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Razer Blade 1060 GTX (Late 2016)


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Howdy and thanks for reading this thread about a Razer Blade (late 2016) with a Nvidia 1060 GTX video card. I have been playing with this over the weekend, as I did research and found this to be the best bet for what I was looking for. Both by performance and laptop size. I went with the 512 GB FHQ model.

Starting off, Yes you can install Linux on here and it will run pretty well, granted I spent most of the weekend in Windows, running benchmarks and checking out multimedia and games. I got Ubuntu 16.04.1 on a 40 GB partition that I carved out of the 512 GB SSD M.2 Drive. To do that, I loaded up a Live USB of Ubuntu, ran gparted on the Windows partition and had it cut 40 GB into a new partition. Installed Ubuntu onto that. Best part being, GRUB and the Windows boot loader can co-exist. You may want to jump in the bios and change your default boot device, once the install is finished.

Temperature wise the GPU was hitting 179 F. While not great for temps in a desktop, this is passable for me as the games continued to run smoothly. You will absolutely hear the fans increase in noise and speed when playing any intensive games. That being said, I do feel the laptop is basically silent when not in a game.

I mentioned getting the FHD (1080p) model display over the QHD+ one. FHD is a matte finish, the brightness is higher than the QHD, and honestly the 1060 GTX will not be able to run max settings smoothly on newer games like Watch Dogs 2, or even to an extent GTA V, unless you scale down some of the advanced video fluff. Point being there, QHD resolution is going to be really daunting on the video card. I also feel 1080p on this 14" LCD is hard to read sitting back on the couch, especially without my glasses on. So you would be even more crunched @ 3200 x 1800 (QHD+). QHD comes with a glass cover instead of a matte finish and also is + $300 to the purchase price. So I got to avoid my reflection and light bouncing, while also saving some loot.

Performance:

  • Fire Strike (3D Mark) scores over 9000. 9264 actually. You can check the details from the run on the Futuremark site.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: I can play this @ 1080p with maximum settings with a smooth 60 FPS. You will want to use the system and character config options to scale up the UX, as I did playing from the couch.
  • Doom 2016: 1080p with maximum settings is smooth and looks great.
  • GTA V: Ultra settings will get you some dips into the 40 FPS range. Tweaking some of the more expensive graphic options, will get you to or close to, a smooth 60 FPS.
  • Watch Dogs 2: My configuration from the desktop with a 980 GTX, got me into the 30 FPS range. I heard some forum chatter about this game and 1000 series cards having extra performance hits. I was able to change some of the detail settings back to High, and I got closer to 60 FPS. Even on my desktop though, driving will get you some dips into 50 and some 40 FPS ranges.

 


Summing this up, the 1060 GTX in this laptop is certainly slower than the desktop 980 GTX in my desktop. While the laptop card has 6 GB of VRAM, the processing power of the 980 GTX and it's 4 GB VRAM is superior. Saying that, I'm comparing a video card integrated into a 14" laptop weighing less than 5 lbs, to a full sized desktop GPU. Performance was relatively close. I will throw some benchmarks versus the laptop to my desktop, below.

Benchmark wise, you can peep the Fire Strike comparison between my desktop 980 GTX system and the Razer Blade 1060. Saving you a click, the 1060 GTX scores @ 9264 while the 980 GTX scores @ 10921.

I will add some more benchmark scores in the next post. I have to be in front of the machine to check the log results.
I think it's pretty apparent that I am happy with this purchase and the performance of this laptop. Let me confirm that I am happy with this purchase and love this device. It looks like a black Macbook, that happens to run Windows and Linux, while also having some quality, fast components in it. That being said, I got mine for just under $2000 (USD)

I did start by looking at laptops in a local Microsoft store to see what price, performance and form factor options were on the market. I used to travel for work and had a quite nice Sony Vaio laptop. This is the 1st high-performance laptop I ever bought with my own funds. Looking at the other models in-store, they either had weak video cards, or were of the Asus tier laptops, that honestly looked really crappy with all the big plastic cases and odd curvature. I didn't want a laptop that looked like a malformed lego and weighed 10 lbs. I would say Razer is owning that market segment, for anyone wanting a fast, light weight and smooth looking laptop.

