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The Razer Blade 16 is a premium laptop with a premium price tag. Featuring an Intel Core i9-13950HX CPU and configurable with up to an Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU, 32GB of DDR5 memory and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD…this laptop certainly has some very high end specs on paper. The specification we have for review features an RTX 4080, 32GB of memory and a 1TB SSD. Can the Blade 16 deliver performance equal to its £3600 price tag?
Timestamps
00:00 Start
00:27 Spec details / pricing
05:27 Design / Build Quality / Keyboard
06:32 Track Pad
07:30 Razer logo / Hinges / Camera
08:24 Connectivity
08:40 Speakers
09:25 Thermal Throttling
12:20 Benchmark results
15:28 Battery Life test
15:48 Gaming tests
19:21 Some thoughts
19:42 Thermals and Noise
21:36 Power demand
22:01 Closing Thoughts
Specification
- Operating System Windows 11 Home
- Processor Name 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i9-13950HX 5.5 GHz
- Cores / Threads 24 Cores / 32 Threads
- Graphics Name NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 4080 Laptop GPU
- Memory 12GB GDDR6 VRAM
- TGP (Total Graphics Power) Up to 175W
- Thermal System Patented Vapor Chamber Cooling
- Display Size 16″
- Resolution QHD+ 16:10 (2560 x 1600 WQXGA)
- Anti-Glare Yes
- DCI-P3 100%
- Refresh Rate 240Hz
- Response Time 3ms
- Bezel (Side / Top / Bottom) 4.66mm / 9.6mm / 8.08mm
- System Memory Installed 32GB
- Maximum Upgradeable 64GB (2 slots)
- Technology DDR5-5600MHz
- Storage Installed 1TB PCIe® 4.0 NVMe™ M.2 SSD
- Maximum Upgradeable 4TB (2 slots)
- USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 1 – Supports Power Delivery 3 (100W)
- USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 3
- Keyboard – Technology Per key RGB Powered by Razer Chroma™ N-Key rollover
- Keyboard – Travel 1.0mm
- Keyboard – Anti-Ghosting Yes
- HDMI 2.1 output Yes
- UHS-II SD Card Reader Yes
- Audio Speakers 4 speaker array (tweeters x2, sub x2)
- Amplifiers 2 Smart Amps
- Audio Jack 3.5mm Combo-Jack
- Power Battery (WH) 95.2Whr
- Battery Warranty 2 Years
- Power Adaptor 330W GaN Power Adapter
- Limited Warranty 1 Year
- Dimensions (Approx.) “Height: 0.87” / 21.99mm
- Width: 9.61” / 244mm
- Depth: 13.98” / 355mm
The core specs are confirmed in the following CPU-Z and GPU-Z screenshots:
CPU Package Power averaged 110 watts during a 10 minute Cinebench R23 Multicore test with a custom profile active in Razer's Synapse software, with that figure dropping to 57 watts during a Cyberpunk 2077 gaming test and sitting at 15 watts when idle. Switching to the balanced profile saw those figures drop to 50 watts in Cinebench and 49 watts when playing Cyberpunk 2077. Idle CPU package power usage remained at 15 watts in both profiles.
CPU Package Temperature reflected the power consumption results with idle temperatures recorded at 55 degrees, rising to 90 degrees when gaming and 94 degrees when stressed with Cinebench and using the custom profile. Balanced mode saw the CPU temperature drop significantly to 68 degrees in Cinebench. Thermal throttling was observed on both the custom and balanced profiles during testing, which hindered the performance of the Intel Core i9-13950HX across most CPU intensive tasks and benchmarks. More details regarding this are available in our video review on YouTube.
With the custom profile active, system noise reached its peak during gaming, reaching 55dB due to the cooling of both the CPU and GPU being pushed to higher RPMs. The noise output during a 10 minute Cinebench Multicore test was 52dB, with the idle recording sitting at 34dB.
Gaming results were respectable throughout the tested titles, with some garnering higher results than others. However, 1% low figures were surprisingly higher in some titles when using the balanced profile with Synapse. This is more than likely due to the CPU thermal throttling when under a lot of strain. Overall though, gaming at 2560×1600 on the Razer Blade 16 is mostly enjoyable and it handled all titles on maximum graphics settings with relative ease but there is definite room for improvement with more adequate cooling.
For a better overall picture of the results from the 10 titles we tested, the average FPS figure of 97 with the custom profile active shows that the Razer Blade 16 is capable of gaming across many titles at maximum settings. Results from all 10 games can be found in our video review over on the KitGuru YouTube channel.
Synthetic benchmark results were similar to the recently reviewed Recoil 17 R LC from PCSpecialist. The Intel CPU found in the Razer Blade 16 provides better single core performance and falls behind in multi threaded workloads irrespective of the Core i9-1950HX being a technically superior CPU to the chip found in the comparison system. The overall performance of the Razer Blade 16was held back quite significantly by some quite serious thermal throttling occurring during CPU intensive workloads in both the custom and balanced profiles. With the custom profile active, up to 6 of the 8 performance cores dipped to 798MHz during testing.
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.
