So who makes the best 14” gaming laptop, ASUS Zephyrus G14 or Razer Blade 14?
I’ve compared both laptops to show you the differences and help you decide which is worth
it.
Razer has gone for the 5900HX processor, while ASUS are using the 5900HS which is designed
for thinner and lighter laptops.
Razer also has RTX 3060, 3070, and 3080 configurations with higher power limits than the 3060 in
the G14, but as a result the Blade costs more too.
You can check out updated prices of either laptop using those links down in the description.
Both of the laptops I’m testing here have the maximum specs available, so this means
higher end RTX 3080 graphics in my Blade 14.
Yeah it may have been more fair to compare the 3060 against the 3060 in the G14, but
these are the configurations I was able to get for testing, so I’m going to approach
this comparison from the point of view of seeing what both companies have to offer when
they’re both putting their best foot forward.
Instead of trying to compare apples to apples I’m just going to show you who does 14 inches
best.
Both of mine have a dark finish, though the G14 also has a white model.
The Blade is CNC aluminum with a black anodized finish while the G14 has a magnesium alloy
finish.
Built quality of both feel good, but I’ve got to give the edge to the Blade, Razer just
makes some of the best feeling gaming laptops.
The Blade 14 is smaller than the Zephyrus G14 in every dimension, quite impressive considering
it’s also available with higher tier specs too.
Despite this, the G14 weighs slightly more when we’re just comparing the laptops alone,
but then there’s a fair bit extra weight when including the power bricks, as the Blade’s
is 50 watts higher.
Both of my laptops have 14” 1440p screens, 120Hz for the G14 and 165Hz for the Blade
14, however they both also have 1080p 144Hz options too.
Neither laptop has a MUX switch, but both have FreeSync.
The color gamut on both was excellent, though the contrast was a little better on the Blade.
Screen brightness was basically the same from either screen, getting to around 300 nits
even with 90% brightness.
Technically the Blade was a little brighter, but these differences are within margin of
error.
The Blade 14 was slightly ahead in screen response time, but again both are extremely
close and within margin of error.
They’re both the fastest results I’ve ever tested out of any 13 or 14” gaming
laptop so far, much better than the 20ms plus seen in the G14 last year.
The Blade 14 was also faster when it came to total system latency, which is how long
it takes between a mouse press and the gun firing in CS:GO, though both were on the lower
side compared to other laptops tested.
Neither of mine had noticeable backlight bleed, but the Blade looked a bit better, though
this will vary between laptops and panels.
Now both of these laptops are also available with 1080p 144Hz screens, but I would expect
them to be slower in screen response time compared to the 1440p options I’ve shown
here.
In all likelihood, they both use the exact same panel, but I just don’t know for sure
without testing them, and I’m concerned because Razer notes a 20ms response time in
the specs for the 1080p Blade 14, so I would expect those 1080p panels to be blurrier in
comparison when playing fast paced games, and that makes them harder to recommend.
The Blade 14 has a 720p camera above the screen in the middle, and it has IR for Windows Hello.
The quality isn’t amazing, but at least it’s got that camera unlike the G14.
Although the G14 doesn’t have a camera, it’s still got microphones, and this is
how they sound.
The G14’s keyboard has one zone of white backlighting while the Blade has per-key RGB.
The G14 has 3 levels of key brightness, while the Blade has at least 15.
All keys and secondary functions are illuminated on both, but the Blade is brighter and just
looks better in my opinion, it’s more evenly lit.
Personally I preferred typing on the G14, the key presses on the Blade just feel a bit
more shallow, but I could use either without a problem.
The Blade has its power button next to delete and backspace, however an accidental mispress
doesn’t do anything.
The G14’s power button is above the keyboard, and it’s also a fingerprint scanner, which
I found to work fast.
The G14 also has some extra buttons above the keyboard on the left to control volume
and open the laptop’s control panel software.
Both have front facing speakers, and after listening to both side by side, in my opinion
the G14 sounds better, there’s more bass and it’s a bit clearer at higher volume.
The precision touchpads on both are good and above average.
I like the G14, it’s nice and accurate, but the Blade 14 is just better, it feels
smoother, it’s larger, and its clicks aren’t as loud.