Continuing my researching, I took for Razer support forums, reddit and some review sites. Review sites are good for some insight but can gloss over some big issues. Especially if they are getting a review model, instead of a consumer production model. I started with deciding between QHD or a FHD display. That actually led me to read some folks who had an older model QHD+ but decided to go with FHD both for less pixels on a 14" LCD, and the increased visibility from a matte finish.
The wireless card that comes in the laptop is a Killer Wireless-AC 1535 card that some reddit users noted, kind of sucks. I did run the Killer wifi briefly, but since I have a wired cable by the couch, I used a Plugable USB-C / Thunderbolt LAN NIC dongle. Using the Killer in FFXIV, I was getting some in-game lag. Also doing some ping tests on local devices, I saw quite a few 50 ms+ replies. Switching out the Killer for the Intel reduced the amount of high ping replies. YMMV, but for $25 and the use of a T5 screwbit, it's a fairly simple replacement. As the linked reddit page notes, I also went with that Intel 8260 wifi card.

Speaking of the wired connection, it's super fast. I was steady steam downloading, network transferring and the laptop didn't slow up at all. My internet connection was being worked but the internal network and this wired adapter kept up without fault.

The Chroma keyboard is quite nice. Quality typing experience and the lighting effects are really enjoyable. I use the starlight pattern most of the time, unless I'm playing an MMO in the dark. Dark playing with a fixed color is really nice. If you press the 'Function' key, your F1 to F12 will be the only lit keys to use the multimedia functions. However the icons for the brightness, track skip, volume, etc will not light up. Because the smallness of those indicators and the main letters, I figure the light bleed would be too intense. Speaking of intense, if you pick a white-based color, you might see some blur reading the keys at night in a dark room, because they are so bright. Disclaimer / reminder that I wear glasses. Still a factor with my glasses on. In the Razer application you can juggle your lighting options for the keyboard, pick a color or pattern, and adjust the brightness of the keyboard illumination. Have fun messing with the ripple effects and other keyboard light presets.

Oh yeah. You will have 3x USB 3 standard ports, 1x USB-c connection, and 1x HDMI connection on the laptop. In addition you have the power brick connector on your left and the kensington mount on the right side. In respect to battery life, I haven't done any benchmarks yet. If you are playing games, I would just keep it plugged into the wall, as that is exactly what I was doing. By the way, here is the laptop product page. I will get some game benchmarks and comparisons later in this thread.

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Benchmark of the battery gave me about 2 hours before I was on the hunt for a charger. If you happen to travel to co-locations and work on a server rack, you may want to get a PDU to 3 pin adapter so you can charge up on extended sessions. Here is a usage breakdown of battery life.

9:25 - Laptop boot. Chilling Idle
9:34 - 97 % battery. 100% brightness.
9:38 - Chrome - emergencyfm music streaming started.
9:40 - 93 %
9:53 - 87 %
10:08 - 79 %
10:13 - 76 %
10:16 - Nmap installer. 74 %
10:19 - Scan Local Lan 73 %
10:20 - Completed sn scan. 72 % Lan
10:22 - Starting intense scan. 71 %
10:37 - Scan active. 62 %
11:05 - Scan nearly finished. 46 %
11:19 - 37 %
(Went to remote site)
Ran web browser to configure devices. Battery below 20 % in about 20 more minutes. Condensing that list of times, I was in the critical low battery around 2.5 hours.

Let me step back here, I forgot to detail machine specs.

  • CPU: Intel Core i7-6700HQ (Skylake)
  • 512 GB M.2 SSD. Samsung PM951 model MZVLV512CJH.
  • 1080p LCD @ 60 Hz
  • 16 GB DDR4 RAM
  • Nvidia 1060 GTX (6 GB VRAM) on driver 376.33
  • Wireless Killer AC is what it shipped with. I replaced this with an Intel 8260 Dual-Band Wireless card.
  • Ports: 1x USB-c, 1x HDMI, 3x USB 3, 1x Headphone / Mic input combo jack, Power charger input, Kensington security lock mount

 


Cooling is controller by 2 fans on the bottom of the unit. They are your air inlets, as the exhaust is behind the top of the keyboard. Under the display you will see some vent holes with a grill on them. It's in the join between the bottom of the laptop and the display. You may also see dust collect on the bottom of the monitor, as I did cleaning up the apartment and playing FFXIV. If you want to clean the fans and open up the bottom of the laptop, you will need a T5 screwdriver to remove the 8 or so screws. Bottom plate removes similar to a dell laptop (or most kinds, to be honest).

