The Razer Blade 2018 and ASUS Zephyrus M are quite similar in many aspects, both are thin
and powerful gaming laptops, but which should you buy?
This comparison will show you the differences between them and help you decide which one
to pick.
First let’s check out the differences in specs.
Both laptops have the same Intel i7-8750H 6 core CPU, but the memory configurations
are a little different in my units.
The Zephyrus that I tested with had 32gb of DDR4-2666 memory while the blade had 16gb.
This will of course vary based on the specific model you buy, but I don’t think this much
will be an issue when we compare gaming benchmarks, both laptops are running dual channel memory
at the same speed, a more important factor than overall size after the 16gb mark in my
opinion.
The graphics are also different between the two.
The blade has the Max-Q version of Nvidia’s 1070 while the Zephyrus has the regular non
Max-Q 1070, so just based on this I’m expecting the Zephyrus to perform a little better in
games, but we’ll see that soon in the benchmarks.
These power the 15.6” 1080p 144Hz panels which are in both laptops.
For storage both laptops had a 512gb NVMe SSD in their single M.2 slots, however the
Zephyrus also had a 1TB hard drive as it has a single 2.5” drive bay, while the Razer
blade doesn’t have a 2.5” drive bay at all.
For network connectivity both also have support for 802.11ac WiFi, and Bluetooth version 5,
but neither have ethernet ports, so if you want one you’ll need to use a dongle.
Both laptops are solid aluminium, the lid of the zephyrus is a brushed metal while the
blade is matte black, while the interior of both are also matte black.
Overall both look quite nice and sleek, the design of the blade was perhaps a little more
blocky although neither had any sharp corners or edges.
As for size differences the blade is a fair bit smaller than the zephyrus in all dimensions,
although they’re fairly similar in height.
The Zephyrus gets a bit higher once you open the lid, as the bottom panel rises it up to
help improve airflow.
As for the weight differences they’re fairly close together, but again the blade is lighter
here as it’s smaller, and this doesn’t change much when we include the 230 watt power
bricks and cables for charging.
As for the I/O, on the left both laptops have the power input, USB 3.1 Type-A ports, three
on the Zephyrus and two on the blade, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack, otherwise the Zephyrus
has its HDMI 2.0 output here.
On the right both have another USB 3.1 Type-A port, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C ports with Thunderbolt
3 support, and Kensington lock, otherwise the Blade has its HDMI 2.0b output on this
side but also a mini DisplayPort 1.4 output.
On the back the blade looks all smooth, the air exhaust vents face down towards the bottom
while the zephyrus has its vents in clear view.
The front of both are also quite smooth, some green status LEDs on the blade and ASUS branding
on the zephyrus.
Up on the lids the Zephyrus has a brushed metal finish with the ROG logo on the side,
which lights up in red while the laptop is powered on, while the Blade’s is matte black
with the Razer logo in the center which lights up in green while running.
Underneath the Blade has traditional air intake vents towards the back while the Zephyrus
is all smooth due to its unique cooling design.
The Zephyrus has its two speakers under here towards the front corners, while the Blade
has its speakers up on top on either side of the keyboard, although they take up quite
a bit of space, neither sounded above average.
Back on the bottom the panels can be removed fairly easily, there’s a bit more going
on with the Zephyrus as you first remove the metal base.
This plate gets pushed up by metal feet in the rear corners when you open the lid of
the laptop which forces it upwards, and this is how the fans are able to get air.
After removing the first plate the rest of the base can be removed.
Inside we get easy access to the single M.2 slots, two memory slots, and WiFi cards.
Note that the Zephyrus has a single 2.5 inch drive bay for a hard drive, while there’s
no room for one in the Blade.
The screens of both laptops are also pretty similar, both are 15.6 inch 1080p panels with
a 144Hz refresh rate, although the Zephyrus also has G-Sync while the Blade does not.
The blade uses an LG IPS panel while the Zephyrus has an AUO AHVA panel.
The Blade has a much thinner bezel too, just 4.9mm thin while the one in the Zephyrus is
noticeably thicker, but despite this both still have the camera up the top, and quality
was slightly better on the Blade.
I’ve measured colour gamuts using the Spyder 5 Pro, the results were very close together
but the Zephyrus was just slightly ahead here.
The brightness of the blade was only just slightly higher, while the Zephyrus was slightly
ahead in contrast ratio, overall quite similar though, I’d happily use either for gaming
or content creation no problem.
As for backlight bleed the Zephyrus looked pretty good, just some minor imperfections
under this worst case test.
The results from the Blade appear to be much worse, but to my own eyes it was actually
difficult to see this even in the dark, I couldn’t notice it under normal conditions
anyway, but this will of course vary between laptops.
Screen flex was minimal with both laptops due to the metal build, although the blade
was a bit more solid as the hinge is basically most the length of the screen while the Zephyrus
just has small hinges towards the corners.
