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Stuff.tv
22-07-2025
- Stuff.tv
After weeks of testing, the new Razer Blade 16 is the gaming laptop I'd happily take anywhere
Stuff Verdict The Razer Blade 16 (2025) is a gaming monster, naturally, but also has fantastic battery life and a stunning screen. If you can afford one, it's a fantastic ultraportable powerhouse. Pros Immense gaming muscle and desktop performance Gorgeous, high refresh rate OLED screen Genuinely impressive battery life for a gaming laptop Cons Screen is very reflective Ruinously expensive with an RTX 5090 Introduction I'm not a fan of having to pick between high frame rates and portability. The most powerful gaming laptops are usually the biggest and heaviest – and rarely last more than a few hours as soon as you unplug their brick-like power adapters. Or at least, that used to be the case. Manufacturers have gotten much better at emphasising slimness and sleekness, without compromising on hardware. The new Razer Blade 16 might've just taken that to the extreme. At a mere 17mm thick, it isn't that far off a modern MacBook Pro's dimensions, yet it finds room inside for top-tier Nvidia RTX 5090 mobile graphics. Razer has also opted for AMD internals for the first time to maximise battery life, and brought OLED display tech into the mix. The laptop equivalent of a supercar never comes cheap, of course. The Blade 16 starts $2400/£2100 with an RTX 5060 GPU, but climbs up to a heady $4500/£3900 for the version tested here – and you can push that figure even further if you want extra RAM or storage. That puts it in the same ballpark as the equally svelte Asus ROG Zephyrus G16. Does the Razer do enough to justify its asking price? How we test laptops Every laptop reviewed on Stuff is tested using industry standard benchmarks and apps to assess performance and battery life. We use our years of experience to judge display, sound and general usability. Manufacturers have no visibility on reviews before they appear online, and we never accept payment to feature products. Find out more about how we test and rate products. Design & build: slender fan Side by side with a 2023-era Blade (the last to use the old chassis), it's seriously impressive how much skinnier this new model is – despite having to make room inside for some particularly toasty components, not least the RTX 5090 GPU. Cleverly, Razer has pulled this thinning off by actually making the new laptop larger. The 5mm of depth that's been shaved off has been added to the length of the laptop instead, but you'd only notice with a direct comparison. The footprint has barely grown, and it won't affect the sort of backpacks or laptop bags the Blade will slide into. That's handy, as given the new model is over 300g lighter than the old one, you're going to want to take it on the move a lot more. I've long seen Razer laptops as the yin to Apple's yang, and that rings true again here. There's a clear family resemblance in the milled aluminium unibody, subtle Ouroboros logo on the lid, and green accented USB ports at the sides. The matte black finish is treated to prevent wear, and does a decent job at minimising fingerprint smudges too. It looks mean, without also being shouty; as gaming laptops go, it's wonderfully subtle unless you know what you're looking at. The Blade also gets a big thumbs up for not skimping on connectivity in the name of slimness. You get two USB-Cs (one USB4, one USB 3.2) and three USB type-As, as well as full-size HDMI, a 3.5mm combination headset port, and a full-size SD card reader. Having them all at the sides makes it impossible to keep cables out of sight when gaming at a desk, but convenient for quickly plugging in peripherals. Keyboard & touchpad: happy taps Older Blades weren't the greatest laptops to type on, but this new one is a treat for your fingers. There's 50% more key travel than the last-gen chassis got, and the actuation force has been adjusted so it feels like you're pressing down with purpose before an input is detected. It's fairly quiet to tap away on unless you type like you're hammering nails, and each island-style key is comfortably spaced apart. It did take me a few hours to get used to how flat it all is, with no key recesses to help place your fingers. Sensibly Razer hasn't tried to shoehorn in a numerical keypad, but has found a bit of space at the edge of the board for a few customisable macro keys. Holding down the fn button also switches the per-key RGB backlighting