Heavensward Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark on Maximum settings in DirectX 11 for 1080p scores in over 10334 with a Extremely High rating. Game plays crystal smooth @ 60 FPS in actual server gameplay, questing and dungeons. Run the benchmark a 2nd time to be sure, as I had some other stuff open and it game me a score in the 8900 threshold. Also of note, alt-tabbing to check a web browser does not cause any significant performance drops.

Glitch warning. If you hook up to an external display, you may see slower gaming performance, as it seems to try and use the Intel HD 530 GPU on the processor. I saw this testing the HDMI port, running the FFXIV Benchmark and seeing my normal score of 10516, dropping to 8900. I rebooted and had got back into the 10000 score threshold. I can confirm this by running a benchmark with an external display hooked up and getting a lower score, then unhooking the hdmi cable (without a reboot) and re-running the benchmark to get a score in the 10000+ range.
Be warned that I had to switch to GPU-Z for thermal monitoring, as HWMonitor started showing the Intel 530, since I hooked up an external display. This resolved and HWMonitor is showing both cards, thermals for the Nvidia 1060.

In respect to fan noise at idle, I can hear them if I'm in a silent room. Confirmed that this morning before I left. However it's pretty rare I'm in a quiet room and even so I didn't find the noise to be bothersome. Keep in mind I've spent some time in server closets and have a desktop server at home in my bedroom. YMMV. I know people call this laptop a Mac Killer, but have had complaints about noise from the fans at low load.

In respect to keyboard usage and interaction, this laptop works great. 1080p desktop resolution allows me to control consoles clearly, the keyboard feels nice and responsive, while the touchpad does work, I prefer to use a trackball or mouse instead of hovering a hand over the touchpad. I cannot think of an instance where my hands accidentally moved the mouse cursor when typing, so that is a large benefit for me, as I have this issue fairly often on most other laptops.

Temperature wise rundowns over load are as follows:
CPU: Max 89 C / 192 F - Idle 45 C / 111 F with a low of 37 C / 98 F
GPU: Max 82 C / 179 F - Idle 46 C / 114 F with a low of 42 C / 107 F
SSD: Max 58 C / 136 F - Idle 38 C / 100 F with a low of 35 C / 95 F

Edited by Pic0o
Temps @ Home
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  • 2 weeks later...

I mentioned some light bleed is visible when the BIOS screen boots up but it isn't visible in OS or game use. I shared this info in a reddit thread for perspective buyers and linked back to here. Circling back, adding the below about backlight bleeding.

About 'Backlight bleeding'. If by that, people mean some parts around the bottom corners are less flat-black dark, I see that on my 1080p display on startup. I do not notice it at all in normal operation. If in the OS and I do a full screen black image, it's faint at best.

I've seen people get very livid about the backlight bleed issue. I can see what may be an issue, but in my case it's not a functional issue. Just throwing it out there, but other makes of laptop, show a gray screen on startup instead of a flat black BIOS post. So that could be masking the perceived absence of issue on a Mac, etc. Speaking of the LCD it appears to be an AU Optronics: model AU0133D.

I will add some picture in here eventually, as I got a dBrand decal on the trackpad and top of laptop. Obviously some other stickers too, because computers. :p

From here is benchmark porn. Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward Benchmark comparisons between Razer Blade 1060 GTX (6 GB) Laptop compared to Intel Core i5-4690K CPU Desktop PC running a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (4 GB):

i5-4690K and 980 GTX Desktop @ 1920 x 1080

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/17/2017 12:08:38 AM
Score: 12924
Average Frame Rate: 99.464
Performance: Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
Scene #1 1.080 sec
Scene #2 5.129 sec
Scene #3 4.561 sec
Scene #4 3.947 sec
Scene #5 3.790 sec
Scene #6 1.526 sec
Total Loading Time 20.036 sec

DAT:s20170117000838.dat

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (9600.winblue_ltsb.160930-0600)
Intel® Core™ i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz
32709.844MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633

 


Razer Blade 1060 GTX @ 1920 x 1080

 

 

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/16/2017 11:52:08 PM
Score: 10317
Average Frame Rate: 80.587
Performance: Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
Scene #1 1.434 sec
Scene #2 5.955 sec
Scene #3 5.027 sec
Scene #4 4.401 sec
Scene #5 4.175 sec
Scene #6 1.797 sec
Total Loading Time 22.791 sec

