Razer 15.6 review

[maflynn]

Well, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered the Razer blade 15.6. I had plenty of opportunities over the past few weeks, but dropping 2k on a laptop kept holding me back. I ordered it Sunday and it arrived today. What surprised me, is while the original delivery daye was today, Fed-Ex tried to drop it off yesterday.

The model I ordered was the 1060/144Hz/512GB model, not the low end, but not the high end either. I don't think I needed the power of the Nvidia 1070, and I'm hoping by going with the 1060, I'll have less heat isssues.

Here's my initial impression. I'll update this thread later with the stress test and battery tests when I have the time run those tests.

The fit and finish of the laptop exudes quality, very mac like in that sense. It feels solid and premium. I can see this maybe being a fingerprint magnet, but I can skin it, if it bothers me too much.

The fans are noticable, I guess I was spoiled with the MBP near silent operation. I've adjusted the power settings to 80% on AC and 70% on battery and the temps are averaging about 40c for normal stuff like installing apps. I suspect I was overly aggressive on the power setting but I'll play with them later.

I also adjusted the refresh rate from 144Hz to 60Hz. Friday, or late Thursday I'll probably run a run down test on the battery to see how it does. I expect to get close to 7 to 9 hours based on the settings I've applied. If I'm going to play a game or two, I'll reset those settings to squeeze out more performance.

The screen is gorgeous, its a matte screen and its been so long since I had it, I'm extremely happy. The trackpad feels solid and well made, very mac like in its performance.

Others have complained about the buzzing in the power brick. Mine has it as well, its not loud or terribly noticable. I have a worse buzzing from a pair of speakers that I use for my iMac.

I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not 100% sold on keeping it, I'll put it through its paces and then make a determination. I'm not leaving the Mac world either, I'll still have an iMac, but this machine has a lot advantages, It may not take too much of a push to make the razer my main machine and demote the iMac

Don't get me wrong, there are some nice things living in the Apple ecosystem which is why I'm not 100% on keeping it, such as Airdrop, I easily transferred the images below to my iMac thanks to airdrop. There's other advantages as well

More to follow, but here's some eye candy, though the picture doesn't do justice to chroma on the keyboard

 

[SteveJUAE]

Congrats enjoy

Put Icloud for windows on and that will help synch photos etc

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Enjoy, that is a beauty. I am interested in hearing how it holds up gaming. Does it throttle or heat up a lot?

 

[hajime]

The case is nice to touch and the keyboard is very cool with those LEDs.

I am interested in knowing more about the heat/fan and battery life.

It seems to be noisy at least for the 1070 model (see 8:00). If I want silent laptop, is it better to choose the MBP 2017 13" even I don't like the keyboard?

 

[maflynn]

It seems to be noisy at least for the 1070 model (see 8:00).

The fans seem to be aggressive in spinning up, not up to max, but increasing in speed. I'm a little bothered by it, I want to do more investigating and using of the laptop.

As for the heat, the 1060 seems to run a cooler then what I've seen from youtube and user reviews. I haven't pushed it yet and I will. With reducing the power setting to 90%, I'm getting good performacne but also the thermals are even better then out of the box (which wasn't bad).

If I want silent laptop,

Then this is not for you, the fan noice is noticable. I'm on my iMac this morning, but I'll probably clear my desk and hook up the Razer to my Apple Cinema display and work off that and see how things progress.

 

[dumastudetto]

Fan noise is definitely hard to deal with once you've grown accustomed to the silence of MacBooks and iMacs. I was using a colleagues XPS 15 a few months ago and the fan was only lightly audible and it still pissed me off. I guess this is one of the trade-offs of using higher performance graphics cards and mobile CPUs, you'll have to put up with some fan noise?

 

[hajime]

The fans seem to be aggressive in spinning up, not up to max, but increasing in speed. I'm a little bothered by it, I want to do more investigating and using of the laptop.

As for the heat, the 1060 seems to run a cooler then what I've seen from youtube and user reviews. I haven't pushed it yet and I will. With reducing the power setting to 90%, I'm getting good performacne but also the thermals are even better then out of the box (which wasn't bad).


Then this is not for you, the fan noice is noticable. I'm on my iMac this morning, but I'll probably clear my desk and hook up the Razer to my Apple Cinema display and work off that and see how things progress.

Thanks. Maybe you can "chat" with Razer Blade tech support to seek advice on the set of parameters to use to optimize the fan speed.

 

[maflynn]

I've been working on it this morning.
I've been running prime95 pushing the CPU to 100% and the temps are excellent, I'm in high 60s to low 70s. My iMac doing nothing is sitting in the high 50s low 60s, so I'm very pleased.

