**Razer Blade 15 vs ASUS ROG Zephyrus: A Comprehensive Comparison**

The Razer Blade 15 and ASUS ROG Zephyrus are two powerful gaming laptops that have been making waves in the tech industry. With their impressive specs and features, it's no wonder many gamers are curious about which one to choose. In this article, we'll delve into the details of each laptop, comparing their performance, design, and features to help you make an informed decision.

**Pricing**

When I originally reviewed the Razer Blade 15, it was priced at $3,200 USD. However, prices have since dropped, and it's now available for $3,000. On the other hand, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus was priced at $3,300 USD when I first reviewed it, but its price has decreased slightly to $2,250 USD. This means that the Zephyrus is 8% more expensive than the Blade.

**Design and Performance**

One of the most noticeable differences between the two laptops is their design. The Razer Blade 15 is smaller in every dimension and weighs less, making it more portable. However, its raw gaming performance is not significantly different from the Zephyrus. In fact, the Zephyrus performs better in almost all games due to its G-Sync technology. This has nothing to do with removing screen tearing, but rather allows the Nvidia graphics to perform better by sending the signal directly to the display.

In a test of several games, I found an average 12% improvement in FPS (frames per second) with the Zephyrus. While this alone could be justification for spending 8% more money on the laptop. On the other hand, the Razer Blade 15 has to rely on Intel's integrated graphics as part of Optimus, which comes at the cost of reduced battery life outside of gaming.

**Cooling and Ventilation**

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus has superior cooling compared to the Razer Blade 15. Its unique lift-up mechanism rises the base of the laptop up when you open the lid, improving air exhaust. The back area behind the keyboard is dedicated to air intake, giving it seriously impressive cooling capabilities for such a thin and powerful machine.

In contrast, the Razer Blade 15 has air exhaust vents on the sides but lacks the unique lift-up mechanism. This results in less effective cooling compared to the Zephyrus, especially when running demanding games or workloads. However, this may not be a significant issue if you're using the laptop on your desk with an external mouse.

**Keyboard and Touchpad**

The Razer Blade 15's keyboard is placed at the front of the laptop, which might be a drawback for some users. On the other hand, its touchpad is located on the side, which could make it more accessible in certain situations. However, if you plan to use the laptop with an external mouse, this difference may not matter.

**Storage and Memory**

The Razer Blade 15 comes with either 256GB or 512GB of SSD storage, while the ASUS ROG Zephyrus has a larger 1TB drive. This is a significant difference in storage capacity, especially considering the size of modern games. The Blade also offers up to 64GB of memory upgrades, compared to the Zephyrus's limited single-memory slot with 8GB soldered to the motherboard.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, both laptops have their strengths and weaknesses. The Razer Blade 15 is a great choice for a stationary gaming machine due to its smaller size and better cooling system. However, its performance is slightly less impressive compared to the Zephyrus.

On the other hand, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus offers superior gaming performance, thanks to its G-Sync technology and powerful Nvidia graphics. Its cooling system is also more effective, which results in a higher power limit that benefits both gaming and workloads. However, this comes at the cost of reduced battery life outside of gaming.

Ultimately, the choice between these two laptops depends on your personal requirements and preferences. If you need a portable gaming laptop with impressive performance, the Razer Blade 15 may be the better choice. However, if you're looking for a powerful gaming machine that can handle demanding workloads and has superior cooling capabilities, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus is worth considering.

**Which Laptop to Choose?**

So, which one should you spend your money on? If you plan to use your laptop primarily for stationary gaming, the Razer Blade 15 may be the better option. However, if you need a portable gaming machine that can handle demanding games and workloads, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus is worth considering.

