New Razer Blade (2016 - GTX 1060)

[rf9661]

Hello,

 

I'm looking into purchasing the Razer Blade that was recently released with the GTX 1060. I would be using that laptop for school work, lots of YouTube, and gaming when on the go (not very frequent). I would need it to be able to play CS:GO, Minecraft, and LoL at 1080p 45FPS. Please let me know if this laptop should be able to do that.

 

Regards,

Richard

[evilarceus]

With the games you'll be playing, definitely will be able to.

[rf9661]

Just now, evilarceus said:

With the games you'll be playing, definitely will be able to.

How would you say the battery life on it is, for normal use, web browsing...

[evilarceus]

3 minutes ago, rf9661 said:

How would you say the battery life on it is, for normal use, web browsing...

Haven't actually used the laptop for myself, but this could help you:

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/10704-razer-blade-14-2016-review/#a6

 

EDIT: Link is for GTX 970M, nvrm

[Taswell]

you could play much more complex games on that laptop and still get 45fps

[BuckGup]

7 minutes ago, rf9661 said:

How would you say the battery life on it is, for normal use, web browsing...

Probably like 4-6 hours

[D2ultima]

2 hours ago, rf9661 said:

Hello,

 

I'm looking into purchasing the Razer Blade that was recently released with the GTX 1060. I would be using that laptop for school work, lots of YouTube, and gaming when on the go (not very frequent). I would need it to be able to play CS:GO, Minecraft, and LoL at 1080p 45FPS. Please let me know if this laptop should be able to do that.

 

Regards,

Richard

It can... but don't waste your money on it.

 

Get a P650RP6 instead. It'll be significantly cheaper and should last about 5 hours or so on battery during low usage like web browsing etc (when in Optimus mode, in dGPU mode it'll be much shorter).

[rf9661]

40 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

It can... but don't waste your money on it.

 

Get a P650RP6 instead. It'll be significantly cheaper and should last about 5 hours or so on battery during low usage like web browsing etc (when in Optimus mode, in dGPU mode it'll be much shorter).

Then I'll probably end up going with that Razer Blade. I've spent around 2 months looking for a notebook from companies like MSI, Asus, Razer, Origin PC, and Acer. But I needed something that could game, was light, and would look sleek. Although Razer's customer support isn't the best, its better than Asus'.

[D2ultima]

1 minute ago, rf9661 said:

Then I'll probably end up going with that Razer Blade. I've spent around 2 months looking for a notebook from companies like MSI, Asus, Razer, Origin PC, and Acer. But I needed something that could game, was light, and would look sleek. Although Razer's customer support isn't the best, its better than Asus'.

It's really a waste of money. If you prefer form over function, though, then do as you like.

[rf9661]

Just now, D2ultima said:

It's really a waste of money. If you prefer form over function, though, then do as you like.

Would you know anything else though that could game, looks stealthy, and is light? Thats why Ive come to the conclusion of the Razer, most gaming laptops are around 8 lbs.

[D2ultima]

Just now, rf9661 said:

Would you know anything else though that could game, looks stealthy, and is light? Thats why Ive come to the conclusion of the Razer, most gaming laptops are around 8 lbs.

I suggested the P650RP6 already. It's under 6 pounds, has about 5 hours or more battery life on light use (in optimus mode), won't overheat (unlike the razer), doesn't have soldered RAM (unlike the Razer), has two 2.5" SATA III drives & two M.2 slots for storage (unlike the Razer, which has a single M.2 slot with no heatsink), and is rather slim. It also starts at under $1300, rather than the $2000+ of the blade. http://www.hidevolution.com/evoc-p650rp6-15-6-custom-built-gaming-laptop-w-nvidia-gtx-1060-w-g-sync.html

[Pendragon]

19 minutes ago, D2ultima said:

I suggested the P650RP6 already. It's under 6 pounds, has about 5 hours or more battery life on light use (in optimus mode), won't overheat (unlike the razer), doesn't have soldered RAM (unlike the Razer), has two 2.5" SATA III drives & two M.2 slots for storage (unlike the Razer, which has a single M.2 slot with no heatsink), and is rather slim. It also starts at under $1300, rather than the $2000+ of the blade. http://www.hidevolution.com/evoc-p650rp6-15-6-custom-built-gaming-laptop-w-nvidia-gtx-1060-w-g-sync.html

The Razer fanboism is too fucking real. Can you make a guide on how NOT to buy their products until they fix them?

