Side by side Comparison of Razer Blade (2014) and MSI Ghost Pro GS60 (non 3K)

*Caution: this is a LONG post* but these laptops deserve nothing less
I decided that since I had such a tough time deciding between the Ghost Pro and the new Razer Blade, I would get both of them and return the one I didn’t want. To me, these two laptops were in a class of their own with no other competition that met my requirements. I was basically looking for a portable, light weight laptop with excellent build quality that could also play heavy games. My personal pet peeves were for it to have a good keyboard and reasonable trackpad as well. For reference, I used the Ghost Pro for a day, then the RB for a day, Ghost Pro another day and the RB again for the weekend. These are all "out of the box" experiences. Here’s a list of my findings and opinions:

Edit: Sorry for the spoiler buttons - I somehow went over my bandwith last month from all the traffic on this page.
Edit 11/17/14: I posted another review on the GS60 970M version here: http://www.ultrabookreview.com/5337-msi-gs60-ghost-pro-3k-review/

Benchmarks
PC Mark 8 Ghost Pro

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PC Mark 8 Razer Blade

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Comparison: The CPU probably accounts for the minor difference in the numbers. The temperatures might also have had something to do with it


Crystal Disk Mark Ghost Pro


Crystal Disk Mark Razer Blade


Comparison: As you can see, the Ghost Pro SSD has superior sequential write and random 512K write speeds. The Razer Blade's SSD has a minor edge on 4K R/W speeds. Most will probably not notice the difference in these drives but the Ghost Pro uses a superior drive in my opinion.

3D Mark Ghost Pro

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3D Mark Razer Blade

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Comparison: I ran the test twice on the Razer Blade to make sure. The Ice Storm test was significantly less, most likely due to throttling. The second round was even less than the first. I didn't use GPU-Z during the test, so I don't know for sure it's throttling. I might try again later. Either way, the Razer Blade definitely gets hotter but the benchmarks are very similar. Also, please note that I had to leave the Razer Blade's resolution at native for the text because it would not work correctly when I switched it to 1080p. That also might have had an effect on the Ice Storm score.


Build Quality
Ghost Pro: Build feels solid. The only major gripe I have is the screen lid. It feels a little flimsy and there is a slight gap on the actual lid of my unit. I took pictures and you can see the backlight through the crack. Ugly.

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The lid opens and closes easily, but the screen still bends slightly when closing the screen from just the corner. The flimsiness might be the cause of the minor backlight bleed my unit has in the top edge of the screen. The bleed is not really bad but is noticeable at night and I notice it shifts positions as I adjust the screen.

There is some keyboard flex as well, which I'll discuss more in the keyboard section. When closed, there is a slight gap which I don’t expect to see in premium aluminum laptops. As for materials, MSI still uses some plastic. The back vents and bezel felt cheaper than the rest of the laptop.

Razer Blade: Build quality is very similar to the Macbook Pro. Very solid! No keyboard flex that I can note of. Lid is a little stiffer than Ghost Pro to open but it can still be done with one finger and feels stable. Speakers face up which is a nice touch. No gap when the screen is closed, except for the very edge, which could just be on my unit. Razer did an incredible job making this machine.

Winner: Razer Blade by a long shot. Don’t get me wrong, the Ghost Pro is still good, but the amount of plastic they use in their design is noticeable and there are a lot of minor design flaws that need to be fixed in their next design to stand up to the Razer Blade in this category. Below are all the pictures I took of both the units. I tried to keep the same angles for a good comparison.

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Keyboard
Ghost Pro: Typing on the keyboard is excellent. The keys have good feedback and the travel is adequate for my needs. The multicolored zones on the keyboard backlight is a cool feature but it's kind of overkill for me. It would be nicer if they had zones that had meaning instead of just splitting the keyboard into thirds. WASD a different zone for example. Either way, the zone colors blend in with each other so there's no obvious way to distinguish between the keys on the border of the zones. I like the software to reassign the keyboard keys - it certainly comes in handy for certain games and programs. The key placement is also pretty good EXCEPT the removal of the Windows key on the left hand side. In its place, they made the Left Ctrl larger which I think is unnecessary. I would rather they left the Windows key there and allowed us to disable it by software. All day I found myself hitting the Fn key when thinking I was hitting the Windows key. It certainly will take a long time for me to get used to. I personally have never used the right Windows key on any keyboard until using this laptop. Previous MSI owners are probably used to this by now. There is some minor flex in the keyboard. This is a huge con for me because once I noticed it, I ALWAYS saw it. To me it's like noticing your dead pixel for the first time - you always stare at it. Really though, the flex probably won't bother most but it's still there.


