Razer Blade 16 goes OLED in 2024!

Razer’s Blade 16 gets an OLED screen this year! As well as other improvements, like more CPU and GPU power. But Razer laptops are  not cheap and come at a higher cost. So let’s find out if this maxed out configuration  I’ve tested is worth over $4000 USD! But not everyone has a budget that high, which is why this part of the video is sponsored  by Gigabyte’s new Aorus 16X gaming laptop! With the latest specs and a fresh design, the  Aorus 16X is ready to dominate the latest games. Nvidia’s GeFor

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sored  link below to find out more. Alright back to the Blade 16, let’s  get straight into that OLED screen. Colors and contrast are perfect, as you’d  expect from OLED. The screen just looks great. It gets to around 400 nits at full  brightness, so nothing insane, but it’s enough. Last year’s Blade 16  with Mini-LED screen gets much brighter and also has great color gamut, you just  don’t get the super deep blacks like OLED. Or the fast response time, which is one of the  best parts of an OLED

screen. On average the 2024 Blade 16 took just half a millisecond  to transition. This is the fastest screen I’ve ever measured so far. It’s not too  different compared to other OLED panels, but it’s still better compared to last year’s  Blade 16, whether we’re running it at 4K or 1080p. The 2024 Blade 16 is still available with  that dual resolution Mini-LED screen too, you don’t have to get OLED,  it’s just an option now. The total system latency is the amount of time  between a mouse click an

d when a gunshot fire appears on the screen in Counter-Strike  2. Unfortunately I don’t have data for last year’s Blade 16, as we moved from  CS:GO to CS2 recently, but regardless, the 2024 Blade 16 is notably faster compared  to a number of other high-end gaming laptops. This year’s Blade 16 has the same sized battery as  last year, but does the OLED panel use more power? Maybe. Last year’s Blade lasted for 10% longer in  the YouTube video playback test, but this year’s Blade lasted 18% longer

with a game running. At  the end of the day the difference is only small in either test, and both laptops are decent middle  of the road results compared to other laptops. CPU performance gets a little boost this  year. Intel’s Core i9-14900HX only offers a slight 300MHz increase to the single core  clock speed compared to the 13950HX in last year’s Blade 16. This only results  in a 2% higher single core score, which is honestly within the margin of error  range anyway, considering we’ve seen hi

gher from 13th gen before. There’s a 9% increase to  multicore performance, but that would be due to the processor getting more CPU power, as 14th  gen is essentially just 13th gen with a new name. Performance lowers if we unplug the  charger and run off of battery power instead. It’s much lower compared  to the same selection of laptops, but it’s still better compared to last year’s  Blade 16, so at least it’s not getting worse. Wi-Fi also gets an update to the latest Wi-Fi 7  this year. I can’

t test that properly just yet as it’s still very new - I should be getting  a Wi-Fi 7 router in a few weeks - but when running with a Wi-Fi 6 access point it’s  one of the better results I’ve measured, and faster compared to last year’s Blade 16. Alright, we need to get into the game  results, because they’re kind of weird. Cyberpunk 2077 was tested with our own custom  test run, and I’ve got the Blade 16 shown by the red highlight. The performance isn’t great  at 1080p considering it’s right ne

xt to a far cheaper option with mid-tier RTX 4060 graphics.  The same thing happened to the Legion 9i though, which was performing similarly with similar specs, and the reason is that the Blade’s CPU  maxes out at 60 watts with the GPU active. So the GPU was actually maxing out at 125 watts here due to this CPU bottleneck. This  happened in last year’s Blade 16 too, but the FPS was a little better there despite  it also facing the same 60 watt power limit in this test. Its GPU was able to run a

little  higher at 130 watts for whatever reason. The CPU bottleneck still exists  at the higher 1440p resolution, but the GPU was able to run at around 145  watts now, so the Blade 16 is at least a fair bit higher compared to that RTX 4060 laptop,  but it’s still at the bottom of our RTX 4090 and even 4080 results despite being one of the  most expensive gaming laptops I’ve ever used. Only at 4K does this game test get  GPU bound enough that the Blade’s 4090 is finally beating all RTX 4080 lapto

