Overwatch is another well optimized game and was tested in the practice range, as other
players, bots and even different maps in actual gameplay affect the frame rate and this allows
for consistent testing. The 300 FPS frame cap was being hit at low settings, otherwise
even maxed out at epic we were still hitting 180 averages with high 1% lows so it was running
very smoothly.
Metro Exodus was tested using the built in benchmark, most parts of the game perform
a fair bit better than this, so don’t take these results as a good indication of what
to expect throughout the entire game, it’s more of a worst case but does let you perform
the same test to compare against.
CS:GO was tested using the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and as a game that is pretty CPU bound the
average FPS results here are above average compared to most other gaming laptops I’ve
looked at lately, with still over 250 FPS averages with all settings at maximum.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark, and is a game I’ve found to
benefit from Nvidia’s new turing architecture. Even with maximum ultra settings we’re getting
great performance, with 160 FPS averages and above 120 for the 1% low, so it’s running
very smoothly.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and for the usual replay that I use the performance
was looking quite good across the board, with 110 FPS averages at ultra settings with about
20 higher for both average and 1% low at minimum settings.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark, and from my experience
seems to be a fairly CPU heavy game. The results here are looking great, again due to that
CPU undervolt we’re getting better performance out of the box compared to most other gaming
laptops.
Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane with an average amount of action going on,
and is yet another game that I’ve found to prefer higher CPU power, so the results
are once more very impressive for this game, with almost 200 FPS averages at low settings,
though not much different with higher settings while also looking much nicer.
Watch Dogs 2 loves eating up all the resources it can get a hold of, but we’ve got a lot
to feed it here, so even at ultra settings above 60 FPS averages were possible and it
was running very well for a game that I think you can get away with a stable 30 FPS.
Ghost Recon is another resource intensive game and was tested using the built in benchmark.
I’ve said in the past that you need a very powerful laptop to actually hit 60 FPS averages
at ultra, well that’s what we’ve got here and this was pretty much achieved.
The Witcher 3 was playing great with hairworks disabled. I’ve found this to be somewhat
more GPU demanding at higher settings, so we’re seeing great frame rates with our
overclocked graphics, with up to 110 FPS averages even maxed out at ultra.
DOOM was tested using Vulkan, and is a game that almost always gets really high frame
rates. With Razer laptops by default the performance in this title will be trash unless you disable
Razer Chroma, which basically customizes the key lighting while playing. Anyway with that
off even ultra settings was averaging very high FPS, it played extremely well.
Strange Brigade was another game that was tested with Vulkan, and this one was also
running well with the built in benchmark, with ultra settings almost able to give us
average FPS only just a little below the refresh rate of the display.
Shadow of War was also tested with the built in benchmark, and is another game that I’ve
found to benefit from Nvidia’s new Turing architecture. These are some of the best results
I’ve seen from this test, with 100 FPS averages even at ultra settings.
Let’s also take a look at how this config of the new Razer Blade Pro 17 compares with
other laptops to see how it stacks up, use these results as a rough guide only as they
were tested at different times with different drivers.
In Battlefield 5 I’ve got the Razer Blade Pro 17 highlighted in red, and we can see
straight away that compared to the others it’s performing extremely well. The 1% low
result is putting it in 4th place out of these machines, likely due to that CPU undervolt
out of the box. The average frame rate is also second here, beating out two of the 2080
Max-Q machines, probably due to the GPU overclocks and higher 100 watt power limit.
Here are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings in the built in benchmark. In this
test the Razer Blade Pro 17 was in first place, both in terms of 1% low and average frame
rate. Again the CPU undervolt will be helping out in this CPU driven title, however it is
still very impressive that it was able to beat the ASUS GX701, as that was tested with
G-Sync which gives it an edge in performance, and not to mention its higher tier 2080 Max-Q.
These are the results from Shadow of the Tomb raider with the built in benchmark at highest
settings. In this test the average frame rate put the Blade Pro 17 in at third place, only
just slightly behind the 2080 Max-Q variants of the GS75 and GX701, but was still ahead
of the razer blade 15 with 2080 Max-Q and our 2070 laptops.
The new Razer Blade Pro 17 gaming laptop was performing extremely well, as we saw it was
easily able to hang with the higher tier 2080 Max-Q laptops, even the previously untouchable
GX701 results are being challenged by a machine with lower tier specs that doesn’t have
G-Sync. This is because of the excellent tweaks Razer are making out of the box, including
the -0.1v core voltage offset to the CPU, allowing the 2070 max-q to run at 100 watts
which is above spec, and GPU overclocks.
To be fair, the other machines could also be overclocked and undervolted, but Razer
is doing this out of the box which will be beneficial for the majority of people that
aren’t going to tweak those settings.
It would be very interesting to see how the higher tier 2080 Max-Q version compares assuming
it has similar modifications, and if it had G-Sync then this would be offering seriously
killer performance.
This is the second gaming laptop I’ve recently tested that came to me undervolted out of
the box, I asked previously if you guys thought this was an unfair advantage or if more companies
should do this to boost out of the box performance. I didn’t get a single comment in favour
of not undervolting, it’s literally free performance and in many cases improved thermals,
so I think it’s awesome to see and I hope more companies pick up on this trend. It’s
pretty much necessary these days, as Intel continue to boost the clock speed and power
of their CPUs without improving the architecture, and this is an easy improvement to help address
that.
I’ve still got to test the thermals out, so keep an eye out for my detailed thermal
testing video which will be coming very soon. If you’re new to the channel you’ll definitely
want to get subscribed for that, as well as for the full review of the new Razer Blade
Pro 17 gaming laptop.