DAT:s20170116235208.dat

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (14393.rs1_release.161220-1747)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
16276.172MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633

 


i5-4690K and 980 GTX Desktop @ 1366 x 768

 

 

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/17/2017 12:19:20 AM
Score: 16660
Average Frame Rate: 138.190
Performance: Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
Scene #1 1.177 sec
Scene #2 5.019 sec
Scene #3 4.438 sec
Scene #4 4.015 sec
Scene #5 3.622 sec
Scene #6 1.427 sec
Total Loading Time 19.701 sec

DAT:s20170117001920.dat

Screen Size: 1366x768
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (9600.winblue_ltsb.160930-0600)
Intel® Core™ i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz
32709.844MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633

 


Razer Blade 1060 GTX @ 1366 x 768

 

 

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/16/2017 11:42:51 PM
Score: 11867
Average Frame Rate: 104.798
Performance: Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
Scene #1 1.256 sec
Scene #2 5.298 sec
Scene #3 4.932 sec
Scene #4 4.539 sec
Scene #5 3.900 sec
Scene #6 1.623 sec
Total Loading Time 21.548 sec

DAT:s20170116234251.dat

Screen Size: 1366x768
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (14393.rs1_release.161220-1747)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
16276.172MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633



As the details note, the desktop is running Windows 8.1 Pro, while the Razer Blade is on Windows 10 Pro. As I currently have the desktop on a 720p screen I wanted to see scores in the 1366 x 768 resolution. (because 1280 x 720 looks crappy). There is a huge gap between the 980 GTX and 1060 GTX in this resolution space. I was fairly shocked, since 1080p is relatively close in performance and scores. I added side by side images between the two platforms.

In a few more days, I'll run some ffmpeg encodes to see if there is much real-world different in encoding video content. Laptop continues to run well and gets in some FFXIV sessions. Fans to get dirty pretty quick, but can be cleaned pretty easily, as the bottom fans are inlets for air and the filters stop most dirt from getting in. So you can give it a quick clean without opening the laptop bottom up.

RazerReviewFFXIV_1080.png

RazerReviewFFXIV_1366.png

Edited by Pic0o
LCD Model info added.
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Weird review thread continues with it's Final Fantasy XIV benchmark focus. I hooked the living room TV up last night and ran some benchmarks for 3840 x 2160. I also re-ran 1080p benchmarks with the laptop hooked up to the TV, with the laptop lcd disabled. Performance note: You will get slightly higher scores with just the TV display, but if you do a clone display, you will see a performance hit of about 1000 points. Bonus of TV over integrated LCD seems to be about 500 points in the benchmark.

3840 x 2160 on 980 GTX (Desktop):

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/24/2017 7:26:55 PM
Score: 3948
Average Frame Rate: 30.289
Performance: High
 -Easily capable of running the game. Should perform well, even at higher resolutions.
Loading Times by Scene
  Scene #1    1.258 sec
  Scene #2    5.416 sec
  Scene #3    5.110 sec
  Scene #4    4.467 sec
  Scene #5    4.276 sec
  Scene #6    2.562 sec
Total Loading Time    23.093 sec

DAT:s20170124192655.dat

Screen Size: 3840x2160
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (9600.winblue_ltsb.160930-0600)
Intel® Core™ i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz
32709.844MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633


3140 x 2160 on 1060 GTX (Razer Blade):

 

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/24/2017 8:26:48 PM
Score: 3243
Average Frame Rate: 24.726
Performance: Fairly High
 -Capable of running the game on default settings. Consider switching to a higher resolution depending on performance.
Loading Times by Scene
  Scene #1    1.530 sec
  Scene #2    6.118 sec
  Scene #3    5.655 sec
  Scene #4    4.653 sec
  Scene #5    4.688 sec
  Scene #6    2.772 sec
Total Loading Time    25.416 sec

DAT:s20170124202648.dat

Screen Size: 3840x2160
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (14393.rs1_release.161220-1747)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
16276.172MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633


Pretty close in benchmarks, but the performance hits are too low for what I would play regularly. I try to keep it as close to steady 60 FPS as I can and in this case, you are lucky to hold 30 FPS. Especially in the boss fights with the weaponskill effects going off. This is consistent with when I was playing GTA V @ 4k resolution on the desktop 980 GTX. It (the image quality) looked really nice but the frame rate was struggling. The perfomrance of the 1060 GTX is another reason I went with the Full HD (1080p) display instead of the QHD+ one. No one really wants to play a slide show and I think the 1080p resolution is a good resolution for a 14" LCD. I have the feeling QHD+ would have been micro machine mode desktop.