Let us know in the comments which one you'd go for – the Razer Blade 15 or the ASUS ROG Zephyrus.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe new razor blade 15 advanced and a su Sepphoris SG x7 or one of both powerful gaming laptops while still being quite thin so what's the difference between them and what should you get in this comparison I'll look at pretty much everything to help you decide which one is right for you first let's cover the differences in specs between the two units I'm testing with the main components are the same they both have the eye 78758 CPU 90 watt nvidia r TX 20 80 max q graphics while the memory differs little the zephyrus has 24 gig and dual channel as 8 gig is soldered to the motherboard and you only have a single memory slot while the blade has 16 gig and dual channel but two memory slots the storage may Zephyrus had a 1 terabyte nvm a m2 SSD while the blade had a 512 gig one those storage memory configurations will vary they both also have a 1080p 144 Hertz IPS screen however the blades is fifteen point six inches while the Zephyrus has the largest 17.3 inch as it's a bigger laptop for network connectivity both have eight or 2.11 AC Wi-Fi and bluetooth 5 however as both are on the thinner side neither have an Ethernet port so you'll need a USB dongle for both if you want one both are also available with our TX 2060 or 2070 graphics too so expect different results with those models you can find up-to-date pricing linked in the description while it would probably make more sense to compare the GX 701 with the new 17-inch Razer Blade pro or otherwise use the 15-inch GX 531 unfortunately have not had either for testing yet and this comparison was still highly requested I'll also note that both of these laptops have been refreshed with ninth gen models however I don't expect that to drastically change the results in this comparison on top both have solid metal lids a brushed metal finish for the Zephyrus and a black anodized finish for the blade inside both have a solid metal matte black interior and they both felt extremely well built and premium with no sharp corners or edges anywhere as for size differences as you'd expect the Zephyrus is larger as it's got a 17 inch screen though both are on the smaller side for that class which results in thin screen bezels as pallate with just the tops only the lodges effort is around half a kilo heavier and then around the same difference still once we include that 230 watt power bricks and cables for charging due to the size and weight differences the blade certainly has the wind in terms of portability here as mentioned the screens are similar though different sizes and the Sepphoris also has the option of g-sync while the blade does not the zephyrus had just slightly higher color gamut from my tests however the results were close the blades was a little brighter though while slightly better contrast ratio with the Sepphoris overall to me I thought both looked quite good in terms of backlight bleed the Sepphoris was looking a little better however I never actually noticed any problems with either while viewing darker content though these results will vary by laptop and panel both had some screenflex which is expected as they're on the thinner side but they felt sturdy as both a solid metal both also have the hinges out towards the far corners which helps with stability I can easily open both up with one finger the white felt evenly distributed with battery down the front and cooling up the back this is where we start to see the unique Sepphoris design when you open the lid the back rises up to allow air to exhaust improving cooling this also means that you can use it on your lap or a soft surface like your legs or a bed without having to worry about the intake vents being blocked a concern for the blade despite the thinnest screen bezel of the blade the 720p camera is still up the top in the center and it's good infrared for Windows hello support the video quality is pretty terrible very blurry while the microphone sounds about average soos took a different approach and include an external camera that you can mount above the display or off to the side it connects with an included microUSB cable it's a 1080p 60fps camera most of the laptops are 720p 30fps it looks pretty good and the microphone sounds really good too the keyboard layout is where things start to change the blade has your traditionally placed keyboard with very large touchpad but no numpad while the Zephyrus brings the keyboard down the front and cramps a thin touchpad off to the side the touchpad does at least double as a numpad but I personally don't like using it though it's less of an issue if you're using an external mouse anyway the Zephyrus needs to do this as the whole back half of the keyboard is used for air intake and we'll see how this helps them was laid on the Zephyrus also has the scroll will which lets you easily adjust volume or muted and both have speakers on the sides of the keyboard I didn't have them at the same time so can't do an accurate comparison but from what I noted in the reviews both sounded good for laptops both had minimal keyboard flex while pushing down hard the zephyrus had a bit more towards the back which should be expected as its raised up there were four all was still quite solid no issues with either during normal use both keyboards have individual key RGB backlighting which can be controlled through their respective software Suites the ROG logo above the keyboard on the Zephyrus also lights up and can be controlled too oh and while we're on the subject of RGB the Zephyrus also has lighting on the left and right sides underneath from the air exhausts back to the keyboards both will find a type with if you're using them on a desk you can just push the Zephyrus back to get more comfortable on your lap though this effort is a bit uncomfortable as you need to push it further back or otherwise move your arms back to compensate for the front keyboard here's how both sound to type with to give you an idea of what to expect fingerprints and dirt sharp on both matte black interiors but as their smooth surfaces they're easy to clean on the left the zephyrus has an air exhaust which the blade is missing otherwise both have the power input on this side and 3.5 millimeter audio combo Jack the blade has two USB 3.1 type-a ports while the Zephyrus has one which is Gen 2 though the Zephyrus also has a HDMI 2.0 V output and a USB 3.1 gen2 type-c port which is also wired for DisplayPort 1.4 however no Thunderbolt 3 in there Zephyrus on the right this time the blade has one USB 3.1 type a port while the Zephyrus has two meaning both have three in total both also have type-c ports here USB 3.1 gen2 on with no Thunderbolt on there Zephyrus while the blade's has Thunderbolt support the blade also has a HDMI 2.0 B output but also a physical mini DisplayPort 1.4 output while both have a Kensington lock towards the back and another air exhaust vent for the Sepphoris however all the i/o is similar key differences are that the blade has a mini DisplayPort output while the Zephyrus has DisplayPort through its left type-c port the blade has Thunderbolt 3 while the Zephyrus does no and the Zephyrus has exhaust vents while the blade does not no major differences on the front while on the back the air exhaust vents are more obvious on the Zephyrus which also has it status LEDs here in the center - on the lid both have logos that light up the blades logo only lights up green you can either set it to static breathing or turn it off the ROG logo on the zephyrus only lights up red I couldn't adjust the color here either underneath both a clean-looking however there are some big differences here we need to discuss with the blade it's just got small air vents directly above the intake fans and the bottom can be removed with a t5 Torx screwdriver so getting inside is fairly simple the Zephyrus on