The Importance of Power Limit: A Key Factor in Gaming Laptop Performance

When it comes to gaming laptops, power limit is often an overlooked factor that can greatly impact performance. The power limit dictates how much energy the laptop's GPU can consume, and this ultimately affects its ability to handle demanding games. In a recent testing exercise, we put three gaming laptops through their paces to see which one would come out on top.

The Blade 15 was the first laptop to be put through our testing rig, with a power limit of 90 watts. Despite being larger than the smaller Blade 14, the Blade 15 performed surprisingly well, with results that were essentially tied to its sibling laptop. This is impressive given the larger size of the Blade 15, which should have allowed for more room for upgrades and better cooling.

However, it's worth noting that power limit ultimately dictates performance when the GPUs are otherwise the same. More power means more heat, which is why the Blade 17 has more space for cooling. This allows the laptop to operate within its power limit, ensuring that it can handle demanding games without overheating or shutting down prematurely.

Despite the smaller size of the Blade 14, both laptops performed incredibly well, thanks in part to their 90 watt power limit. The fact that they were able to achieve such high performance is a testament to the capabilities of modern GPUs and CPUs. In particular, the Ryzen CPU and Radeon integrated graphics seemed to be more power-efficient compared to Intel, allowing for longer battery life and better overall performance.

In terms of upgrades, both laptops allowed for some level of customization. The Blade 15 and 17 had two memory slots that could be changed, as well as two M.2 SSDs. However, the second slot on the 15 didn't have space to install a drive with chips on both sides, which limited my upgrade options. In contrast, the smaller Blade 14 only allowed for swapping out the single M.2 SSD and Wi-Fi card, with all RAM being soldered to the motherboard.

One interesting observation was that the Blade 14 was only sold with 16GB of memory, which may limit its performance for some users. This is likely a design decision made by Dell, as upgrading RAM on laptops can be difficult and expensive. In contrast, the Blade 15 and 17 both offered more flexibility in terms of upgrades.

Another area where the laptops differed was in their Wi-Fi performance. The Blade 15 and 17 had similar results, which makes sense given that they were using the same Wi-Fi card. However, the Blade 14 was slightly behind due to its lower-end Qualcomm card. Fortunately, it's easy to upgrade this card yourself for less than $20.

Battery life was another area where the laptops differed significantly. The Blade 14 had the smallest battery at 61Wh, but surprisingly lasted longer in real-world use compared to the larger Blade 15 and 17. This is likely due to its more power-efficient design, as well as the fact that it's using a lower-power CPU.

When it comes to video playback, the laptops' performance was again similar. However, in Adobe Photoshop, the Blade 15 scored the highest single-threaded score, thanks to its higher CPU performance. In contrast, the Blade 17 took the lead in Adobe Premiere Pro, where the GPU played a more significant role.

Overall, our testing exercise highlighted the importance of power limit in gaming laptops. While the Blade 15 and 14 performed incredibly well, it was the Blade 17 that truly shone with its higher power limit and larger screen. However, for me personally, the 17 is just too large if I want a bigger screen, and instead opt for connecting an external monitor to the 15.

