The new Razer Blade Pro 17 gaming laptop is a thin machine with some powerful specs in
side, so just how hot does it get, and is there any throttling? In this testing I’ll
be taking a detailed look at thermals and seeing how much we can improve performance
with some simple tweaks.
The Razer Blade Pro 17 is available in different configurations, my model has the Intel i7-9750H
CPU, 100 watt Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics, and 16gb of memory running in dual channel,
so expect different results with different specs. You can find updated prices for different
models linked in the description.
On the bottom we’ve got air intake vents over all four fans, yes that’s right, four,
while the back behind the rubber is the air exhaust. The rubber feet at the back actually
raise it up quite a bit which should aid air flow, and also help reduce the intake fans
sucking the exhausting hot air straight back in.
Inside we’ve got Razer’s vapor chamber cooling over the CPU and GPU dies, while the
two fans at the front don’t appear to be connected, so they’re just helping to bring
more air into the system, which is always welcome.
By default Razer has actually undervolted the laptop by -0.1v which is great to see,
so we are expecting above average results compared to the competition at stock. This
was only to the core voltage offset and not the cache. I have also manually undervolted
a little further with Intel XTU, pushing it to -0.15v, however when doing this the cache
voltage is linked to the core voltage offset, so with my manual change both values were
modified whereas Razer are only changing one.
In Razer’s Synapse software we can either set balanced mode and optionally set fan speed
to maximum, or instead select custom. I’ve tested with both, but while testing custom
I’ve set both CPU and GPU to high, and I found doing this to the GPU would overclock
it by 100Mhz on the core and 400MHz on the memory. Unfortunately it does appear we’re
limited here in that we can’t manually set the fan speed to maximum like we could in
balanced mode, which seems a bit strange, these custom higher performance options are
where we would want higher fan speed.
Thermal testing was completed in an ambient room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, so
expect different results in different environments. I’ve tested idle down the bottom, and it
was on the warmer side, not really an issue though and this is because the fans were completely
silent. The rest of the results are from combined CPU and GPU workloads and are meant to represent
worst case scenarios as I ran them for extended periods of time.
The gaming results towards the upper half of the graph were tested by playing Watch
Dogs 2, as I find it to use a good combination of processor and graphics. The stress test
results shown on the lower half of the graph are from running the Aida64 CPU stress test
with only the stress CPU option checked, and the Heaven GPU benchmark at max settings at
the same time to fully load the system.
Let’s start with the stress test results in balanced mode, so keep in mind this still
has the default -0.1v undervolt on the CPU, and temperature wise this looks fine. When
we enable the custom mode with the CPU and GPU set to high we see an increase in CPU
temperature, as this raises the power limit of the CPU, and more power equals more heat
but better performance. The GPU drops back a degree as this also raises the fan speed,
as you’ll hear soon, and this is despite the GPU overclocks that this is applying.
By undervolting the CPU a little father it was possible to lower the temperatures a bit
more, and then with the cooling pad it was possible to get a slight improvement.
The gaming results saw a similar pattern, however the temperatures of the CPU were a
bit cooler in this particular game compared to the stress tests, but results will always
vary by game.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown. With balanced mode
we’re seeing lower levels of CPU performance due to the lower power limit it sets. With
the stress tests running simply enabling the custom settings to boost the CPU power limit
is enough to get us 700MHz extra on all 6 cores, it didn’t go further due to power
limit throttling. This is why in the next result when the CPU undervolt is pushed further
we’re now able to hit the full 4GHz all core turbo boost speed of the i7-9750H. As
thermals were already under control by this point the cooling pad makes no real change.
The gaming tests on the other hand were pretty similar, though we saw more of an increase
to GPU clock speed here, as the GPU was constantly power limit throttling during the stress test,
which seems to be why the clock speed didn’t raise even with the overclocks applied from
the custom settings. Don’t panic though, power limit throttling on the GPU happens
on pretty much all RTX laptops I’ve tested in this workload, you should be able to improve
that with undervolting.
These are the average CPU TDP values during these same tests, and we can see why balanced
mode was behind, it’s setting PL1 to 35 watts, while custom mode limits the CPU TDP
to 55 watts.
These are the average CPU clock speeds while under a CPU only workload. While balanced
mode caps the CPU power limit to 35 watts, we can still reach higher clock speeds with
the available power by undervolting further. We couldn’t quite hit the full 4GHz all
core turbo speed of the 9750H in this workload with the custom mode, however my little extra
undervolting did get us all the way there. Here’s how these tests look in terms of
temperatures, again the extra undervolting is improving thermals as well as clockspeed.
This is because less power equals less heat, as doing this generally lowers the CPU TDP.
