2015 or 2016 14 inch Razer Blade?

Hello everyone!

Sold my Alienware 17, great machine but was too big and bulky for my purposes. I have been agonizing over what to replace it with, and decided to go for a 14 inch Razer Blade.

The 2015 Razer with 1080p screen I can snag from the store for 1600, and the 2016 Razer I can pick up for 2000. Is the price difference worth it? I can make the stretch to get the new one, just might be a little bit hungrier than normal for a month or so...

Basically, is it worth spending the extra cash for the 2016 Razer Blade? I can't imagine myself shelling out 500 bucks for the Core, and then buying a GPU, might as well just build a desktop at that price. So while the core is a really cool idea, not sure it is something I personally would go for. So aside from the Thunderbolt port, what do you guys think? Worth the extra dollars? I am super excited to get one ordered!

 

16 gb of ram are a thing in my honest opinion, so I wouldn't even consider the FHD model; the 3k scales well anything and since ddr3 Vs 4 doesn't make much difference, as well as 6700 Vs 4720 doesn't make almost any difference as much as 3 Vs 6 gb of vram do (on a 970m), if you are not going to need the Tb 3 port you might as well get a 2015 blade and that's all; if you ain't gonna copy/paste stuff all day long you won't even need the pcie disk more than you do need a M.2 one.

Basically, if you don't need the 8 gb bonus ram go for FHD 2015, if you consider them a thing and Tb 3 isn't something you need I'd go for 2015 3k and save some money.

 

I'd like to see real-world use cases where 8GB vs. 16GB of system memory matter for most use cases, especially with moderately fast solid state storage. I used to scoff at 8GB RAM, but then I came back to reality. If I were using VMs still, though, I could see the need for 16GB or more.

And the 3GB vs. 6GB of VRAM is almost pointless. VRAM isn't the limiter or bottleneck in a 970m, even if trying to run at native resolution.

 

I usually have ****loads of stuff in my background so, while gaming, I breach the 8 gb ram limit from time to time.

I like to be relaxed so I don't want to have to handle my background stuff to play when I want to, but that's up to personal preferences I guess.

 

The 2015 & 2016 Razer blade models you mentioned differ in three major areas:

1). The 2015 model is a non-touch matte 1080p IPS display. The 2016 model is a glossy touch-enabled 1800p IGZO display.

The difference in screens mostly comes down to preference of glossy vs matte. Image quality , color accuracy, brightness, battery life, etc are close enough between the two screen types that it won't matter to non-professionals. You're going to be gaming at 1080p, so there isn't much of a difference in screen resolution. The 1800p touchscreen model does give you added sharpness in Windows applications, at the expense of using DPI scaling.


2). The 2016 model is an Intel Skylake platform, which brings DDR4 RAM, M.2 NVMe, and Thunderbolt 3 to the table.

Out of that, the only thing that matters is thunderbolt 3. Ddr4 and NVMe support ate nice-to-have, but don't yield any real-world performance differences.


3). Minor differences, such as slightly reduced weight, and newly designed cooling / heatsink system on the 2016 model.

I wouldn't worry about the difference between 8GB / 16GB RAM. Unless you're running some very specific workloads (VMs, databases, professional video / photo editing), the extra RAM won't make any difference. You're not going to even use a full 8GB, so going out of your way to specifically buy 16GB won't matter.


The point of a Razer Blade 14 is that it is a very capable gaming machine on its own, with a Geforce 970M GPU in it. If you're planning on using an eGPU, I'd actually recommend you consider two points.

First, what are you hoping to get from an eGPU that the onboard Geforce 970M won't give you? Second, if you're relying on the eGPU to provide gaming horsepower, then do you even need the 970M at all? Would you be better-served with a different laptop, than going out of your way to spend $1000+ premium for a Razer Blade 14 2016 model, Razer Core eGPU dock, and a video card? A $2000 Razer Blade 14 is a lot of cash to drop on a laptop that you're just going to hook up to an eGPU anyway.

Having said all of that, I'd personally go with the 2015 FHD model. I'd consider the screen to be superior over the 1800p touchscreen model because of its matte finish (though this comes down to personal preference). It looks like Razer will be discontinuing 1080p variants of the Razer Blade moving forward. And the $1600 price tag is an absolute steal for what you are getting.




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Thank you all for your input, the 2015 model seems very attractive to me. The chroma lighting looks so awesome, but I cannot justify the extra money for fancy lighting.

However, I have read that the 2015 is a very hot machine under load. I have gamed on Alienware machines in the past, so I am not a stranger to gaming on a laptop. Is the heat really as bad as they say? I am concerned both for usability as well as longevity reasons. Has this been improved with the 2016? Haven't been able to find any reviews of the 2016 version yet, and I think it is silly to trust in what marketing says.

