I present to you Firebat's Blade 15! (144hz/i7-8750H)

Did anyone ran some benchmarks with Turbo boost OFF + undervolting ?

I'm curious to see the impact it has on performance VS heat VS fans noise

That's how I've been running my 14" (7700HQ/GTX 1060) since I got it, and at this very moment, doing light work, CPU temp is between 43 and 46, fans never turn on, which it great :)
And I don't think my CPU ever goes over 60 (edit : between 60-65), unless I'm really stressing it (or gaming).

I don't mind having Turbo Boost OFF, but I'm scared that the 8750H would be slower than the 7700HQ in that scenario, with the lower base clock.

misterg36
I have turbo boost off and -160 undervolt on the 1070 blade, and in Destiny 2 I didn't see temps higher that 75 - which is unheard of for the newer laptops (from the 6 I sent back)

75 is actually good while gaming

What are your average FPS and visual settings in Destiny 2 ? I also play Destiny 2 so I'll be able to compare with my current Blade ;)

And when you say

misterg36
which is unheard of for the newer laptops (from the 6 I sent back)

... did you return 6 Blades or 6 "other laptops" ?

Badgertista
75 is actually good while gaming

What are your average FPS and visual settings in Destiny 2 ? I also play Destiny 2 so I'll be able to compare with my current Blade ;)

And when you say

... did you return 6 Blades or 6 "other laptops" ?

Destiny 2 at 1080p ultra 120-150fps
Destiny 2 at 4k high 45fps

6 different laptops, it's how I realised heat is the problem with intel chips, not laptops (and that reviewers were doing a lousy job by either not testing the laptops properly or being given "tweaked" units.)

I had: Alienware 15 (1070gtx), Alienware 17(1080gtx), Acer Predator (1080gtx),Asus Zephyrus (1080gtx), MSI Titan (1080gtx) and a skullCanyon 7th gen with 1080Ti in a Razer Core.

All of them went to 95-98C when gaming in an air-conditioned room in perfect temperatures. The Zephyrus hit 107C!!!!!!
Even the MSI titan which was cooler, but even with full fans, one of the cores hit 97C.

I got the Titan hoping I would never have to worry about heat, but when I did I realised if I was going to have to undervolt and cool etc regardless I may as well have a small form factor laptop.

The Blade's ability to run at 30W is the only thing keeping it from running too hot (like I said it's an intel chip issue)

You notice it less in games that use more GPU, but games that hit the CPU and GPU really cause problems (Ubisoft games, subnautica etc).

So I've been really happy with the blade, beautiful laptop, and cool enough at 30W, but the -160 undervolt makes it perfect and no noticable frame loss (ie it's obviously running at less frames, but not so you would really notice.

Also thermal throttling is really erratic, I'd have power throttling any day

crypticc
Hi
Hast this power limit throttling been acknowledged by Razer?
I get immediate throttling when stress test on xtu and temperature in 60s and 70s and so cannot be thermal throttling.
In XTU the power limited throttling is constant after several seconds.
In fact temperature won't get up into the 80s.

If I undervolt in XTU, then I can progressively allow CPU speed to increase to the advertised max but for short bursts. Only at -160mV does CPU finally increase to 3.8 and temperature then allowed to rise. But still very low.

I wonder how many people not prepared to dabble live with a laptop running at 60% of its chip capacity
Thanks
Chris

It has been acknowledged yes, but enough people have to complain about it for the engineers to really look into it as an actual problem. I am still working with the team on that issue and trying to gather as much data as possible to back up the claims. The problem is the average user is not keeping close eye on clock speeds etc.. so there is so many that will never bring the issue up... because they just don't know. Overall the Blade still performs within the ream of all thin and lights in its class, but there is more power left on the table.

Much improved, very nice:big_grin_:

Other than lightbleed on the bottom left corner of my display, i have been very happy with the Blade 15 so far. I was prepared to send it back in, but since everything else works flawlessly, i decided not to risk having them open it up/sending me an alternate unit that may have issues.

Firebat246
I would like to hear from some more owners of the new Blade 15! How have they been running etc etc. Positives or negatives I want to hear it all.

Mine is fantastic, and I love it to bits - It still needs undervolting to keep the CPU temps down, but unlike the other 6 laptops I sent back before overheating this keeps it below 90 almost all of the time (Plus I know this is an intel chip issue).

The only thing I hate with a passion is Optimus and the Thunderbolt 3 eGPU configuration (though I have no idea if anyone else gets it right).

It feels like black magic is required to get it all working, and even then it stutters and jitters - and I have tried everything.

What it really needs is the ability to manually force which GPU's you want to use (and even better have some options).

There are ways to "force" the 1070 to work, but it would be great to have an option to

• Always use nvidia
  
• Use Intel when possible
  
• Always use intel
  
• Only use Thunderbolt eGPU (or stop trying to switch/share)
  

Note: unless you have an absolute fix, I've purposely not gone into details, but have tried everything and get it to work 90% of the time without fiddling or re-installing drivers.