the other hand has a flat panel no air vents are needed due to its unique cooling design opening the lid of the Sepphoris moves these corner feet out which push down a metal plate to elevate it up and allow air to exhaust out of the gap due to this mechanism opening it up is a little more involved like the blade it also uses t5 screws while the back panel that gets pushed down has four Phillips head screws after this panel has been removed there are eight more Phillips head screws to remove after these are up you flip the laptop over and carefully pull the panel from just below the monitor being careful as there are four ribbon cables attaching it to the motherboard it wasn't hard to access but definitely more challenging when compared to the blade inside we can see both have the batteries down the bottom and a single MDOT two slot this effort has just the one memory slot while the blade has to as the zephyrus has eight gigs solder to the motherboard which can not be upgraded however I have heard of people having success installing a 32 gig stick into the Zephyrus for a maximum of 40 gig the blade on the other hand supports up to 64 gig and user accessible Wi-Fi card otherwise we can also see the differences in cooling design the blade uses a vapor chamber cooler while the Zephyrus has your more traditional heat pipes and we'll see the differences in thermals soon the battery in the blade is slightly larger at 80 watt hours versus the 76 one hour battery and the Zephyrus in my gaming tests up the top both had the same 30fps cap with invidious battery boost and the blade lasted 22% longer as the Zephyrus has the option of using g-sync while the blade does not I've also included the battery life while watching YouTube with it enabled in the middle just showing that it burns through power more quickly when compared to using the Intel integrator graphics with Optimus there was a big difference while watching YouTube with Optimus the blade lasted around 42% longer than the Zephyrus in this test and scoring one of the best results out of old gaming laptops I've tested this F for us also has a cool feature where you can charge it over USB type-c so you don't have to travel with the power brick but can instead either get by with a smaller adapter for low powered tasks or otherwise use a power bank to charge it I'll also note that during my testing I never saw the battery drain while plugged in with the Zephyrus however I did see the battery drain a little over time with the blade though it was slow and didn't seem to affect performance now let's take a look at thermals the Zephyrs was tested in an ambient room temperature of 24 degrees Celsius while the blade was tested at 23 so I've lowered the severest results by one to account for this difference this is fine as ambient room temperature gives us close to a one to one change to internals I've got a link in the description if you're after more information on this topic I should also note that the zephyrus has turbo mode enabled for these results while the blade has gaming mode enabled so both should be at peak performance here turbo mode does however overclock the graphics in the Zephyrs by 100 megahertz while gaming mode in the advanced model of the blade I had here does not apply an overclock despite previous models I've tested getting an overclock in gaming mode alright there's a lot of data coming so let me explain the graphs well first look at combined CPU and GPU workloads in the form of gaming and stress tests the gaming results were done by playing watchdogs - as I find it to use a good amount of CPU and GPU the stress tests were done by running the aida64 stress test and heaven benchmark at the same time to fully load the system on this first graph we're only looking at the CPU results from these combined workloads at idle down the bottom we can see the Zephyrus was a fair bit cooler otherwise that all other levels the Sepphoris was cooler than the blade while under the same tests though I'll note there was no thermal throttling from either laptop I'll also note that I have the results for the blade with the cooling pad in use which does improve the thermals a fair bit the Zephyrus was not tested with the cooling pad as it doesn't have air vents underneath these are the clock speeds from the same tests just shown we can see that the clock speeds from the zephyrus in purple or higher so not only is it cooler but it can reach higher speeds the CPU under vaults listed you be on the graph we're a bit different - sir a point zero seven volts for the Zephyrus and - 0.14 volts for the blade as we can push a bit further on the blade the gap between the two closes and a little when comparing to the non under voltage results however the zephyrus is still ahead now let's see how the GPU did in these exact same tests again these are combined CPU and GPU results when not just looking at the GPU only here so take these as a worst case again that Idol the blade was a fair bit warmer than the Sepphoris while the Zephyrus was again cooler in every test with the cooling paddler the blade was able to reach the same temperature on the GPU while gaming as the Zephyrus so if you're willing to use a cooling pad improvements are possible these are the clock speeds for the GPU under these combined CPU and GPU workloads once again the clock speeds from the zephyrus are ahead of the blades and we'll see how this affects gaming performance soon just as a reminder turbo mode which was tested with the Sepphoris does apply 100 megahertz GPU core of a clock but the blades gaming mode does not apply this though all the versions of the blade would also apply a GPU overclock so it seems they changed it in the new model I didn't personally see much difference with a manual overclock on the blade it seems to have less GPU Headroom alright now we're moving away from combined CPU and GPU workloads to CPU only these are the CPU temperatures with only the aida64 stress test running the GPU was idle for this interestingly the Sepphoris was actually warmer than the blade here though we could improve the temperature a little with the under multiplied these are the clock speeds for the same tests - shown even its stock the zephyrus is able to hit the full 3.9 gigahertz or core turbo speed of the eye 78758 cpu while the blade wasn't able to achieve this even while under vaulted this is why the under bolting saw no improvement to the temperature as it's also performing 500 megahertz better now so a nice jump but the Zephyrus wins at the expense of running a little warmer to see how this translates into performance I've got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks here and as expected the zephyrus is coming out ahead due to those higher clock speeds there's no difference in single core and the under bolt does improve the blades performance however the fact is the Zephyrus is performing better in the same test if we look at the CPU TDP for the CPU early test we can see why out of the box the Zephyr seems to reach 50 watts while the blade is power limited at 45 watts regardless of the workload that's being run my guess is that the Zephyrs can run with a higher power limit as it's got the superior cooling for this to be fine these are the GPU only results from running the heaven benchmark so no CPU tests running out this is GPU only under the same workload the temperatures were very similar just a degree higher for the Zephyrus the clock speeds revealed that the Zephyrus was achieving higher speed in this test though due to the turbo motor overclock which is just fine by me if it only costs a degree overall in combined CPU and GPU workloads the Zephyrus is both running cooler and performing better in CPU or GPU only workloads the zephyrus is actually a little warmer but it's performing better and the temperatures are still reasonable despite being a little higher than the blades as for the areas we'll actually be putting