Gadgetory

welcome back to hardware box today I'm giving Razer a second chance the last time I reviewed one of their high-end gaming laptops which I believe was the Razer Blade from mid 2018 the laptop was slower than expected given the components inside thanks to a power limit on the CPU in particular plus it ran hot and loud and on top of all of that it was really expensive which just made it difficult to recommend but it's 2019 now and with new components from both Intel and NVIDIA I thought it was time to see if a new Razer design could improve upon the flaws of the previous generation now I'm not looking at the direct successor to the Razer Blade instead I've stepped up a size bracket and today's review is focused on the new Razer Blade Pro 17 with Intel Knights gen CPUs and RT X graphics so let's do a quick spec rundown first the CPU in all blade pro 17 models is the new six core Core i7 97 58 which I've tested previously the GPU is one of three options the r-tx 2060 r-tx 2070 max Q or RT X 20 a.m. XQ depending on how much you want to spend my unit came with the mid-tier 27 t option and then for ram we have 16 gigabytes of dual-channel ddr2 of gigabytes of PCIe storage as standard both upgradable plus a 17.3 inch 1080p 144 Hertz display pricing is still quite expensive the base model with the r-tx 2060 starts at 2500 US dollars then increases to 2800 and $3,200 if you want the 2017 max Q or 2080 max Q respectively I'll talk more about value at the end one of the big reasons you'd buy a razor laptop is the design the blade pro 17 for 2019 is as sleek and well crafted as ever with a fantastic metal unibody encompassing the base and lid the minimalist all-black design is a huge fingerprint magnet but I still think it stands alone at the top as the best slim and light performance laptop design at least from a visual standpoint it seriously looks amazing and is built from premium materials that match its price tag these days razor isn't as laser focused on size as they once were at they've recognized that to achieve what they want to achieve they really can't be the outright slimmest or lightest gaming notebook the blade Pro 17 isn't massive by any stretch but it is 2.7 kilograms heavy which is average by modern standards although it's 20 millimeter thick chassis is certainly still impressive as for functionality while I do appreciate the refreshed hinge design which is sturdy strong and smooth there are slim bezels around the display but the webcam is still located above it and it supports Windows hello which I always appreciate for ports we're getting 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet which is a nice inclusion and not common among gaming laptops plus 3 USB 3.2 gen to type-a ports I found about 3 port another USB 3.1 gen2 type-c port HDMI 2.0 P and an SD card reader the keyboard look I'm not a huge fan of it the travel distance isn't great and the overall tactile feel is a bit weak plus the layout just feels cramped the spacebar for example is truncated as is left control mostly to fit in the arrow keys I like the perky RGB backlighting but I don't think I'd want to do any sort of extensive typing on this sort of laptop keyboard obviously a key mission here is the lack of a numpad most 17 inch laptops do come with a numpad especially in this class although Razer has instead dedicated that space to large speakers on either side of the keyboard the speaker's a decent Pro laptop probably won't blow you away but I'm sure some people would have preferred the numpad that said the massive trackpad is excellent one of the best available in current laptops all right let's talk performance here and first up I just want to make mention of the different performance options Razer operas through their sign apps software the default mode is bounced which actually keeps the CPU in a down configured TDP state of 35 watts compared to the standard 45 watts for the i7 9750 H while the CPU reports the pl-1 and PL 2 limits as 60 watts and 80 watts respectively in practice this mode is limited to appeal 1 of 35 watts and PL 2 of 45 watts as for the GPU it's kept to stock r-tx between 70 max-q clocks in its 90 watt configuration so it's clocked a little higher by default compared to regular artx to a 70 max cues and boy Nvidia did a number on naming for these parts in this bounce mode you have the option between auto and manual fan speeds really didn't see much difference here in terms of performance if you do choose to limit the fan speeds to reduce noise levels GPU clocks do drop slightly through GPU boost that's the only real change you can make with the fair slider the other option you have is a custom performance mode which gives you an option of either low medium or high for the CPU and GPU medium is the default option so if you put it up too high this is where things start to get interesting the CPUs power limit increases significantly to around a 54 watt pl-1 and 75 watt pl2 so that's in line with other i7 9750 edge gaming systems the GPU in this mode gets a 100 megahertz overclock to both the core and memory as well where performance junkies here at hardware box so for testing this laptop as per our standard practices I said the Razer Blade pro 17 to its high performance mode I honestly didn't notice