razer have brought back their smaller
blade 14 gaming laptop but now with
amd's ryzen 5000 processors this smaller
machine packs quite a punch so let's get
straight into the review i've got the
highest spec configuration here with
eight core ryzen 9 5900 hx processor
nvidia rtx 3080 graphics 16 gigs of
memory and a 1440p 165 hertz screen so
some pretty crazy specs for a 14 inch
laptop razer also has lower specs models
with the 3060 or 3070 graphics instead
you can check out examples and updated
prices with those links down in the
description the blade 14 has a smooth
anodized black finish and the whole
thing is cnc aluminum it feels seriously
premium compared to most other laptops
the laptop alone weighs under 1.8 kilos
or 3.9 pounds then 2.6 kilos or 5.7
pounds total with a 230 watt power brick
it's quite thin and generally just all
around on the smaller side it's very
portable the 14 inch 1440p 165 hertz
screen has great color gamut decent
contrast and freesync premium it gets
fairly bright too above 350 nits at
maximum while 90 brightness was above
300. i measured average greater gray
response time at 8.75 milliseconds so
not below the six milliseconds needed
for transitions to occur within the
refresh window that said it's still the
best result i've got for any 13 or 14
inch gaming laptops so far slightly
ahead of the asus zephyrus g14 they're
arguably within margin of error but
expect different results with the 1080p
144hz option which is slower the total
system latency was on the slower side at
least out of the small number of laptops
i've tested so far this is the amount of
time it takes from a mouse button press
to when a gunshot fires in csgo as
tested with nvidia's ldap mine had no
noticeable backlight delete but this
will vary between laptops and panels
there's a 720p camera above the screen
in the middle and it has ir for windows
hello which worked fine this is what the
camera and microphone look and sound
like this is what it sounds like while
i'm typing on the keyboard
and this is what it sounds like with the
fan set to full speed which can only be
done if the laptop's plugged in it takes
a long time for the fan to actually get
to maximum i was waiting for about a
minute and a half but you can still hear
me okay over the fan noise the keyboard
has perky rgb backlighting and all keys
and secondary functions are lit very
nicely with about 15 levels of key
brightness possible with the f10 and f11
shortcuts and i like that holding the
function key shows the keys you can
interact with keyboard brightness can
also be controlled through software
which offers a sliding scale between
zero and a hundred percent with one
percent increments but i honestly can't
tell if it's actually changing one
percent at a time there are also some
built-in effects or you can customize it
further through the chroma studio typing
was fine though the key prices felt a
bit shallow for me but maybe i've been
ruined by all the mechanical keyboard
laptops i've tested lately
the power button is right next to delete
and backspace but an accidental press
doesn't do anything there are
front-facing speakers on either side of
the keyboard the speakers sounded
alright perhaps a little above average
for a gaming laptop with a little bass
they were clear enough and i thought
they got loud enough too the latency mod
results were looking excellent the glass
precision touchpad is fairly large
considering the smaller size of the
laptop i never had any issues with it
getting in the way though it clicks down
anywhere and feels very nice definitely
one of the better ones out there the
left has the power input at the back usb
3.2 gen 2 type 8 port usb 3.2 gen 2 type
c port and a 3.5 millimeter audio combo
jack the power cable is angled you can
make it block the usb port if you want
or alternatively you could just not do
that the writer also has usb 3.2 gen 2
type-c and type-a ports hdmi 2.1 output
and kensington lock so no air exhaust
fence on either side both of those type
c ports on either side of the laptop can
be used to charge and they both also
offer displayport 1.4 support and both
those type c ports and the hdmi port
connect directly to the nvidia rtx 3080
graphics so connecting an external
screen will give us a speed boost in
games and i'll show you this a bit later
the razer logo on the back lid lights up
green and you can either set it to
breathing static or off i've had it on
breathing throughout this review
keyboard flex wasn't too bad the metal
body felt fairly solid during regular
use but just doing this you can see how
easy it is for fingerprints to occur
fortunately the smooth finish is easy to
clean with a microfiber cloth lid flex
was only minor due to the solid metal
lid though while doing this i did notice
that the laptop could move a bit on my
desk but it is a lighter laptop and
generally weight helps reduce this
although the rubber feet run along most
of the top and bottom they didn't feel
super grippy the bottom panel otherwise
just has air vents over the intake fans
it's hard to tell here but the mesh
looked finer compared to other laptops
with less metal and more holes the back
section also seems to be where air is
exhausted as well as below the screen
there's nothing otherwise on the back
while the front just has the power led
on the right hand side and the middle
has an indent for you to easily get your
finger in to open the lid getting inside
requires removing 10 small tl5 screws
and the bottom panel was very easy to
pry open using the tools linked in the
description inside we've got the battery
down the front single m.2 storage slot
just above on the left and wi-fi 6e card
on the right that's all there is the
