Razer Blade 14 (2023) - Something’s Weird….
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Razer Blade 14 vs Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. Graphic performance review of the Razer Blade 14 compared to the G14. The 140w 4070 is SUPER weird.
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Always a vibe to watch Dave talk about tech when im not buying anything
You mean “can’t afford to buy anything”.. like in my case. 😂😂
i saw you like 15 minutes ago....
hows life
“Not buying anything” a comment already said that, interesting
Bruh I used my money to buy tech from 2018
2:17 Nvidia confirmed to me that this is intentional and how the 4050/4060/4070 are designed to be. All three hit voltage limit around 100W in games, but some workloads can go higher. Even so, the fact that they can't in games and that brands keep advertising gaming models as 140W feels misleading.
It doesn't "feel misleading". It _is_ misleading, because if the one workload that seems to allow those GPUs to go over 100 watts or so is a synthetic test (FurMark), but real workloads can't, then it is absolutely misleading.
of course it IS intentional. It is a way to get people to buy 4080 and 4090 laptops more.
140 Watts of weirdness
They wanted to flex but it went wrong
LOVE the dark background Dave. Looks way better
NEED subtitles for a giant youtuber like you 😂😂😂😂
You mean of goodness?
Blame Nvidia for capping the card.
I think your production quality is extra crispy lately, big props to you for the animations, graphs and the whole aesthetic in general
Its gotta be that new luscious hair
Yeah it’s that hair
Dave needs to make a guide on how to produce short but precise and detailed videos . It's so clean and pleasing to watch! i think i have never skipped any portions of any of his videos because there's nothing annoying or unnecessary . Kudos for making such videos man.
Look up "how to make an infomercial"
Can we just take a minute of silence for those who are watching Tech videos without buying anything 😞
well duh, in this economy
Too poor.
I will always watch consumer tech videos, for the one day in which I might POSSIBLY be able to buy one. Plus I just love tech.
I'm sticking with my 2021 g14. It works great for what I need. Don't need anything else
I don’t know how they will solve it in the future. I think they can’t sell gaming laptop the way Apple / Samsung sells their flagship phones. Spending $2000 every year for a new laptop is a game not many people can afford.
Even for the 4060 version Razer is selling it at $2400, where as Asus G14 selling their 4060 for $1600. The upgradeable RAM is a great new addition but seems like every year Razer is still making mistakes with their designs.
Razor got better build quality. It’s more premium than the ZEPHRUS. It’s kinda like a gaming MacBook basically
@@maximilianschmidt5941 yeah I like the chassis, looks and feels more premium. But the paint chips easily and I don’t like the keyboard and speakers on this. Not sure if speakers improved over previous gen. If it has MacBook Pro level speakers it would be much better
@@maximilianschmidt5941 except their quality control is absolutely trash, they still couldnt address their battery issues :/
I have 2021 version - no battery issues.
Razer made a decision, have removable RAM but with the reduction in space so sacrificed performance of the GPU. It seems this design cannot have both. I assume they will redesign for next year to mend this flaw. What they should have done, if possible, was kept the soldered RAM and had the space for the better GPUs. At this pricing, for one generation, that was a bad call. Of course, the design may not have been able to handle the extra GPU performance, so in that case, Razer made the best of a bad situation.
I'm so glad you addressed the performance flatlining after feeding it a specific amount of wattage on 4050-70.
With last generation people were missing out on performance because they didn't look at TGP. Now this generation when peoople have learned their lesson they'd be willing to pay extra for a gpu with higher TGP and they're basically getting ripped off.
Why get a bulkier laptop with 140W 4060/70 (and pay extra for it)when you could pick up a slimmer one (that's not necessarily thin) that caps at around 105W
lenovo legion slim has 115W 4070, that’s what i went for
fucking Nvidia bullshit
Nvidia : eyy gottem
Or the same size and thickness, but has a capped 105W 4060/70 so the extra power feeds into the CPU, increasing the CPU performance so the CPU bound games can get extra FPS
@@sihamhamda47 Yeah it already looks like it's at the size sweet spot. Mine's a bit thinner and thermals are major concern.