much of an increase in noise output with this mode selected the fans didn't seem to ramp up more than under the auto fan mode but performance is significantly higher so I'd recommend it for all buyers given that I've covered the core i7 97 58 extensively in a separate video here I'm only going to talk about how the blade pro 17 CPU performs in a summary if you want a full performance breakdown across a variety of tasks it's worth checking out that review the good news is the blade pro 17 in its high performance mode performs similar to the night-sun 50 edge test systems I've looked at previously in fact in general it's just a few percent slower and that can be attributed to a slightly higher appeal to limit for the laptops I used in my initial testing not a big deal the performance differences fluctuate depending on the test and overall it's close to margin of error type stuff I'd say the blade pro 17 performs as expected here compared to our average core 78758 results the blade pro 17 is about 6 percent faster so a small step up in performance over last gen morals but as performance does vary between laptops there's no guarantee that this ninth gen system will provide a meaningful upgrade over 8th gen for most people I'd own the side of caution and suggest that if you are thinking of a single gen upgrade that you shouldn't expect an improvement and as always here's a quick comparison to older quad core laptop so that use the core i7 7700 HQ with a 6 core i7 nice mph were looking at over a 50% - performance in some multi-threaded tasks and double-digit gains - single thread performance if this is the upgrade you're making it's definitely worthwhile the GPU is where things start to get really interesting I've been quite critical of the ITX 370 max-q in the past in its stock configuration the 2070 max-q is significantly under clocked compared to the full laptop variant which itself is under clocked compared to the desktop card the end result is that while it carries an RT X 27 T name it's 30% slower than what desktop game is again and honestly it's not that much faster than last generation 1070 max-q systems but the razor blade Pro 17 is far from your typical RT X 2017 max-q laptop for starters it uses the higher clocked 90 watt variant of this GPU by default and then by setting the GPU to use its high performance mode it gains an additional 100 megahertz overclock when you add all these gains together the GPU ends up with a rated boost clock of 1405 megahertz that's significantly higher than the 1180 5 megahertz you get with the standard RT X 2070 max Q and just shy over the 1440 megahertz from the full laptop variant of the RT X 2070 we are still 13% lower clocked in a desktop card but this is a big improvement over the default artx 2070 max Q of course how is a regular buyer supposed to know the blade pro 17 comes with this overclocked wince of Emacs q well I put most of the blame here on Nvidia there shouldn't be an 80 watt and 90 watt version of this GPU that delivers different levels of performance but have the same name but I also think razer should advertise the variant and clock speed they are using because otherwise people might think their system is a lot slower than it really is anyway in terms of actual performance numbers the blade pro 17 is impressive it delivers on average the same performance as the full r-tx 2070 laptop variants so despite carrying max Q branding this system in its best configuration delivers performance that isn't throttled restricted or under clocked juda max Q that's a massive positive for buyers who might be nervous about getting lower performance from this max Q laptop versus full RT X 2070 systems to illustrate just how large this difference is between the default RT X 370 mm excu and the blade pro 17s overclocked 2070 max-q 91 he's the performance breakdown showing a 20% advantage 20% for two gps with the same name not a great situation for people who need to choose between different laptops but good news for buyers of this laptop it's a lot faster than you might expect I'm not sure how the r-tx 20 or 60 is configured in the blade pro 17 specifically but compared to previous laptops I've tested with this GPU the are text when 70 max Q 91 OC is around 26% faster on average that's in line with the difference between the 2060 and 2070 laptop variants because of course this razor laptop dev is basically the same performance as the 2070 laptop GPU we're also looking at 10% better performance than the default r-tx 20 80 max q yep that's right this our text where 70 max q actually outperforms a GPU that has a higher product name and should perform better when you look at raw performance the blade pro 17 is GPU configuration delivers around 6.47 teraflops compared to 6.45 teraflops for the default 228 max Q so the units I've tested have underperformed a little competitor where there should be but a great showing for the blade nonetheless as for the 90 watt variant of the 20 80 max q still 6% faster again the laptop I tested with that GP you might have underperformed but it's still highly impressive result for razor if you're coming from a standard gtx 1070 max Q laptop you can expect 36% better performance on average or from a standard GTX 1060 laptop you're looking at a