Is Razer Blade 15 Base Model's (2018) heatsink copper or aluminum? | Razer Insider

Is Razer Blade 15 Base Model's (2018) heatsink copper or aluminum?

  • 11 June 2019
  • 2 replies
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I have a 2018 (I believe) Razer Blade 15 Base Model (m2 + SATA storage). One with an i7-8750H and not "vapor cooled"

Is the heatsink or heatspredder made of copper or aluminum? I understand repasting will void my warranty, which I still have, but I am curious if you are able to apply "liquid metal" such as Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut to the CPU and/or GPU.

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2 Replies

A few things:


  • I believe it's copper, the same as the Advanced model (I say this because that's the only point of reference I have, as an owner).
  • Are you sure that you want to bother with liquid metal? Yes, the thermal effects can be significant, but at the same time, I'd still feel hesitant about putting any thermal material with gallium into a laptop that's going to be moved around and held on its side.

  • I had some pretty disappointing thermal performance when I first got my 2018 Advanced, even after undervolting. When I opened up my chassis to take a look, mine had a particularly bad paste job. There was a ton of thermal paste everywhere - and to make matters worse: it looked as if who/whatever did the job had basically missed its mark in spots. Judging from other Razer devices I'd worked on at a retail store, years ago, this wasn't really typical of them, so mine likely had been a fluke.

  • I went to Microcenter, picked up some Noctua NT-H1 (it was what they had on the shelf that I recognized), and I saw dramatic temperature reductions:

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  • I wasn't hitting the 100C PROCHOT warning anymore.
  • Fans pretty much only get going when gaming or on initial boot, in regular ambient room conditions.
  • The GPU now maintains its clock speeds for longer, since bi-directional PROCHOT triggers far less often, if at all.
  • The 2018 Advanced's idle temperatures sit around 43C, with short boosts hitting 75-78C and sustained, multi-core boosts a couple degrees higher; it's important to note that I've also tweaked down the turbo multipliers on multi-core boosts in order to save on heat and battery. I honestly don't need 3.7-3.9GHz over all cores for my usage (especially in gaming, where a max all-core multiplier of, say, 30 (3.0GHz) often yields higher overall sustained framerates, since it is less likely to get to the point where it thermal throttles. This also helps keep the device from hitting its Power Limits, too, which is great, because you're much more likely to see PL1 or PL2 limiting your performance than thermals, with good airflow and a repaste.

Oh, and for the love of all things silicon, PLEASE be careful with the sections of your heatsink and pipes that anchor near the hinges of the laptop. This thing is basically 100% copper, and appears very flexible. I didn't have any trouble with mine, but there are a couple screws, particularly one underneath the WiFi antenna running along the edge of the chassis, that are sort of hidden, so be careful, take pictures, and make sure that you have removed all the screws before you go hulkmode and wrench the heatsink from the board.

The thermal paste they used at the factory was fairly hard, but the thermal pads that connect some of the components like VRMs are the real sticky pain. Be super, ultra, mega patient, work it off slowly, and don't do it by the aforementioned corners of the headpipe module. Just limit your area of pressure to the thickest parts in the center, and don't wrench it upward.


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They stopped painting the heatsinks on the 2019 models which reveals the underlying color. You should be able to tell from the tint that it is in fact copper.