Both keyboards had RGB backlighting available, however the lighting of the Zephyrus is controlled
in 4 separate zones while the Blade has individual key backlighting, giving it more lighting
effects and customization options.
There was no numpad on the Blade too, which I personally prefer as I don’t use it and
it allows the keyboard to be centered.
I had no problems typing with either keyboard, although I didn’t really like the smaller
arrow keys on the Zephyrus.
There wasn’t much flex with either keyboard while pushing down hard, a little more with
the Zephyrus as the Blade has that solid metal unibody.
The touchpads in both laptops were very nice to use, both use precision drivers and were
extremely smooth to the touch.
The touchpad on the Blade was quite large compared to the smaller one on the Zephyrus
which I found preferable.
As for the batteries the 80 watt hour battery in the Blade was quite a bit bigger than the
55 watt hour battery in the Zephyrus.
It’s also important to note that having G-Sync enabled on the Zephyrus will cause
the Nvidia discrete graphics to be in use all of the time, so outside of gaming this
will result in less battery life as it uses more power to run compared to the Intel integrated
graphics.
It is possible to turn G-Sync off through the software, but this requires a reboot which
can be annoying, but as shown will boost battery life.
There’s no real difference in gaming with or without G-Sync as the Nvidia graphics are
in use the entire time anyway.
Either way the larger battery in the Razer blade is lasting quite a bit longer, likely
helped by the Max-Q graphics which will use less power.
Thermal testing was completed with an ambient room temperature of 18 degrees Celsius, it
was winter while testing was completed so expect warmer temperatures in a warmer environment.
It’s also worth noting with the Blade gaming mode was enabled, which boosts the clock speeds
a little, as realistically if you’re gaming on it I think you’d be using this mode.
Starting down the bottom of graph the idle CPU and GPU temperatures in green and blue
were quite a bit warmer on the blade.
Moving up into the gaming tests, which were tested with PUBG at high settings, the Blade
was again hotter, and both dropped quite a bit with the fans maxed out and CPUs undervolted.
The Blade had a -0.140v undervolt applied, while the Zephyrus had a -0.090v undervolt
applied, these were the best I could get, and the results will vary between each CPU.
Stress testing was run with Aida64 and the Heaven benchmark run at the same time in order
to try and fully utilize both the processor and graphics.
Starting with the purple bars the Zephyrus was again slightly cooler, and the graphics
were significantly cooler here, shown in dark blue.
Interestingly, the CPU temperatures increase, shown by the black bar, with the CPU undervolt
applied, I suppose because this boosted the clock speeds so more was being done.
It’s worth noting that the graphics in my blade were basically maxing out at 90 degrees
Celsius in most of my testing, from what I’ve seen in other reviews this isn’t always
the case, so my unit may just have had poor contact between the heatsink and GPU die.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown, in general we can see
that the Zephyrus is coming out ahead of the Blade in both CPU and GPU clock speeds, for
a couple of reasons.
Firstly, as already shown it’s running cooler, but secondly I also didn’t have CPU power
limit throttling present with the Zephyrus, whereas I did on the Blade.
Here are the average CPU clock speeds while under a CPU only load, again no change in
the Zephyrus with or without undervolting, and we’re able to reach the full 3.9GHz
all core turbo speed of the 8750H CPU, however in the Blade that wasn’t possible, even
with the undervolt applied due to power limit throttling.
To try and demonstrate this practically, here’s how both laptops scored in Cinebench, a CPU
benchmark.
Again as there’s no throttling with the Zephyrus in this test it’s getting full
scores, whereas the Blade is a fair bit behind at stock, but it can almost catch up while
undervolted.
Here are the average GPU clock speeds while under a graphical only workload, there’s
not much difference with the Blade as the stock speed is with it using its gaming mode,
either way the results of the 1070 in the Zephyrus are a fair bit higher than the Max-Q
graphics in the Blade.
As for the external areas where you’ll actually be touching, the blade was a little warmer,
almost getting to 40 degrees celsius, while the Zephyrus was in the low 30s.
In these tests you’ll want to look at the number readouts rather than the colours, as
different temperature scales were used.
While gaming the Blade went into the mid 50s in the center and was warm to the touch, while
the Zephyrus was in the mid 40s, and both had cooler spots right on the WASD keys, and
then fairly similar results with both laptops under CPU and GPU stress tests.
As for the fan noise produced by the laptops, I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle the Blade was louder, while the fans in the Zephyrus were pretty much silent.
While gaming the blade was again a fair bit louder, and then with the stress tests running
they were closer together.
With the fans maxed out the Zephyrus was slightly louder, though as we saw it also ran quite
a bit cooler.
Finally let’s take a look at some gaming benchmarks, all games were run at 1080p, the
native resolution of the displays.
Keep in mind that the Zephyrus has Nvidia 1070 graphics, while the Blade uses the 1070
Max-Q, so we’re expecting the Zephyrus to come out slightly ahead in all tests.
