The Razer Blade 15 is a thin gaming laptop with some powerful hardware inside, but how
hot does the new RTX version get? I’ll be taking a detailed look at thermals and seeing
how much we can improve performance with some simple tweaks.
I’ve got the new advanced model of the Razer Blade 15 here, and in my configuration there’s
an Intel i7-8750H CPU, 90 watt Nvidia RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics, and 16gb of memory running
in dual channel. It’s also available with RTX 2060 or 2070 Max-Q graphics though, so
expect different results with those, and you can find updated pricing linked in the description.
On the bottom of the laptop there doesn’t appear to be many vents for air flow, they’re
just directly above the intake fans. Inside the blade uses vapor chamber cooling, so a
little different when compared with most other laptops.
The Razer Synapse software allows you to choose between three different modes, balanced, gaming,
and creator, and I’ve tested all three. Basically gaming mode is suggested for applications
that need GPU power, while creator mode is suggested for CPU intensive tasks.
Thermal testing was completed in an ambient room temperature of 23 degrees Celsius, so
expect different results in different environments. I’ve tested idle down the bottom with the
balanced profile, and it was on the warmer side for an idle machine. 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 bottom
half of the graph are from running the Aida64 CPU stress test and Heaven benchmark at the
same time to fully load the system. Some of the titles might be a bit confusing, for example
this gaming gaming one means that the test was playing Watch Dogs 2, and the second instance
refers to the gaming profile being used.
Towards the bottom of the graph with the stress test going and balanced profile in use, the
fan was noticeably quieter compared to the gaming and creator profiles, which you’ll
hear soon, but this is why applying a -0.14v CPU undervolt, shown by UV on the graph, doesn’t
affect the CPU temperature here. The GPU was however thermal throttling only in balanced
mode, any time it was at 76 degrees. With the gaming or creator profiles in use the
CPU temperature either stays the same or gets worse, while the GPU temperature was always
fine with these profiles, however we’ll see in the next graph how performance is affected.
We can see that when the Thermaltake Massive 20 cooling pad is used the temperatures of
both the CPU and GPU drop by 6 degrees Celsius, whether gaming or under stress test.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown. Down the bottom we
can see there was a 500MHz all core increase with the balanced profile once applying the
-0.14v undervolt to the CPU. This doesn’t really change if we max out the fan as thermals
are not the limitation. I’ll also note I didn’t test default and max fan speeds with
gaming or creator profiles as the fan was already pretty well maxed out under these
workloads, that was not the case with balanced which is why I tested it there. We can see
that at stock, the creator profile is giving us higher CPU clock speeds when compared with
the gaming profile at stock, as expected, while the GPU clock speeds from the gaming
profile are higher than creator mode, again as expected based on what these modes do.
Once we apply the CPU undervolt though, the CPU clockspeeds become about equal, however
the GPU clockspeed was still higher from gaming mode. I did test out some GPU undervolting
but didn’t get anywhere there. Basically for gaming it seems like using the gaming
profile with a CPU undervolt gets you the best performance, while a cooling pad helped
slightly. I suspect this is due to GPU boost preferring cooler temperatures, as again there
was no thermal throttling in gaming or creator modes, power limit throttling was what was
holding these speeds back from going further. I wasn’t able to boost the power limit manually
in combined workloads like these either, however based on the temperatures going further would
make the thermals worse, and while thermal throttling wasn’t happening in gaming or
creator modes we’re not too far off.
These are the clock speeds I got while just running CPU only stress tests without any
GPU load, and despite this not being a combined CPU and GPU load like before, the clock speeds
aren’t really that different. The CPU only workload gave us basically the same results
with either creator or gaming mode, although even undervolted neither were capable of hitting
the full 3.9GHz all core turbo speed of the i7-8750H CPU. The temperatures were a fair
bit lower compared to the combined CPU and GPU loads shown before, however the undervolting
never made an improvement to temperatures here, we’re just getting the 500MHz or so
clock speed boost, but this does show CPU only temperatures are much more reasonable.
To demonstrate how this translates into performance I’ve got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks here.