[D2ultima]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

The Razer fanboism is too fucking real. Can you make a guide on how NOT to buy their products until they fix them?

They're not going to fix them. Why would nVidia put actual effort if the world shoves money up their nenen 24/7 and AMD refuses to compete? Same thing. Why would Razer actually do something when the whole world loves them. I keep trying to explain to people that there's no product of theirs I can find that realistically is worth a buy. The ones that are decent like their mice are too expensive and better alternatives exist for cheaper prices. Their mic is bad. Their cap card is a marked up Avermedia LGX. Their headsets are all trash. Their laptops aren't worth a first glance. But people keep buying them, and I keep getting downvoted on /r/pcmr the minute I say anything negative about a razer laptop or mouse or their keyboard.

[Pendragon]

Just now, D2ultima said:

They're not going to fix them. Why would nVidia put actual effort if the world shoves money up their nenen 24/7 and AMD refuses to compete? Same thing. Why would Razer actually do something when the whole world loves them. I keep trying to explain to people that there's no product of theirs I can find that realistically is worth a buy. The ones that are decent like their mice are too expensive and better alternatives exist for cheaper prices. Their mic is bad. Their cap card is a marked up Avermedia LGX. Their headsets are all trash. Their laptops aren't worth a first glance. But people keep buying them, and I keep getting downvoted on /r/pcmr the minute I say anything negative about a razer laptop or mouse or their keyboard.

The power of marketing my friend. Marketing is real. People are far more concerned about how the product looks than performs cept for the people who actually need it to work. Then they complain laptops are overpriced and die easily because GG. 

[D2ultima]

Just now, Erik Sieghart said:

Hey man, I like their mouse mats.

.........

 

Touché

[Cycloned]

1 hour ago, D2ultima said:

They're not going to fix them. Why would nVidia put actual effort if the world shoves money up their nenen 24/7 and AMD refuses to compete? Same thing. Why would Razer actually do something when the whole world loves them. I keep trying to explain to people that there's no product of theirs I can find that realistically is worth a buy. The ones that are decent like their mice are too expensive and better alternatives exist for cheaper prices. Their mic is bad. Their cap card is a marked up Avermedia LGX. Their headsets are all trash. Their laptops aren't worth a first glance. But people keep buying them, and I keep getting downvoted on /r/pcmr the minute I say anything negative about a razer laptop or mouse or their keyboard.

Just a question, if their laptops have so many problems then why do reviews I see of their laptops always recommend them? Lots of YouTubers like Dave2D and LTT recommend them even after running benchmark tests and temperature tests. Of course they could be paid to say good stuff, but it can't be like that for all reviewers right?

 

Not trying to doubt what you're saying, but this forum is the only place I see razer laptops so heavily not recommended.

[Eason85]

I'm gonna get hate but Dave2D and LTT aren't the best reviewers. They both gloss over important data, such as CPU/GPU temperature under load.

[Pendragon]

1 hour ago, Cycloned said:

Lots of YouTubers like Dave2D and LTT recommend them even after running benchmark tests and temperature tests.

They casually mention thermal issues, when it's ALOT bigger issue. And then they spend their video telling you how beautiful the build is. 

 

Youtubers get the MOST cherry picked models with no quality control issues that the average customer might encounter. These said youtubers also rarely use it to game as a daily driver so they never run into the heat issues because it's mostly a office laptop for them. 

 

11 minutes ago, Eason85 said:

I'm gonna get hate but Dave2D and LTT aren't the best reviewers. They both gloss over important data, such as CPU/GPU temperature under load.

Agreed. 

 

1 hour ago, Cycloned said:

Not trying to doubt what you're saying, but this forum is the only place I see razer laptops so heavily not recommended.

Not really. NBR (NotebookReview) and TI (Tech Inferno), are two of the most knowledgable laptop forums. These things still get brought up time and time again and get shot down by people who know a thing. Just ask all those people who support buying a Razer Blade what does the CPU/GPU throttle to and what temps are the things at and how loud it is. 100% they don't know or think 95C or disabling turbo boost and thermal throttling is fine. 

[D2ultima]

1 minute ago, Cycloned said:

Just a question, if their laptops have so many problems then why do reviews I see of their laptops always recommend them? Lots of YouTubers like Dave2D and LTT recommend them even after running benchmark tests and temperature tests. Of course they could be paid to say good stuff, but it can't be like that for all reviewers right?