If you're interested in learning more about these laptops, be sure to check out our in-depth reviews over on YouTube. We've covered all three laptops in depth, discussing everything from their design and performance to their value and overall usability.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enSo you’re interested in Razer’s Bladegaming laptop, but which size do you pick?I’ve compared the Blade 14, 15 and 17 tohelp you decide!Let’s start out with the most obvious difference,the sizes.In order to fit a larger screen, the actualbody of the laptop has to get bigger to accommodateit.Based on this, it’s no surprise at all thatthe 14 inch model is the smallest, the 15inch model is a little larger in all threedimensions, and then the biggest 17 inch versionis the largest of the three.A larger size means more materials used, andthat contributes to more weight.The Blade 14 is definitely the most portable,it’s the lightest as well as the smallestout of all three laptops.You don't have to use those large power bricksunless you need full performance, becauseall 3 laptops can be charged over USB Type-C.Most devices these days can, and you can chargeeverything with the 100 watt GaN Power Stripfrom Ugreen, who have sponsored this partof the video.With 7 different power ports and up to 100watts of Type-C charging, you can stay organizedand plug all your devices on your desk intothis little hub.There are 3 USB-C ports, a USB-A port, andeven 3 AC outlets so you can run basicallyanything.With the latest GaN tech, you can charge aniPhone 13 to 60% in 30 minutes, or fully chargea MacBook Pro 16 in an hour and a half.Check out the Ugreen 100W GaN Power Stripwith the sponsored link below the video, andnow back to the laptop comparison.Basically the larger you go up in size, theless portable the laptop becomes because itgets bigger and heavier.Personally, I prefer 15 inch screens, as Ithink they're a great sweet spot.Sure 14 inches is the most portable, but unlessyou’re connecting it to a larger externalscreen when playing games, it’s just goingto be a bit harder for most people to see.Now gaming on 17 inches definitely looks thebest, you’ve just got more viewable screenspace, but for me, the tradeoff of less portabilityjust isn’t worth it.Let’s see how the screen’s actually compare!I’ve actually got two Blade 17 results,one with a 4K 144Hz screen and another witha 1440p 240Hz screen, and interestingly the4K one with slower refresh rate had a fasterresponse time.The Blade 15 and 17 were basically the samewith the 4K 144Hz screen, while the smallerBlade 14 was the slowest.The total system latency is the amount oftime between a mouse click and when a gunshotactually fires on screen in CS:GO, and theordering is quite close to what we saw withthe screen response time results just before.The 4K screens in the Blade 15 and 17 werealso the brightest too.The 1440p 240Hz screen in the Blade 17 stillgets above 300 nits, but it’s not as brightas the 500 plus from the 4K panel.Even the way smaller 14 inch Blade was brighterthan it, however out of the 17 inch models,only the 1440p screen offers G-Sync and advancedoptimus, so that’s the tradeoff.Color gamut wasn’t too different, all aregreat results as far as gaming laptops go,though the 4K Blade 17 or 15 seem to be winningin most of the tests.The keyboards are all quite similar, and nonehave a numpad, not even the largest 17 inch.The touchpads get bigger in the larger models,but they all felt big enough and good to use.All three laptops have front facing speakerson either side of the keyboard.The Blade 17 also has some down firing ones,and it sounded the best as a result.The 14 and 15 didn’t have as much bass andwere tinny sounding, though the 15 gets louderthan the 14.Bigger laptop also means more ports.The 17 is the only one with a 2.5 gigabitethernet port, while the 14 only has roomfor one USB Type-A port on the left comparedto the two available on the 15 and 17.They’re even more similar on the right,basically the 14 is only missing an SD cardslot compared to the bigger 15 and 17 on thisside.All three of my Blades here have Nvidia’sRTX 3080 Ti graphics, and although I don’tthink the 3080 Ti is worth spending more moneyon compared to the 3070 Ti for all the reasonscovered here, this does still mean that wecan use these three laptops to fairly compareperformance against each other.Now the Blade 14 does come with an AMD Ryzenbased CPU while both the Blade 15 and 17 areIntel based.Larger laptop means more space for cooling.Although all three sizes of Blade use vaporchamber cooling, having more room allows formore metal and bigger fans.In the case of the Blade 17, it also meansan extra third fan in the battery area.Despite more cooling space, the temperaturesactually get warmer with the larger laptopswhen running a combined CPU and GPU stresstest with the highest