huge 61% performance gain those are big improvements and would be worth while upgrades depending on how old your current system is I was pleasantly surprised with the thermal performance of this laptop the razor blade I looked out last year ran pretty hot given it used in the under clock CPU and just a gtx 1070 max q reaching 81 degrees on the GPU while gaming and 88 degrees on the cpu the blade pro 17 is not only faster but cooler the GPU sits at a much more manageable 71 degrees which is one of the best results i've seen from this generation of laptops CPU temperatures are average at 86 degrees unfortunately the blade pro 17 is still loud under operations I wouldn't say it's louder than other laptops that deliver similar cooling performance is around the same mark but it's still not a quiet system for gaming and the high-pitched cooler whine does get annoying I guess when positive here is that the loud cooler delivers cool components unlike some previous designs which were both loud and around hot which often led to throttling I'm pleased to report that there was no throttling whatsoever with this new laptop design what I'd really like to see he is better access to fan profile tuning through Razer synapse which could harness some of the available thermal Headroom in this design depending on the conditions when you set the CPU and GPU to run in the best-performing mode you lose access to the fan control so you can't simply tune down the fan speeds at the top end and run the GPU at say 80 degrees and serve 71 degrees a lot of laptops have this functionality but with the blade Pro if you want the best performance you'll have no choice but to put up with loud fans ideally we'd have a better way to harness the thermal Headroom at least with decent component temperatures the surface of the laptop doesn't get outrageously hot in key areas like prior designs alright let's quickly round this one out with a few other performance notes the SSD provided is a samsung PM 9 81 512 gigabyte model which performs well and there's an additional MDOT 2 slot internally for further upgrades if required the display is the 17.3 inch 1080p 144 hertz IPS panel this is a better than usual quality panel with a contrast ratio of over 1400 to one and color performance in the 2.0 to 2.5 Delta II range out of the box which is acceptable gamers I think will really appreciate the top-end refresh rate which is well suited to the hardware inside and finally we have battery life a video playback score of around 5 hours in our typical test is mediocre it's not a fantastic result for this sort of laptop but again it is similar to other gaming laptops with this sort of hardware so all up I'm impressed with what the Razer Blade pro 17 brings from a technical standpoint performance when set in the appropriate mode is better than advertised especially for the GPU which despite receiving max-q branding performs identically to the fully fledged laptop RTX 2070 namely confusion aside buyers should be really happy with how this laptop performs in productivity and gaming workloads performance isn't the only technical hurdle Razer has resolved compared to the last time I reviewed a race at gaming laptop dermals are improved although the laptop is still loud and I'd like to see more user control over fan speeds to make better use of the better cooler design the design is as excellent as ever 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet is a nice touch and the 1080p 144 Hertz display is great my only real nitpick here is the keyboard which is a tad mediocre in terms of value there's kind of two perspectives here as far as well-built slim and light gaming notebooks go I actually don't think the Razer Blade pro 17 is ridiculously expensive at twenty eight hundred dollars for the model I reviewed it's only $100 more than the similar msi gs70 five stealth with the r-tx twenty eighty max q while we are comparing r-tx between 70 max QR text 20 80 max Q I've tested both laptops and the blade is 7% faster despite having the lower GPU which is enough to justify the higher price tag and given this razor laptop basically sits in the RT X 28 Emacs q performance category or better where most equivalent offerings are at least 2500 US dollars I think the blade probe puts up a strong showing given its design performance and feature set it will come down to what you want and yes it is still expensive but I don't think it's anywhere near as outrageous as previous rows of laptops that I've slammed for poor value on the other hand to justify this sort of purchase you'll have to be really keen on the design and portability advantages of this classic notebook you can't get full RTX 2070 laptops with near identical performance to the play pro 17 for under $2000 these days sure they'll be thicker heavier systems in general with more basic designs but if you're just after performance than they are a better option that's it for this review of the razor blade Pro 17 we're winding down a laptop coverage until the next generation or something exciting comes along but you can still subscribe for a range of other PC hardware tests consider supporting us on patreon for all the usual perks like behind-the-scenes videos and monthly live streams and I'll catch you in the next one