I'm researching the how laptop measures up against others with the Firestrike benchmark. Its about 10,400, which seems respectable against other Intel Core i7-8750H GTX 1060. It does seem much lower then the GTX 1070, I wonder if the difference between the 1060 and 1070 is significant or whether its my laptop. I'd say since 3D Mark is showing similar numbers for the GTX 1060, its probably normal. I opted for the 1060 over the 1070, partly due to budget, but mostly because I wanted the lower end GPU because I'm not a huge gamer and felt it would produce less heat. I'd say that supposition turned out to be true.

The finish is excellent, as I mentioned above, with that said, I do wonder if the edge of the plug will scuff up the finish. Any port for that matter, but the power plug will be the one that gets added/removed the most

Fan noise is definitely hard to deal with once you've grown accustomed to the silence of MacBooks and iMacs.

I said the fans were noticeable. Its not a silent laptop, but I'm not annoyed by it - at least not yet. On battery the cooling logic is such that the fans are very quiet. Remember this laptop is using components that the MBP never had, so in some sense its comparing apples to oranges I can add 32GB of ram, I have a much faster GPU and a 6 core processor. Couple that with the fact that the ram, storage is upgrade-able means that I have a laptop that has a different cooling requirement then the MBP.

 

[hajime]

Some youtube reviewers mentioned about backlight bleeding. Any such issue on you laptop?

 

[Queen6]

My own Asus S7BS8750 has fan/performance profiles with Silent limiting the CPU/GPU which results in the fans completely shutting down under low loads and reduced RPM under moderate loads. Although performance is limited it still easily exceeds my 7700HQ notebooks. Flipping to Balanced allows for full performance of the CPU & GPU, Overboost mildly overclocking the GPU.

S7BS8750 is a different beast being a 17 incher with the larger chassis allowing Asus to maximise performance of the 8750H & GTX 1070, 32GB RAM & duel drives. CPU can spike into the 90's centigrade, however as the cooling solution spools up CPU core temp is rapidly pulled back to the region of 70C, equally Asus has employed three 12V with increased number of blades to accomplish this, with the 8750H pulling as much as 86 watts under the full load of Prime95 Small FFT stress test. GTX 1070 can easily pull over 120 watts under heavy loads with again excellent thermals.

Undervolting is must with such powerful notebooks ThrottleStop being my preferred tool, dropping the CPU Core & Cache voltage (-100mV / -150mV), reducing temperature, noise and in some cases improving performance. One can also set up profiles in ThrottleStop to also limit CPU performance reducing thermals and fan noise, extend battery life etc.

Latest BIOS update helping to get the most out of Intel's 8750H hex core CPU, happy to see Asus is not "sleeping at the wheel" with it's performance focused notebooks...

FWIW Windows 10 Pro 1803, fully up, not stripped down, potentially a little more to come...

Q-6

 

[maflynn]

Some youtube reviewers mentioned about backlight bleeding. Any such issue on you laptop?

I'm not really noticing anything

Let me just reemphasize that I'm like the screen, its gorgeous and the fact that I'm working on a matte screen pleases me to know end. I gotten used to the glossy display from Apple, but if I had my druthers, I'd want matte and here I have one.

I have a 14 day return period, and I'm putting the laptop through its paces. I'll probably know early next week which way I'll be leaning towards.

y own Asus S7BS8750 has fan/performance profiles with Silent limiting the CPU/GPU

The included app for Razer (Synapse), offers gaming mode and balanced. I'm not sure why they don't offer a silent mode for those times you're not gaming and don't want the fan noise.

I'll hope to test the battery later today, but right now I'm driving an external monitor, so I'll have to wait.

 

[dumastudetto]

I've been working on it this morning.
I've been running prime95 pushing the CPU to 100% and the temps are excellent, I'm in high 60s to low 70s. My iMac doing nothing is sitting in the high 50s low 60s, so I'm very pleased.

I'm researching the how laptop measures up against others with the Firestrike benchmark. Its about 10,400, which seems respectable against other Intel Core i7-8750H GTX 1060. It does seem much lower then the GTX 1070, I wonder if the difference between the 1060 and 1070 is significant or whether its my laptop. I'd say since 3D Mark is showing similar numbers for the GTX 1060, its probably normal. I opted for the 1060 over the 1070, partly due to budget, but mostly because I wanted the lower end GPU because I'm not a huge gamer and felt it would produce less heat. I'd say that supposition turned out to be true.