Both laptops have the power input on the left, a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port, and a 3.5mm audio
combo jack.
The G14 also has it’s HDMI 2.0b output on this side and an air exhaust vent while the
Blade has a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port.
Both have a 2nd USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port on the right, the Blade has a second Type-A while
the G14 has two Type-A’s.
The G14 has an air exhaust on this side too, while the Blade has a HDMI 2.1 output, and
both have a Kensington lock at the back.
So just to summarize the key differences between the ports, the Blade 14 has HDMI 2.1 while
the G14 for some reason has HDMI 2.0b.
Otherwise both have two USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C ports, just in different locations.
You can only charge the G14 with its Type-C port on the left, while the Blade 14 supports
charging on either side.
Likewise only that left Type-C port on the G14 has DisplayPort, while both of the Type-C
ports on the Blade 14 offer DisplayPort support, and it’s also worth noting that all three
display outputs on the Blade 14 bypass the integrated graphics and connect directly to
the Nvidia GPU, while on the G14 that’s only the case with the Type-C port, and I’ll
show you the speed boost this gives us in games later in the video.
The back of the Blade just has a clean finish as air is exhausted out the back and down,
and the G14 has air exhaust vents, though these are covered by the screen once the lid
is open.
There’s nothing on the front of the G14, while the Blade has an indent in the middle
to help with opening the lid, and this made the Blade much easier to open.
The back of the G14 raises up when you open it, this gives it a slight incline to help
with typing and also allows more air to get underneath for cooling, we’ll check thermals
soon.
The logo on the Blade’s lid lights up green and can be set to static, breathing or off,
while the G14 has the optional AniMe Matrix display which gives you plenty of customization
on how the lid looks, though you can get the G14 without this for less money.
The Blade is cleaner underneath, both have holes directly above the fans for air intake.
Getting into the Blade was easier, it has fewer screws, but I didn’t have issues opening
either using the pry tools linked in the description.
Inside they both have the battery down the front, a single M.2 SSD just above on the
left, and the G14 has a WiFi 6 card underneath the SSD while the Blade has a 6E card to the
right.
The G14 has one memory slot for upgrades while the Blade has none, and the Blade has a vapor
chamber cooler compared to the standard heat pipe design of the G14.
Now the Blade 14 has 16 gigs of memory soldered to the motherboard, and that’s it, it’s
not possible to get any more than that.
The G14 on the other hand has 8 gigs of memory soldered to the motherboard, and there’s
also a single SODIMM slot so there is some upgradeability there.
Mine came with a single 8 gig stick installed which means I’ve got 8 plus 8, so dual channel
16 gigabytes.
If you need more capacity with the G14 then you can install a single 16 gig stick or even
a single 32 gig stick, which I did test and find to work.
The problem with doing this though is you might get inconsistent performance.
In general to get the best performance with dual channel memory you want both to be the
same capacity.
The battery in the G14 is 23% larger in terms of capacity, yeah it is also physically larger,
but not by much, that’s quite a difference in battery size.
This resulted in the G14 lasting for more than 2 hours longer in the YouTube playback
test, or 29% longer, while it was lasting 25% more while actually running a game, a
similar difference to the size differences of the batteries.
The G14 automatically swaps the screen’s refresh rate to 60Hz when you unplug which
helps improve battery life.
I found it weird that the Blade 14 didn’t also offer this, because it has a lot of other
software configuration options for what to do for lighting and performance when on battery.
The refresh rate option is right next to the others, but unfortunately it’s not automatic.
We can boost the Blade by over 40 minutes by manually setting it to 60Hz though, I just
wish it was auto.
Let’s check out thermals next.
Again the Blade has the vapor chamber while the G14 has regular heat pipes.
The g14 also has liquid metal on the CPU.
Both laptops let you adjust performance profiles to varying degrees, and both apply the following
GPU overclocks with the highest performance modes in use, which is what I’ll be testing
here.
The G14 gives us fan control in the highest manual mode, while the Blade 14 only offers
this in the default balanced mode and not the custom modes for some reason.
