Razer’s Blade 16 gets an OLED screen this year!
As well as other improvements, like more CPU
and GPU power. But Razer laptops are not cheap and come at a higher cost.
So let’s find out if this maxed out configuration I’ve tested is worth over $4000 USD!
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Alright back to the Blade 16, let’s get straight into that OLED screen.
Colors and contrast are perfect, as you’d expect from OLED. The screen just looks great.
It gets to around 400 nits at full brightness, so nothing insane,
but it’s enough. Last year’s Blade 16 with Mini-LED screen gets much brighter
and also has great color gamut, you just don’t get the super deep blacks like OLED.
Or the fast response time, which is one of the best parts of an OLED screen. On average the
2024 Blade 16 took just half a millisecond to transition. This is the fastest screen
I’ve ever measured so far. It’s not too different compared to other OLED panels,
but it’s still better compared to last year’s Blade 16, whether we’re running it at 4K or 1080p.
The 2024 Blade 16 is still available with that dual resolution Mini-LED screen too,
you don’t have to get OLED, it’s just an option now.
The total system latency is the amount of time between a mouse click and when a gunshot fire
appears on the screen in Counter-Strike 2. Unfortunately I don’t have data for
last year’s Blade 16, as we moved from CS:GO to CS2 recently, but regardless,
the 2024 Blade 16 is notably faster compared to a number of other high-end gaming laptops.
This year’s Blade 16 has the same sized battery as last year, but does the OLED panel use more power?
Maybe. Last year’s Blade lasted for 10% longer in the YouTube video playback test, but this year’s
Blade lasted 18% longer with a game running. At the end of the day the difference is only small
in either test, and both laptops are decent middle of the road results compared to other laptops.
CPU performance gets a little boost this year. Intel’s Core i9-14900HX only offers
a slight 300MHz increase to the single core clock speed compared to the 13950HX in last
year’s Blade 16. This only results in a 2% higher single core score,
which is honestly within the margin of error range anyway, considering we’ve seen higher
from 13th gen before. There’s a 9% increase to multicore performance, but that would be due
to the processor getting more CPU power, as 14th gen is essentially just 13th gen with a new name.
Performance lowers if we unplug the charger and run off of battery power
instead. It’s much lower compared to the same selection of laptops,
but it’s still better compared to last year’s Blade 16, so at least it’s not getting worse.
Wi-Fi also gets an update to the latest Wi-Fi 7 this year. I can’t test that properly just yet
as it’s still very new - I should be getting a Wi-Fi 7 router in a few weeks - but when
running with a Wi-Fi 6 access point it’s one of the better results I’ve measured,
and faster compared to last year’s Blade 16.
Alright, we need to get into the game results, because they’re kind of weird.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested with our own custom test run, and I’ve got the Blade 16 shown by
the red highlight. The performance isn’t great at 1080p considering it’s right next to a far
cheaper option with mid-tier RTX 4060 graphics. The same thing happened to the Legion 9i though,
which was performing similarly with similar specs,
and the reason is that the Blade’s CPU maxes out at 60 watts with the GPU active.
So the GPU was actually maxing out at 125 watts
here due to this CPU bottleneck. This happened in last year’s Blade 16 too,
but the FPS was a little better there despite it also facing the same 60 watt power limit in
this test. Its GPU was able to run a little higher at 130 watts for whatever reason.
The CPU bottleneck still exists at the higher 1440p resolution,
but the GPU was able to run at around 145 watts now, so the Blade 16 is at least a fair
bit higher compared to that RTX 4060 laptop, but it’s still at the bottom of our RTX 4090
and even 4080 results despite being one of the most expensive gaming laptops I’ve ever used.
Only at 4K does this game test get GPU bound enough that the Blade’s
4090 is finally beating all RTX 4080 laptops. It’s performing slightly better compared to
last year’s Blade 16, maybe because the higher minimum GPU power limit
of the 2024 model is finally getting used at this GPU heavier resolution.
It’s kind of weird that the CPU is getting limited to 60 watts of power at lower resolutions. You
would think Nvidia’s dynamic boost would do a better job of shifting power between the
CPU and GPU. But just like last year, that’s not really happening here, because there just
seems to be a hard cap on the processor at 60 watts even if the GPU isn’t fully utilized.
Now you could argue that this doesn’t matter too much, because the Blade 16 doesn’t have
a 1080p screen, but that’s only half true. Although this OLED panel is 2560 by 1600,
you can still get the Mini-LED screen with two resolutions,
so you can swap between either 4K 120Hz or 1080p 240Hz if you want a faster response time.
But not only that, as we saw in Cyberpunk 2077, 1440p was still being limited by the
processor, and 1440p is pretty close to the resolution of this screen. On the one hand,
yeah it’s a slimmer laptop, what do you expect? But on the other hand,
you can get laptops that will outperform this for less than half the price. But let’s check
out some more games first, because it doesn’t always behave this way.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark. It’s still one of the lower RTX 4090
laptop results at 1080p, but hey it’s ahead of last year’s Blade 16 this time. That continues
at the higher 1440p resolution too. Most of the other 4090 laptops that are ahead are bigger in
size though. Last year’s Blade is performing the same at the higher 4K resolution, because we’re
completely GPU bound now and they both have the same RTX 4090 graphics, so no surprises there.
The difference between 13th gen and 14th gen processor makes absolutely no difference at 4K.
The 2024 and 2023 Blade 16s were about the same in Control at 1080p, though the 1% lows were better
with the 2024 model, so less dips in performance. Both laptops were GPU bound in this game, even at
1080p, so it depends on the specific game as to whether the CPU limit we saw in Cyberpunk occurs.
Both Blade 16’s were the same at 1440p too, but again with fewer dips in performance with the
newer version, and then again at 4K. But unlike the previous games the Blades aren’t too far
away from the best performing 4090 laptops now. So again, just goes to show it depends on the game.
Here are the 3DMark results if that’s something you care about.
Pricing and availability will change over time, so check the links below the video
for updates and current sales. And if the Blade 16 has a good sale, we’ll be sure to add it to
our gaminglaptop.deals website. We update that every day to include all of the latest sales,
so make sure that you check it out regularly to save money on your next gaming laptop.
At the time of recording, the 2024 Blade 16 starts from $3000 USD with RTX 4070 graphics,
while last year’s 2023 version starts for $400 less. But the 2023 model starts with RTX 4060
graphics. If we spec it up to be the same as the newer 2024 model it still ends up $200 cheaper.
At the higher end of the price range, the RTX 4090 configuration we’ve looked at in
this video goes for $4200 USD. While last year’s model is technically $100
more expensive at full price, but right now it’s on sale, making it $100 less.
So it varies a little depending on the sale,
but generally speaking last year’s Blade 16 is cheaper, especially with lower specs.
Ultimately this newer 2024 model has a slightly better Intel 14th gen processor,
the latest Wi-Fi 7, and of course the new OLED screen, so you’ll have to decide if
these extra features are worth spending more money. If the difference is like $100 or so
and you’re already spending $3000 to $4000 USD, might as well just get the newer one.
Everything else about Razer’s Blade 16 has been covered here in last year’s detailed review. It
just wasn’t worth covering absolutely everything all over again in this one. There’s no point,
because everything else like the design, keyboard, touchpad, ports is exactly the same
as last year’s model. So check that one out next to find out everything else about the Blade 16!