Razer Blade: Also an excellent keyboard. I type slightly better on the Razer blade than on the Ghost Pro but it could be because I’m used to 13” laptop keyboards, which the Blade shares. There is no number pad and the keys are a little more compressed than the Ghost Pro. Not as much travel, but the keys have a good tactile feedback. It feels like a premium keyboard. I’m not a fan of the green only keys but the backlighting is excellent. There is also about 12 different levels of key brightness that can be set with function keys or by software. The software also lets you reprogram keys, like the Ghost Pro, and also lets you disable certain keys like the Windows key when gaming. On this laptop, there is a left windows key but no right.


Winner: tough to call. I’m too biased because of the Windows key on the Ghost Pro to make a neutral decision. Both are excellent keyboards. Backlighting is brighter on the Blade but MSI has different color options.


Trackpad
Ghost Pro: Trackpad on this machine is average at best. It feels cheap but gets the job done. Trackpads are another pet peeve of mine so this is a potential deal breaker. I prefer the trackpads on Apple or Assu Zenbooks, and this trackpad just feels inferior. Scrolling works for the most part, although there were a couple instances where it didn't register. Right and left clicking feel pretty natural if you're used to buttonless trackpads. It's hard to make comparisons but if I had to, I'd say the trackpad is equal to that on the Acer V&/S7 series. Definitely superior to the Y500 and y510p trackpad.

Razer Blade: Trackpad is excellent. It feels premium and my fingers glided nicely with it. Scrolling was a breeze and pinch to zoom worked pretty well. Razer messed up with the buttons though. They feel a little cheap in comparison. My right button also makes a different and louder click sound than my left button. The click sound is obnoxiously loud too. My friend even noticed it when he tried it out. Still though, this trackpad is better than most. Not as good as Apple but close. About even with the Zenbooks except for the buttons.


Winner: Razer Blade by far. Yes the buttons aren’t that great but the trackpad is miles ahead of the Ghost Pro. I’ve been switching back and forth between the laptops and it’s night and day.

Noise - I used my decibel monitor and left it at the trackpad of each laptop. Both tests were in a quiet room, no A/C in a 76 degree house
Ghost Pro: Idle levels and normal use resulted in roughly 30 dB. Low fan noise from video card usage resulted in roughly 40dB. The fan at full blast resulted in 50-55dB.
Razer: Idle levels and normal use resulted in 28-30dB. There appeared to be four fan speeds. Lowest was 32dB, second was 35dB, third was 40dB and highest was 50dB
Winner: Too close to call. Slight edge to Ghost Pro because I think the Razer Blade heated up faster in most tests(probably because it’s smaller). It’s the same decibel but the Razer Blade fan noise was slightly less annoying sounding to me as the Ghost Pro. EDIT: After a couple more days of use, without a doubt I can say I prefer the noise the RB makes over the Ghost Pro. The tone is just less obvious to me.

Games and Heat - Conditions were 76 degree house with the unit on my lap with no cooling dock. I chose this because it is my desired method to game. Using a cooling plate will help obviously. Each laptop had updated graphics drivers, Fraps used for framerates, CPUID HWMonitor for temps and GPU-Z. 1080p for both units to be consistent.

Ghost Pro:
Skyrim: All settings completely maxed out, including AA. Played from a save at the first dragon fight and fought it all the way through. 60fps with minor drops to mid 40s during fire breathing and heavy movement. It felt pretty hot on lap, max CPU 73C max GPU 83C.
Crysis 3: Played for about 15 minutes through the first couple checkpoints. Settings were maxed out with AA off. 30fps with drops tp 25fps. Fps climbed into 30fps after getting out of the rain. It was scorching hot on my lap and I could barely tolerate it. max CPU 80C, max GPU 93C. The card throttled and GPU-Z said insufficient power. Clock speed dropped to low 900s
Razer Blade:
Skyrim: Same settings as Ghost Pro. 55-60fps with minor drops to the mid 40s. Everything seemed 5fps lower than the test with the Ghost Pro. The laptop got pretty hot and either the temperature caused the card to throttle or the power supply is insufficient. According to GPU-Z, the clock speed only throttled to 900-920 and it was not very frequent.
Crysis 3: Same settings as the Ghost Pro. 28fps with drops to 24fps. Once out of the rain, fps climbed to 28-32fps. Laptop was just as hot as when playing Skyrim. Card definitely throttled and GPU-Z said it was insufficient power. Clock speed dropped to as low as 870. Note that I had to manually drop the resolution to 1080p or else it played a mini version in the center of the screen.
Winner: Tradeoff. For games, the Ghost Pro was a little superior. For heat, the Ghost Pro maintained lower temperatures but the Razer Blade felt cooler on my lap. I played Crysis 3 a lot longer on the Blade than on the Ghost Pro – it really got that hot to where I couldn’t take it anymore.