If you do want to see how both of these laptops perform in the different performance modes,
then you can refer to the full review videos linked down in the description.
These are the temperatures, when sitting there idle the G14 was a little warmer.
The G14 was also warmer when under stress test, but in this particular game the G14
was now cooler compared to the Blade 14.
These are the clock speeds while gaming or under stress test.
With the game running we’re seeing basically the same CPU and GPU speeds, despite the G14
running cooler.
Under stress test though the Blade is reaching higher GPU speed, but is behind in CPU speed.
It seems like dynamic boost isn’t boosting the CPU on the Blade 14 as much in the stress
test, as the GPU is able to go much higher, 90 watts in the Blade and 60 for the Zephyrus,
though in the game the Blade was ahead both for CPU and GPU power, which helps explain
why it was warmer in the gaming test.
The Blade 14 is doing better in Cinebench, which we’d want to see considering it has
a higher tier 5900HX processor, however it’s only scoring 3% higher than the 5900HS in
the G14 for multicore and 1% ahead for single core, nothing major.
The tables turn on battery power though, the G14’s single core performance doesn’t
change and the multicore score is hardly affected, while the Blade 14 drops back significantly
in comparison.
The G14 also lasted longer on battery power, and it seems like it can perform better when
it needs the extra power when it’s on battery too, so best of both worlds.
The G14 felt cooler to the touch when idle, the Blade is all metal and seems to conduct
heat so it’s easier to notice.
With stress tests going the G14 seems to get warmer in the middle of the keyboard, though
both were cooler over the WASD area.
Let's listen to fan noise.
Both had some fan noise when idling, but the G14 gets much louder when the fans are at
maximum, which could help explain why it was cooler in the game test earlier.
Not to mention the GPU is lower wattage in the G14, and power equals heat.
Now let’s compare both laptops in a few different games, but if you do want to see
far more games on either of these machines then you can refer to the dedicated game test
videos down below.
Battlefield V was tested in campaign mode by running through the same part of the game
on both laptops.
I’ve got both highlighted in red, and as expected the higher specs of the Blade 14
are putting it ahead of the Zephyrus G14, with a 24% higher average frame rate in this
case.
Of course we’d expect closer results with a 3060 Blade 14, but my guess is it would
probably still win owing to the higher power limit and CPU.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the games benchmark, and the Blade 14 was
reaching 18% higher average frame rate in this one.
The Blade 14 was scoring the same as the Blade 15 advanced with RTX 2080 Super graphics,
so quite decent considering it’s smaller, while the G14 is able to beat the larger and
thicker MSI GL65 with full wattage 2060.
Far Cry 5 was also tested using the games benchmark, but this time the differences were
much smaller with the Blade 14 just 6% ahead in terms of average FPS.
This test tends to depend more on processor performance, and as we saw earlier in Cinebench
at least the 5900HX in the Blade 14 was just 3% faster than the G14 in multicore and 1%
in single core.
Both of these laptops use optimus and do not have a MUX switch, however as mentioned earlier
it is possible to connect an external screen in order to boost performance in games, as
this will bypass the integrated graphics.
I’ve got the results with the external screen connected highlighted in green.
The G14 was able to reach 6.8% higher average FPS in this specific game, and the Blade 14
increased by a similar 7.7% margin, so definitely some extra performance that can be gained
with either laptop.
The Blade 14, shown by the red bars here, had quite a large lead in the 3DMark tests,
scoring 39% higher in Firestrike, 37% higher in Timespy, and 47% higher in the Port Royal
ray tracing test.
Now let’s check out some content creator workloads.
I’ve tested Adobe Premiere with the Puget systems benchmark.
Again the Blade 14 was coming out ahead, but with just a 6% higher score compared to the
G14 it’s nothing major.
The differences in Adobe photoshop were even closer together, just a 2% higher score from
the Blade 14, at this point I’d be considering other important factors like screen differences.
DaVinci Resolve on the other hand depends more on the GPU, and the higher tier 3080
with higher power limit and more VRAM is now able to score 15% higher than the G14 in this
test.
The Blade 14 is ahead in SPECviewperf as well, which tests out various professional 3D workloads.
