Razer recently unleashed its latest gaming laptop, the Razer Blade 18 (2024) model. This newest model is Razer’s most powerful and fastest gaming laptop yet. On top of that, the 2024 Razer Blade 18 is dubbed as the world’s first laptop with an 18-inch 4K 200Hz display and Thunderbolt 5 connectivity. For those who think 4K is overkill on an 18-inch laptop, a QHD+ 300Hz refresh rate option is also available. Check out more of this new gaming laptop’s features, specs, pricing, and availability below.
Razer Blade 18 (2024) Features
The Display Options
The Razer Blade 18 (2024) gaming laptop has two variants. The flagship model features an 18-inch display with a 4K UHD+ (3840×2400) resolution and a 200Hz refresh rate. It also features a 3.0ms response time and DCI-P3 color gamut. According to Razer, the Blade 18’s display is Calman Verified and factory-calibrated. This makes it not only excellent for gaming but also suited for content creation and productivity.
While a 4K display for a laptop seems impressive, the Razer Blade 18 (2024) is not the only gaming laptop with a 4K display. Some of the best RTX 4090 gaming laptops also feature a 4K display.
Honestly, 4K resolution might be overkill for a gaming laptop, and the laptop GPU, even if it’s an RTX 4090 laptop GPU, might not be powerful enough to drive graphics-intensive game titles, especially when ray tracing is involved. The RTX 4090 laptop GPU is only slightly faster than an RTX 4070 Super desktop GPU or slightly slower than AMD’s RX 7900 GRE.
Luckily, there is an 18-inch QHD+ 300Hz mini-LED display option. It has a resolution of 2560×1600, offers up to 1K nits peak brightness, has 2K dimming zones with a new toggle on/off feature, and all the color accuracy that is a hallmark of the newest Blades, including DCI-P3 100% color gamut and Calman Verification & calibration at the factory.
For an 18-inch display, the QHD+ version with a 300Hz refresh rate will offer a much better gaming experience than the 4K 200Hz display. Unlike with a 4K resolution, the RTX 40 series laptop GPU can handle QHD+ gaming with ease.
What’s Under The Hood?
Powering the Razer Blade 18 (2024) is a 14th-gen Intel Core i9-14900HX mobile CPU. It has 24 cores (8 P-cores, 16 E-cores) and 32 threads, with a maximum turbo frequency of 5.8GHz. It also has 36MB of Intel Smart Cache and can consume up to 157W of power. While the Core i9-14900HX is not as fast as its desktop counterpart, the Core i9-14900K, its performance is somewhere between a Core i9-12900K and Core i7-13700K desktop CPU. It’s not bad, and its performance is still comparable to a desktop CPU’s.
The Intel Core i9 CPU is accompanied by NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 40 series laptop GPU. The flagship model has a GeForce RTX 4090 laptop GPU with a full 175W TGP. Since it is an RTX 40 series based on NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace, it supports DLSS 3 frame generation, DLSS 3.5 AI reconstruction, and NVIDIA’s superior DLSS 2 upscaling technology.
These upscaling and frame generation technologies will be useful since a laptop GPU is less powerful than its desktop counterpart. In addition to the RTX 4090 laptop GPU, the Razer Blade 18 (2024) is also available with an RTX 4070 or RTX 4080 laptop GPU option.
World’s First Thunderbolt 5 Equipped Laptop
Teased early this year, the Razer Blade 18 is the first laptop to feature Thunderbolt 5 connectivity. With Thunderbolt 5, users can connect multiple high-resolution gaming monitors, all-in-one docks, or high-speed external storage drives. Thunderbolt 5 offers somewhere from 80Gbps up to 120Gbps of bandwidth.
Aside from the Thunderbolt 5 ports, the Razer Blade 18 (2024) also comes with a 5MP webcam, a THX spatial audio 6-speaker array, upgradeable components, a comprehensive port selection, and the latest Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. Razer also included a GaN charger (up to 330W), which is up to 60% smaller than comparable silicon-based solutions.
Design and Cooling Solution
When it comes to its design, the Razer Blade 18 (2024) is about ~0.86 inch or 21.9mm thin. This makes this laptop the world’s thinnest form factor for an 18-inch Intel HX-class system.
To cool the powerful CPU and GPU, Razer uses an advanced cooling system for its Blade 18 (2024) model. It features the thinnest exhaust fins in its class. It also uses vapor chamber technology with a 3-fan system to quickly dissipate heat.
Pricing and Availability
The Razer Blade 18 (2024) gaming laptop is now available and comes with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price starting at $3,099 for the 18″ QHD+ RTX 4070 configuration. You can check the latest pricing and availability of the different configurations/models via the link below.
Where to buy: (#ad)
The Razer Blade 18 (2024) gaming laptop is available on Amazon here.
Sources: Razer