As someone who is brief to point in my communications. I love how Dave fits so much information in 5-8 min videos.
This is why when it comes to laptops, I always value what Dave says first
Bruhh Jarrod's tech showed much before. Don't be a fan of youtuber or make them your only reliable source. They're humans and humans are imperfect.
@@DragonOfTheMortalKombatBruhh then by extension AI is also imperfect because it was made by humans, and I'll give an example, yesterday it told me Doom 2016 was released for MacOS 😢,
Eh, I bought a Blade because of Dave's review years ago - it was the worse laptop I've ever owned due to multiple issues and ultimately a dead motherboard right after the warranty expired.. Turns out, Blades have a way worse reputation among typical users than other brands.
ASUS is also usually a safe bet because they really know what they‘re doing and seemingly have a lot of insider knowledge because they often release their products first and they’re well optimized by then
@@BradHebert Sorry to hear that, gaming laptops have improved since then but they are still a ticking bomb in my opinion, I feel like the power the components need along with the space constraints makes it a *killer* combination in the literal sense. This will not change until they make something like Apple did with the latest laptops, where the components are powerful but the power consumption is so low they last all day. If Apple was smart enough they would have leveraged game development by know but they are not. Somebody else will.
Razer has always priced their products pretty high but 2700 for that is just crazy.
They think they apple
Yeah they think their consumer would buy it at any given price lmao. I have 5 Razer mice, Viper Mini (bought from China sites, $25) - Basilisk X Hyperspeed (same China site, $30) - Viper Ultimate (second-handed, $40) - Viper V2 Pro (second-handed from China site, $62) - Deathadder V3 Pro (second-handed, $75). I love their mice, and it honestly are all good, but priced horribly so i never bought a brand new one lol
@@TKaz10😂😂😂brooo
Incredible, the way Dave comunicate is so professional no extra emotion no extra drama, always a clear delivery of the message.
1:51 He calls himself Dave2D, Not just Dave.
Dave is so brilliant for pulling up those Blade 16 numbers. wowow. And then compliments there where it's deserved. So respectable haha.
The 4090s and 4080s have larger die size, but not necessarily larger package size.
The whole 60 to 80 (90) series usually share the same package size, as to reduce complications in laptop design.
But the 50 tier has a smaller package size to fit in smaller laptops.
Unfortunately, Nvidia does not release package size info.
Package refers to the bright green PCB the die is attached to, right? Then that doesn’t take into account that A) the higher tier GPUs have more VRAM, which means more dies and thus more space, and B) that ideally you would expect the higher end configs to have more VRMs, which also takes up more space.
Couldn’t you get the blade 14 with a 3080 for the last two years? I just seriously doubt they’d cede the “most powerful 14 laptop” to the g14 willingly.
True, extra die size won't make any big difference, but will cost more. Razer chose easy way out by false marketing.
They also fit in 3080 tis in the past which are bigger chips.
@@jwkelley The Higher tier chips have more Vram modules....4050 has 3, 4060 and 4070 has 4 modules.....4080 has 6, 4090 has 8. In order to make space for two ram sticks instead of soldering them down...they took up as little space as possible. check out the previous razer blade 14.......the 3080 had 8 modules like this years 4090.....the vapour chamber ran all the way down to the middle next to the battery to fit that 3080.......This year they had to "create" space for the ram. by reducing how much space they give the gpu....thus the 4060/4070 cap.
usually i would be blaming razer for manipulating marketing with malicious intent, but I'm leaning more towards blaming nvidia for their tomfoolery with laptop gpus. They're so inconsistent and difficult to work with as a gpu provider that I'm not surprised things like this happen. I mean there's a reason evga cut off their contract and they said themselves that it's because nvidia is so hard to work with. Razer went for a different approach when designing this laptop and clearly there was an intention to get more performance with that 140W, otherwise it just doesn't do them any good.