your hands at idle the blade was warmer in the key board area though still cool overall if a little above average while gaming the blades keyboard gets significantly warmer compared to the Zephyrus the zephyrus keeps all the heat up the back where you won't be touching while under the same combined stress test I noticed the wrist rest area of the blade feel warm and again the keyboard is noticeably hotter though cooler over the WASD Keys comparatively as the fans below seem to exhaust some air through here as for the fan noise produced by these laptops or lay over listen to some of these tests at idle the blade was quite off I couldn't hear the fan while the Zephyrus was slightly audible which explains why the blade had a warm-up idle temperature earlier while under the same combined CPU and GPU stress test with turbo mode on for the zephyrus and gaming mode for the blade the zephyrus was running louder so those cooler temperatures seemed to come at the cost of a slightly noisier machine with all of that in mind let's take a look at the gaming results all games were tested with fans at maximum speed the Zephyrs had turbo mode enabled while the blade had gaming mode enabled for best performance I'll also note the blade was tested with slightly newer Nvidia drivers as I got it after the Zephyrus apex Legends was tested with all settings at maximum or minimum as it doesn't have predefined presets I've got the razor blade up the top in green and the asou Sepphoris underneath in purple while the different setting levels are on the left so there are multiple results in each graph as I've tested every setting level in terms of average FPS the zephyrus is 16% ahead at max settings assassin's creed Odyssey was tested with the built-in benchmark and the blade was ahead a little at most setting levels an average FPS though always behind in 1% lower either way it was quite close battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode rather than multiplayer as it's easy to consistently reproduce the test run with r-tx off we're seeing the zephyrus ahead at every setting level at Ultra it was just 4.5% ahead in terms of average FPS with further improvements particularly to 1% lawyers seen at lower settings with r-tx on things change a bit the blade is now coming out ahead at Ultra and high settings csgo was tested with the EULA nicoleff PS benchmark and the Zephyrus was way ahead here seeing the largest improvement when compared to the blade out of old games tested at maximum settings the Zephyrus was getting 42% higher average FPS with a 56% boost at minimum settings dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane with an average amount of action going on and the zephyrus was again clearly ahead here with a 28% lead an average frame rate with all settings maxed out at Ultra with less of a difference at lower settings Far Cry New Dawn was tested with the built-in benchmark and there was basically no real difference at lower settings but this changes as we increase the setting preset by the time we get to ultra the zephyrus has a 10.5 percent lead over the blade in terms of average be us Ghost Recon was also tested with the built-in benchmark and in this one much larger differences was seen at lower settings with 38% higher FPS at lower while ultra settings saw a 7 percent boost with the Zephyrus overwatch was tested in the practice range as it allows me to perform the exact same test run as different Maps bots and other players affect results the zephyrus was ahead in every test coming out 10% ahead in average FPS when maxed out of epic settings with some nice boosts to 1% low seen with all other setting levels Metro Exodus was tested using the built-in benchmark which represents worst-case results from the game so this isn't indicative of how most of the game will perform but does allow me to perform the exact same test on each laptop the Zephyrus was again ahead in every test singin 11% improvement with the extreme preset and 10% with the RT expressor pub G was tested with the replay feature I think I may have used the exact same replay file but I'm honestly not sure either way the replay consists of me performing the same pass through the same area so it shouldn't be too different with ultra settings there was a 15% improvement to average FPS with his efforts but perhaps more importantly big game scene - 1 % lows shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built-in benchmark and there was a 6% improvement to average FPS with highest settings with his efforts shadow of war was also tested with the built-in benchmark and there was an 8% higher average framerate in this test at Ultra settings on those efforts watchdogs - played perfectly fine on either laptop even with ultra settings I don't think it benefits from a super high frame rate however the Zephyrus was scoring 21 percent faster average FPS when maxed out The Witcher 3 was tested with hillocks disabled and resulted in the zephyrus achieving 7 percent higher average frame rate at Ultra settings so less when compared to most other games tested but still a clear win over the blade nonetheless out of old games tested when looking at the differences in average FPS at maximum settings the asou severus GX 7 or 1 was 12% ahead of the razor blade 15 a fairly big difference considering they have the same CPU and GPU while some of this may be due to the zephyrus having 24 gig of memory and the blade having 16 gig i honestly think that's minimal that would be some difference due to the clock speed differences covered earlier in the thermal testing however leave the key difference here is that I've tested the Zephyrus with Jason can abled while the blade loses some performance from Nvidia Optimus I've got a whole video testing the GX 701 with and without g-sync linked in the description if you want to see the difference and the average result is close to what we were seeing here with g-sync on the Sepphoris performs 15% better compared to gsync off well you notice these differences between the two laptops while actually playing games in most games probably not but if you're paying this much money you might be after the best performance as we saw earlier we've got the option of overclocking the graphics and under bolting the CPU to improve performance so let's see how these changes actually help in gaming I've just tested Far Cry 5 with the built-in benchmark at Ultra settings and there was no improvement on this effort in terms of average FPS though the 1% load does see a boost the blade on the other hand saw a 3.6 percent improvement to average FPS once under bolted which makes sense given the power limitations we saw earlier which the Zephyrs didn't appear to have now for the benchmarking tools I've tested unige in heaven valley and superposition as well as 3d marks fire strike times by portroyal and VR mark just pause the video if you want a detailed look at the results I've tested storage with crystal disk mark however results will vary with different drive sizes and models may vary by region to the drive in the blade was performing significantly better in terms of breeds and a bit better on the rights but again this could vary it's worth remembering each laptop only has one m2 slot so you only get one drive spending extra for logic capacity is probably a good idea if you have the option for updated pricing check the links in the description as prices will change over time when I originally reviewed the blade it was going for 3,200 US dollars however it appears they've already lowered the price to $3,000 presumably to make way for the new ninth gen models the Zephyrus on the other hand was 3,300 u.s. dollars when I originally reviewed it however today it's down slightly by $50 meaning at the time of recording its 250 US dollars more expensive or 8% extra money it does also come with double the storage space too here in Australia you can get either for the same 5,000 Australian