ps.  It’s performing slightly better compared to last year’s Blade 16, maybe because  the higher minimum GPU power limit of the 2024 model is finally getting  used at this GPU heavier resolution. It’s kind of weird that the CPU is getting limited  to 60 watts of power at lower resolutions. You would think Nvidia’s dynamic boost would do  a better job of shifting power between the CPU and GPU. But just like last year, that’s  not really happening here, because there just seems to be a hard cap on

the processor at 60  watts even if the GPU isn’t fully utilized. Now you could argue that this doesn’t matter  too much, because the Blade 16 doesn’t have a 1080p screen, but that’s only half true.  Although this OLED panel is 2560 by 1600, you can still get the Mini-LED  screen with two resolutions, so you can swap between either 4K 120Hz or  1080p 240Hz if you want a faster response time. But not only that, as we saw in Cyberpunk  2077, 1440p was still being limited by the processor, and 1440

p is pretty close to the  resolution of this screen. On the one hand, yeah it’s a slimmer laptop, what do  you expect? But on the other hand, you can get laptops that will outperform this  for less than half the price. But let’s check out some more games first, because  it doesn’t always behave this way. Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s  benchmark. It’s still one of the lower RTX 4090 laptop results at 1080p, but hey it’s ahead of  last year’s Blade 16 this time. That continues a

t the higher 1440p resolution too. Most of the  other 4090 laptops that are ahead are bigger in size though. Last year’s Blade is performing the  same at the higher 4K resolution, because we’re completely GPU bound now and they both have the  same RTX 4090 graphics, so no surprises there. The difference between 13th gen and 14th gen  processor makes absolutely no difference at 4K. The 2024 and 2023 Blade 16s were about the same in  Control at 1080p, though the 1% lows were better with the 2024 m

odel, so less dips in performance.  Both laptops were GPU bound in this game, even at 1080p, so it depends on the specific game as to  whether the CPU limit we saw in Cyberpunk occurs. Both Blade 16’s were the same at 1440p too, but  again with fewer dips in performance with the newer version, and then again at 4K. But unlike  the previous games the Blades aren’t too far away from the best performing 4090 laptops now. So  again, just goes to show it depends on the game. Here are the 3DMark resul

ts if  that’s something you care about. Pricing and availability will change over  time, so check the links below the video for updates and current sales. And if the Blade  16 has a good sale, we’ll be sure to add it to our gaminglaptop.deals website. We update that  every day to include all of the latest sales, so make sure that you check it out regularly  to save money on your next gaming laptop. At the time of recording, the 2024 Blade 16  starts from $3000 USD with RTX 4070 graphics, while l

ast year’s 2023 version starts for $400  less. But the 2023 model starts with RTX 4060 graphics. If we spec it up to be the same as the  newer 2024 model it still ends up $200 cheaper. At the higher end of the price range, the  RTX 4090 configuration we’ve looked at in this video goes for $4200 USD. While  last year’s model is technically $100 more expensive at full price, but right  now it’s on sale, making it $100 less. So it varies a little depending on the sale, but generally speaking last y

ear’s Blade  16 is cheaper, especially with lower specs. Ultimately this newer 2024 model has a  slightly better Intel 14th gen processor, the latest Wi-Fi 7, and of course the new  OLED screen, so you’ll have to decide if these extra features are worth spending more  money. If the difference is like $100 or so and you’re already spending $3000 to $4000  USD, might as well just get the newer one. Everything else about Razer’s Blade 16 has been  covered here in last year’s detailed review. It jus

t wasn’t worth covering absolutely everything  all over again in this one. There’s no point, because everything else like the design,  keyboard, touchpad, ports is exactly the same as last year’s model. So check that one out next  to find out everything else about the Blade 16!