Also again remember the Blade has gaming mode enabled in all tests, which overclocks it
a little.
Fortnite was tested before I started using the replay feature, so there may be some slight
variance between each test run, although I was in the same area attempting to do the
same things.
In any case, the Zephyrus is ahead of the blade, performing 17% better at max settings
for the average FPS.
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical benchmark, and with all settings maxed out the zephyrus
was around 22% ahead of the blade in terms of average frame rate and 13% better in terms
of 1% low, although we're seeing high frame rates with either laptop.
Overwatch was tested playing with the bots, and although the Zephyrus was ahead for the
most part in terms of averages, it was slightly behind when it came to 1% lows at almost all
setting levels, but again the game played very well with either laptop regardless of
setting.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, there wasn't that much of a difference at
higher settings between the two in terms of averages, the Zephyrus was just 6% better
at ultra settings, while the blade was ahead in everything at medium or below.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested using the built in benchmark, the zephyrus was just a little
ahead of the blade in all tests in this title, performing 7% better at ultra settings
Assassin's Creed Origins was also tested with the built in benchmark, once more the Zephyrus
is ahead in all tests, although just a small 2% improvement to the average frame rates
at max settings, but perhaps more importantly a 14% improvement to the 1% low, and the zephyrus
pulls out further ahead at lower settings.
Far Cry 5 was again tested with the built in benchmark, and again the Zephyrus is out
in front with the gap widening at the lower setting levels.
At ultra settings it's averaging just 5% better than the razer blade.
Dota 2 was tested using an intense replay, note that this benchmark does not represent
real game play, you'll see higher performance while actually playing a game, it's meant
to represent a worst case scenario.
At max settings the Zephyrus was just 6% ahead of the blade.
In Rise of the Tomb raider with the built in benchmark the Zephyrus was 13% ahead at
max settings, unfortunately the newer shadow of the tomb raider wasn't out yet when I had
these laptops for testing, but in any case both were performing quite well in this game.
Shadow of war was also tested by running the game's built in benchmark, and surprise surprise,
the Zephyrus is coming out ahead again, just 9% better at ultra settings compared to the
blade.
Ghost Recon is a fairly resource intensive game, and both laptops performed pretty similarly
here, trading blows with each other depending on the setting level in use, and at ultra
the Zephyrus was just 3% ahead of the Blade.
Watchdogs 2 is another demanding game.
At ultra settings though there was almost no difference to the averages, while the 1%
low was a little behind.
Battlefield 1 was tested during the first campaign mission, for the most part the Zephyrus
is ahead, although in terms of average FPS at ultra settings it was just slightly behind,
although very close, pretty much margin of error territory, although the 1% lows are
11% ahead here.
The witcher 3 gave me the strangest results out of all games tested, the blade was actually
winning by quite a substantial amount at all settings other than when fully maxed out at
ultra, not sure why that was the case.
Ashes of the singularity was tested using the built in benchmark, and again the Zephyrus
was out in front at all setting levels, giving us a fairly large 17% improvement at max settings.
Overall both laptops are performing quite well in all games, realistically they’re
both great gaming laptops, but as we’ve seen the Zephyrus was on average better.
This graph shows how much percent the Zephyrus is ahead of the Blade in each game with the
settings maxed out, almost 8% better on average based on the games I’ve tested, but it will
vary between games.
We’ll just quickly look at the hard drive speeds, as this may be irrelevant as both
laptops are available with different drive configurations, either way they both support
NVMe PCIe storage.
Faster reads for the Zephyrus, but faster writes for the Blade.
Here are the results from the 1TB 5,400RPM hard drive in the Zephyrus, again worth noting
the Blade doesn’t have a 2.5” drive bay so you’ve only got the single M.2 slot for
storage.
Now perhaps the most important difference, the price.
This will change over time, so check out the links in the description for up to date pricing.
At the time of recording though, with comparable specs the Razer Blade is around $200 USD more
expensive than the ASUS Zephyrus.
This is with the most apples to apples specs possible too, both with 256GB SSD’s and
16GB of memory, although the Zephyrus does also have a 1TB hard drive.
Between the two laptops I’m personally leaning towards the ASUS Zephyrus, it’s got a better
graphics card giving it an edge in games and despite this it’s still a little cheaper
when compared with the Razer Blade.
The Zephyrus also has better cooling due to its custom cooling solution where the base
lifts the body up, and it also didn’t have any power limit throttling on the CPU like
the Blade did.
The Zephyrus also has room for a 2.5” drive bay while the blade does not.
Sure the blade is a little smaller, thinner, and looks nicer with those trim bezels, but
in terms of performance it’s not quite as good for more money, it’s only really coming
out ahead when it comes to battery life.
So which of these two laptops would you guys pick?
The Razer Blade or ASUS Zephyrus?
Let me know what you guys thought down in the comments, and let me know what other laptops
you want to see compared, as this video was made due to a high number of requests.
Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to subscribe for future comparisons and tech
videos like this one.