vapor chamber cooler is up the back and
16 gigs of ram is soldered to the
motherboard that's the only option
available no 32gb option at least the
secondary memory timings look decent
faster than the memory used in both the
lenovo legion 5 pro or asustrix g15
advantage for instance the blade 14 has
a 61.6 watt hour battery and i was able
to boost the battery life in the youtube
playback test by about 40 minutes simply
by changing the screen's refresh rate
down from 165hz to 60hz i've tested both
because the option is presented clearly
through the razer software but unlike
asus laptops the change isn't automatic
when you unplug also just a quick side
note anytime you change the resolution
in windows the refresh rate
automatically goes back to 60 hertz
which seems like a bug here's how
battery life stacks up compared to
others it's actually lasting a little
longer than the blade 15 advanced with
larger battery just below it though that
said the smaller blade still 13 is just
ahead of the 14 owing to the lower end
specs let's check out thermals next
again we've got the vapor chamber cooler
with two fans for cooling the razer
signup software lets us change between
these performance modes we can either
enable balanced mode and then optionally
customize the fan speed or we can
instead use custom mode to get more
granular control over the cpu and gpu
with four performance levels for the cpu
and three for the gpu for some reason
this means you can't max the fans out in
custom mode only in balanced and on
battery mode it will automatically run
in balanced mode with no fan control the
following overclock also gets applied to
the gpu when it's set to high mode in
the custom settings these are the power
levels and clock speeds advised by a
razer for these different modes again
there's quite a bit of customization
possible here so let's see how these
different modes actually perform now
there's a lot of data here as i probably
tested too many configurations let me
explain the idle results down the bottom
weren't bad i've run stress tests with
both the cpu and gpu loaded up to
represent a worst case as well as
playing an actual game in balanced mode
setting the fan to max speed was able to
lower the temperatures by a reasonable
amount whether gaming or under stress
dust the temperatures rise up with both
the cpu and gpu set to low then medium
high then boost plus high using a
cooling pad link down in the description
in the highest boost plus high mode was
able to help out a fair bit in the
stress test but it made less of a
difference with this particular game
these are the clock speeds from the same
tests best case in the stress test the
5900hx is getting to around 3.9
gigahertz on average over all eight
cores though the game is able to get up
to 4.2 gigahertz but this will vary
based on the game the gpu clock speeds
increase when the gpu is set to high
mode as this applies the previously
mentioned overclock but it also boosts
the power limit too with the gpu set to
high it's able to run up to 90 watts in
these combined cpu plus gpu workloads
with the cpu idle though the rtx 3080
can sustain 100 watts best case we're
seeing 45 watts on the cpu and around 90
on the gpu not too bad for this backside
argue given the smaller 14 inch size
here's how the different modes perform
in cinebench r23 a cpu only workload
with the gpu now idle the highest boost
mode up the top gives us the biggest
improvement compared to the others it's
doing reasonably well when compared
against others when considering the
smaller size despite the blade 14 having
the 5900hx it's not that far ahead of
the 5900 hs in the asus zephyrus g14
another 14-inch gaming laptop though
both were ahead of the larger alienware
m15 r5 the performance drops down quite
a bit when running on battery power
single core performance in particular is
now one of the lower results while
multi-core is at least able to beat a
few other larger 8-core laptops the
keyboard area is in the mid-30s in the
center the whole thing feels a little
warm as it's metal and conducts heat but
not uncomfortable stress tests running
are warmer and just below 50 degrees
celsius in the middle more than i'd like
but not too bad setting the fans to max
speed lowered the temperatures by a few
degrees but the wasd area was still cold
i'll just quickly skip through the
results with both the cpu and gpu set to
low medium and high as there honestly
isn't too much change and then same with
high plus boost as the fans increase
alongside these changes let's have a
listen
the fans were still audible when idling
in the default balanced mode balanced
mode was a little quieter compared to
setting both the cpu and gpu to medium
while max fan in balanced mode was about
the same as setting both the cpu and gpu
to high and above in the custom settings
now let's find out how well this
configuration of razer's blade 14 gaming
laptop compares against others in games
but use these results as a rough guide
only as they were tested at different
times with different drivers shadow of
the tomb raider was tested with the
game's benchmark and i've got the blade
14 highlighted in red it's actually
scoring the same as the blade 15
advanced from last generation with eight
core intel cpu and rtx 2080 super
graphics quite a good result considering
it's smaller size now at the same time
the far cheaper hp omen with lower ryzen
7 5800h and rtx 37e is ahead of it but
consider that the blade 14 is 18 percent
faster than the new top spec asus
zephyrus g14 while also being smaller in
every dimension impressive stuff i've
tested battlefield v in campaign mode at
ultra settings the new blade 14 is again
beating the last gen blade 15 advanced