Screen - Unfair comparison since I don't have the 3K MSI version. Nevertheless...
Ghost Pro: 1080p screen looks great. Colors look good. They looked even better after calibrating using my Spyder4Pro. Screen analysis shows I was able to get 99% coverage of sRGB, 72% of NTSC and 77% of AdobeRGB. Screen had no dead pixels and only had a very light glimpse of backlight bleed on the upper edge. The bleed appears to be affected by bending the screen, as it gets better or worse from opening and closing from the corners. I worry over time how much the bleed would worsen from this. Overall, a very impressive 1080p matte panel.

Razer Blade: Screen is amazing to look at but I immediately noticed the colors were washed out. After calibration, it looked much better. The glossy screen and contrast ratio really make the colors stand out and look sharp. Screen analysis shows I was able to get 98% coverage of sRGB, 69% of NTSC and 74% of AdobeRGB. There are horizontal viewing angles to where the colors fade away. It’s not as good as a Macbook retina screen but it’s not bad either. Vertical viewing angles are pretty good, but there’s a catch. There’s a very slight color shift when only tilting the screen 10-15 degrees. For gamers, it might not be that bad, but people relying on this for Photoshop might have issues. I would not recommend this screen to my wife who is a photographer. Looking at it straight on, it’s equivalent to a MBP screen in my opinion. At horizontal angles, it’s like a typical IPS screen(maybe slightly better than typical). Brightness on this panel is stellar and very necessary since it’s glossy. IPS glow is slightly noticeable. Zero backlight bleed on this panel.
Winner: When the 3K Ghost Pro screen releases, it will be fairer to compare. I hope they increase the brightness over the 1080p panel a little.

Connectivity:
Ghost Pro: 3x USB 3.0, headphones, microphone, SD card, HDMI, mini display port and ethernet. It might just be my unit but the USB port cut out on my external SSD a couple times.
Razer Blade: 3x USB 3.0, HDMI, headphone+microphone in one
Winner: Ghost Pro by a long shot. Razer should have gone with mini Display Port over HDMI. It really limits the machine imo. I’ll give Razer credit though, it looks a lot cleaner with less ports. I also noticed something strange with my USB 3.0 ports. I have a MydigitalSSD mSata enclosure and was able to use it on the right USB port only on both units. The Ghost Pro benchmarked the SSD at normal speeds but the Razer Blade was 100MB/s slower in sequential R/W.

Storage:
Ghost Pro: 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD. Also a spare M.2 slot inside
Razer Blade: 256GB SSD(or 128GB and 512GB versions), no spare M.2
Winner: Ghost Pro. Razer really missed here by removing the second slot that was in their previous model. Also, MSI’s SSD is significantly faster than Razer’s

Bloatware, Branding, Stickers:
Ghost Pro: I wasn’t really impressed with what MSI had in this category. I felt like it was littered with too much branding and it made me think of the movie Idiocracy. On the lid is an MSI Shield, with a dragon and text that reads “Gaming G series”. The backlight illuminates it and there is no way to turn it off. There are a couple things I do not like about this graphic. One, it says “Gaming G Series”. Why MSI? Nothing would be better. The other thing is the badge sticks up and appears to mainly be a large sticker, instead of being built into the lid itself. I don’t think it will peel off, but if you accidentally grab it with something sharp, it might give. Under the hood is the normal Intel i7 sticker found on almost every laptop. There’s also “Keyboard by Steelseries” and “Sound by Dynaudio”. I personally don’t like this and would rather see nothing. At least there’s no “Power button by Foxconn”. It gets worse when you look at the bottom. I really just don’t understand what happened there… FCC, warranty void if removed, Nvidia, Windows 8, Sound Blaster, S/N and MSI company info stickers. I guess some people love all this stuff. If I keep it, I’m peeling it all off though. Warranty sticker kind of irks me… there’s better ways to do that. Bloatware? Yes. And if you don’t delete it, you will be haunted with popups from Norton and a backup agent.