The low bass at the intro tho.... 😮😮😮. Woooo, had to play that multiple times.
You gotta have a headset on to heard it fully tho😬
I got me a 2022 Blade 14 running R6900hx with RTX3070ti last December for $1850 + tax.
My 2020 blade 15 running at 80watts in 2070super-MQ
We ve gone so far in this 2,3 years man
The wallpaper on the G14 looks Stunning! id love to hear where it came from.
Very Informative. Explanatory videos like this are the best since most people like me are very poor knowledge in these matters. Thanks for the video.
Critical videos make Dave a more trusted tech reviewer than others with way more subscribers.
Jarrod tech also mentioned this about higher wattage 40 series laptops that they are performing same as lower ones.
An important factor would be the sound level and the heat. I have the Asus 14-inch with 2060
Great catch! This is proper tech journalism.
Matte screens in 2023 just fk my shit up
Hi Dave,
I almost never comment your videos - even though I have been following you for years now! - but I have to say that I especially liked this investgation-related video 🙂.
The data presented as well as your hypothesis at the end of the video are very relevant! It is just a shame that you do not explain in more detail how you collected it and... please give to your charts and plots more time in screen (they barely appear for a few seconds 😂).
Anyway, thank you again for all this high-quality content you have been bringing to us for the last years 👌
They lost me at charging $2600+ for a laptop with a high resolution , high refresh screen with no g-sync
nice to know about this gpu flattening above 100w ,
I was looking to buy 4070 laptop,
now I am more informed on how to see behind the marketing , thank you
Very nice video, cooling a 14 inch slim laptop is pretty hard, the g14 does it very well but the io ports are pushed forward though. Super short and crisp videos.
always liking the deep dive into specs and performance test..
Awesome content! Even though I know a lot about pc tech, I've been watching your videos for years and I always use your great input.
Ayyy! He fixed his hair. Dave was looking like Twinkjak in his last video! Love this man.
I'm quite sure that sometime later this year or perhaps next, Razer will make an upgrade of this laptop, sticking to the same design but changing up the GPU. We've seen them do this before-like when they swapped out the Ryzen 5th gen for the 6th and tossed in a 3080Ti. I think, that over the next year or two, they won't do much with the design, but we'll see a hefty upgrade on the inside, possibly a RTX4070Ti or 4080Ti with an 8th gen Ryzen. Basically, this model is setting the stage for future laptops that will keep this design on the outside and inside but will be changing CPU and GPU die.
My Zephyrus G14 started falling apart a week after the warranty expired. :-( Wires inside the hinge are going bad, causing problems with both the webcam & the screen. Plus the MicroSD card slot is no longer working! As an IT professional who's treated the device gently, I am really unhappy about this pricey of a device just falling apart after 1 year...
my 2020 has gotten extremely rough use and it still works well. Windows went badly after 1-2 years and linux mint ran horribly, but currently on endeavor os it is perfectly functioning
The way he reviews laptops is so unique and original
I literally haven't watched a video from dave in like a couple months and I swear I was not expecting the longer hair and the few greys not bad, but it caught me completely off guard.
Do u have like audio engineers for ur intros and outros? They hit my ear just right
I rewind 8 times before starting
EDIT:
LMAO u can see that the intro is almost ur most replayed part of the video hahahahaha
Love that you're growing your hair out btw, looks great
Broooo, your wallpapers are insane! Were could we find them ?
Keep goging on what you doing, When Im stressed you chill me out with your videos!
The Razer 14 I got in 2021 was great at the start but in less than 2 years became almost unusable - right fan died, graphics driver issues and fixed 16 GB ram only, but at that time it was one of the best laptops around and I really needed to get one in the summer cos Legion series was delayed big time
Oh man that's sad to hear. I bought the 15" 2021 Asus Zephyrus and after a year it began falling apart: Had to replace the keyboard, the speakers are now dead and it has so many Windows and power issues.