Again very similar results with either gaming or creator mode when under a CPU only workload,
but even best case we’re below the usual 1200 score that an unconstrained 8750H is
capable of due to power limit throttling preventing full clock speed being reached.
We can see this when looking at the TDP for these CPU only workloads, in both gaming and
creator mode we’re artificially capped to a 45 watt TDP, and I wasn’t able to manually
boost this using Intel XTU. While caps are understandable in combined CPU and GPU workloads,
given the thermal headroom in CPU only workloads I think it would have been nice if Razer allowed
the CPU to boost higher while the GPU is idle like some other laptops do.
Here are the GPU only clock speeds while under a graphical only stress test. We can see that
the creator profile is lower than the others, which makes sense given the Razer Synapse
software specifically lists the gaming profile as having more GPU power, however I was surprised
to see balanced doing this well here. That said the balanced profile still runs the fans
quieter than the others, which results in it running a few degrees warmer when compared
to gaming mode and hits thermal throttling at 76 degrees, while creator mode was further
back as it wasn’t performing as well. I didn’t bother with manual overclocking here
given the constant power limit throttling on the 2080 Max-Q I saw, which I could not
improve by undervolting.
So how do these performance boosts actually translate into games? I’ve tested with the
exact same Windows, Nvidia and game updates installed, the only changes were the ones
listed here.
Far Cry 5 was tested using the built in benchmark at 1080p. At ultra settings there was a 3.6%
improvement to average FPS with the CPU undervolted and graphics overclocked, the best case scenario.
The 1% low rose by a similar amount, 3.7%, which I’m guessing is more due to that extra
CPU performance from the undervolt, so it is possible to get some improvements with
simple tweaks. If you’re after more gaming benchmarks with the Razer Blade, 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 with
the balanced profile enabled it was a bit above average, mid 30s in the center. While
gaming it gets warm in the center, low 50s, however the sides including WASD keys are
noticeably cooler as these areas seem to exhaust air from the fans below. The results are more
of the same with the stress tests running, the balanced profile was perhaps a bit warmer,
despite performing worse as we saw earlier the fans also run quieter. While gaming on
battery power the wrist rest warms up compared to the rest of the laptop as the discharging
battery is directly underneath, although the temperatures are similar to what we saw while
gaming and plugged in as the internal components perform better and run hotter.
As for the fan noise produced by the laptop, I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle it was basically silent, I couldn’t hear the fan. While gaming in gaming mode
it was about average compared to many other gaming laptops I’ve tested, and then same
results with the stress tests running in gaming mode, and these were the same as manually
maxing out the fans. Balanced mode was quieter, as mentioned earlier, but performs worse as
a result, but you’ve got the choice of sacrificing performance to run quieter. Creator mode was
a little quieter than gaming mode in this test, but I found it to vary, rising up to
match gaming mode at times.
Overall I think the advanced model of the Razer Blade 15 with these specs is performing
alright in terms of thermals considering its size, there’s no thermal throttling even
under combined CPU and GPU stress test outside of balanced mode, however this seems to be
due to power limitations that restrict performance as a result, it’s always going to be a trade
off. I was a bit sad to see that while under CPU only loads the performance would not further
boost up like many other laptops do, given there seemed to be thermal headroom available,
however that sort of thing could be improved in a future BIOS update.
The 230 watt power brick didn’t seem to be adequate while gaming for longer periods
of time, it depends on the game but I did see the battery slowly drop below 95% and
it was discharging further while playing, although this didn’t seem to lower performance.
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.
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.
Undervolting and raising the fan speed is much easier for most people to do, and as
we've seen it did improve performance in the Razer Blade gaming laptop. A cooling pad can
help a little too if you want even better temperatures, but as there was no thermal
throttling in gaming or creator modes don’t expect it to improve much unless perhaps you’re
in a hot environment.
Let me know how much of a performance boost you’ve found by undervolting your hardware
and what you thought of the improvements here, and course don’t forget to subscribe for
the full review of the Razer Blade gaming laptop as well as future thermal testing videos
like this one.