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Razer Blade: On the lid there’s the Razer logo. It glows green when the screen is on and there’s no way to turn it off. I hate sticking out like that but it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Near the keyboard is an Intel sticker which can be peeled off. On the back side, to my surprise, was a Windows Product Key sticker? I thought with the Haswell release all the product keys were imbedded into the bios. Guess not. Next to the logo, that sticker is probably the ugliest thing on it. Take a picture of it before the text fades away. No bloatware(Thank you Razer)

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Winner: Razer Blade – don’t think I need to explain more.

Other Stuff
Ghost Pro: One other cool feature about the Ghost Pro is the power button. It glows blue when using integrated graphics and turns orange when using the 870M. I thought it was kind of ugly at first, but found it strangely useful. I wish it was more discreet like maybe one of the half dozen indicator lights. Speaking of indicator lights, those are also pretty nice. The Ghost Pro comes with a case that will make you feel like you are carrying your old Sager around. It’s thick!! It’s also not that nice in my opinion with that logo, but hey it’s free.
Razer Blade: There is a lack of indicators on the Razer Blade. No power light, no HDD light, etc. The only indicator is the front light. It blinks white when the laptop is sleeping. I’m told it’s red when the battery is low. Apparently it also glows green but that might just be the previous models because it’s off when the laptop is on. Minimalists will like this.

Power Brick
Both bricks are 150W. Razer did a nice job minimizing the power brick size. I haven’t figured out if the green light is supposed to go out or change when charging is complete, or if it just tells you the brick is plugged in. I think it just stays on.

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RAM
I don't think I need to explain that 12GB or 16GB is better than 8GB. With the Razer Blade, you're limited to just 8GB. For most, that's probably good enough but it certainly keeps the laptop from being futureproof.

Battery (added 5/14/14) - I did a rundown test on both laptops. Conditions were: Screen was at full brightness, Wifi on and connected, volume muted, keyboard backlight was on(on the RB, it was set from second to the bottom brightness) and power mode was set to "Balanced". The only anomaly was I had Bluetooth off on the Ghost Pro and it was accidentally left on with the Razer Blade. A video was loaded onto the SSD and a continuous video loop was done from 100% to auto-shutdown(roughly 4%). The Ghost Pro lasted 2 hours and 57 minutes, while the Razer Blade lasted 4 hours and 7 minutes. I'll try again tomorrow with Bluetooth off but it's clear that the Blade has a better battery life. I'm pretty sure Engadget does a similar rundown because my numbers were almost identical to theirs. I know this is what they do with tablets, phones and Chromebooks.

Another thing to consider is the brightness setting. The Razer Blade's brightness is significantly brighter than the Ghost Pro(I'll test actual numbers at a later time). So you should be able to squeeze more life out of the battery of the Razer Blade by turning it down. The brighter screen could be why Engadget saw a 2 hour battery drop between Razer Blade revisions. If I get time, I'll do another round with low brightness.

Edit 5/15/14: As requested, I reran the battery test in Power Saving mode and turned the brightness to roughly 80cd/m^2 for both units. For the Ghost pro, this was two ticks up from the bottom - for the Razer Blade, this was the lowest setting. Bluetooth was off on both machines, same keyboard backlighting settings as before and a continuous video loop. The Ghost Pro only had a minor jump in battery, timing out at 3 hours and 14 minutes. The Razer Blade lasted 4 hours and 57 minutes.

That's about all I can think to put on these two laptops(for now). I may add more later but this took an awful amount of time to create. If you have anything to critique about it, keep it to yourself. I'll have both laptops for at least another week, so if anyone has any other questions, I'll do my best to answer them

 

Best review in the forum. Hey, maybe even better than CNET and Engadget. Thanks! Very detailed comparison.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Excellent comparison, great job!
So which one will you decide to keep? I'm guessing the RAZER.
Have you tried gaming at 900p if so in your opinion how did games look and were temps lower?

 

Also a typo in "Other stuff". Did you mean 870 instead of 770?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Thank you for taking the time to do the review. In some aspects, it shows why Razer thinks it is worth $400+ more than the Ghost Pro. How did the Razer Blade screen compare to the Ghost Pro screen while playing games at 1080p? Did the non-native resolution cause the image quality to suffer?