I've mostly made my peace with the required fiddling, and it is still the best quality, featured laptop I could buy and I don't regret buying it - or waiting for the 4k version to hit the UK

Amazing machine and definitely the best of the 7 different laptops I've had this year (I sent 6 of them back for overheating too much)

It gets an A from me, and could hit an A+ if they got the GPU bit right
(I realise it's kind of Intel/Nvidia issue, but a small official Razer app to force switch the software would be perfect)

misterg36
Mine is fantastic, and I love it to bits - It still needs undervolting to keep the CPU temps down, but unlike the other 6 laptops I sent back before overheating this keeps it below 90 almost all of the time (Plus I know this is an intel chip issue).

The only thing I hate with a passion is Optimus and the Thunderbolt 3 eGPU configuration (though I have no idea if anyone else gets it right).

It feels like black magic is required to get it all working, and even then it stutters and jitters - and I have tried everything.

What it really needs is the ability to manually force which GPU's you want to use (and even better have some options).

There are ways to "force" the 1070 to work, but it would be great to have an option to

• Always use nvidia
  
• Use Intel when possible
  
• Always use intel
  
• Only use Thunderbolt eGPU (or stop trying to switch/share)
  

Note: unless you have an absolute fix, I've purposely not gone into details, but have tried everything and get it to work 90% of the time without fiddling or re-installing drivers.

I've mostly made my peace with the required fiddling, and it is still the best quality, featured laptop I could buy and I don't regret buying it - or waiting for the 4k version to hit the UK

Amazing machine and definitely the best of the 7 different laptops I've had this year (I sent 6 of them back for overheating too much)

It gets an A from me, and could hit an A+ if they got the GPU bit right
(I realise it's kind of Intel/Nvidia issue, but a small official Razer app to force switch the software would be perfect)

Do you use the Razer core for E-GPU?

I have the Razer GPU Switcher App. Works pretty well for me. You can download it from Razer's site. I believe it was originally intended for the old 14" Blade models, but it does the job for me on the new 15 just fine.

misterg36
Mine is fantastic, and I love it to bits - It still needs undervolting to keep the CPU temps down, but unlike the other 6 laptops I sent back before overheating this keeps it below 90 almost all of the time (Plus I know this is an intel chip issue).

The only thing I hate with a passion is Optimus and the Thunderbolt 3 eGPU configuration (though I have no idea if anyone else gets it right).

It feels like black magic is required to get it all working, and even then it stutters and jitters - and I have tried everything.

What it really needs is the ability to manually force which GPU's you want to use (and even better have some options).

There are ways to "force" the 1070 to work, but it would be great to have an option to

• Always use nvidia
  
• Use Intel when possible
  
• Always use intel
  
• Only use Thunderbolt eGPU (or stop trying to switch/share)
  

Note: unless you have an absolute fix, I've purposely not gone into details, but have tried everything and get it to work 90% of the time without fiddling or re-installing drivers.

I've mostly made my peace with the required fiddling, and it is still the best quality, featured laptop I could buy and I don't regret buying it - or waiting for the 4k version to hit the UK

Amazing machine and definitely the best of the 7 different laptops I've had this year (I sent 6 of them back for overheating too much)

It gets an A from me, and could hit an A+ if they got the GPU bit right
(I realise it's kind of Intel/Nvidia issue, but a small official Razer app to force switch the software would be perfect)

Stutter happens always often on egpu setting, though it depends on game, setting and resolution. It’s because TB3 bandwidth and Blade 15 TB3 design that isn’t directly connected to cpu but first through pch may cause also that. You’ve to play with those setting to minimize it. For example with 2080, AC Origins playable on 4K medium, SoTR 4K high. For PUBG if i get 100fps 1080p internal (ultra), 60fps 4K external. Main advantages from egpu on Blade with indirect cpu TB3 is to low cpu temperature which means longer lifespan imo, beside playing on high resolution like 4K with high end gpu that dGPU couldn’t achieve. On 1080p some games like OW performs better on 1070 Blade than 2080egpu in term performance, Far Cry 5 as well.

misterg36
Stutter on eGPU's is rarely to do with bandwidth, and almost always a driver issue.

You are spot on with the temperature reduction and the frame rates etc.

If you can get the drivers right, and a prevailing wind, it runs around 20% lower than a desktop card with no issues.

I've tested it with the 15" blade, 6 other laptops, the alienware eGPU (on the 15 and 17" alienware) and using an Intel Skull Canyon nuc with 3 eGPUs, 1080Ti and 2080.

The NUC has been the best performing (presumably closer to the CPU and designed to be used with one - it even has a TB3 from boot option in the BIOS!), but never one glitch.