dollars so not too different when it comes to the price so which should you spend your money on there's a lot to unpack here the obvious difference when you first see the is that the blade is smaller in every dimension and also weighs less making it more portable in terms of raw gaming performance the Sepphoris is performing better in almost all games as it has g-sync this has nothing to do with removing screen tearing though that is a benefit that means the Nvidia graphics can perform better by sending the signal directly to the display over a bunch of games tested I found an average 12% improvement to FPS with the zephyrus so that alone could be justification to spend 8% more money for some people the blade on the other hand has to pass through the Intel integrated graphics as part of optimists which has some overhead involved again check the video linked in the description for more details on this Jason does come at the cost of reduced battery life outside of gaming and even if we reboot into Optimus mode the larger battery in the blade is noticeably superior the blade has Thunderbolt three support which the Zephyrus is missing for some strange reason I'd expect this to be present at this price point this means you've got the option of using external graphics with the blade if you want even more power granted this is an expensive and Mesa Lucian the cooling in this efforts is clearly superior and not just because it's a larger machine it has air exhaust vents on the sides which the blade doesn't have and also has the unique lift up mechanism that rises the base of the laptop up when you open the lid to improve air exhaust the whole back area behind the keyboard is dedicated to air intake giving it some seriously impressive cooling for such a thin and powerful machine as a result this does come at the cost of the keyboard being placed right at the front of this efforts with a touchpad on the side there's no getting around the keyboard and touchpad winning on the blade here though if you use the laptop on your desk with an external Mouse I don't think there's much difference the better cooling in the Zephyrus allows it to have higher power limits which results in a performing better overall even outside of gaming in CPU any workloads it's coming out ahead and this would account for some of the difference in the gaming results though as mentioned I think most of that is g-sync related as a result it is harder to open up and get inside the Sepphoris however given the limited upgrade ability options you probably won't need to do this very often anyway both laptops only have a single empty Drive despite the Zephyrus being physically larger the spec sheet of the blade only notes that it's available with a 256 gig or 512 gig SSD honest a little small if you only have room for one drive given how big some games are today the Zephyrus seems to come with a one terabyte drive their wise mentioned before storage may vary by region interestingly the Zephyrus only has one memory slot with eight gigs soldered to the motherboard memory upgrades are limited though with a single 32 gig stick a total of 40 gigs should be plenty for most gamers for years to come however the blade can take you to 64 gig if needed as you can see there are a fair few differences between them in the end it comes down to your personal requirements and which one best matches what you'll be using it for the GX 701 makes more sense for a stationary gaming machine yet is still not that big compared to other thicker 17 inch laptops if you need to move it while the Razer Blade 15 is a fair bit smaller while still packing a powerful punch with better battery life that makes it even better as a portable option let me know which one you'd go for down in the comments the asou Sepphoris s or razor blade 15 and if you're new here get subscribed for future comparisons and tech videos like this one actually you know what I suspect this will be one of the longest videos I've ever made so let me know in the comments if you actually made it to the endthe new razor blade 15 advanced and a su Sepphoris SG x7 or one of both powerful gaming laptops while still being quite thin so what's the difference between them and what should you get in this comparison I'll look at pretty much everything to help you decide which one is right for you first let's cover the differences in specs between the two units I'm testing with the main components are the same they both have the eye 78758 CPU 90 watt nvidia r TX 20 80 max q graphics while the memory differs little the zephyrus has 24 gig and dual channel as 8 gig is soldered to the motherboard and you only have a single memory slot while the blade has 16 gig and dual channel but two memory slots the storage may Zephyrus had a 1 terabyte nvm a m2 SSD while the blade had a 512 gig one those storage memory configurations will vary they both also have a 1080p 144 Hertz IPS screen however the blades is fifteen point six inches while the Zephyrus has the largest 17.3 inch as it's a bigger laptop for network connectivity both have eight or 2.11 AC Wi-Fi and bluetooth 5 however as both are on the thinner side neither have an Ethernet port so you'll need a USB dongle for both if you want one both are also available with our TX 2060 or 2070 graphics too so expect different results with those models you can find up-to-date pricing linked in the description while it would probably make more sense to compare the GX 701 with the new 17-inch Razer Blade pro or otherwise use the 15-inch GX 531 unfortunately have not had either for testing yet and this comparison was still highly requested I'll also note that both of these laptops have been refreshed with ninth gen models however I don't expect that to drastically change the results in this comparison on top both have solid metal lids a brushed metal finish for the Zephyrus and a black anodized finish for the blade inside both have a solid metal matte black interior and they both felt extremely well built and premium with no sharp corners or edges anywhere as for size differences as you'd expect the Zephyrus is larger as it's got a 17 inch screen though both are on the smaller side for that class which results in thin screen bezels as pallate with just the tops only the lodges effort is around half a kilo heavier and then around the same difference still once we include that 230 watt power bricks and cables for charging due to the size and weight differences the blade certainly has the wind in terms of portability here as mentioned the screens are similar though different sizes and the Sepphoris also has the option of g-sync while the blade does not the zephyrus had just slightly higher color gamut from my tests however the results were close the blades was a little brighter though while slightly better contrast ratio with the Sepphoris overall to me I thought both looked quite good in terms of backlight bleed the Sepphoris was looking a little better however I never actually noticed any problems with either while viewing darker content though these results will vary by laptop and panel both had some screenflex which is expected as they're on the thinner side but they felt sturdy as both a solid metal both also have the hinges out towards the far corners which helps with stability I can easily open both up with one finger the white felt evenly distributed with battery down the front and cooling up the back this is where we start to see the unique Sepphoris design when you open the lid the back rises up to allow air to exhaust improving cooling this also means that you can use it on your lap or a soft surface like your legs or a bed without having to worry about the intake vents being blocked a concern for the blade despite the thinnest screen bezel of the blade the 720p camera is still up the top in the center and it's good infrared for Windows hello support the video quality is pretty terrible very blurry while the microphone