to highlight the top row's multimedia functions, making things like screen brightness and the mute key far easier to find. Doubling up on LEDs for these keys mean each key cap is perfectly lit, with next to no light bleed around the edges. You can customise the lot through Razer's Synapse software, too. While I default to a wireless mouse for pretty much anything outside of the Windows desktop, the Blade's touchpad is a fine substitute when away from a desk. It's huge, with a low-friction surface that makes cursor movement a breeze. It's accurate and has a firm physical click action. Screen & sound: how refreshing Regardless of what spec you choose, every Blade 16 gets the same QHD+ resolution display. I'm not complaining – it's an absolute stunner, and I rarely used the last-gen Blade's dual resolution mode anyway. Here you're getting a 2560×1600 OLED with a rapid 240Hz refresh rate, which is ideal for hectic multiplayer gaming. While some LCD screens claim even faster refresh rates, OLED tech has inherently faster response times, so you're getting a gloriously smooth presentation here. Variable refresh all but prevents tearing when frame rates dip below 60fps, too. OLED also means there's none of the light bloom or halo effect you got on the old Blade's mini-LED panel – just perfect blacks and impeccable contrast, which give dimly lit movie scenes and dark game levels outstanding amounts of depth. Colours are deliciously vibrant, helping Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion feel even more immersive than usual. There's a decent amount of brightness on tap, which helps give HDR content some welcome extra pop. Pretty much the only downside is how reflective the panel is; even at full whack, sitting by windows or underneath bright lights can be quite distracting. The six-speaker sound system is a great match to the screen, getting impressively loud and with decent amounts of bass for a laptop. The mid-range is clear, and THX Spatial Audio does a convincing impression of surround sound. Treble could use just a little extra bite, but I didn't ever feel the need to plug in a headset unless I was gaming – and that was partly down to fan noise. The internal fans spin up to a noticeable degree as soon as you boot into a game, and are impossible to ignore when run at their maximum. Performance: graphical greatness Razer used to be all-in on Intel, but has made the switch to AMD power for this laptop generation. The Blade 16 kicks off with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 365, but steps up to a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 once you add RTX 5090 graphics to your order. I've seen this twelve core, 24-thread chip in larger gaming laptops, but this is the first time I've tried one in such a skinny chassis. In my review unit it's paired with a 2TB NVMe SSD and 32GB of RAM. For desktop duties, AMD's silicon trades back and forth with the last-gen Intel Core chips. The gap is fairly small, and there's ample oomph for all sorts of creative jobs like image editing. Synthetic tests show very little in the way of penalty for going slim, being roughly on par with the 18in MSI Stealth A18 AI+. Certain tasks – like video encoding – are just better suited to Intel's architecture, so keep in mind that newer doesn't always mean better – though AMD comfortably wins out on efficiency. More on that below. Razer Blade 16 (2025) productivity benchmark scores Geekbench 6 single-core 2966 Geekbench 6 multi-core 15488 Geekbench AI 7643 You don't buy a Blade 16 to just work on the Windows desktop, of course. It's gaming where this laptop truly shines, the RTX 5090 GPU and its whopping 24GB of video memory absolutely churning through modern titles. At the 2560×1600 native resolution, none of the titles I tried ever dipped below 60fps as long as ray tracing stayed disabled. Counter Strike 2 comfortably saw frame rates in the 100-200fps range, which should be ideal for serious esports gamers. Ray Tracing can still make the hardware sweat, Nvidia's upscaling tech is on hand to assist. DLSS 4.0 and multi-frame generation are scarily good, creating entirely new frames without the tearing, blurriness or input delay seen on previous iterations. Cyberpunk 2077 saw huge gains, from a barely playable 24.4fps with maximum path tracing but no upscaling, to a far smoother 53.9fps with DLSS. Doom: the Dark Ages was equally impressive, running smoothly even when the screen was filled with demons. This is the fastest