 


Jump back to the benchmark, it looks like about 5 fps difference. Combing the bench set in this thread, the 1060 GTX does well on the higher resolutions, but somehow falls short on the 1366 x 768 resolution range. I play @ 1920 x 1080 (1080p) but threw the lower resolution in for the 720p display I currently have on my desktop.

For the external display for the laptop, it looks like the benchmark gained 4 FPS average over the on-board LCD.
1060 GTX on Razer Blade hooked to external display @ 1080p:

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/24/2017 8:36:56 PM
Score: 10714
Average Frame Rate: 83.129
Performance: Extremely High
 -Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
  Scene #1    1.503 sec
  Scene #2    5.852 sec
  Scene #3    5.015 sec
  Scene #4    4.268 sec
  Scene #5    4.061 sec
  Scene #6    1.681 sec
Total Loading Time    22.381 sec

DAT:s20170124203656.dat

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (14393.rs1_release.161220-1747)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
16276.172MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633

FFXIV_3840x2160.png

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Performance on Battery or external displays

If you are curious how this laptop performs when using the battery, I have those benchmarks below. If you are playing off the battery, I would expect it to need a charge, in an hour or so. Performance will take a hit running from battery too. I also ran some comparative benchmarks of running dual-displays (in mirrored mode @ 1920 x 1080), or a single external display. These also factor between those conditions on battery or AC power.

These sets are all for the Razer Blade Laptop.

Razer Blade 1060 - Mirrored displays running on Battery:

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/26/2017 12:21:16 PM
Score: 7683
Average Frame Rate: 59.372
Performance: Extremely High
 -Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
  Scene #1    1.621 sec
  Scene #2    6.967 sec
  Scene #3    6.709 sec
  Scene #4    5.373 sec
  Scene #5    5.643 sec
  Scene #6    2.088 sec
Total Loading Time    28.402 sec

DAT:s20170126122116.dat

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (14393.rs1_release.161220-1747)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
16276.172MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633

 


Razer Blade 1060 - Single External Display (laptop LCD disabled), running on battery:

 

 

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/26/2017 12:39:22 PM
Score: 7953
Average Frame Rate: 61.057
Performance: Extremely High
 -Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
  Scene #1    1.386 sec
  Scene #2    6.072 sec
  Scene #3    5.063 sec
  Scene #4    4.920 sec
  Scene #5    4.643 sec
  Scene #6    1.763 sec
Total Loading Time    23.848 sec

DAT:s20170126123922.dat

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (14393.rs1_release.161220-1747)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
16276.172MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633



As we can see here, dual or single displays are pretty close when running on battery. However you will see a performance boost return when you plug the power brick in for the laptop.

Plugging back in the power, I run the same benchmarks

Razer Blade 1060 Dual-Display when running on AC:

 

 

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/26/2017 12:59:33 PM
Score: 8716
Average Frame Rate: 68.855
Performance: Extremely High
 -Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
  Scene #1    1.610 sec
  Scene #2    6.781 sec
  Scene #3    5.914 sec
  Scene #4    5.270 sec
  Scene #5    5.103 sec
  Scene #6    2.028 sec
Total Loading Time    26.708 sec

DAT:s20170126125933.dat

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (14393.rs1_release.161220-1747)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
16276.172MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633



Razer Blade 1060, Single external display running on AC:

 

 

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 1/26/2017 3:49:24 PM
Score: 10766
Average Frame Rate: 83.515
Performance: Extremely High
 -Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
  Scene #1    1.533 sec
  Scene #2    5.869 sec
  Scene #3    4.882 sec
  Scene #4    4.387 sec
  Scene #5    4.159 sec
  Scene #6    1.710 sec
Total Loading Time    22.543 sec

DAT:s20170126154924.dat

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Disabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled
-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: High
-Grass Quality: High
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Disabled
-Shadow Resolution: High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x16
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: High Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (14393.rs1_release.161220-1747)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
16276.172MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (VRAM 3072 MB) 21.21.0013.7633



Bam! Running dual displays on AC power is netting about 15 FPS bonus over a cloned dual-display setup. I thought it was wild that the difference is so extreme versus AC to battery power. My Nvidia driver settings are pretty much stock, so if you want to juggle the power settings on AC, you can get more juice to FPS, but you battery life will be abysmal. From the benchmark runs I did on battery with the default driver settings, I had 54% battery left. This is where I factored up that after an hour, you'd likely be out of power if playing a game off the battery.