performance mode inuse.The Blade 15 was cooler than the 17, whilethe smallest Blade 14 had the coolest GPUtemp.It’s difficult to fairly compare Intel andAMD CPUs here as the sensors are different.The Blade 17 seems to run warmer because it’susing more power.The CPU TDP wasn’t much different betweenall 3 laptops, however the Blade 14 and 15were both limited to a 90 watt TDP on theRTX 3080 Ti.The Blade 17 on the other hand could go upto 150 watts, so based on this gaming performancewill be better on the 17.We can see that this is indeed the case acrossa few different games.The higher GPU power limit ultimately dictatesperformance when the GPUs are otherwise thesame.More power means more heat, which is why the17 has more space for cooling.That said, despite the Blade 15 being largerthan the smaller Blade 14, both were performingessentially the same due to their 90 wattGPU power limit, and this is an impressiveresult for the smaller and more portable 14inch model.Bigger laptop also means more room for upgrades.The Blade 15 and 17 both let you change twomemory slots, the Wi-Fi card and two M.2 SSDs,however the second slot on the 15 doesn’thave space to install a drive with chips onboth sides, so my 4TB drive didn’t fit.The smaller Blade 14 on the other hand onlylets you swap the single M.2 SSD and Wi-Ficard, all RAM is soldered to the motherboardand cannot be changed.For some reason the Blade 14 is also onlysold with 16 gigs of memory, it’s not possibleto get more which may be a limit for someworkloads.The Wi-Fi performance of the Blade 15 and17 were about the same, which makes senseconsidering they both have the same Wi-Ficard.The Blade 14 was behind as it’s using aslower Qualcomm card, but in theory you couldupgrade that yourself for less than $20.More space also means more room for biggerbatteries, and the Blade 17 has the largestat 82Wh, though the smaller Blade 15 isn’tfar behind at 80Wh.Despite the smallest Blade 14 having the smallestbattery, it was lasting for much longer comparedto the other machines in my YouTube videoplayback test.All three lasted about the same amount oftime when actually running a game, which isstill impressive for the 14 inch consideringits smaller battery.The Radeon integrated graphics and Ryzen CPUseem to be more power efficient compared toIntel when it comes to video playback in abrowser though.I’ve got 4 results in Cinebench, becauseI’ve had two different configurations ofBlade 17, one with an i7 and the other withan i9.The differences in multicore performance weren’tactually that big between all three sizesof Blade laptop.The i7 Blade 17 had the lowest single corescore out of the bunch, and although the i9is known to have a higher single core score,most 12th gen i7 laptops I’ve tested getcloser to 1800 points here, so not sure ifthere was an issue with my 12800H Blade.The ordering of the laptops doesn’t changeif we unplug the charger and instead run purelyoff of battery power.The i7 Blade 17 still had lower single threadedperformance, but it was also doing much betterin multicore score compared to the exact samelaptop but with an i9, so not sure what’sgoing on there.I would of expected those to be about thesame.The Blade 15 seems to be the most consistent,while the Ryzen based Blade 14 now had thebest single core score, granted its multicorescore was the lowest on battery, but it doesalso have fewer cores and threads comparedto the Intel options.Adobe Photoshop generally works better withhigher single threaded CPU performance, andgiven the Blade 15 scored the highest herein Cinebench it’s not too surprising tosee it scoring the best in this creator workload.The Blade 17 was on top when it came to AdobePremiere video editing though, perhaps asthe GPU matters a bit more in this one.The gaps in DaVinci resolve weren’t thatbig, but like the games, the higher GPU powerlimit of the Blade 17 allowed it to scorethe highest out of the three.Personally I’d pick the Blade 15 for itslarger screen compared to the 14.It’s still small enough for me without sacrificingportability.That said, the Blade 14 did still performquite closely to the larger Blade 15 in games,so the 14 could be a good choice if you wantthe most portability and still some good performance.Not to mention the best battery life of thebunch.The Blade 17 on the other hand looks the bestwhile actually playing games due to that biggerscreen, and the performance was also on anotherlevel compared to these two due to the higherpower limit of the Nvidia graphics.But for me personally, the 17 is just a littletoo large.If I wanted a bigger screen I’d just connectan external monitor to the 15 instead.I’ve covered all three of these gaming laptopsin way more depth in these reviews over here,so check out one of those videos next if youwant more details on any of these laptops.I’ll see you in one of those next!\n"