sounds about average soos took a different approach and include an external camera that you can mount above the display or off to the side it connects with an included microUSB cable it's a 1080p 60fps camera most of the laptops are 720p 30fps it looks pretty good and the microphone sounds really good too the keyboard layout is where things start to change the blade has your traditionally placed keyboard with very large touchpad but no numpad while the Zephyrus brings the keyboard down the front and cramps a thin touchpad off to the side the touchpad does at least double as a numpad but I personally don't like using it though it's less of an issue if you're using an external mouse anyway the Zephyrus needs to do this as the whole back half of the keyboard is used for air intake and we'll see how this helps them was laid on the Zephyrus also has the scroll will which lets you easily adjust volume or muted and both have speakers on the sides of the keyboard I didn't have them at the same time so can't do an accurate comparison but from what I noted in the reviews both sounded good for laptops both had minimal keyboard flex while pushing down hard the zephyrus had a bit more towards the back which should be expected as its raised up there were four all was still quite solid no issues with either during normal use both keyboards have individual key RGB backlighting which can be controlled through their respective software Suites the ROG logo above the keyboard on the Zephyrus also lights up and can be controlled too oh and while we're on the subject of RGB the Zephyrus also has lighting on the left and right sides underneath from the air exhausts back to the keyboards both will find a type with if you're using them on a desk you can just push the Zephyrus back to get more comfortable on your lap though this effort is a bit uncomfortable as you need to push it further back or otherwise move your arms back to compensate for the front keyboard here's how both sound to type with to give you an idea of what to expect fingerprints and dirt sharp on both matte black interiors but as their smooth surfaces they're easy to clean on the left the zephyrus has an air exhaust which the blade is missing otherwise both have the power input on this side and 3.5 millimeter audio combo Jack the blade has two USB 3.1 type-a ports while the Zephyrus has one which is Gen 2 though the Zephyrus also has a HDMI 2.0 V output and a USB 3.1 gen2 type-c port which is also wired for DisplayPort 1.4 however no Thunderbolt 3 in there Zephyrus on the right this time the blade has one USB 3.1 type a port while the Zephyrus has two meaning both have three in total both also have type-c ports here USB 3.1 gen2 on with no Thunderbolt on there Zephyrus while the blade's has Thunderbolt support the blade also has a HDMI 2.0 B output but also a physical mini DisplayPort 1.4 output while both have a Kensington lock towards the back and another air exhaust vent for the Sepphoris however all the i/o is similar key differences are that the blade has a mini DisplayPort output while the Zephyrus has DisplayPort through its left type-c port the blade has Thunderbolt 3 while the Zephyrus does no and the Zephyrus has exhaust vents while the blade does not no major differences on the front while on the back the air exhaust vents are more obvious on the Zephyrus which also has it status LEDs here in the center - on the lid both have logos that light up the blades logo only lights up green you can either set it to static breathing or turn it off the ROG logo on the zephyrus only lights up red I couldn't adjust the color here either underneath both a clean-looking however there are some big differences here we need to discuss with the blade it's just got small air vents directly above the intake fans and the bottom can be removed with a t5 Torx screwdriver so getting inside is fairly simple the Zephyrus on the other hand has a flat panel no air vents are needed due to its unique cooling design opening the lid of the Sepphoris moves these corner feet out which push down a metal plate to elevate it up and allow air to exhaust out of the gap due to this mechanism opening it up is a little more involved like the blade it also uses t5 screws while the back panel that gets pushed down has four Phillips head screws after this panel has been removed there are eight more Phillips head screws to remove after these are up you flip the laptop over and carefully pull the panel from just below the monitor being careful as there are four ribbon cables attaching it to the motherboard it wasn't hard to access but definitely more challenging when compared to the blade inside we can see both have the batteries down the bottom and a single MDOT two slot this effort has just the one memory slot while the blade has to as the zephyrus has eight gigs solder to the motherboard which can not be upgraded however I have heard of people having success installing a 32 gig stick into the Zephyrus for a maximum of 40 gig the blade on the other hand supports up to 64 gig and user accessible Wi-Fi card otherwise we can also see the differences in cooling design the blade uses a vapor chamber cooler while the Zephyrus has your more traditional heat pipes and we'll see the differences in thermals soon the battery in the blade is slightly larger at 80 watt hours versus the 76 one hour battery and the Zephyrus in my gaming tests up the top both had the same 30fps cap with invidious battery boost and the blade lasted 22% longer as the Zephyrus has the option of using g-sync while the blade does not I've also included the battery life while watching YouTube with it enabled in the middle just showing that it burns through power more quickly when compared to using the Intel integrator graphics with Optimus there was a big difference while watching YouTube with Optimus the blade lasted around 42% longer than the Zephyrus in this test and scoring one of the best results out of old gaming laptops I've tested this F for us also has a cool feature where you can charge it over USB type-c so you don't have to travel with the power brick but can instead either get by with a smaller adapter for low powered tasks or otherwise use a power bank to charge it I'll also note that during my testing I never saw the battery drain while plugged in with the Zephyrus however I did see the battery drain a little over time with the blade though it was slow and didn't seem to affect performance now let's take a look at thermals the Zephyrs was tested in an ambient room temperature of 24 degrees Celsius while the blade was tested at 23 so I've lowered the severest results by one to account for this difference this is fine as ambient room temperature gives us close to a one to one change to internals I've got a link in the description if you're after more information on this topic I should also note that the zephyrus has turbo mode enabled for these results while the blade has gaming mode enabled so both should be at peak performance here turbo mode does however overclock the graphics in the Zephyrs by 100 megahertz while gaming mode in the advanced model of the blade I had here does not apply an overclock despite previous models I've tested getting an overclock in gaming mode alright there's a lot of data coming so let me explain the graphs well first look at combined CPU and GPU workloads in the form of gaming and stress tests the gaming results were done by playing watchdogs - as I find it to use a good amount of CPU and GPU the stress tests were done by running the aida64 stress test and heaven benchmark at the same time to fully load the system on this first graph we're only looking at the CPU results from these combined workloads at idle down the bottom we can see the Zephyrus was a fair bit cooler otherwise that all other levels the Sepphoris was cooler than the blade while under the same tests though I'll note there was no thermal throttling from either