Circling back to the 2nd post about battery life and streaming, I was using Google Chrome. I see people posting about using Microsoft Edge and their advertisements, but nah I'm good on that. I'm a Firefox user, who uses Chrome for flash and stuff. In case you wanted my browser preferences, there you are. :p

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just updating to say there is a New, New edition of this laptop with Intel i7 Gen 7 processor. It goes for +$100 than the Gen 6 edition (the one I have).
Ahh, the Razer site now has Versions for the laptops. The one I have (and reviewed) is a V5, where the V6 is the 7th Gen Intel CPU and the 960 GTX model laptop is the V4. You can get this model 1060 GTX, Gen 6 Intel laptop for $1899 on the Razer site, but it is out of stock.

Extra information, is that I got this laptop from Amazon Warehouse Deals, because it was missing the outer box. Considering it saved me ~ $150 (I paid $1850 for the warehouse deal) and also happens to work great, I'm not upset about the 6th Gen laptop I got @ the end of December. I'm still doing well 1.5 months of owning this device.

I am curious to see real-world thermal performance though. I do want to say that the laptop power brick on this model does get pretty warm.

Even more random, I did do some mencoder tests in Linux. Encoding a raw Vob ran at approximately 140 FPS. Spikes into the 160 range if I recall correctly. I have to check the notes I scribbled down. With that in mind, if you wish to do some video editing and encoding on the fly, you should not be disappointed. Kino ran in the thousand FPS threshold converting a vob / Mpeg2 to .dv format. The only issue I had, was running out of free space on the 512 GB storage, because .dv files are crazy huge raw format.

I continue to play plenty of Final Fantasy XIV on this laptop and it performs really well. Great purchase if you want some gaming chops, good mobility (less than 5 lbs) and multimedia performance. I may have mentioned that MS SQL imports run really well on here too, so if you are a DBA nerd, this is a nice laptop as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...

If you are still reading, I gave a couple of hours to play Watch Dogs 2 on this laptop. I had to turn back my display settings for a moderately consistent framerate. Watch Dogs 2 review here @ FTB if you want details on the settings tweaks I applied. Geometry to medium, Ambient Occlusion to SSBC,

I played the game with headphones, but did take them off to notice the fans were very loud. Understandably because this game is intensive and here are the temperatures (also pictured)

CPU Temps:
(High) 97 C / 206 F
(Low) 43 C / 109 F

Samsung SSD:
(High) 63 C / 145 F
(Low) 38 C / 100 F

Nvidia 1060 GTX:
(High) 87 C / 188 F
(Low) 49 C / 120 F
GPU Utilization: 100%
GPU Memory: 57%

If you are incredibly worried about light bleed, fire up mspaint and make a black image. Then view it in full screen. I can see some slight brightness marks along the right side of the screen, but as I noted earlier, I can only tell they are there on a flat-black screen. IE POST or a loading screen.

Edit to add Razer confirmed the fan issue some people are having with them running loudly all the time. I don't notice the fans when not playing games. Perhaps my amazon open-box was a repaired unit? Either way, they confirmed the issue and are looking to release a firmware update.
Verifying with CPU-Z, I was on BIOS firmware 1.0. I just installed FW 2.0 from RazerSupport. This BIOS has a mod date of 12/06/2016. Hopefully I didn't give myself the fan issue by updating my BIOS. I doubt it but will check tonight. Laptop fans still idle fine on new 2.0 Firmware. Firmware 1.0 is from September 2016

HWMonitor_WD2_Peak01.png

HWMonitor_WD2_Peak02.png

Edited by Pic0o
Fan update
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Say you needed to calculate 32 million digits of Pi. Running Hyper PI 0.99b gave the following results.