 

Great review, thanks for all of the work that obviously went into making this report.

 

I'm heavily leaning towards the Razer Blade. The smaller size and better build quality are really important to me. I could get used to those things but the trackpad on the Ghost Pro would probably frustrate me in the long run. I have played some games at 900p. My experience is if it struggles to get 60fps, it still gets hot, however I try to tweak the settings so it's a solid 60fps. For example, the temps in Skyrim are better when turning AA completely off. I don't have actual numbers but maybe I'll put some up later. Games looked fine at lower resolutions - the only thing is some games will play in a letterbox and require manual changing of the resolution. It's a minor hindrance which I'm sure will get fixed through patches eventually.

EDIT: Skyrim with AA off completely with same settings as before resulted in solid 60fps and max GPU temp of 79C. Played the same scene to make it consistent.

 

For the disk analysis, the disk in the Blade is "better", though it isn't an equivalent test (more NAND devices equates to better performance, typically). Sequential write on a device that doesn't have high speed sources connected isn't a big concern. You're not going to be getting 266MB/sec out of a USB 3.0-connected device, let alone 500+MB/sec. Random read/write simulates what a system does during normal operation and there the Blade's included Samsung SSD shines compared to the Toshiba in the Ghost Pro.

Regarding the power brick, the power light is on when the brick is connected to AC power. It does not change state relative to the laptop's charge level.

 

I didn't notice any difference in the image quality @ 1080p. It was as if it was the native resolution to begin with. That is the Ghost Pro's native resolution, so it was a good way to compare.

The price makes it a tough decision, but I now understand now why Razer's is so high. You're basically paying for a minimalist beast of a machine with awesome build quality. Sure there are some inferior specs, but it wouldn't be that small if they had the same specs as the Ghost Pro. Engineering that small of a build is where the price difference lies.

 

Thanks for the reply. I find that very surprising, but that is certainly a good thing.

 

You said the screen is washed out, you had to calibrate it. How did you calibrate it? Can you provide the ICC please?

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

I'm working on another with a little more saturation but this is what I originally calibrated it to.

Edit: I use a Spyder4Pro for photography

View attachment 111967

 

Just read through the post Xentar, great stuff, and thanks for taking the time.

I considered the ghost, and wrote it off for somewhat petty reason of not liking the badge on the back, but after reading your review I don't regret that decision. Certainly are in the same league, and thats nice to see.

 

Thanks Xentar - great post!

Could you comment on the battery life comparison? What was your experience with both models?

 

Thanks for the calibration file. The contrast looks much better with the calibrated settings.

 

Forgive my ignorance, but can someone please provide the steps to utilize the ICC profile? I found an article online and tried to follow it, but it seems confusing. What's the easiest way to use this? Do we need to use a separate one for each graphics card?

 

I really can't. It's tough to test batteries since there are so many variables. I'm working on it though - I should have at least something in the next couple days.

 

You should just be able to go into color management and add it. Then set it as default. The changes might require a restart or change in resolution or something.

 

Impressive review! Far more detail than anything out there right now. I think the review encapsulates my own "brain vs. heart" tug-of-war between these 2 systems. Some key specs on the Ghost are just so much better than the razer (in terms of ports, and HD I mean). Also the glossy screen looks REALLY glossy! That said, I can't deny the aesthetics are better on the blade - I agree the badge lettering on the back of the MSI is super annoying. Also, the photos of the power brick really show the difference well. Tough choice! I keep going back and forth - still leaning towards the Ghost, though.

 

The Razer power brick is rated at 19 V, 7.9 A output. The GS60 brick is rated at 19.5 V, 7.7 A output. Conceivably they should be swappable. Most components which work at 19 V work fine at 19.5 V, and vice versa.

I'm not suggesting this "fixes" the problem of the big power brick, but it may be an option if you're desperate ($129 desperate) to get a smaller power brick for the GS60. Are the power plugs into the two laptop the same size? Or will you have to do some surgery with a soldering gun and a generic aftermarket plug?

