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

Aha! Hope you enjoy it! Can't wait to see how it works and to find out more about battery life, etc..

Yeah, I've ordered some thermal pads for my 970 EVO, as I did see temps on the drive get up to 74C when running Unigine Heaven for 60 straight minutes.

One funny thing that I've noticed, most of my cores are running (-0.135v core/cache undervolt still) high 80s to low 90s (91C max) when stressing the system. However, one core (#2) seems to ramp up to 98C, even if the other cores are running 10C lower on average. HWINFO will report a thermal throttle on that single core.

Performance results are otherwise quite good...just ran 6 back to back Cinebench tests:

1231
1222
1230
1212
1200
1229

So overall stability seems solid, and no significant issues with performance at all. Again, Cinebench shows solid results, and I'm getting pretty good results (and fairly consistent) with FS (low of 13,9xx and high of 14,4xx), and good results on Unigine Heaven (4241 on FHD, high quality, custom preset).

I had been waiting to pick up the 4K version whenever it was released, largely because I'm a resolution junkie. However I was able to play with one at my local Microsoft store, and they had them in stock, so I bought the 1070/512GB/144 Hz model, and I have to admit, I'm a big fan of the 144 Hz display. Running side by side with my Corsair One (1080Ti model) on an LG 43" 4K display, I actually prefer how it looks at 1920 x 1080 @ 144 Hz vs 3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz (say, running Unigine Heaven side by side on the two machines). The smoothness of the high refresh rate is pretty appealing, and previously, I would have always traded refresh rate for pixel count on any laptop or monitor.

The other nice thing about the Microsoft store is that I got the 2-year warranty on the unit as well.

Pretty happy with the system so far, though it's been less than a week.



Patrick

What is that button looking thing on the top right side of the speaker grill? Im assuming its a power button but hoping it has a fingerprint sensor.

telecasticfakeshow
So if they fix this issue, ideally we should be getting 3.9 GHz with all 6 cores running indefinitely (at 45 W TDP minimum) without any throttling right?

The first blade 15 I got on late May had bad thermals (reaching 100 C) and severe power throttling on numerous tests despite undervolting.

My current blade (manufactured July) on its first fire strike test got intermittent thermal throttling throughout and a power throttling spike just as the physics test portion ends, but out-of-the-box score is 14,158 with max CPU package temp of 95 C, max GPU temp of 73 C (already better than the undervolted first blade). It is summer and I don't have air conditioning so I guess it's not that bad? This is on synapse gaming mode at 5k rpm fans.


Setting CPU core & cache to -133mV, speed shift to zero, GPU overclock (core +200, memory +600 MHz), I got improvements to score (14,718) and temperatures (max CPU package at 90 C, GPU at 70 C) and zero thermal/power throttling.


Cinebench runs (scores range from 1079 to 1182) are a bit short so I also did CPU stress tests on XTU.
Still at -133mV, and default max turbo of 3.9 GHz for 6 active cores:
[indent]cinebench CPU test run:
[indent][indent]synapse gaming mode:
[indent]3.88 GHz @ 66 W
eventual power throttle (just before the run ends) to:
3.25 GHz @ 45 W
max package temp: 84 C[/indent]
synapse balanced mode:
[indent]immediate power throttle to:
3.25 GHz @ 45 W
eventual power throttle to:
2.75 GHz @ 35 W
max package temp: 70 C[/indent][/indent][/indent]
XTU CPU stress test:
[indent][indent]gaming:
[indent]3.85 GHz @ 55 W
eventual intermittent power throttle (after ~1 min) to:
3.6 GHz @ 45 W
max package temp: 81 C[/indent]
balanced:
[indent]immediate intermittent power throttle to:
3.6 GHz @ 45 W
eventual power throttle to:
3.1 GHz @ 35 W
max package temp: 73 C[/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

testing with max turbo lowered to 3.6 GHz for 6 active cores:
[indent]cinebench CPU test run:
[indent][indent]gaming:
[indent]3.58 GHz @ 55 W
eventual power throttle (sometimes the run ends fast enough before throttling) to:
3.25 GHz @ 45 W
max package temp: 78 C[/indent]
balanced:
[indent]immediate power throttle to:
3.24 GHz @ 45 W
eventual power throttle to:
2.8 GHz @ 35 W
max package temp: 70 C[/indent][/indent][/indent]
XTU CPU stress test:
[indent][indent]gaming:
[indent]3.58 GHz @ 45 W
no throttling
max package temp: 73 C[/indent]
balanced:
[indent]immediate intermittent power throttle to:
3.4 GHz @ 40 W
eventual intermittent power throttle to:
3.0 GHz @ 35 W
max package temp: 70 C[/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

Also note these are all with stock thermal paste (won't repaste if I don't have to) and fans set to 5k rpm. Normally I just set speed shift to 128, and lower the fans to 4.8k rpm with synapse gaming; automatic when balanced.

