Conclusion

Final Words 

Right, time to recap.

Powered by the all-new AMD Ryzen 9 7945HS processor, furnished with an 8-core/16-thread "Zen 4" CPU, a Ryzen AI accelerator, and Radeon 780M (12 CU) integrated graphics and the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series laptop graphics, this 14-inch laptop offers exceptional portability without compromising on power. The Razer Blade 14 is available in both matte black and mercury white. The Razer Blade 14 runs on the AMD Ryzen 7040HS Phoenix processor. This laptop measures 31 cm x 22.8 cm x 1.79 cm (WxDxH with lid closed), achieving a 11.5% decrease in thickness from its predecessor, the 2022 Razer Blade 14. It also weighs only 1.83 kg, which is 9% lighter. Despite its small size, the laptop seamlessly incorporates a 68 Wh battery, ensuring up to 10 hours of continuous productivity (not gaming), even with high-demand hardware. The GeForce RTX 4070  with a 140 W TGP equips the laptop with commendable graphical capabilities. Users can toggle between discrete and integrated graphics to suit different performance requirements. Razer Blade 14 can support up to 64 GB of DDR5 memory via its two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots. The laptop also includes an M.2-2280 Gen 4 NVMe slot for primary storage, facilitating rapid data access with a Gen 4 SSD. The WLAN module is socketed, providing Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity for smooth wireless operation.The laptop's 14-inch QHD+ (2560 x 1600 pixels) display, with a 16:10 aspect ratio, offers high-quality visuals with a 240 Hz refresh rate and a quick 3 ms response time. Moreover, the display can achieve a maximum brightness of 500 nits, ensuring vibrant and detailed images.

The Razer Blade 14 truly is a nice gaming machine with its interesting performance, powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS 8-core ZEN4 based processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 laptop 140W GPU. This device is equipped with a 14" QHD 240Hz panel with a fast refresh rate and impressive response time, providing a peak brightness of 500 nits. It's astonishing to witness the remarkable performance capabilities of today's laptops. With the introduction of AMD's 45W desktop CPUs, it was anticipated that we would see a significant boost in performance for the comparative mobile procs. The reality makes me state that multi-threaded performance was a s little slower than I anticipated, single threaded performance, however is beastly with this product. Combined with the graphics capabilities of the RTX 4070, it delivers very decent framerates at WQHD resolutions, even without utilizing DLSS3. Being a 4000 series NVIDIA GPU you also reap the benefits of frame generation of course (with games that support it). However, this laptop does have its drawbacks. Battery life while gaming is considerably reduced, making it more suitable as a desktop replacement powered by an external power source. The CPU operates at frequencies ranging from 4 Ghz to 5.25 GHz (as observed by us), but under heavy multi-core loads, temperatures can surpass 80-90°C and throttle down. The lowest all core load we measured sat at roughly 4200 MHz.  The laptop also offers various performance modes to choose from. 

Gaming performance

We compared game results of this laptop performance of the Ryzen 9 7940HS to the desktop level performance base on AMD's most expensive series 7000 processor , which is not an entirely objective comparison. However, the RTX 4070 mobile proved to be a strong contender and held its own compared to its big brother the desktop version. Let's briefly look at some numbers:

Above three games at 2560x1600 use maximum quality settings used in our graphics card reviews. For the Callisto protocol, DLSS is not available; we enabled FSR. For F1, DLSS + Frame generation is available and, as such, enabled.

The Blade 14 has enough gaming stamina backed by a 240 Hz GSYNC display. It's worth noting that the thought of a Ryzen 9 7940 HS with X3D cache immediately came to mind. It might do wonders in a laptop like this, as X3D offers exceptional energy efficiency and removes CPU bottlenecks. With a resolution of 2560x1600, this laptop performs admirably, as mentioned before.

Overall

The Blade 14 is set to be available in various configurations, all powered by the Ryzen 9 7940HS processor. This processor comes with eight cores, a peak clock speed of 5.2GHz, and a configurable TDP ranging from 35W to 54W. The entry-level variant of the Blade 14 will incorporate an RTX 4060 graphics card, adjusted to function at a maximum power limit of 140W, consistent with Nvidia's stipulations for this GPU. On the other hand, the premium models will be furnished with an RTX 4070, also set to the same power limit of 140W. Razer employs a vapor chamber cooling system to ensure proficient thermal management, an attribute consistently found in their laptop designs. Alongside the vapor chamber, two DDR5 memory slots are provided, marking a significant divergence from the previous generation, which had the memory directly soldered onto the board. The Blade 14 comes equipped with a superior battery, boasting a capacity of 68Wh, an advancement from the prior generation's 61Wh battery. Nonetheless, it's pertinent to mention that the new model anticipates a slight decrement in battery longevity. Razer quotes a battery life of ten hours for the Blade 14, a minor downgrade from the eleven hours achievable by its precursor. The display has also received considerable upgrades. The resolution has been amplified from 2560x1440 to 2560x1600 pixels, along with the refresh rate being raised from 165Hz to 240Hz. 

Conclusion

AMD's Phoenix CPUs, particularly the new 4 nm chips, now finally have been reviewed. This comes after the recent introduction of the Ryzen 9 7945HX, which offered beastly performance on many fronts. The operational TDP range of the new HS Zen4 chips falls between 35-55 watts, providing more flexibility for laptop manufacturers to include dedicated GPUs and this processor felt balanced and in symbiosis with the included RTX 4070 Mobile.  The test results of the latest Ryzen 9 7940HS show that while AMD has made significant strides in performance, however this 8-core part shows the six-core desktop equivalent performance when it comes to multi-threading, we had hoped for a bit more spice. Single-threaded performance, however was excellent. Unlike Intel, which adopted a hybrid architecture, AMD uses 8 full Zen4 cores. With an enhanced Turbo Boost of 5.2 GHz, the chip's single-core performance has increased, offering excellent performance in this segment. However, the 5.2 Ghz clocks result in increased power consumption. The new Zen4 Phoenix processor demonstrates improved performance, matching Intel's multi-core usage but at the cost of higher power consumption. While the processor's single-core performance has improved, its efficiency has dipped. When gaming this resulted in a power draw of 175 Watts, just stressing the GPU will reach roughly 75 Watts on this laptop. The Blade 14 demonstrates robust performance capabilities in both gaming and creative workflows. It comes equipped with a Gen 4 SSD, boasting read speeds closing in at 7 gigabytes per second and write speeds hovering around 4-5 gigabytes per second. It provides an M.2 slot for storage expansion, catering to users in need of additional storage capacity. This laptop offers advanced connectivity options with WIFI6E, demonstrating impressive throughput. As configured, the Blade 14 is currently priced between $2399-2799 USD. It is powered by the Phoenix Range 7940HS 8-core CPU, a reasonably powerful unit that closely rivals its desktop equivalents. It is anticipated that future processors for gaming laptops will incorporate a larger 3d cache (at least we hope so). Ideal for everyday applications, this laptop performs admirably while also providing a 240 Hz Adaptive Sync display. Overall it's good for gaming and everyday workloads. The laptop feels refined and the IPS display at 240 hz of course, kicks ass. We want to suggest you the 32GB option of the Blade 14, as our tested 16GB felt a little on the shy side DDR5-wise. Other than pricing, there's little to complain about, albeit we do feel that Ryzen-based gaming laptops could really benefit from X3D caches and, thus, processors as well as a lower price.

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