mobile GPU money can buy, hands down – but native rendering performance isn't a huge leap from the previous generation, and the RTX 5080 isn't that far behind. It's only with DLSS and multi-frame generation enabled that the 5000 series shows a truly generational leap from the 4000 series, and even then 4K gaming at maximum settings with ray tracing still looks out of reach in some titles. The Blade 16's more restrictive thermals also limit the 5090's potential a little, but not to the extent that games aren't playable. Frame rates never dipped at any point, even during a marathon play session. Razer Blade 16 (2025) gaming benchmark scores Native rendering (2560×1600) DLSS upscaling 3DMark Steel Nomad 5821 N/A Cyberpunk 2077 (RT Overdrive) 24.43fps 53.9fps Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra, RT off) 91.42fps 111.05fps Shadow of the Tomb Raider (RT on) 119fps 148fps Shadow of the Tomb Raider (RT off) 156fps 161fps Gears Tactics 130.6fps N/A Arguably what impressed me most when benchmarking the Blade 16 was how long it lasted while away from the mains. When looping a local video at 50% brightness, I was getting close to ten hours. That's way more than I managed from the old Intel-powered Blade. Desktop working should see you closer to six or seven, which might be enough to see you through an entire working day – if you aren't tempted to game during your lunch break. Depending on the title it can last between one and three hours here. That's still not a bad showing for a laptop with a green this big and a GPU this power-hungry. Razer Blade 16 (2025) verdict Razer laptops have always carried a certain gravitas, but I think the latest Blade 16 might be one of the first to truly deserve it. This is a gloriously potent gaming laptop, with the sort of screen you could happily stare at all day and enough ports at the sides to become a very effective desktop replacement. Yet it also has a long-lasting battery and is light enough that you can happily take it on the move. OK, it's expensive, especially in 5090 guise – but name a laptop with that GPU that isn't. The 'Razer tax' does mean you pay a premium over the likes of Asus, MSI or Lenovo, but you're getting a design that's almost on par with Apple for your money. If you have the funds, it'll demolish any game you can throw at it for years to come. Stuff Says… Score: 5/5 The Razer Blade 16 (2025) is a gaming monster, naturally, but also has fantastic battery life and a stunning screen. If you can afford one, it's a fantastic ultraportable powerhouse. Pros Immense gaming muscle and desktop performance Gorgeous, high refresh rate OLED screen Genuinely impressive battery life for a gaming laptop Cons Screen is very reflective Ruinously expensive with an RTX 5090 Razer Blade 16 (2025) technical specifications Screen 16in, 2560×1600, 240Hz OLED Processor AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Memory 32GB RAM Graphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop w/ 24GB RAM Storage 2TB Operating system Windows 11 Connectivity HDMI, 1x USB4 Type-C, 1x USB 3.2 Type-C, 3x USB, 3.5mm headphone port, SD card reader Battery 90Whr Dimensions 355x251x17.4mm, 2.14kg
Mint
27-05-2025
- Mint
The refresh rate race got hotter with three new gaming monitors
The refresh rate race in gaming monitors is like the megapixel race that has always dogged smartphone cameras, with the latest releases from companies like Asus and Acer at the recently concluded Computex 2025 event in Taiwan upping the ante in terms of ever-expanding refresh rates. But first, let's, err, refresh our understanding of its significance: For gaming, an ideal refresh rate falls between 144Hz and 200Hz. Higher refresh rates (like 240Hz or beyond) can offer even smoother and more responsive gameplay, especially in fast-paced competitive games. However, a 144Hz or higher refresh rate is generally considered the sweet spot for most gamers, offering a significant improvement over the standard 60Hz refresh rate. You'd think that would be enough, right? No. In 2025, manufacturers are pushing the limits with unprecedentedly high refresh rate monitors. Two of them, from MSI and Acer, are 144p displays with a staggering 500Hz refresh rate—it's a bit puzzling actually because even if you have the top-of-the-line Nvidia RTX 5090 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) with multi-frame generation, you'd be unable to utilise all of it. But, one other monitor has blown even these two out of the water: the ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG (yes, that's a mouthful), from Asus with a 1080p display and an astounding 610Hz refresh rate. But, do we really need super-fast gaming monitors? With these kind of refresh rates, you're not only going to need a powerful graphics card (like Nvidia's RTX 5090) but also a top of the line CPU to support it (the CPU helps feed the GPU with data). Most games won't even be rendered this quickly, though. And yet, the refresh rate arms race is a live and kicking. Let's check out the three monitors unveiled at Computex and see what they have to offer beyond crazy refresh rates: Gaming guru The ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG, a 24.1-inch FHD monitor from Asus is going global. It's a Super TN panel, which has lower colour accuracy than IPS panels but is known for its incredible speed. Asus claims that this monitor has 90% DCI-P3 color coverage. One other advantage of this monitor over other high refresh rate models is the support for Extreme Low Motion Blur 2. This means that, according to the company, the panel is 65% brighter than its competitors. The highlight of the monitor is the absurdly fast 610Hz refresh rate. It's native refresh rate is 600Hz and it can be overclocked to 610Hz. It's got a 0.1ms response time, support for FreeSync Premium and G-Sunch. There's also the ROG Strix OLED XG34WCDMTG (yes, another mouthful). This is a 34-inch WQHD (3440×1440 resolution) QD-OLED monitor. This one features a 240Hz refresh rate and DCI-P3 99% color gamut, It vibrant, immersive, and enhances the gameplay visuals. This monitor has Google TV (based on Android 14) embedded. The Predator For 2025, Acer has unleashed the Predator X27U F5. This 26.5-inch WQHD QD-OLED gaming monitor has a 2560x1440 resolution and a 500Hz refresh rate. On top of that, it's got a 0.03ms response time and comes with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro (to reduce screen tearing) technology. It's VESA DisplayHDR TrueBlack 500 certified and has a whopping 1,6000,000:1 contrast ratio. In HDR mode, the peak brightness is 1000 nits (the native brightness is 300 nits). There are 2 DisplayPort 1.4 ports, 2 HDMI 2.1 ports, a USB-C port (with 65W charging), two USB 3.2 ports and an audio out port. Additionally, two 5W built-in speakers can be tilted, swivelled, and pivoted, with a height adjustment of up to 120mm. Acer also unveiled some other models alongside the Predator X27U F5. First up is the Predator X27 X. This is a 4K UHD QD-OLED gaming monitor with a more modest 240Hz refresh rate. Next up are the Nitro GA321QK P and GA341CUR W0 smart monitors. The Nitro GA321QK P is a 31.5-inch 4K UHD (3840×2160 resolution) display with an even more modest 165Hz refresh rate. Then comes the Nitro GA341CUR W0, a 34-inch ultra-wide QHD (3440×1440 resolution) display featuring a 240Hz refresh rate. The MSI MAG 272QP X50 MSI (aka Micro-Star International, a Taiwanese company) is billing the MPG 271QR QD-OLED X50 and MAG 272QP X50 as the world's first 27-inch WQHD (2K) QD-OLED gaming monitors with a huge 500Hz refresh rate. The mainstay of these monitors are that they feature Samsung Display's latest 3rd-gen QD-OLED panel. The advantage of this is an ultra-smooth motion for a truly immersive gaming experience. They've got a 2560x1440 resolution for crisp text, vivid colours and twice the pixel density of Full HD. The difference between them is that the MPG 271QR X50 gets a sensor, at the bottom of the display, that detects when you're away from the screen and automatically turns it off. - MPG 272URX: This 27-inch monitor has a 3840x2160p resolution, runs at 240Hz refresh rate and has comes with a 4th-gen QD-OLED panel. - MPG 322URX: Identical to the 272URX except that it has a bigger 31.5-inch screen. - MAG 272QPW: A 280Hz gaming monitor with a 3rd-gen QD-OLED panel. - MPG 274URDFW E16M: A 27-inch Rapid IPS monitor. This one offers a dual-configuration mode, meaning it can display UHD at 160Hz and FHD at 320Hz, so you can choose between better visuals or fast-paced gaming. - MPG 242R X60N: This one is for esports professionals. It's made using a Rapid TN panel, comes in a 24-inch size and offers a 600Hz refresh rate.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Yahoo
Freeware tool CPU-Z now warns you if your GPU doesn't have the correct number of ROPs