 

Not trying to doubt what you're saying, but this forum is the only place I see razer laptops so heavily not recommended.

For some reason, thermal throttling and saying bad things about laptops is like some kind of dirty little secret. Laptops kill turbo boost and drop CPU down to 2.5GHz when CPU & GPU stressed? Oh boy, why would we tell a consumer this, let's sweep it under the rug! Here: The first thing Linus does is bash his own blade... that he loves.

This of course comes after the fact that he gushed and pushed it as some amazing product in his initial reviews many months past, and after they've all sold tons of units largely due to his and other reviewers' recommendations. Other people ignore the bad. They don't check things properly. MSI's GS43VR has heatpipes nearly touching the wifi card slot and running over the un-cooled PCH (chipset), and TOUCHING the only HDMI slot, making the ports on that side of the machine extremely hot under stressed usage. Who says anything about not? Not a single fucking person. Apparently the GS40 it replaced had the same cooling design, which means it always was a problem. They basically designed the machine to not last long. The GS63VR and GS73VR both have the heatpipes basically touching the PCH. Again, nobody looks, nobody says anything about it.

 

OEM/ODM-specific list below; spoiler hidden due to length. I suggest reading it all.

ASUS models have extremely poor QA and QC. Their post-sale service and any attempt to get information about their own models from them is extremely difficult and often times futile. They've been known to use parts from previously-returned laptops to "fix" RMA'd ones. People would return their machines, be without it for weeks, and get it back with USB ports not working or the screen not turning on, etc. Their last gen top end model had garbage for thermal paste and needed removal of a plastic strip at the bottom to actually give the fans decent access to air before its cooling would actually do something, and even then it had a 75W hard limit of power draw for the 6820HK, which makes its "unlocked" overclocking hugely limited, especially since mobile skylake chips are all crap desktop reject binned chips and need huge amounts of voltage to do crack 4GHz in general; most often needing 1.25v to 1.4v to go beyond 4GHz (which in turn increases the power consumption over desktop chips like the 6700K). Honestly? Nobody should be even GLANCING at ASUS models if they want high performance notebooks, especially since for the price better hardware can be found elsewhere. Also, their warranty is so easily broken it's a joke. I've seen a user change his HDD from slot 1 to slot 2 because it was blocking the M.2 slot in slot 1, and they killed the warranty on the ENTIRE system as a result. Just from swapping the slot the HDD was in. It's not a joke, and it's not funny. This is the garbage that ASUS demands $2500+ for with their higher end models using top mobile GPUs. Their machines also need a full teardown, often taking hours, just to access the heatsinks and fans for cleaning (this also breaks warranty).

 

Gigabyte is intent on making the thinnest machines ever, and skimping on their larger machines' cooling. They frequently have cooling and throttle problems. Even their Aorus line (yes, Aorus is gigabyte) has had HUGE issues. The only model of theirs I've ever see actually properly be a decent machine has been the Aorus X5S V5. And the only reason is because they shoved a single 980M in it, instead of 970M SLI, and with a similar form factor, a machine designed to barely handle CPU + 970M SLI ends up handling CPU + single 980M pretty decently. It's not an overclocker like the P6xxSx or P6xxRx are, but it handles stock decently enough.

 

Acer and HP are overheating pieces of garbage, ignore. I'm too tired to fully roast them right now, but they do a good enough job of roasting themselves that I don't need to

 

Dell doesn't make gaming laptops.

 

Alienware are generally not bad, but not very good either. I would much quicker recommend them over ASUS and gigabyte for the most part, though their quality (along with their prices) have dropped significantly in recent years. I know not how the upcoming models will be, though they promise very good performance. I doubt it after seeing their thickness, but we shall see. Their BIOSes are locked down and their MUX switches gone, their ability to use 330W bricks revoked (except maybe with the 1080 model in the AW17 R4 that's upcoming) and generally their quality is a far cry from what they used to be. But definitely not the worst you can buy.

 

Lenovo tend to stop around midranged models, but are known for artificial CPU throttle, mediocre cooling, terrible screens, awful software & proprietary drivers, and varying other issues. Their Y50 used to be available for $800 or so and was the default pick for many, but now that they've lost their price advantage, there is little reason to grab them. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is now. When Lenovo wants to fight, they're welcome to. But as of now, they're not on the radar for someone wanting gaming class machines.