To demonstrate how this translates into performance I’ve got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks here.
In this workload the average result even with the custom settings enabled seemed a little
behind the few other 9750H machines I’ve tested, but the additional undervolting helped.
So there’s not too many extra changes we need to make due to the default CPU undervolt
and GPU overclock, but let’s see if these changes improve performance in games.
I’ve tested Far Cry 5 with the built in benchmark at 1080p, and the red bar is with
my extra CPU undervolt, so -0.15v on both the core and cache, while stock is just -0.1v
to the core only which is the default. There’s not really a difference here, in fact my changes
are actually slightly worse in all cases. I’ve also tested balanced mode out in the
green bar, and as we saw earlier this mode does run warmer, but it’s not actually performing
all that far behind, and just to confirm the default undervolt still applies in this mode.
You’ll hear shortly how much quieter balanced mode is, so it’s a good option if you don’t
want loud fan noise while still performing quite well.
If you’re after more gaming benchmarks from the Razer Blade Pro 17, check the card in
the top right where I’ve tested 20 different games.
As for the external temperatures where you’ll actually be putting your hands, at idle it
was a bit warmer than usual, probably due to the warm internals combined with the metal
body. While gaming in custom mode, which was running the fans at maximum, the keyboard
and wrist rest were fine, just a little warm. Similar results with the stress tests running,
though hotter up the back, however you shouldn’t be touching there. This is the same test with
the fans at maximum now but also higher levels of performance. We can see the air exhausting
out the back below the screen, partially heating the screen, so it will be interesting to see
how that holds up long term.
As for the fan noise produced by the laptop, I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle the fans were completely silent, which explains the warmer idle temperatures, that’ll
always be a trade off. In balanced mode it was noticeably quieter compared to most other
gaming laptops I’ve tested, though again that’s another trade off with lower performance
as we saw earlier, but you do at least have the option of running it quieter. Under stress
test with either balanced mode and the fan manually maxed out or in custom mode it was
running at the same level, and this was now pretty similar to most other machines I’ve
tested under this same workload.
Overall I was quite happy with these results from the Razer Blade Pro 17. It was warmer
than usual at idle, but to be fair the fans were stopped, not really an issue idling a
little warm anyway. Balanced mode offered a good way for us to limit performance if
we want to stick to lower fan speeds, while custom mode gave us nice performance improvements.
While gaming at all times I didn’t consider the temperatures hot, as it didn’t get to
90c, at least in the specific game I test with. This did happen with the stress tests
once the custom settings were enabled, however as we saw it was possible to improve thermals
with further undervolting or by using a cooling pad.
It’s worth keeping in mind that both the CPU and GPU are allowed to run above spec,
up to 55 watts on the CPU and 100 watts on the GPU, so while this will give us extra
performance it also results in extra heat, but despite these higher limits it seems to
be handling it alright.
With regards to the default undervolt I’ll also note that after resuming from sleep or
hibernation it was no longer applying until I rebooted the machine. The undervolt is definitely
default by Razer, as it keeps coming back even after a fresh install of Windows and
setting the BIOS to defaults.
The 230 watt power brick included by Razer with the Blade Pro 17 seems to be adequate,
while running in custom mode, so with the higher CPU power limit and graphics overclocked,
the battery did drain to around 95% but I didn’t see it drop below this.
These differences in performance shown aren’t hard and fast rules, there are different factors
which will vary results, primarily the temperature of the room you’re running in, application
of thermal paste, and even the specific hardware which comes down to the silicon lottery. You
may not be able to undervolt or overclock your hardware the same as me, it depends on
the chip and its specific power requirements, so don’t just blindly copy my settings and
do some testing to find out where your stable point is for best results.
In the case of Razer’s stock out of the box undervolt though, in my case it did appear
to be stable, I didn’t have any issues with it.
It may be possible to further improve temperatures by swapping the thermal paste, however as
this is a review unit that I have to send back I’m not able to change the paste, otherwise
the next reviewer will unknowingly report different results due to what I’ve done.
Additional undervolting, boosting fan speed, or using a cooling pad are much easier for
most people to do anyway, and as we’ve seen these tweaks did help improve performance
of the Razer Blade Pro 17 gaming laptop.
So what did you think about the thermals from Razer’s new Blade Pro 17 gaming laptop?
It’s going quite well after some small tweaks, it’s kind of hard to really measure if the
two extra fans towards the front are helping much, but it’s good to see they appear to
be taking cooling seriously with this change and also undervolting out of the box. Let
me know your thoughts down in the comments, and if you’re new to the channel you’ll
definitely want to get subscribed for the upcoming full review of the Razer Blade Pro
17.