laptop I'll also note that I have the results for the blade with the cooling pad in use which does improve the thermals a fair bit the Zephyrus was not tested with the cooling pad as it doesn't have air vents underneath these are the clock speeds from the same tests just shown we can see that the clock speeds from the zephyrus in purple or higher so not only is it cooler but it can reach higher speeds the CPU under vaults listed you be on the graph we're a bit different - sir a point zero seven volts for the Zephyrus and - 0.14 volts for the blade as we can push a bit further on the blade the gap between the two closes and a little when comparing to the non under voltage results however the zephyrus is still ahead now let's see how the GPU did in these exact same tests again these are combined CPU and GPU results when not just looking at the GPU only here so take these as a worst case again that Idol the blade was a fair bit warmer than the Sepphoris while the Zephyrus was again cooler in every test with the cooling paddler the blade was able to reach the same temperature on the GPU while gaming as the Zephyrus so if you're willing to use a cooling pad improvements are possible these are the clock speeds for the GPU under these combined CPU and GPU workloads once again the clock speeds from the zephyrus are ahead of the blades and we'll see how this affects gaming performance soon just as a reminder turbo mode which was tested with the Sepphoris does apply 100 megahertz GPU core of a clock but the blades gaming mode does not apply this though all the versions of the blade would also apply a GPU overclock so it seems they changed it in the new model I didn't personally see much difference with a manual overclock on the blade it seems to have less GPU Headroom alright now we're moving away from combined CPU and GPU workloads to CPU only these are the CPU temperatures with only the aida64 stress test running the GPU was idle for this interestingly the Sepphoris was actually warmer than the blade here though we could improve the temperature a little with the under multiplied these are the clock speeds for the same tests - shown even its stock the zephyrus is able to hit the full 3.9 gigahertz or core turbo speed of the eye 78758 cpu while the blade wasn't able to achieve this even while under vaulted this is why the under bolting saw no improvement to the temperature as it's also performing 500 megahertz better now so a nice jump but the Zephyrus wins at the expense of running a little warmer to see how this translates into performance I've got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks here and as expected the zephyrus is coming out ahead due to those higher clock speeds there's no difference in single core and the under bolt does improve the blades performance however the fact is the Zephyrus is performing better in the same test if we look at the CPU TDP for the CPU early test we can see why out of the box the Zephyr seems to reach 50 watts while the blade is power limited at 45 watts regardless of the workload that's being run my guess is that the Zephyrs can run with a higher power limit as it's got the superior cooling for this to be fine these are the GPU only results from running the heaven benchmark so no CPU tests running out this is GPU only under the same workload the temperatures were very similar just a degree higher for the Zephyrus the clock speeds revealed that the Zephyrus was achieving higher speed in this test though due to the turbo motor overclock which is just fine by me if it only costs a degree overall in combined CPU and GPU workloads the Zephyrus is both running cooler and performing better in CPU or GPU only workloads the zephyrus is actually a little warmer but it's performing better and the temperatures are still reasonable despite being a little higher than the blades as for the areas we'll actually be putting your hands at idle the blade was warmer in the key board area though still cool overall if a little above average while gaming the blades keyboard gets significantly warmer compared to the Zephyrus the zephyrus keeps all the heat up the back where you won't be touching while under the same combined stress test I noticed the wrist rest area of the blade feel warm and again the keyboard is noticeably hotter though cooler over the WASD Keys comparatively as the fans below seem to exhaust some air through here as for the fan noise produced by these laptops or lay over listen to some of these tests at idle the blade was quite off I couldn't hear the fan while the Zephyrus was slightly audible which explains why the blade had a warm-up idle temperature earlier while under the same combined CPU and GPU stress test with turbo mode on for the zephyrus and gaming mode for the blade the zephyrus was running louder so those cooler temperatures seemed to come at the cost of a slightly noisier machine with all of that in mind let's take a look at the gaming results all games were tested with fans at maximum speed the Zephyrs had turbo mode enabled while the blade had gaming mode enabled for best performance I'll also note the blade was tested with slightly newer Nvidia drivers as I got it after the Zephyrus apex Legends was tested with all settings at maximum or minimum as it doesn't have predefined presets I've got the razor blade up the top in green and the asou Sepphoris underneath in purple while the different setting levels are on the left so there are multiple results in each graph as I've tested every setting level in terms of average FPS the zephyrus is 16% ahead at max settings assassin's creed Odyssey was tested with the built-in benchmark and the blade was ahead a little at most setting levels an average FPS though always behind in 1% lower either way it was quite close battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode rather than multiplayer as it's easy to consistently reproduce the test run with r-tx off we're seeing the zephyrus ahead at every setting level at Ultra it was just 4.5% ahead in terms of average FPS with further improvements particularly to 1% lawyers seen at lower settings with r-tx on things change a bit the blade is now coming out ahead at Ultra and high settings csgo was tested with the EULA nicoleff PS benchmark and the Zephyrus was way ahead here seeing the largest improvement when compared to the blade out of old games tested at maximum settings the Zephyrus was getting 42% higher average FPS with a 56% boost at minimum settings dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane with an average amount of action going on and the zephyrus was again clearly ahead here with a 28% lead an average frame rate with all settings maxed out at Ultra with less of a difference at lower settings Far Cry New Dawn was tested with the built-in benchmark and there was basically no real difference at lower settings but this changes as we increase the setting preset by the time we get to ultra the zephyrus has a 10.5 percent lead over the blade in terms of average be us Ghost Recon was also tested with the built-in benchmark and in this one much larger differences was seen at lower settings with 38% higher FPS at lower while ultra settings saw a 7 percent boost with the Zephyrus overwatch was tested in the practice range as it allows me to perform the exact same test run as different Maps bots and other players affect results the zephyrus was ahead in every test coming out 10% ahead in average FPS when maxed out of epic settings with some nice boosts to 1% low seen with all other setting levels Metro Exodus was tested using the built-in benchmark which represents worst-case results from the game so this isn't indicative of how most of the game will perform but does allow me to perform the exact same test on each laptop the Zephyrus was again ahead in every test singin 11% improvement with the extreme preset and 10% with the RT expressor pub G was tested with the replay feature I