The finish is excellent, as I mentioned above, with that said, I do wonder if the edge of the plug will scuff up the finish. Any port for that matter, but the power plug will be the one that gets added/removed the most
View attachment 767156


I said the fans were noticeable. Its not a silent laptop, but I'm not annoyed by it - at least not yet. On battery the cooling logic is such that the fans are very quiet. Remember this laptop is using components that the MBP never had, so in some sense its comparing apples to oranges I can add 32GB of ram, I have a much faster GPU and a 6 core processor. Couple that with the fact that the ram, storage is upgrade-able means that I have a laptop that has a different cooling requirement then the MBP.

Yep what I said in my last message terms of the trade-off - you get more performance but some fan noise. If you want that performance, and those fans don't really bother you, it's obviously a good solution. I know there's certainly a segment of the MBP universe that wants more than 16GB RAM as an option too.

 

[Queen6]

I'm not really noticing anything

Let me just reemphasize that I'm like the screen, its gorgeous and the fact that I'm working on a matte screen pleases me to know end. I gotten used to the glossy display from Apple, but if I had my druthers, I'd want matte and here I have one.

I have a 14 day return period, and I'm putting the laptop through its paces. I'll probably know early next week which way I'll be leaning towards.


The included app for Razer (Synapse), offers gaming mode and balanced. I'm not sure why they don't offer a silent mode for those times you're not gaming and don't want the fan noise.

I'll hope to test the battery later today, but right now I'm driving an external monitor, so I'll have to wait.

Hear you on the matte display, a pleasure to work with especially if you not in a position to control the lighting. As for the fan noise potentially a trade off for the thinner chassis, with the fans being omnipresent even if the system cooling policy is set to passive.

You also have the Windows Power Mode slider, try dropping it to Better Battery Life while plugged in as this should also reduce performance without impairing basic productivity work.

Bottom line the lower the temp, the less fan noise and this is where ThrottleStop can help a lot, easily reducing max temperatures by 10C and more.

Q-6

 

[SteveJUAE]

You also have the Windows Power Mode slider, try dropping it to Better Battery Life while plugged in as this should also reduce performance without impairing basic productivity work.

Q-6

Exactly never heard a peep let alone a woosh out of my SB2 for normal productivity.

The only noise I here from a laptop is the wife's clickity clack KB of her rMB lol

 

[maflynn]

even if the system cooling policy is set to passive.

I fixed the fan noise issue. It seems like that not only do want to make power setting changes in the control panel (where I can set the cooling to passive), but also right clicking the battery icon on the lower right hand and selecting best battery mode for the power mode.

 

[simpalbe]

I also pulled the trigger on a Razer Blade 15 and am loving it so far. I was in the market for a new MBP 15 and decided to give the Blade a try before going down the route of keyboardgate.

My temps are really good: 35-45 C on idle with no fan noise (this is after all the updates). I play Fortnite and Diablo 3 on max settings. While playing Fortnite temps stay steady at 75 C which is pretty good compared to the MSI GS65 I tried. Diablo 3 is in the 60's.

With chroma lighting turned off and the computer on Better Battery, screen at 60HZ, I'm at 7-8 hours of battery life browsing and typing up some emails (this really surprise me).

This thing is blazing fast and would be more than enough for me. My biggest question within my 30 day return period is longevity. The chassis gets pretty hot while gaming (albeit I'm not a hardcore gamer) so I am a bit worried about how the battery will react over time. Not only that, but the display cable I believe is located on the vapor chamber . . . yeah. If I do keep it, I am definitely getting Microsoft's warranty no question about it. IF not, I'll probably just bite the bullet and grab a MBP 15. While the keyboard is an issue of course, I can just take it into the Apple Store down the street.

I do have a 2015 MB 12'' and it still works great so if I did decide to keep the Blade I do still have a fully capable MacBook for my need.

To be completely honest: I did not expect the Razer to "woo" me so much. I really wanted to satisfy my curiosity and give this thing a fair shot, and at the moment I am more than impressed by battery life, thermal management, build quality and having the latest hardware.

Remember to undervolt!

 

[Queen6]

I fixed the fan noise issue. It seems like that not only do want to make power setting changes in the control panel (where I can set the cooling to passive), but also right clicking the battery icon on the lower right hand and selecting best battery mode for the power mode.

I'd advise setting the Power settings to default, Better Battery Life setting will take care of the rest.

Q-6
[doublepost=1529598098][/doublepost]

Remember to undervolt!