 

I just ordered a Ghost Pro from Gentech with the IC paste, since people seem to be saying this may make a significant difference (for $35, why not?). I'm excited to hear some more about the battery life, since the reports on this seem to vary from 3 hours to 5 hours for basic non-gaming usage. I decided not to wait for the 3K version mostly due to concerns related to the battery life it may experience, despite possibly matching up better against the Razer Blade 14. The price difference $1800 vs $2400) was just too much for the 256gb version and the Ghost Pro still had it beat with RAM and storage, and since most games will have to be run at 1080p regardless. It sounds like the build quality is "good enough", just not up to Macbook Pro standards perhaps, but I'm buying it so my games look good and I can store other things like slr photos/videos/etc without having to back everything up to 2 externals instead and worry about space. I also like the 1 year accidental damage warranty that comes with the MSI laptops, although I don't plan on dropping it on the pavement anytime soon. The Razer Blade is gorgeous and very tempting, however, and I'd never blame anyone for picking that if they had the extra cash!

 

First off, Great Review! Thanks for taking the time to break down these two great computers. I'm not sure you could go "wrong" withe either.

I chose the Ghost Pro, for many of the reasons that were stated in this review. Overall, IMHO, the Ghost is a better performer and value. For me, that outweighs the aesthetics, that some point out as not great. I also would like to point out I have received multiple compliments on my Ghost since making the decision. So, for those out there thinking the Ghost is ugly, it is a very nice laptop and will get you compliments.

 

Confirmed, the two power adapters are interchangeable. Charging the Ghost Pro with it after my battery drain test now.

 

Thank you! Excellent comparison. I was looking to do the same thing. I may still, and throw a bunch of benchmarks at it. Excellent photos as well.

 

I ended up purchasing the GS60 Pro (too loud at idle), next I bought the Sager 13" with the 860m and then happened to find the Razer 14 at the Microsoft store and couldn't pass it up. So, I ended up with all 3 to evaluate. I really like the GS60 Pro except for the fan noise at idle. It is a deal breaker for me. I don't mind a loud fan while gaming but I want to be able to surf the web in silence. The Sager 13 ended up having some cosmetic issues that I sent it back for today. I love having at 2.5" drive and 2 msata slots but the Sager is quite thick and the performance does not come close enough to the 870m on the MSI or Razer.

I'm surprised that you found the noise levels to be so close on the MSI and Razer. I can't even hear the Razer at idle unless I hold my ear up to the bottom of the machine. The MSIis very noticeable to me even at it's lowest settings. This makes me wonder if the sound registering on you meter with the Razer is at such a low frequency that it is inaudible to me.

I ran some benchmarks on Just Cause 2 on all 3 machines and the Razer performed better than the MSI GS60 Pro. I had to run the benchmark at 900p because the Razer didn't want to run that game at a higher resolution.

Thank you for your detailed review.

 

Sager (37 FPS)



MSI (50 FPS)



Razer (61 FPS)

 

I will try to run some more in game benchmarks on the GS60 Pro and Razer 14 when I get time.

 

The razer will score higher it's running at a lower resolution. Is the msi at 900p as well?

 

Which benchmark is that? Just Cause 2 Dark Tower (assuming based on the time of 120 seconds)? You might want to recheck your settings and make sure you're not using the IGP, because with 860m I get 54FPS, with a simple OC get 65FPS, peak temps 79C on CPU, 70C on GPU

 

The dB level may have been the same in my test but I found that the tone on the RB was much more pleasing to me. The RB might actually be lower when measured from my ear, but I didn't have a feasible way to do that without moving a lot and making too much noise. I had the meter on my lap by the trackpad, so that could have something to do with it.

 

The Sager, MSI and Razer were all running Dark Tower at 900p. All 3 notebooks had their power options on "High Performance" and the NVIDIA Control Panel had them all set to force "High Performance NVIDIA Processor".

 

I also thought the gs60 pro was louder, as the fans were on much more frequently. I just got the razer yesterday, had the gs60 pro for 2 weeks, and the p34gv2 for a week. All 3 at full fan are loud, but the razer idles with no fan for the longest time, whereas my GS60 pro seemed to always want to have the fan on the low 3k rpm setting, which is still audible, unlike the razer.

 

Thanks. I think something is not right with the 860m then or it's running on the IGP (Intel). Because I'm getting 20FPS faster.

 

I want that iGPU if it scores the same as a stock 860m

 

He got 37 fps vs 54 fps with my stock 860m so it's not the same, that was my point.