think I may have used the exact same replay file but I'm honestly not sure either way the replay consists of me performing the same pass through the same area so it shouldn't be too different with ultra settings there was a 15% improvement to average FPS with his efforts but perhaps more importantly big game scene - 1 % lows shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built-in benchmark and there was a 6% improvement to average FPS with highest settings with his efforts shadow of war was also tested with the built-in benchmark and there was an 8% higher average framerate in this test at Ultra settings on those efforts watchdogs - played perfectly fine on either laptop even with ultra settings I don't think it benefits from a super high frame rate however the Zephyrus was scoring 21 percent faster average FPS when maxed out The Witcher 3 was tested with hillocks disabled and resulted in the zephyrus achieving 7 percent higher average frame rate at Ultra settings so less when compared to most other games tested but still a clear win over the blade nonetheless out of old games tested when looking at the differences in average FPS at maximum settings the asou severus GX 7 or 1 was 12% ahead of the razor blade 15 a fairly big difference considering they have the same CPU and GPU while some of this may be due to the zephyrus having 24 gig of memory and the blade having 16 gig i honestly think that's minimal that would be some difference due to the clock speed differences covered earlier in the thermal testing however leave the key difference here is that I've tested the Zephyrus with Jason can abled while the blade loses some performance from Nvidia Optimus I've got a whole video testing the GX 701 with and without g-sync linked in the description if you want to see the difference and the average result is close to what we were seeing here with g-sync on the Sepphoris performs 15% better compared to gsync off well you notice these differences between the two laptops while actually playing games in most games probably not but if you're paying this much money you might be after the best performance as we saw earlier we've got the option of overclocking the graphics and under bolting the CPU to improve performance so let's see how these changes actually help in gaming I've just tested Far Cry 5 with the built-in benchmark at Ultra settings and there was no improvement on this effort in terms of average FPS though the 1% load does see a boost the blade on the other hand saw a 3.6 percent improvement to average FPS once under bolted which makes sense given the power limitations we saw earlier which the Zephyrs didn't appear to have now for the benchmarking tools I've tested unige in heaven valley and superposition as well as 3d marks fire strike times by portroyal and VR mark just pause the video if you want a detailed look at the results I've tested storage with crystal disk mark however results will vary with different drive sizes and models may vary by region to the drive in the blade was performing significantly better in terms of breeds and a bit better on the rights but again this could vary it's worth remembering each laptop only has one m2 slot so you only get one drive spending extra for logic capacity is probably a good idea if you have the option for updated pricing check the links in the description as prices will change over time when I originally reviewed the blade it was going for 3,200 US dollars however it appears they've already lowered the price to $3,000 presumably to make way for the new ninth gen models the Zephyrus on the other hand was 3,300 u.s. dollars when I originally reviewed it however today it's down slightly by $50 meaning at the time of recording its 250 US dollars more expensive or 8% extra money it does also come with double the storage space too here in Australia you can get either for the same 5,000 Australian dollars so not too different when it comes to the price so which should you spend your money on there's a lot to unpack here the obvious difference when you first see the is that the blade is smaller in every dimension and also weighs less making it more portable in terms of raw gaming performance the Sepphoris is performing better in almost all games as it has g-sync this has nothing to do with removing screen tearing though that is a benefit that means the Nvidia graphics can perform better by sending the signal directly to the display over a bunch of games tested I found an average 12% improvement to FPS with the zephyrus so that alone could be justification to spend 8% more money for some people the blade on the other hand has to pass through the Intel integrated graphics as part of optimists which has some overhead involved again check the video linked in the description for more details on this Jason does come at the cost of reduced battery life outside of gaming and even if we reboot into Optimus mode the larger battery in the blade is noticeably superior the blade has Thunderbolt three support which the Zephyrus is missing for some strange reason I'd expect this to be present at this price point this means you've got the option of using external graphics with the blade if you want even more power granted this is an expensive and Mesa Lucian the cooling in this efforts is clearly superior and not just because it's a larger machine it has air exhaust vents on the sides which the blade doesn't have and also has the unique lift up mechanism that rises the base of the laptop up when you open the lid to improve air exhaust the whole back area behind the keyboard is dedicated to air intake giving it some seriously impressive cooling for such a thin and powerful machine as a result this does come at the cost of the keyboard being placed right at the front of this efforts with a touchpad on the side there's no getting around the keyboard and touchpad winning on the blade here though if you use the laptop on your desk with an external Mouse I don't think there's much difference the better cooling in the Zephyrus allows it to have higher power limits which results in a performing better overall even outside of gaming in CPU any workloads it's coming out ahead and this would account for some of the difference in the gaming results though as mentioned I think most of that is g-sync related as a result it is harder to open up and get inside the Sepphoris however given the limited upgrade ability options you probably won't need to do this very often anyway both laptops only have a single empty Drive despite the Zephyrus being physically larger the spec sheet of the blade only notes that it's available with a 256 gig or 512 gig SSD honest a little small if you only have room for one drive given how big some games are today the Zephyrus seems to come with a one terabyte drive their wise mentioned before storage may vary by region interestingly the Zephyrus only has one memory slot with eight gigs soldered to the motherboard memory upgrades are limited though with a single 32 gig stick a total of 40 gigs should be plenty for most gamers for years to come however the blade can take you to 64 gig if needed as you can see there are a fair few differences between them in the end it comes down to your personal requirements and which one best matches what you'll be using it for the GX 701 makes more sense for a stationary gaming machine yet is still not that big compared to other thicker 17 inch laptops if you need to move it while the Razer Blade 15 is a fair bit smaller while still packing a powerful punch with better battery life that makes it even better as a portable option let me know which one you'd go for down in the comments the asou Sepphoris s or razor blade 15 and if you're new here get subscribed for future comparisons and tech videos like this one actually you know what I suspect this will be one of the longest videos I've ever made so let me know in the comments if you actually made it to the end\n"