Asus S7BS8750 (GL703GS) 8570H, GTX 1070 undervolt stable down to -150mV, however due Asus's implementation of a Silent profile that also drops VID reducing PL-1 from 45W to 35W, pulled back the undervolt to -140mV, super stable. blisteringly fast.

Using ThrottleStop 8.60, Adaptive voltage unlocked for CPU Core & Cache, rest stock barring releasing Clamp on PL-1

Q-6

 

[SteveJUAE]

I'm researching the how laptop measures up against others with the Firestrike benchmark. Its about 10,400, which seems respectable against other Intel Core i7-8750H GTX 1060. It does seem much lower then the GTX 1070, I wonder if the difference between the 1060 and 1070 is significant or whether its my laptop. I'd say since 3D Mark is showing similar numbers for the GTX 1060, its probably normal. I opted for the 1060 over the 1070, partly due to budget, but mostly because I wanted the lower end GPU because I'm not a huge gamer and felt it would produce less heat. I'd say that supposition turned out to be true..

Not that I take benchmarks particularly in to great consideration but my humble quad core SB2 15" even with a warning on graphics drivers and no fancy settings came in at 8770 FYI so your 10400 looks very respectable

 

[maflynn]

Not that I take benchmarks particularly in to great consideration but my humble quad core SB2 15" even with a warning on graphics drivers and no fancy settings came in at 8770 FYI so your 10400 looks very respectable

I'm not a benchmark person, but on the razer forum, a small subset of owners incurred some issues where running those benchmarks had very low settings and very high heat. They got their machines exchanged, but I wanted to be sure to validate that this laptop didn't have that issue. I will say that while the GTX 1060 is less powerful then the 1070, I'm very pleased that its thermal results are better then the 1070. I'm running a lot cooler then some of the other reviews I've read.

My biggest question within my 30 day return period is longevity.

To my knowledge its only a 14 day return period - unless you bought it from someone other then Razer.com

 

[dk001]

Thanks and nice info. Been looking at this oft and on but haven't pulled the trigger.
Personally I am waiting and hoping that Razer actually does come out with the Linda.

 

[simpalbe]

I'm not a benchmark person, but on the razer forum, a small subset of owners incurred some issues where running those benchmarks had very low settings and very high heat. They got their machines exchanged, but I wanted to be sure to validate that this laptop didn't have that issue. I will say that while the GTX 1060 is less powerful then the 1070, I'm very pleased that its thermal results are better then the 1070. I'm running a lot cooler then some of the other reviews I've read.


To my knowledge its only a 14 day return period - unless you bought it from someone other then Razer.com

I got it from Microsoft.

 

[maflynn]

I got it from Microsoft.

Oh they offer a 30 day return period?

 

[hajime]

Oh they offer a 30 day return period?

Yes

 

[maflynn]

I'm starting to compare how the RB15 is against my 2012 rMBP and 2015 iMac.

Building 100 1:1 previews in Lightroom, the RazerBlade took about 1:20. the 6 year old laptop just about 2 minutes, and the iMac just a hair under 2:30. I'm not surprised in some ways that the iMac came in last, only because my images are stored on a spinning hard drive, so you need to factor that into the equation.

While doing the work, both the iMac and RB15's fans spun up as the heat increased (CPU was near 100%). The iMac's temps peaked at 65 as did the RazerBaldes. I didn't have any temperature app on my MBP, but the fans were not noticable at all.

Visually, the iMac's display is superior to that of the RB15 and of course I have a 25" display vs. 15" so there's really no comparison that its better to do my work on the iMac. Of course I don't take my iMac with me when I'm traveling or in a mobile situation - that would be awkward

 

[kazmac]

@maflynn and @Queen6 thank you and everyone else for the intelligent and thoughtful reviews. My 2013 iMac was just crippled by a virus from school related work and my existing Acer laptop is hobbling due to W10 upgrades and is just not enough to get through this degree.

Windows is quite foreign to me, but if I could learn how to troubleshoot and back up, I think I might try a gaming laptop since I need video and photo conversion software running. Added bonus would be stylus for art since my iDevices are also unpredictable. Apple just is not making anything I want to spend money on so I appreciate these threads (and @Queen6 being so wonderful with me in private conversations last year).

Regarding reviewers, I like David and Lisa a lot, but I am completely lost as far as preparing to move platforms, any ideas where I could get up to speed?

The Razer is a nice laptop and I have been thinking about that and the HP spectre. I hope I am not hijacking the thread, but I would appreciate some pointers and suggestions. Dell is off limits for me, had a bad experience at he beginning of 2017 and will not go back.

Please keep the reviews and discussions coming.

Thanks in advance,