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Putting aside the relative lack of availability, high pricing and the odd concern about melting power connectors, an aspect of the RTX 50-series launch that Nvidia would probably like to put behind it is the case of the missing ROPs. For those of you that managed to get hold of an RTX-50 series card, however, popular freeware tool CPU-Z now warns you if your card doesn't have the correct number of Raster Operation Pipelines—by giving you an explicit warning in attractive purple text. Nvidia RTX 5090, RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti GPUs were reported with missing ROPs by multiple outlets, leading to diminished performance. Nvidia says less than 0.5% of cards have been affected—but even given that very small percentage, it's still probably worth a look to make sure your graphics card is giving you the performance it should be. There is a slight caveat, however (via Igor's lab). After installing CPU-Z, you'll first have to confirm your hardware specifications and upload them to the CPU-Z database by clicking the Validate button in the bottom right. After you've filled in your details, you'll be taken to a web page detailing your system specs, including how many shader units, texture units, and ROPs are reported by your graphics card. Should your GPU be missing a few, CPU-Z will handily provide a warning message in purple font telling you exactly how many ROPs your graphics card is reporting and how many it's supposed to have. That should make it easier to confirm if your card has been affected by the missing ROP issue, so you can contact your graphics card manufacturer to request a replacement. Which all sounds like a hassle, but hey, you paid for a certain number of ROPs, and thereby you should receive them. It's certainly nice to see a freeware tool developer responding to recent concerns with a handy update, at the very least. I routinely use CPU-Z to check all kinds of info on every system I review to make sure it's configured correctly, so I can personally recommend it as an excellent tool to install—even if a new RTX 50-series card isn't in your immediate future. Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and gaming motherboard: The right graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
You can buy this AMD rig with 7 water-cooled Nvidia RTX 5090 GPUs and receive it in a week but it will cost $102,000
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. At least two workstation specialists have put supercharged PCs with Nvidia RTX 5090 GPUs on sale over the past few days. The most impressive of them all is the Bizon ZX5500 which packs up to seven (yes, seven) water-cooled 32GB RTX 5090 GPUs in a tall tower casing. This is the best GPU ever built and buying it through system builders seems to be the only way to avoid months-long wait. While BizonTech's solution will probably feature in our best workstation guide, it is not as expansive as Comino's Grando server, which has eight RTX 5090 GPUs, but the latter has yet to get a launch date (I contacted Comino for more details). The ZX5500 doesn't come cheap at just under $102,000 with the GPUs accounting the lion share (more than 83%) of the total cost. That's almost 3x the price of MIFCOM's Big Boss which has seven liquid-cooled RTX 4090 GPUs. A beefier 6Kw power supply unit plus and the cards cost an extra $85,000 compared to the same system with a pair of RTX 5080 (with 16GB VRAM each). As a reminder, the suggested retail price of the RTX 5090 is 'just' $2000. The ZX5500 can be updated to a 96-core ThreadRipper Pro CPU with 1TB of DDR5 RAM, almost 1PB of PCIe 4.0 SSDs (15 x 61.44TB SSD) and seven liquid-cooled Nvidia H200 AI GPU; such a configuration pushes the price above half a million US Dollars. Bizontech is a niche boutique vendor that specializes in servers, workstations and clusters for AI, deep learning and HPC. The RTX 5090 is sold out pretty much everywhere and it seems that Nvidia is prioritizing business and creative outlets like Bizontech, Puget Systems and Punch Technology, with workstations seemingly ready to be shipped within days rather than week. Jon Bach, President, Puget Systems told me, 'Supply for the 5090 (and the 5080) is very limited, and we expect that to be the case for at least through March. Puget Systems has a good number of cards in hand at the moment because of our OEM relationships, but we appear to be somewhat unusual in that respect. Overall, we are filling orders, but expect our lead times to be affected until supply improves." The creative crowd will love the RTX 5090 as it obliterates