I was going to sell it and replace it with a Razer Blade, but maybe that's probably not a good idea either...
Did you charge it via USB-C? I’m getting a lot of inconsistencies when I charge it that way on my Razer blade 14 (2022).
my 2021 blade 14 has been daily driven for gaming for 2 years now with close to no issues.
Nvidia must have imposed some artificial limiter that Razer got blindsided. Someone at Razor is really pissed
You never disappointed me in any video of yours man, every single time I wish I don't reach "there you have it" part 😅 ... thanks a lot
Thank you for talking me out of buying something I can't afford :)
I love how concise yet informative your videos are, your content is always top notch!
OH, finally a laptop video. FINALLY
Wallpaper on the G14 at 0:21 ???
Opted for the Razer Blade 14 2023 myself; but it all comes down to preference and use case. Amazing machines these two
Just tell me that you got it for the looks 😏
0:03 that was pretty harsh on the alienware x14
@1:34 Graphic issue 2023 G14 is the 7940HS -- for anyone wondering - later its fixed to showcase
great insights, keep doing this!
I’ve been waiting for this laptop, and I am very happy to hear it finally has sodimm slots as that was what kept me from pulling the trigger on a leftover 3070ti blade 14. However it is similarly unfortunate that it’s stuck with a 4070 because of it. I’m not willing to buy a GPU with 8gb of Vram in 2023, and certainly not for 3 grand after tax. I was expecting to pay that price, but for a 4080. Gonna have reconsider my upgrade.
another precise video. keep going. respect
Good catch. Glad we have channels like yours keeping on eye on the market. Gotta make informed decisions when buying cause marketing material is rarely a good source for performance these days.
thinking the base rb14 is the move; $500 more for a 4070 is ridiculous and I will mostly use it on the go anyways
I was looking to upgrade my 5900/3070 razer 14 but I'll hold off thanks Dave.
You didn’t mention one advantage of the Asus: It‘s got a mini Led display.
I mean you can always lower the power limit and enjoy a chill system but it‘s a pity they aren’t offering the system with a 4080 at least. Asus is even cramming in a 4090..
1:50 it says g14 (2023) 6900hs which is untrue it is a 7940hs for 2023 with the 4090
I think Razer should have just adopted a miniled, especially at that price point.
Your theory as to why they did not include 4080 makes sense. Truly a weird config.
I missed your laptop analytics&review ✌️
Can't wait for the 2024 blade 14 model flexing up to 260 watts going into the gpu.
where´s the classic outro...been missin it :(
otherwise still one of the coolest tech chanels :)
Honestly, even if they had stuck a 4090 in this, 140W of GPU power in a "thin and light" seems insane to me. It's a testament to the capabilities of their thermal engineering group because that thing should by all means just fly off the table once the fans kick in.
Bought Razer Viper 8khz mouse... being exited about the 8Khz polling rate. Turns out if you run it at any polling rate more than 1000 hz, it leads to FPS drop (while moving the mouse) in FPS games. Had to tune down the mouse to 500hz.ate. Turns out if you run it at any polling rate more than 1000 hz, it leads to frame drop (while moving the mouse). Had to tune down the mouse to 500hz.
Hey, Link to the wallpaper of the Razer?
I wish they both made an updated all AMD version.
it may be worth looking at the deciles of fps for different wattages on the same benchmark... the reason is the higher wattage may offer lower volatility in frame rates... so averaging these out may not show the full picture.
You should review the ASUS Zenbook Pro 14 OLED (UX6404) I got one for work recently and its only $2100 for an i9, 32gb ram, RTX 4070, 120hz OLED screen and 1tb ssd. Much cheaper than this Razer with better specs and its been out for months. Only issue I have had is inconsistent coil whine with it.