The Blade has micro/major stuttering due to both Optimus and some weird need to keep trying to use the Intel or the Nvidia onboard even when a TB3 eGPU is connected. Once you can convince the system to "just" use the onboard, or "just" use the TB3 it is seemless.

I've done a ton of testing with all games, and IF you can get it right there is no stutter no matter what game you play.

I also have to say for the TB3 port, the Razer switch Atrac mentioned is amazing and takes the black magic out of it. Right now, until I need a driver update it is absolutely stutter free and gives 10-20fps more in Overwatch.

For stutter testing I use the Ghost recon benchmark and Overwatch as they always seem to be the most affected.

It’s bandwidth keep the gpu bottleneck the performance on egpu setting. You can check cuda Z and see how huge bandwidth loose between egpu and dGPU.



That one reason of struggle. And this is Forza Horizon 4 benchmarks with stutter counter.




On lower resolution it’s worse


Ghost recon wildlands is very demanding game, it may have something to do with driver but mostly the stutter comes from limited TB3 egpu bandwidth and cpu bottleneck. If you tried egpu setting on Alienware 15/17, AGA performs similar as PCIe3 16 lanes desktop since they have their own connection, but TB3 it’ll be similar (slightly better on graphics since TB3 connected directly to cpu like MacBook TB3 port unlike Blade 15 that connected to cpu through pch).

misterg36
Once the drivers are right, and the Optimus has it's head in the game I get 0% stuttering in games and about 20% performance drop.

The stuttering isn't eGPU bottleneck. It's drivers, Xbox DVD recorder (on by default), Nvidia Optimus and various other things (optimus and Drivers being the worst culprets as they try to auto-detect).
It can also be overheating and thermal throttling.

Since I've got the drivers right, under volted by -140 and set the turbo limits to 38,37,36,36,35,34, set the NVIDIA to be on with throttlestop in the control panel and the Razer switch there is no visible or tactile stutter of any sort.

Which is why I say it all feels like black magic and it took me weeks of testing, reinstalling windows etc.

Do you mean stuttering like on moving cursor and some scenes in game on wildlands right? I tested that on my old Blade 14 last year, it could be reduced by maxing the performance which was unlocking bios on Blade 2017, and turning off ASPM. Now on Blade 15 I believe it’ll be free on 1070 maxq dGPU since it’s over 30% stronger, but last time I’m doing wildlands benchmarks with new cards on core setting it stutter on 4K ultra, should lowering resolution to 1440p, the games is very gpu and cpu intensive, even 2080ti desktop I believe can’t play stable at ultra 4K, it should be lowered to very high to pass 60 FPS. That’s with xx Gb/s bandwidth host to device and device to host, with xxxx mb/s TB3 bandwidth. I can only play on 1440p very high to get 60fps with 2080. In my understanding bottleneck (cpu and TB3 bandwidth) =performance drop (compared to desktop setting) =stuttering;). I tried gpu from 1060 to 2080ti (1070 and 2070 skipped) btw, sweat spot for Blade 15 1070maxq is 2080/1080ti imo.

misterg36
I think we may be talking about different things.

I totally agree with you if you are talking about pushing the performance until the machine cant cope and you get low frame rates, or frame rate dips etc.

I found that running a benchmark even at the lowest spec would produce micro and often large stuttering - which totally kills the frame rate, but worse than that is massively distracting.

Overwatch for some reason was really choppy even when other games ran fine (again even at low resolution).

Once I fixed the drivers, switch etc the games and benchmarks ran smoothly, no jittering or stuttering at LOW settings (1080p everything minimal).

Then I pushed the performance/settings/resolution as high as I could while hitting 45-60fps min.

So you are right, when you are pushing the performance, the TB3 will be a bottleneck (of about 20% lower than in a 16x slot in my testing).

The stuttering and micro jittering I'm seeing is down to drivers and compatibility etc and nothing to do with TB3 bandwidth.

The way to tell is watch what should be a smooth benchmark at all low settings, if it gives any stutters or jittering, solve this first then you will have a better gaming experience and probably an extra 10-20fps. If you are already running smoothly, congrats, but watch it if you ever change drivers.

Which gpu are you using on the enclosure? Overwatch with 2080egpu on 1080p epic is around high 90ish to max Blade screen 140ish FPS, on dGPU 1070 a bit better with 110ish~140fps. I think this is other things that showed bandwidth keep the egpu performance especially in high FPS. On 4K epic it’s maxed 70fps stable on 2080 egpu which 1070 couldn’t achieve, that’s show the benefit from egpu, on high resolution shows closer gap with desktop or PCIe3x16 lanes egpu setting.

atrac7
Glad that the Razer GPU switcher is working for you. I'm not sure why Razer doesn't list this as something for all Blades with a discrete GPU instead of the just the 14. It's made life so much easier when I hook up to the core.

And it works with the Razer Core V1, but is only in the RazerCore V2 section