absolutely everything in its path but at a price. Puget Systems and Storagereview benchmarked it across a wide range of AI and creative tests and found that it performed significantly better than previous generations (and AMD's finest cards) albeit with a much higher power station. TechRadar's John Loeffler published a review of the RTX 5090 recently, calling it the supercar of graphics cards and asking whether it was simply too powerful, suggesting that it is an absolute glutton for wattage. He continues, 'It's overkill, especially if you only want it for gaming, since monitors that can truly handle the frames this GPU can put out are likely years away.' This, of course, will be irrelevant to Nvidia's plans to launch an even more powerful version of the RTX 5090, one with a rumored 96GB GDDR7 memory which will replace the RTX 6000 ADA in due time. If this card follows the same inflationary trajectory as its consumer version then I won't be surprised if its ticket price reaches $15,000, making it the most expensive graphics card of all time. Exclusive: Nvidia's fastest AI chip ever is finally available for preorder First Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper desktop supercomputer now on sale How to choose the right server for small businesses
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A European storefront listing suggests the RTX 5070 Ti may be launching on February 20 and there might actually be a good reason to believe it
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. With the Nvidia RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 launching next week, many potential buyers have been eyeing up the more budget-oriented (okay, they're still going to be quite expensive) cards from the 50 series and we could potentially get them as soon as February 20. However, as always before the launch of a major card, it's worth taking that information with a grain (or teaspoon) of salt. As reported by Videocardz, retailer Proshop recently listed an RTX 5070 Ti, and at the very top of the page, it says the card is launching on February 20, at 3 PM. I checked out this page and, as of the time of writing, it still says it will be launching that day. The date and time seem fairly specific but there are a few reasons why this could be the case. The first is that this is simply a placeholder date given in the system, that might not have been intended to actually go live on the website. When I first saw this information, that was my instinct. I'm prepared for most dates before big gaming moments to be some sort of admin error that is being blown out of proportion. However, this one is a slight bit different. The page in question has that specific date and time but so too does every RTX 5070 Ti I could find on Proshop from any brand. There are currently two pages of search results for RTX 5070 Ti on the storefront and every single one of them has the same date and time. This is certainly peculiar, especially when you consider no such date has been given for the 5070, which just says it will launch at some point in March. Proshop is a reputable Danish retailer but there is a potential other cause for every single 5070 Ti having the same date. We don't know the details of the backend of the site but something like this could have a broader website category and the page furniture, like 'hot' and 'new', and the release date at the top could be automatically added to products of a certain category. The fact that all 5070s have the same basic release date formatting could back this up too. Essentially, what I'm saying is don't book that day off to stand in line for your shiny new graphics card (especially when you consider some manufacturers are getting a 'single digit' amount of cards). However, I think there's more reason to pay attention to this specific release date than most pre-launch rumours. And yes, the RTX 4070/Ti cards launched significantly longer than a month after the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090, but the 50-series doesn't seem to be following the previous generation's release cadence this time around, so who knows? All I'm saying is, if you're on the hunt for a new RTX 5070 Ti, it's not impossible that you could have one by this time next month. Proshop just so happens to have 28 different 5070 Ti cards available, if you live in Europe. I'd know as I counted them all, each and every one. Best gaming PC: The top pre-built gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