Do you have the touch screen version. If so is it grainy due to the touch layer and how is fan noise/temps in sustained gaming sessions. Looking to buy either that or the Lenovo slim pro 9i 4070 with the mini led. Thanks.
I still can't believe how well my 2020 G14 is holding up. Maybe I'll finally upgrade it next year :-)
I bought the Blade 14 with 4070 on offer with a 40% discount a few days ago for €1899 and I'm extremely satisfied ^^
I have G14 and it's really has a really good performance. But materials and assembly... I mean it's alrigth, but for medium laptop level, not the premium one)
Can I ask where you get your wallpapers ? They always look so clean
Only two noteworthy 14" gaming laptops? There is a third - Acer Predator Triton 14 (i7-13700H, 4070, Mini LED 250Hz display). This laptop is particularly interesting because of its price point at under $2K. The new Blade 14 with 4070 retails at an eye watering €3200 in my country.
ye, but given Acer's terrible history in quality and customer service, I am not surprised Dave leaves them out.
What about the MSI Stealth 14? That one also goes upto an RTX 4070 and it also has upgradable RAM.
@@CarthagoMike Not going to argue with that! To be fair, Razer doesn't trail blaze in that department either. If a manufacturer won't offer onsite warranty that's a deal breaker for me unless the device is extremely well priced.
@@CyanRooper Yes another option for sure
@@rossdev on site as in they come to you, right? If that’s the case I think that limits you exclusively to the major OEMs like DellAlienware, and dealing with their whole ‘reputation’.
Or why not just let me set the TDP in the BIOS, most underrated feature.
Source for wallpapers? They just stock Razer wallpapers?
I hope in upcoming years the efficiency is main focus and consistency of performance while being unplugged like macbooks. Shifting to arm would probably make it easier but optimization of all programs may be hard. Also the new
semiconductor -based fanless cooling mechanism shown in one of PC world's CES tours seems really effective and interesting , can't wait to see it used in laptops.
Frankly, the whole “consistency of performance while unplugged” is never going to happen. The only reason that’s a thing on macs is because they have such a low peak power consumption that it’s basically the same as being on battery.
The GPU in this thing is 140 watts, so it pulls 140 watts at peak power. Using a 100 watt hour battery, which is the legal limit, that means it can’t even power it for a full hour. But the thing is, a part is always going to perform better at 140 watts than at 28 watts.
Obviously, battery life in windows land needs major improvements, but the only way to get the same “performs the same on and off battery” in windows land is to artificially shift that performance stall point from 100-odd watts to more like 15 watts, which means needlessly leaving performance on the table.
@@levygaming3133 With existing x86 cpus and battery tech ye that's not possible so either one of them needs to be improved to achieve it. Otherwise we'll run into the problems you just listed out. I watched lot of comparisons between 16" m1 pro MBP and a Similar Windows alternative with rtx 3080 gpu and the performance of mac was pretty much same if not better in some cases , so it seems to me that we don't lose out on performance by adopting a more efficient arm architecture .I hope battery tech improves because even if they chips becomes as efficient as apple silicon (m1 , m2s) the max duration u can get with heavy usage is still 3-4 hrs on battery.
@@levygaming3133 Even if that's tough i want windows laptops to atleast be better optimised for battery life . My Lenovo laptop has i5 -1235U and a 75Wh battery but still battery life is only about 8-9hrs with light usage. If i multi task more it drops even further . Idle drain is small but noticable about 4-6% overnight.
@@keerthan7558 so you watched the APPLE fanboy MAX TECH channel and made conclusions on that.... cool
you don't seem to understand the concept of software compatibility, let alone the concept of BASIC PHYSICS
@@jesusbarrera6916 no lol i don't even know who that is , the only tech channels i follow are mkbhd , mrwhosetheboss , LTT , Hardware Cannucks and Tech tablets. I just spoke based on whatever i understood, that's it .
