Razer Blade 16 (2023) Review w/ i9-13950HX

The Razer Blade 16 is a very premium laptop that disappointed during our tests and benchmarks. Gaming performance was generally ok but temperatures rose significantly during particularly heavy workloads, causing some quite substantial thermal throttling on the majority of the Performance cores found in the Intel Core i9-13950HX.

During a Cinebench R23 10 minute test using the custom profile, 6 out of the 8 P-cores were observed dropping as low as 798MHz at times. This led to decreased performance in both games and synthetic benchmarks and the Razer Blade 16 came up short against a similar system containing an inferior Intel Core i9-13900HX.

On a more positive note, the 2560×1600 QHD+ screen in this model is gorgeous and produces vivid colours and sharp details, while offering up fast and smooth performance during gaming thanks to the 240Hz refresh on offer from the Blade 16.

Continuing with some positive notes, build quality and design are both very impressive. The full anodised aluminium chassis feels very premium and the fit and finish of the laptop is top tier.  The very generously sized trackpad feels well made but does travel slightly more towards the bottom edge.

The keyboard features good quality RGB back lighting which is uniform and bright. Sound quality from the built in speakers is excellent and offers a more bass rich experience than is usually found on laptop speakers.

We'd be happy to recommend the Blade 16 as generally it is a high quality laptop – were it not for the clear thermal issues that have been detailed in this review. That drops performance significantly and is not good enough considering the £3600 asking price.

You can purchase the Razer Blade 16 directly from Razer for £3599.99 HERE.

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Pros:

• Very good build quality
• Good speakers
• Very large trackpad
• Good quality RGB

Cons:

• Very expensive
• Gets hot in intense workloads like most laptops
• Thermal throttling in both custom and balanced profiles, hindering performance

KitGuru says: Thermal throttling seriously hinders the performance of the Intel Core-i9 13950HX CPU, with the laptop's cooling system unable to cope with the heat produced by the processor when carrying out intensive tasks and workloads.

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