here the 1 lows in particular are much
improved and one of the better results
recorded out of all laptops the average
frame rate is extremely close to the
larger asus zephyrus g15 with similar
wattage 3080 so another great result for
the smaller blade 14. this time the
blade 14 is reaching 24 higher average
fps compared to the g14 and yeah this
top-end spec of blade 14 probably costs
more but i think it's still interesting
to see what's now possible in 14 inches
far cry 5 was tested with the game's
benchmark at max settings this game
typically depends more on the processor
and this time the blade 14 was just 6
percent ahead of the g14 the blade 15
advanced is also much further ahead now
compared to the previous two games but
this title tends to favor intel
processors so that may be why the blade
14 is just 4 fps behind the smaller 13
inch x13 with 3080e gpu and that's not a
cheap setup either i've also tested the
blade 14 in way more games at both 1080p
and the native 1440p resolution in this
video over here so check out that one if
you want to get a better idea of how
well the blade 14 performs in games i
didn't really mind playing games at
1080p at the smaller 14 inch size if i
went out of my way to look for it yeah
it did look a bit more blurry compared
to 1440p but overall i thought it was
still alright but this will be personal
preference of course but realistically
with the rtx 3080 option you probably
don't need to go down to 1080p anyway
but maybe you might need to do that for
a bigger speed boost with the 3060 or
3070 options now as i mentioned earlier
we can improve gaming performance by
attaching an external screen as this
will bypass optimus and the integrated
graphics we're looking at a 7 boost to
average fps and shadow of the tomb
raider with this simple change so not
quite as big compared to some other
laptops i've tested such as the asustrix
g15 advantage edition but hey still an
easy way to get some additional
performance out of the laptop esports
titles like csgo that hit much higher
fps would see bigger gains here
generally the higher the frame rate the
more the integrated graphics acts as a
bottleneck here are the results from
3dmark for those that find them useful
now for some creator tests adobe
premiere was tested with the puget
systems benchmark the blade 14 is
holding up quite well compared to larger
and thicker machines though it's one of
the lower results i've got for a 3080
laptop but not too far behind some
others it's in the same position in
adobe photoshop out of the same
selection of laptops this test typically
depends more on the cpu than gpu and
it's near a few other 5900 hx laptops
though there are also some like the
legion 7 that scored much higher davinci
resolve is more gpu heavy but the blade
14 is again in the exact same spot out
of this laptop selection it's the lowest
3080 result that i've got but only just
slightly behind the zephyrus g15 just
above it with a similar wattage 3080
though that is a bigger machine i've
also tested spec view perf which tests
out various professional 3d workloads
the one terabyte nvme m.2 ssd was doing
well for the reads and all right for the
rights there's just the one m.2 slot so
if you want to upgrade storage you'll
either need to clone or reinstall
windows the bios has fairly standard
options nothing really special worth
noting and it does have tpm 2.0 i tried
to boot an ubuntu 21 live cd but as soon
as it completed booting it kept
restarting itself and i wasn't able to
properly test it now let's discuss
pricing this will change over time so
refer to those links down in the
description for updates these are the
prices in us dollars that razer provided
so eighteen hundred dollars for the
entry level model twenty two hundred
dollars for the middle 3070 option while
my top end configuration is 2 800
it's definitely not cheap but that's
always the case when it comes to
technology with high specs and a smaller
footprint i think the 3060 model with
the 1080p 144hz screen is going to be
harder to recommend razer is saying it
has a 20 millisecond response time so
similar to the 2020 g14 and a lot of
people found that to look blurry in
fast-paced games but if you're using an
external monitor for gaming then that
would be less of a concern overall i'm
quite impressed with what razer has been
able to fit in a 14 inch size there are
definitely compromises but regardless
this still appears to be the best
14-inch gaming laptop that you can buy
today and that's reflected by the higher
prices the main issue for me personally
is the 16 gigs of soldered memory yeah i
get that not being able to upgrade it is
probably required for the thinner design
but it would have been so much better if
they also had a 32 gig option at this
price point the software has a lot of
options for how lighting and performance
modes should behave differently on
battery life it would have been cool if
this also extended to the screen's
refresh rate as chances are you don't
need 165 hertz on battery power at least
having that as an option would have
given us more battery life should we
want to use it but i guess for now this
is only a feature that asus laptops have
now razer is claiming that the blade 14
is the fastest 14-inch gaming laptop and
i don't think they're wrong it's specked
higher than the asus zephyrus g14 while
also beating it in pretty much every
test and also coming in at a smaller
size now i will be comparing the razer
blade 14 against the asus zephyrus g14
very soon so if you're new to the
channel then get subscribed for that
upcoming comparison as well as for
future gaming laptop reviews like this
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