Beamed from my G2 Tricorder

 

Updated OP

Battery (added 5/14/14) - I did a rundown test on both laptops. Conditions were: Screen was at full brightness, Wifi on and connected, volume muted, keyboard backlight was on(on the RB, it was set from second to the bottom brightness) and power mode was set to "Balanced". The only anomaly was I had Bluetooth off on the Ghost Pro and it was accidentally left on with the Razer Blade. A video was loaded onto the SSD and a continuous video loop was done from 100% to auto-shutdown(roughly 4%). The Ghost Pro lasted 2 hours and 57 minutes, while the Razer Blade lasted 4 hours and 7 minutes. I'll try again tomorrow with Bluetooth off but it's clear that the Blade has a better battery life. I'm pretty sure Engadget does a similar rundown because my numbers were almost identical to theirs. I know this is what they do with tablets, phones and Chromebooks.

Another thing to consider is the brightness setting. The Razer Blade's brightness is significantly brighter than the Ghost Pro(I'll test actual numbers at a later time). So you should be able to squeeze more life out of the battery of the Razer Blade by turning it down. The brighter screen could be why Engadget saw a 2 hour battery drop between Razer Blade revisions. If I get time, I'll do another round with low brightness.

 

I know this might be a lot of variables to play with but someone at the Blade (2014) Owner's Lounge mentioned that setting windows to Power Savings mode eked out another two hours of battery. According to them, it forces on the iGPU and disables the dGPU. Realistically, if I weren't gaming on battery, this is the setting I'd use since the iGPU should be fine for videos/browsing/productivity. Think you can give it a shot?

Also, good idea on the brightness. I don't always trust sites that just use max brightness of the screen when doing the rundown since brightness varies significantly between different models. I trust sites like Anandtech a lot more with reviews since they specifically equalize all screens to 200 nits to get an accurate battery comparison. Assuming the screen is as bright as everyone says, I would probably never run the Blade at Max Brightness unless I'm working out in sunlight.

 

Sunlight and in heavily lit offices, the backlight is a must to overcome the glossy screen. I saw that post about power saving mode. I was planning on repeating the test at lower brightness in that mode anyways. 200 nit, maybe a little less. Whatever looks comfortable in a dimly lit room.

 

Thanks! Still waiting on legitimate reviews to come out (i.e. anandtech or a similar highly technical site) before I finally pull the trigger but your post is pretty damn close and very informative.

One last question. Have you tested the blade just hooked up to an external monitor and with the lid closed? I'm thinking of simplying/downsizing by replacing my aging desktop with the blade so it may stay closed 80-90% of the time. I wanted to make sure there aren't any heat dissipation/damage issues to the laptop while gaming with the lid closed.

 

I have no way to test that - All of my monitors are DVI-D only. I would venture a guess that it would not be a good idea though. The exhaust for the Razer Blade is out the back and up the screen. When the lid is closed, that exhaust path is completely blocked off.

Edit: I stand corrected, the vent points to the bottom when the lid is closed.

 

Added to the OP:

As requested, I reran the battery test in Power Saving mode and turned the brightness to roughly 80cd/m^2 for both units. For the Ghost pro, this was two ticks up from the bottom - for the Razer Blade, this was the lowest setting. Bluetooth was off on both machines, same keyboard backlighting settings as before and a continuous video loop. The Ghost Pro only had a minor jump in battery, timing out at 3 hours and 14 minutes. The Razer Blade lasted 4 hours and 57 minutes.

 

Which video program?

 

Windows Media Player

 

Sweet thanks. Makes me think that the Blade can actually go for closer to 6 hours with light usage (i.e. some browsing, some videos etc.) and low to medium brightness. That's enough for a coast to coast flight.

 

That is very impressive! Does it have a much larger battery?

 

I don't think so. Based on the reviews, it has the same size battery as last year. The 2013 Model could apparently run for close to 6.5 hours with normal (under default settings) usage. Obviously, the screen on the 2014 model sucks up a lot more power. Getting even close to the 6 hour mark would be great.

 

That was yet one of the best laptop comparisons i have ever seen, you explained every single thing in very much detailed way.

Thanks for your hard work


BUT i have one question stuck in my head....
Will viewing a 4K picture in the Razer blade require more power than viewing a normal HD picture?
For example: if i used a 4k picture as my wallpaper, will it require more power to show and more battery consumption?

 

No. Those pixels have to light up regardless. Reducing resolution of a game can decrease load on the GPU since it has to do less processing in rendering less pixels.

 

Wouldn't increasing the load on the GPU cause it to draw more power? But I'm not sure if the effect of this is negligible or not.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Forgot to mention vsync or frame rate limiting.