 

EVGA doesn't understand gaming laptop

 

Clevo has problems too, but their problems are generally software-related. Buggy firmware/EC, which is fixed with Prema mods (just buy from his partner shops, or be active and known in the community and give him a donation and he might give you them; no guarantees on the latter method though) and buggy software (usually gets fixed for the most part in a couple months, or is tied to firmware/EC and thus gets "fixed" with more stable versions of those). The reason why they get the recommendations so much is because a hardware design issue and warranty issues are not fixable for the most part, but software issues are. Any hardware issues Clevos may have are also fixable with little actual effort... warped heatsink? Get a new heatsink or lap the existing one; won't break warranty. Bad thermal pad placement? Buy some of your own and just apply them properly (won't break warranty). Granted these shouldn't be issues a consumer has to fix, and I take that into consideration well, but there aren't any direct hardware defects in their models for the most part, and cooling and ease of access to parts is almost always a top priority.

 

So really, there's no amazing brand that does everything right. But the least of the evils are the Clevo models, until the rest of them want to step it up. MSI is closest. If they fix their designs (especially in the slim models) and remove firmware limits for their CPUs drawing power etc, they'll be a serious consideration. If they start using desktop CPUs in their top end models, I would cleanly and instantly recommend them over Clevo due to far less buggy software/etc. But they don't seem to want to.

 

Long story short, almost every laptop reviewer on the market doesn't do proper reviews (not like they'd do for desktop parts, especially) and always try to spin positive points alone. They also give laptops actual points towards any kind of scoring system they have based upon looks... Razers' looks and outward feel alone, forgetting any and all problems with temperatures and soldering everything etc, give it high scores for reviews... but aesthetics have nothing to do with the performance, or operation of a machine. But it carries weight as if it does. Another thing people don't mention is that good, thickish plastic is often a better construction material (and transfers less heat too) than aluminum. Aluminum does NOT automatically equal better build quality. And build quality in reviews is meant to mean the outward aesthetic and feel for the most part... it's not very well done.

 

It's why I keep telling people when they say they've done research and end up with a Razer Blade or Dell XPS or ASUS for solid, problem-free, well-performing laptops that their research was wasted. As Pendragon mentioned, try going on Tech|Inferno and asking them about a Razer Blade, or Alienware, or Aorus, or ASUS as high performance machines. I'm pretty sure one person will call them all turdbooks, another will ask you to run cinebench with them overclocked, and about five more will plainly tell you how they're trash. At the LEAST. Notebookreview too will have people telling you off about them more than not.

[Cycloned]

@D2ultima @Pendragon @Eason85

 

Thanks for the detailed replies! Really appreciate your posts here guys.

[rf9661]

4 hours ago, Cycloned said:

@D2ultima @Pendragon @Eason85

 

Thanks for the detailed replies! Really appreciate your posts here guys.

As much as I thank all of you for your replies, you continue to disprove yourself. The only manufactures making light, gaming, and look good laptops are Razer, MSI, and Asus. What would be a light, can game, and looks good laptop/notebook? 

[Guuhan]

4 minutes ago, rf9661 said:

As much as I thank all of you for your replies, you continue to disprove yourself. The only manufactures making light, gaming, and look good laptops are Razer, MSI, and Asus. What would be a light, can game, and looks good laptop/notebook? 

-Razer. They make terrible laptops. 

[rf9661]

25 minutes ago, Guuhan said:

-Razer. They make terrible laptops. 

So what would be the best option.

[rf9661]

12 hours ago, Pendragon said:

They casually mention thermal issues, when it's ALOT bigger issue. And then they spend their video telling you how beautiful the build is. 

 

Youtubers get the MOST cherry picked models with no quality control issues that the average customer might encounter. These said youtubers also rarely use it to game as a daily driver so they never run into the heat issues because it's mostly a office laptop for them. 

 

Agreed. 

 

Not really. NBR (NotebookReview) and TI (Tech Inferno), are two of the most knowledgable laptop forums. These things still get brought up time and time again and get shot down by people who know a thing. Just ask all those people who support buying a Razer Blade what does the CPU/GPU throttle to and what temps are the things at and how loud it is. 100% they don't know or think 95C or disabling turbo boost and thermal throttling is fine. 

So then what gaming laptop that looks nice, can game, and is light weight would you recommend? Sager is NOT an option since they look hideous and weigh a ton.

[Wolf585]

I just skipped the huge conversation, but you could get the MSI GS63VR or the asus GS502 the thinner ones having a 970 or 1060.