Razer is not selling in my country, but I am still watching this.....SUPER weird.
2 main reasons I can figure out. First is the manufacturing process. RTX 4xxx is on TSMCs most modern 4nm node. Its extremely efficient compared to Samsung 8nm which was used for RTX 3xxx. So the cap at which more wattage doesnt mean more performance is lower simply due to the efficiency of the lithography. This is coupled with the design of the chip which in all metrics is smaller and worse than former xx70 chips. With lower bandwidths, less transistors, less vram etc. The xx70 gpus used to be a sweetspot for performance at an acceptable price and by removing the performance Nvidia wants you to spend double on the xx80 variant this generation. And its likely going to work out with nobody buying the competition no matter how much better their offers are over nvidias. I wonder if people forgot or just dont care about what happened in the cpu market when Intel had a de facto monopoly between 2012 and 2017. Bad times for gamers. Imagine that for nvidia who dont even earn most of their money through us anymore.
The price is very bad on razer laptops, but they are never the brand for value, it’s sort of like MacBooks, you get a good performer for the form factor and not really any value. But I think they did a good job, going from both soldered to both replaceable ram, and the screen. The 140w even though offers no performance, if can at least make the gpu runs cooler.
"You might be thinking Dave2d that's awesome".....lol
What about the MSI Stealth 14? I really love it!
i like the dark background
i like your eyes
Thanks for bringing this to our attention!
I honestly think Dave is the last "reviewer" that actually protects the consumer. This dude is a gem.
Protect him at all costs... becoz he protects us.
I mean kudos for Dave2D for shining the light to more users, but Jarrod Tech had noticed the issue with 4050/4060/4070 power scaling way before him.
The hair is really ascending to new levels of flow
"Am I a joke to you?" - MSI Stealth Studio 14
Love the new haircut bro
I'm convinced by your theory Dave. Nvidia is known for not giving these laptop manufacturers info on their Nvidia products. So Razer definitely went into it blind
The issue is CPUs and GPUs are getting more powerful . But battery, not so much.
Did you even watch the video ? it is about the GPU not getting more performance after reaching a power limit. RTX 40 series consume much less power than 30 counterparts.
You know why they stopped caring about batteries in Windows Gaming Laptop? Because it’s pointless. Those high wattage GPU aren’t gonna run well on laptop batteries as it doesn’t provide enough juice to fully utilize those GPU. So people always gotta plug in when they’re gaming.
How you manage to fit so much info in so little is beyond me man....
Coming from an engineering pov, if the gpu is marketed (and designed) to be 140W then perhaps the cooling system and sustained performance would be better at 100-110W compared to a laptop whose peak power was designed at 125W. 🤷♂️
Where can I download that type of wallpapers for my laptop?
Never mind wattage, here is the problem: 8GB of VRAM makes 4070 DOA.
The wattage trick is a big issue actually. I bought an 16 inch asus oled laptop with gtx3050. Before buying I checked the performance of 3050 from internet and it seemed very good ( because the site was giving info based on max wattage of the 3050 which is 80 watts) little did I know that asus decided to keep max wattage of the GPU at 35 watts :(. So I now I have a laptop bought in 2022 with performance of a gtx960. It does not matter which GPU you are buying nowadays, you should check its power consumption set by the laptop manufacturer.
1:52 correction, 2023 G14 has a 7940HS, not 6900HS
Still waiting for the x16 Alienware review
I'd be interested to see what your thoughts were between the 2023 G14 and the 2023 Zenbook 14 with the 4070.
My 2021 14” has served me well. Definitely has some bugs but not deal breakers. I’m like 25% gaming 75% media creation.
Runs very hot at full pelt! Very hot! Despite vapour cooling etc.
I would NOT use this as a full time gaming machine.
You can't fool Dave.
Dave, the G14 and G15 have really bad bios and sleep issues. Could you please take a look at that? I own one, and it feels wrong each time it is recommended