 

THe biggest difference is. The Skylake cpu does run less hot. Since the Blade laptops are so thin i rather go with a less hot footprint of the CPU. Also USB-C for gpu upgrades in the future.

 

Any thin-and-light gaming machine is going to run hot. It's not the temperatures that actually make a difference, but rather the fan noise when gaming under full load as the laptop tries to remove the heat. You're going to get this regardless of what laptop, model, brand, etc you buy... whether it be from Razer, MSI, Aorus, Gigabyte, etc.

You're not going to get much of a heat difference from the hardware between the 2015 / 2016 models. You might get a slight reduction in heat output from a Core i7 6700HQ Skylake CPU (2016 model) vs. Core i7 4720HQ (2015 model); but it's going to be a trivial difference when you consider the overall heat generated by the CPU (35W - 45W TDP) and the GPU (100W+ TDP) combined. I don't think anyone has tested / compared the new cooling system on the 2016 Razer Blade for fan noise or efficiency. So we just won't know how the 2016 model handles things like fan noise quite yet.

As for thermal design, I'd say that the Razer Blade uses a pretty good design for a thin-and-light gaming laptop. It vents heat out the back of the laptop (and "up" along the screen), which is also close to where the heat-generating CPU and GPU are located. So you never have a situation where the laptop exhausts warm air out the sides onto your mousing / keyboard hand; or a situation where the wrist-rest gets warm. The cooling system also never gets to a point where the laptop feels "hot" or "burning". Certain parts of the laptop will feel warm when under load. But it never gets to a point where it's uncomfortable. In that regard, the Razer Blade actually uses one of the "best" heat management designs I've seen for a thin-and-light gaming laptop.

It also helps that the Razer Blade has a unibody aluminum chassis, which acts as a giant passive heatsink as well. It gives a tremendous advantage over similar laptops that use cheap plastic in their construction (i.e. Gigabyte P34W v5).

Having said all of that, I'd recommend you get yourself a nice pair of noise-isolating headphones. They will block out the fan noise when gaming, and provide an audio quality that greatly enhances immersion into your games. My current favorite pair of headphones are Xiaomi Piston 3. They're $20 headphones that easily compete with $50-$100 headphones in terms of sound quality. ( Amazon link).

 

The main issue with the RB 2015 isn't the sound, it's the heat IMO. And I don't just mean CPU heat-- I mean surface temperatures. I got hot, uncomfortable, sweaty hands from playing and it really wasn't a pleasant experience.

 

Aside from the surface heat, flipchips such as the gpu are not that fond of large temperature differences between idle and load and solder can deteriorate rather quickly because of this. Also battery health is affected. So i still rather go for a skylake cpu. But thats just my insight in this.

 

Personally I'd go with the 2016 Razer blade, but if you can wait, wait on review's to get a better idea on temperatures and noise. I might even hold of on this and wait on Pascal GPUs

 

By overclocking 2015 GPU and stopping turbo/downclocking at 90 C my PC has never ever gone over 91C CPU and 85C GPU ever again, even while playing AAA titles (Star Wars Battefront, Crysis 3 and Titanfall are the games I play the most atm) at HD on ultra setting, 60 FPS.

Sure 6700HQ's got some benefits, you might be able to run at full load + turbo maybe all the time, but don't expect temps to be lower; you might get a temp decrease by downlocking the 6700 to the point I downlock mine at full load to keep it at a certain temp, but it doesn't cover the huge difference in price if you ask me.

 

Thank you everyone for your input. Still considering my options, not sure if a gaming laptop is where I want to go. If I am going to drop this much money on something it needs to hold up for many years.

 

The thing with high end laptops like Razer Blade etc is that they give you just that mate.... something to hold up for many years ! They are more than capable of performing business related tasks but have the benefit of gaming on top. If its future proofing you want then get the 2016. Skylake provides a good level of that. Even though DDR4 and PCIE NVME SSDs could be considered an unnecessary benefit over DDR3 and M.2 SSDs now; in a couple of years, with improvements and new programs you may find they become invaluable. It strikes me many people who say stuff like "you dont need 16gb RAM" or "there is no point in extra vRAM", or "the extra speed of the latest SSDs is redundant" are just thinking in the now. If you want a machine to last several years (like my macbook unibody has... it served me for 7 years) then getting a system that has already been superseded and is about to be again later this year is actually not good economy.

Of course they brought the 2015 model down in price. they need to sell remaining stock. And its a good price for what it is. But it has no future proofing. There will be a whole host of applications for thunderbolt that will emerge in the next couple of years. If you get last years model, you wont be able to benefit from them and your nicely priced laptop will be worth even less and you will be faced with a larger bill to switch out at that time.

End of the day its your call, but if you CAN stretch to the new model, Id go for it. Im with Rinneh on that one.

 

I've stretched my 2014 for almost 2 years now and it's still serving me quite well. I see no reason the 2016 won't do the same.

Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P

 

I would hope if I buy the 2016 it will last me a lot more than 2 years !

 

I'm currently using an almost 5 year old Alienware M11X and it's still running strong. I would imagine a new Razerblade would last a few years. I plan to get one so I hope it does.

 

I think the single biggest factor in how long a laptop "lasts" comes down to personal preference. After about 2 years, any laptop is going to show signs of age. There will be faster, cheaper, more powerful laptops on the market with awesome new features.

Some people think, "I want to replace my laptop every 2 years, because I want the fastest and the best gear that's out there." Some other people will think, "This laptop isn't top-notch anymore, but it still does the job pretty well. I'll keep using it until I run it into the ground and it stops working."

That's probably the biggest factor in determining how long a Razer Blade 2015 / 2016 will "last." How powerful is the hardware going to be in 2018, and what is your personal tolerance for that level of performance, knowing that there are better / faster laptops out there?

 

I get what you are saying. What I meant by "last" is for the computer to be functional to the fullest abilities of the machine for a long period of time. I am nervous about buying a thin machine like this that will bake itself to death.

 

Why do you say it will bake itself to death ? That should not happen. Especially with a top quality item like this. Many people find a re-paste helps with temps if you are worried.

 

I said it's still serving me quite well. I plan on keeping it longer.

Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P

 

I wouldn't worry too much about that. For the most part, the heat generated by a thin-and-light laptop isn't going to affect longevity of parts. The heat might be an issue for fan noise or thermal throttling; but not laptop longevity.

There is an argument that the heat may have a negative impact on the battery. But even that isn't a big deal. Laptop batteries start wearing down over time, regardless of heat. And even if a laptop battery does die, it's can be replaced.

So I wouldn't worry too much about it.

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After much debate and more research, especially with the discussion that has taken place in this thread, I decided to take the plunge on a 2016 Razer Blade. Will be putting the order in next week, might post a quick video review of the machine once I get it. I am incredibly excited!

 

Enjoy! It's a REALLY fun toy!

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Oh. And if you are a tinkerer, it would be appreciated if you (or anyone with a 2016 Razer Blade) could take pictures of the new cooling system. I'm curious to see what they changed in this year's model.

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Hopefully someone like ifixit does a teardown.

Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P

 

say that to the owners of the first generation macbook pro retina 15s where gpu chips broke down due to excessive heat which caused too much stress on the solder joints. Batteries dying within 1 year in some cases already. It is an issue and not just regarding throttling which is least of my worries with a thin machine.

 

Early adopters always risk stuff like this. This is Razer's third (?) blade, so I would guess they have the kinks hammered out. Been doing reading about the machines and people have issues (what complex device doesn't), but it seems like the Blade laptops are pretty sturdy.

 

It doesnt have anything to do withwith build quality but with physics. A chips that heats up to 90c and cools down to 20~c has more stress on those bga solder points than when the chips never goes higher than 70c (which is the case with thicker gaming laptops. Lead free solder is more vulnerable to these issues. But it takes on average a year or 2 to happen on a larger scale

 

I knew someone would bring up that example (nVidia 8x00 GPU's and failing solder joints, from back in 2008). It's just like when the topic of hard drive reliability comes up, and someone inevitably brings up the IBM Deskstar (Deathstar) problems. Those are single examples that are the exception, and not the norm.

The nVidia solder joint issue is one isolated case, where there was a manufacturing defect (due to poor selection of materials). With proper selection of materials, and proper manufacturing processes, this will not happen. This is why you didn't hear any of those types of stories before 2008, and why you haven't heard of those stories ever since 2008.

High heat from thin-and-light laptop designs can cause issues with thermal throttling, and fan noise. But they do not cause any noticeable increase in hardware failure rates. Otherwise, we would've seen thin-and-light laptops failing at a much higher rate than average, in the past 10+ years that they have been around.

 

I knew somebody would say this. But its still an issue on modern Macbook pro 15 retina's. Its not one isolated case unfortunately. Gigabytes for example which are equally thin and light for the most part have reliability issues, and it appears that Razer has them as well if I read problems in this forum. MSI's thin laptops are cooled a heck of a lot better. They are thin but the footprint is much bigger. That is why they have those enormous screen bezels and the keyboard is located more in the middle of the chassis instead of upper side near the hinges.

 

I was also on the same boat 2016 vs 2015 blade. Luckily I found mint 2015 used blade on Amazon for $1300. QHD Touch display + 512GB SSD, at that price point to me it's a no brainer to go for the 2015 and I'm loving it so far!

I also have a 2015 Aorus X7 Pro Sync that sits in my office as my desktop replacement and I'm sending it in because Im getting banding on the screen and the screen is crooked to the bezel. I rarely travel with it and it's already giving me issues for QA issues.

 

I think I'll stick with my 2015 model. I keep hearing about major issues with the killer wireless card

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