These aren't bad scores at all.. but to answer your question. Yes without power limit throttling you should be able to maintain 3.9 on 6 cores at all times. Hopefully it gets fixed soon!

Joikansai
Anything under 4,1 is actually a throttling on 8750H, they seem lock it to 3,9 for better thermal. Gaming mode is set to throttle to 45Watt and balanced mode to 35 Watt after around 10 second, for full cpu performance I have to use gaming mode. Though it’s not a deal breaker to me, and you have good temperature btw imo.

I wouldn't call 3.9 throttling... that is normal for running on all 6 cores. The 4.1 really is if you are only running 4 cores.

Joikansai
So it’s marketing “throttling”;) who use only 4 cores in 6 cores cpu, I think no one, intel should marketing it 3,9 because casual user only use as it is and take a look at value that they advertised, or stated boost up to 4,1 on single core usage.

Actually most games don't even utilize 6 cores.. they are only using 4. I tried disabling 2 of the cores to see if I could run 4ghz at 4.. but all 6 were still being "used".

Firebat246
Farcry 5, FFXIV, Battlefield 1, and Assassins Creed Origins all get to the 90s and sometimes hit 100c for me. I'm not even gonna bother repasting again.. stock vs Thermal Grizz was not worth it. The Graphite based paste Razer uses is actually pretty good. Unless you are gonna LM it (which we still haven't even seen great results from) I wouldn't even touch it.

So now that I've had this system for over two weeks, I think I'm mostly done with the benchmarking / testing / tweaking side of it.

I was running MSI Afterburner to see if I can squeeze some extra score in FS, but I realized that I wasn't really getting any better scores. With the stock (Razer) 389.04 drivers, I'm getting scores of 13,917 running stock config on my Blade 15 (no undervolt, no turbo boost limits, etc). I had noticed earlier on that I had gotten some scores into the mid 14,xxx (peak of 14,445) mark, but I've never been able to reproduce that score. MSI Afterburner, even running +160 Core (max I could get to run stable) and +699 Memory, I only got up to 13,940 on FS. So that leads me to believe there is some significant power throttling going on, if a significant overclock on Afterburner isn't getting me anything in FS or Heaven (Heaven, for some reason, still seemed to report stock Core / Memory speeds).

While I have been tempted to go back to XTU to see if I can improve the numbers at all, in reality, there is only so much benchmarking one can do....at some point I want to just use the machine for work, and to play some games on it. And I do like how I can create auto-loading profiles within Throttlestop for conditions (ie, I can create a profile that it will switch to if my CPU peaks above 90C, for example, and I have a specific profile for battery power mode that disables Turbo boost, and gives me 8+ hours of battery life).

As to repasting, I've thought about this myself, but temps aren't bad, and I can limit them to below 90C with a Throttlestop profile setup for gaming (-0.125mV undervolt and Turbo Boost max at 3.6 GHz vs 3.9 GHz). Doom, Crysis 3, and Battlefield 1 all keep the temps below 90C, and no thermal throttling of any cores. If I had more confidence in a liquid metal repaste I might try that, but given the risks, it's just not worth it. Any other repaste is likely to just result in basically the same scores, which tends to make me think Razer did a reasonably good job on the initial paste on both CPU and GPU.

I did throw a couple of Silverstone thermal pads onto the SSD (2TB M.2 Samsung 970 EVO), as my temps when playing games rose up to 89C occasionally on the SSD itself. With the thermal pads in place, I have not seen a temp on my SSD above 53C.

I have to say, about the only complaint I have about this machine is that the keyboard can sometimes feel "slow", like I missed a key or something. All of the keys work perfectly fine, but I occasionally wonder if I'm almost typing faster than the keyboard can keep up. I do like the feel of the keyboard just fine, and it's far, far better than the Apple MBP keyboards of the past year or two. And it's still not anywhere near the keyboard quality that you'd get on a Thinkpad X1 Carbon, for example (still my favourite laptop keyboard).

