Exploring Razer's latest offering, the Blade 18, I assessed its thermal and acoustic performance. Is the RTX 5090-equipped gaming laptop merely a space heater or a genuine powerhouse?
The Razer Blade 18 (2025), the latest iteration of Razer's high-end gaming laptop, has been put through its paces in a series of tests. Let's delve into the results.
In its idle state, the lower chassis was detected at a comfortable 33.9°C, making it suitable for the wrist area. The middle of the keyboard, however, registered a warmer 37.8°C. The hinge-mounted vent exhausts recycled air at 44.1°C, while the "wrist rest" areas measured 39.3°C during the benchmark in Cyberpunk 2077.
When pushed to its limits with the benchmark in Cyberpunk 2077, the center of the keyboard spiked to 43.3°C. The hinge, too, threw out hot air, hitting 59.7°C. The fans of the laptop maxed out at 3000 RPM during this benchmark, causing a significant increase in noise, described as "loud - tornado loud".
The laptop's internals are a powerhouse, equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 laptop GPU and an "Arrow Lake" Core Ultra 9 275HX processor. During the benchmark in Cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS 4, the GPU sensor reached 74°C, and the CPU read around 84°C. During a stress test, the internal GPU sensor reported around 72°C, the Intel CPU reached 69°C, and the fans ramped up to around 2900 RPM.
Manually setting the fans to their maximum at 4600 RPM in Razer Synapse peaks at around 66.1 dBA. During idle state, the CPU temperature was around 57-62°C, and the idle GPU was around 52°C. Benchmarking 3DMark pushes the fans to 3300 RPM, increasing noise slightly to 54.2 dBA.
The Razer Blade 18 (2025) is known for its high prices, but a discount brings the starting cost down to $2,999.99 for a 5070 Ti model. The laptop was tested with a 400W GaN charger and the 'Balanced' profile activated in Razer Synapse.
One notable feature is the vapor chamber, which pushes cool air into mirrored spots above the 'Esc' key and the higher end of the number pad, measuring around 27.3°C. This cooling mechanism ensures that the laptop maintains a balance between performance and temperature management.
In conclusion, the Razer Blade 18 (2025) is a formidable gaming laptop, offering top-tier performance but with a corresponding increase in heat and noise during heavy usage. However, with its powerful hardware and customizable features, it remains a popular choice among gamers seeking high-performance laptops.
