Razer Blade 14 (2023) Gaming Laptop computer Evaluation

Introduction, Specs, and Pricing

Earlier within the 12 months, AMD introduced and launched its Ryzen 7000 sequence cellular CPUs to market. Shortly after, we began reaching out to distributors to see how good these new CPUs can be. With its Blade 14, Razer was one of many first to provide us with a assessment pattern.

VIEW GALLERY – 35 IMAGES

Our build-out of the Razer Blade 14 is the entry-level mannequin, that includes an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS CPU, which presents eight cores and sixteen threads, increase clocks peak at 5.2GHz, and TDP is configurable as much as 54w. Razer has paired this with DDR5 reminiscence, 16GB at 5600MHz, although it’s upgradable by way of SO-DIMM slots. Graphics are provided by the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 cellular, which is linked to a 14″ IPS show able to 240Hz and QHD+ decision.

Equipped storage is a 1TB NVMe, whereas enlargement features a single Key E M.2 for Wi-Fi. Connectivity on the Blade 14 consists of two USB 3.2 Gen 2 utilizing the Sort-A connector, whereas two USB4 makes use of USB-C. Further options embrace a 3.5mm audio jack and HDMI port. Wi-Fi is provided by Qualcomm with their WCN6856 chipset.

As configured above, the Razer Blade 14 pricing is available in at $2399.

Pocket book Overview

The Blade arrived in Razer’s normal packaging, as seen above.

The ability adapter for the Blade 14 is a 230-watt GaN adapter.

Unboxing the Blade 14 allowed us to take a look at Razer’s new skins. These permit customization of your Blade pocket book with many designs now out there.

The left aspect presents the facility enter, USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB4, and three.5mm audio jack.

On the fitting aspect, we discover the Kensington lock, HDMI, USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, and one other USB4.

The highest of the Blade 14 with the Razer pores and skin put in.

The underside of the Blade 14 consists of two air intakes for the followers and risers back and front to elevate the laptop computer off your desk. This materials gathers fingerprints very simply, as seen in our picture.

Opening up the Blade 14, we’ve got the 67wH battery alongside the underside. Above, we’ve got two SO-DIMM slots, NVMe to the fitting and Wi-Fi to the left. Throughout the highest, we discover the cooling system, which incorporates two followers and a vapor chamber system in between.

Opening the pocket book, we’ve got the big glass trackpad centered within the chassis, and above the keyboard sinks into the chassis with its ten keyless design.

Lighting on the Blade 14 consists of per key RGB on the keyboard.

BIOS/UEFI and Software program

UEFI

The BIOS for the Blade 14 is your fundamental textual content mode setup. The principle menu presents {hardware} data for the laptop computer. Shifting into the superior menu, you can see choices for configuring energy and efficiency, Thunderbolt gadgets, and USB. Chipset configuration will will let you disable NVIDIA dynamic switching for individuals who need to run the discrete GPU solely. You too can tune the battery charging right here as effectively.

Software program

The software program for the Blade 14 is Razer Synapse 3, as seen above.

Customization begins with keyboard macros with a gaming mode that disables the Home windows key and ALT+ F4 combos.

Efficiency tuning will will let you tune each the CPU and GPU and allow a max fan mode to get much more from the Blade 14.

Show lets you select the refresh charge whereas colour profile is on the market beneath.

Final, we’ve got lighting the place you’ll be able to configure lighting, together with presets, on the backside left.

System/CPU Benchmarks

Cinebench

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been closely relied upon by each Intel and AMD to spotlight their latest platforms throughout unveils. The benchmark has two checks: a single-core workload using one thread or 1T. There’s additionally a multi-threaded take a look at that makes use of all threads or nT of a examined CPU.

Cinebench kicks off our testing of the Blade 14. The 7940HS picked up a large bump over the past gen with 1694 single core and 15856 multi-cores.

BAPCo CrossMark

CrossMark™ is an easy-to-run native cross-platform benchmark that measures the general system efficiency and system responsiveness utilizing fashions of real-world purposes. CrossMark™ helps gadgets working Home windows, iOS, and macOS platforms.

CrossMark picked up 1763 total, almost 200 factors greater than final 12 months’s Blade 14.

AIDA64 Reminiscence

Reminiscence efficiency gave us 61K learn, 74K write, and 62K copy. Reminiscence latency was 90ns.

Geekbench 6

Geekbench scored 2732 single core and 12443 multi-cores.

The Blade 14 outperformed the Blade 18 in our testing – the RTX 4060 picked up 94K in OpenCL and 91K in Vulkan.

Graphics, System I/O, Battery, and Gaming

System I/O Efficiency

PCMark

PCMark Prolonged scored 10603 for the Blade 14.

3DMark

CPU Profile lands us at 1045 single core and 2076 with two cores.

4, eight, and sixteen threads, the Blade 14 completed at 8128.

Time Spy was our first gaming workload. The Blade 14 picked up 10611 total, almost 1000 factors over final 12 months’s mannequin.

Velocity Means scored 2647 for the Blade 14, a contact greater than the Blade 18 we had in-house earlier within the 12 months.

Operating 3DMark Storage, the Blade 14 landed in the course of the pack, with storage bandwidth at 445 MB/s.

Gaming

Gaming on the Blade 14 was higher than the Blade 18. We picked up a peak of 112 FPS at 1080p and 74 FPS at 1440p.

Battery Life landed at 112 minutes utilizing the PCMark Gaming workload.

Worth and Remaining Ideas

Worth

Worth for the Blade 14 landed close to the underside of our chart at 99.3%.

Remaining Ideas

The Blade 14 is but once more a murals from Razer. The design remains to be top-of-the-line whereas being somewhat easy on the identical time. I applaud Razer for the persevering with R&D on this small kind issue laptop computer as a result of these programs are the place many distributors would throw within the towel and go away shoppers with soldered reminiscence and storage. Razer has not completed that, providing two SO-DIMM slots for DDR5, together with m.2 for each storage and Wi-Fi. It is an enormous plus for shoppers who need to improve their machines over time.

Moreover, Razer has top-of-the-line keyboards available on the market, with good tactile suggestions and per-key RGB for these intent on utilizing it. Additional, the trackpad is big and retains the expertise discovered within the Blade 18 with simply the fitting tactile click on when utilizing it each day.

Efficiency, alternatively, is each good and dangerous. The Ryzen 9 7940HS presents equal efficiency to Intel’s thirteenth Gen CPUs in single thread, however multi-thread will increase warmth and throttles again clocks somewhat shortly, leaving us with subpar scores. We famous this in Cinebench R23 however much less so after we moved into 3DMark CPU Profile.

Gaming workloads picked up efficiency in comparison with the last-gen Blade 14, almost a thousand factors in Time Spy, and taking a look at CyberPunk, we picked up 112 FPS peak from the Blade 14, which matched our Blade 18 SKU.

Pricing is the most important place Razer takes a success. At $2399 MSRP, the Blade 14’s value v efficiency lands close to the underside of our charts, matching final 12 months’s mannequin at 99.3%. With the inflow of latest Ryzen 7000 cellular elements, it will likely be attention-grabbing to see how aggressive the market will get and if Razer does decrease the worth of the Blade 14.