The Blade is only sold with a 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD, while the G14 has either 1TB or 512GB
options.
I’ve got the 512 gig option, and the Blade is faster both in terms of reads and writes,
but this could be different if you had a 1TB G14.
Linux support with an Ubuntu 21 live CD was easily better on the G14, because at least
I could boot it without issue, I couldn’t get it to boot on the Blade 14, granted I
didn’t spend more than a couple of minutes troubleshooting.
Neither laptop had a whole lot of BIOS options, nothing really special in either, just the
standard stuff you’d expect to see, however the G14’s looks more modern, and both have
TPM 2.0.
Alright let’s discuss pricing next, this will change over time so refer to those links
down in the description for updates.
At the time of recording, the Blade 14 with RTX 3060 starts at $1800 USD, while you can
pick up a G14 for $300 less, so for equivalent specs the Blade cost 20% more money.
It’s worth noting in this case both laptops have 1080p 144Hz screens with slower response
time compared to what I’ve shown in this video.
Let’s not forget that I’ve been comparing the higher end Blade 14 here, with an eye
watering $2800 price tag, or 87% higher cost compared to the G14, however I haven’t yet
been able to find the price for the G14 with the same 1440p screen I’ve tested here,
so I’d expect the gap to close a little with that.
All things considered, personally I think the Blade 14 is the better gaming laptop compared
to the Zephyrus G14, but as we’ve just seen, it does cost more money for some more specs,
so you’d probably expect that.
At the end of the day, both of these cost more money compared to slightly larger 15”
options that outperform them, so you should only really by considering either of these
two options if portability is a priority.
Otherwise it should be possible to save money or get better performance elsewhere.
Now the Blade 14 is obviously able to outperform the G14 in games as it has higher GPU options,
such as the 3070 or 3080 that I’ve got here.
But even if it had the same RTX 3060 graphics as the G14, I would still expect the Blade
14 to win, as it has higher power limits too, and more power equals more performance.
Plus it does also have a better performing processor.
The extra power comes at the cost of the Blade 14 having a heavier power brick.
It’s not much heavier, but it certainly increases its overall weight, despite the
Blade 14 being physically smaller in all dimensions.
That said, both laptops can also be charged with smaller and lighter Type-C chargers too
if you don’t actively need full performance.
When I first heard about the Blade 14 using the HX processor I thought it was kind of
insane, but at the same time at least in terms of Cinebench performance, it wasn’t actually
performing too much faster compared to the 5900HS in the G14.
They both have similar I/O, but the Blade has HDMI 2.1 while the G14 has 2.0.
The Blade can charge with Type-C on either side, while the G14 is left only, and all
3 display outputs on the Blade connect to the Nvidia GPU, while the G14 is just on the
left.
The G14 has a fingerprint scanner, but the Blade has a camera with Windows Hello, and
the Blade was also easier to open due to the front indent.
Personally, I preferred typing on the G14, but I liked the touchpad more on the Blade
14, but I thought both were pretty good, this is just personal preference.
The per-key RGB keyboard lighting on the Blade looks better and there’s far more customization,
while the G14 has the option of animated lid lighting.
The G14 automatically swaps to 60Hz on battery, which in combination with the larger battery
gives it more run time.
The screens were very close together, though the Blade 14’s was slightly better in all
regards, but yeah the differences were within margin of error realistically.
I wouldn’t consider or recommend either of these laptops with the 1080p 144Hz screen,
as they have slower response times.
20ms is a bit rough, but if you’re connecting an external screen or doing something else
like say content creation then that’s less of a problem, and as we saw earlier it was
possible to boost gaming performance on either laptop by about 7% with an external monitor,
so yeah, in general the Blade 14 is doing better in most of the comparison tests, but
the G14 is still able to put up a fight in many important areas while coming in at a
lower price.
Let me know which of these two gaming laptops you would pick and why down in the comments
below.
Come and get subscribed for future laptop comparisons like this one, come and join me
in Discord and get behind the scenes videos by supporting the channel on Patreon, and
if you need any further information on either of these two laptops then come and check out
the dedicated full review videos over here, as I do go into more depth in those.