Otherwise, I'm pretty much thrilled with this machine. I just need Razer to get some spare 230W power supplies in stock so that I can leave one in my home office, and one in my actual office, and then I don't have to pull my big power brick out of my laptop bag unless I'm remote.



Patrick

GR8-Ride
Here is some data from playing Doom for the last 45 minutes.
Patrick

Great info, thanks Patrick

Do you find it changes much between balanced and gaming mode - I heard that balanced mode power limits the CPU to 35W (which should keep it cooler) - and gaming overclocks the GPU etc

If you ever want a good way to check for yourself - when I was heat testing laptops I would check the save to a file button, play the game and then open in excel* other spreadsheets are available (as it saves as a CSV)

You can then use "conditional formatting" to mark in orange anything between 90-95 and red at 95+
You can also do red for thermal throttling etc by doing conditional formatting on yes/true. Then a quick scan down the spreadsheet shows you how often its happening and if undervolting etc helps.

It will give you a good idea of how much it's throttling/heating - I also say this for reassurance that the Razer is the right purchase as you may hear a lot of people kick off about anything over 90C

Pretty much ALL the intel chips seem to be running too hot ATM. I've sent back 5 different ones for overheating (the zephyrus hit 107C after 10 mins in an airconditioned room when playing Origins)!

It was only after I bought an MSI Titan and sent it back because it also overheated (With all that size and cooling) that I realised it's an Intel problem, not a design issue

In the end I figured if I was going to have to undervolt, and aggressively cool a laptop when gaming regardless of which one I buy I may as well go for the nicest one available and am waiting for the 15 to be available in the UK

With Max fans (5,000 RPM, manual), and undervolting by -140mV, these are the latest results.

I still get all 6 cores to thermal throttle, though now I don't see any PL throttling according to XTU. HWInfo64, however, shows Core Power Limit reached on all 6 cores.

Running through the graph on XTU, it's interesting to see that my Package hits 100C a bunch of the time, yet CPU utilization is only about 40-60%.

I'll run another test tomorrow night in which I limit Turboboost to 36x on all 6 cores. That seems to generally keep my CPU temps well under 90C (on Doom anyway....not sure about BF1).


Patrick

Firebat246
You actually may want to contact support as your temps should not be hitting that high that often. Even when I stress test my Blade I never hit 100c if I undervolt. All of the Prime 95 tests for example don't even go near 100c. May not be able to test much further with your unit unfortunately. It is running way too hot in comparison to what I have seen.

I think two things are going on with my latest results....one, I normally run TS to undervolt, and it was late last night, so I wasn't paying close attention when I posted the results, but it appears as though having both XTU and TS running wiped out my undervolt settings.

Secondly, while the temps were higher than I'd like, it seems that across the board these latest 8th Gen Intel mobile CPUs are tending to run hot everywhere. I think if you have one that's running significantly cooler than anyone else's that you're likely to be the lucky winner of the silicon lottery, rather than the norm.

I might think about a repaste of my CPU and GPU; maybe I did get a poor paste job from the factory.



Patrick

Joikansai
QC Problem isn’t only on Razer even Apple and Dell has that, Dell has good price because of lowering technology that most normal users don’t know like their TB3 technology, heard they revised it with officially PCIe3x4 lanes, but in reality, performance wise on eGPU performance isn’t as great as stealth with dual cores. Well I moved from MacBook Pro to Razer Edge, that tablet runs still great despite battery and nowadays games requirements, it’s over 4 years so I think I can say that is not all expensive Razer products have a bad quality and durability. It was expensive for a tablet, I think I can sell the accessories more than its mrsp now if I want.

I have had my fair share of QC issues with Alienware/Asus in the past... Honestly have had the best overall experience with Razer.

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.

TukuiTukz
I bought it, nothing to really talk about, it's just a laptop stand with chroma at the bottom. USB ports are great indeed. :)

Also my replacement also got shipped, let's just hope it doesn't have power throttling and thermal issue this time. I should have it in the middle of this week.

Is it from metal? It is usb powered like usb A tipe HUB right? It’ll be nice if you can upload some pictures of it. Website pictures always edited well I think.