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Razer Blade 14-inch (2013) - The Supermodel of Gaming Notebooks

By Kenny Yeo - 6 Aug 2013

Performance Benchmarking (II) - 3DMark 11, 3DMark 2013, Far Cry 2, Crysis 2

3DMark 11

Since 3DMark 11’s Extreme Preset runs in full-HD 1920 x 1080p resolution, we hooked both the Razer and MSI machines up to an external display to ensure they were tested fairly. The Razer Blade’s GeForce GTX 765M GPU is almost identical to the GeForce GTX 760M found in the MSI GE40, with the exception of higher core clock speeds. Hence, it was not surprising to see that the Razer Blade garnered around 13% higher scores on 3DMark 11. It also comfortably saw off last year’s Razer Blade model, which is powered by the GeForce GTX 660M, and also Dell’s Alienware M17X R4. The MSI GT70 0NE has a top-of-the-line GeForce GTX 680M and is still the reigning champ amongst our comparisons on this particular benchmark.

 

 

3DMark 2013

3DMark 2013 is the latest graphics benchmarking utility from FutureMark and we will be gauging the systems’ performance using the Cloud Gate and the more intensive Fire Strike benchmark.

On the new 3DMark 2013 benchmark, the Razer Blade managed to outscore the MSI GE40 by around 10%. It also comfortably saw off the Lenovo Ideapad Y500 (SLI wasn't cooperating on this test unfortunately). Needless to say, integrated graphics solutions such as the Intel HD Graphics 5000 from the latest MacBook Air and the AMD Radeon HD 8330 from the reference Kabini notebook were no match.

 

 

Far Cry 2

Moving on to real-world gaming benchmarks, the Razer Blade comfortably saw off the MSI GE40 thanks to its more powerful GeForce GTX 765M GPU. It was also significantly quicker than the Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 and last year’s 17-inch Razer Blade model.

As for its performance on its native resolution of 1600 x 900, we saw a 11% and 20% increase in frame rates on “Medium” and “Very High” settings respectively.  

 

 

Crysis 2

The Razer Blade’s performance on Crysis 2 was rather impressive. At Full-HD resolution, it was able to run comfortably on "Very High" settings, recording an average frame rate of 43.45 fps. However, turning the settings up to “Ultra” had a detrimental effect on frame rates as we saw it dip to just 23.3 fps. Nevertheless, these numbers were still better than the MSI GE40, and markedly more so when compared to last year’s Razer Blade model. The new Razer Blade was also almost on a par with the Dell Alienware M17X R4, a full-fledged desktop replacement notebook with a GeForce GTX 675M GPU.

Running Crysis 2 on the Razer Blade in its native resolution got us gains of around 30%, which means that we could achieve 30 fps even on the "Ultra" setting.

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8.5
  • Design 8.5
  • Features 8
  • Performance 8.5
  • Value 7.5
  • Mobility 9
The Good
Well-built, compact design
Good performance
Good keyboard with cool green backlight
Killer Wireless-N connectivity
The Bad
Display is substandard
Trackpad is erratic to use
Connectivity options can be better
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