 

Razer Blade 1060 running an Intel Core i7 6700HQ 2.60 GHz with Turbo up to 3.5 GHz:

Test: 32M

Instances: 8

Best time: 000h 14m 3.347s [CPU #05]

Worst time: 000h 18m 11.087s [CPU #00]

AVERAGE TIME: 000h 14m 45.218s

 

Desktop TestBed with 980 GTX running an Intel Core i5 4960K 3.50 GHz with Turbo up to 3.9 GHz:

 

Test: 32M

Instances: 4

Best time: 000h 09m 24.644s [CPU #02]

Worst time: 000h 09m 39.106s [CPU #00]

AVERAGE TIME: 000h 09m 30.385s

 

Circling back to Watch Dogs 2, the lower base clock and turbo clock are surely a relevant factor, in addition to the GPUs. Just for the sake of curiosity, my Fire Strike 3DMark scores looked exactly the same as before updating the laptop BIOS.

Attached are my graphics settings for WD2, that give me good performance while still having the game look pretty good.

WD2_Graphics00.png

WD2_Graphics01.png

WD2_Graphics02.png

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GTA V runs really well. Not a solid @ 60 FPS running 1080p, but I also have more Anti-Aliasing options turned on. Running the Benchmark gets me some dips into the 40s, particularly when starting the flying sequence.
Running around in GTA Online, I saw some dips into the 30s, so I will give the graphic options a little more tweaking, but for now they are at the attached settings:

Thus far, I think it's safe to say that 6GB of video memory is overkill for this GPU. I figure the desktop version has a little more headway, especially with a moderate overclock, but you have to be pretty crazy to push more heat into laptop components. :p
As the images show, GTA V is one of the best games for PC graphic options. You have tons of options to juggle around with. Notice I am running Anistropic Filtering @ 16x, Reflection MSAA @ 8x and MSAA @ 8x.

GTA5_Gphx00.png

GTA5_Gphx01.png

GTA5_Gphx02.png

GTA5_Gphx03.png

GTA5_Gphx04.png

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LCD Bleed

I ment
ioned this before and now have images to depict it. Note that the black screen shows as gray in the photo, but in actuality it is flat black. The details you will notice are along the bottom right of the screen (more bright beam of light) and a little bit along the top right. The contrast is visible in the photo, but only actually apparent on loading screens or the bios post. That is the point I wanted to capture and share. I'm not slighted by it, but I seen people getting pretty livid about it online.

Also attached is an in-game screen taken with my phone. The display is really crisp. Response time is very rapid also, as I can alt-tab from a full screen game back to desktop, with next to nothing of a delay.

RazLCD_Black.png

RazLCD_GTA5.png

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  • 5 months later...

My laptop continues to run admirably.  Granted if I'm playing games, I tend to do so on my desktop.  As I mentioned the 980 GTX was faster than the 1060 on the laptop and my current 1080 Ti is largely faster than the laptop's 1060 nvidia card.  That is likely fairly obvious, but worth re-stating because I gave the laptop a few sessions in VR via an Oculus Rift.

While the Razer Blade will run VR games, you may very well notice a little bit of jank and dropped frames.  My benchmark of the weekend was Technolust.  Getting to Chinatown you will see some frame drops wandering around the environment.  In this case, I am running graphic options at default, without turning on any Super Sampling via the Oculus Tray Tool.  As is the normal case when playing a game or working the graphics card, your fans will come on and generate a fairly large amount of extra noise.  This is easy to ignore when using the Rift, due to headphones.
I had a couple of times when the HMD didn't detect properly, but instead of rebooting (that will work too), you can put a USB extension on the headset and plug it into the left side USB ports.  I consider the laptop a good option when doing some mobile VR configs, but I might justify dragging the desktop along for the extra performance and image quality boosts.  I have not done a full mobile setup yet, short of between rooms at home.  Considering the sensors, headset, controllers and such, you will have a good amount of stuff to drag around.

Anyways, I wanted to drop an overview on using the Rift with this laptop.  It will work, but the laptop will get hot and you will see some framerate drops.  I suspect this is why most games suggest a 970 or higher tier graphics card.  I also have ASW Mode set to: Auto in the Oculus Tray Tool utility.

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  • 2 months later...

Bumping the thread to remind people of setting your Default GPU in Nvidia Driver Settings.
Default will probably be 'auto-select' but in content like .hack//G.U. and Oculus games, you may see a huge performance drop by not selecting the 1060 GTX, over the Intel GPU.

Right-click on your desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel.  If you have multiple graphics cards (as the case on this laptop), you will see a drop down for Preferred graphics processor on the Manage 3D Settings tab.  Changing this helped .hack go from running extremely laggy to smooth as silk on this laptop.

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