In days of yore, you had to choose between a small, light laptop and one with power, including discrete mobile graphics cards. That was then, and this is now. 14-inch laptops split the difference between portability and power, making an ideal premium pick if price is no problem. Two such examples are the Asus Zenbook Pro 14 and the Razer Blade 14, both of which are packed with 14-inch screens and Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics. Gordon’s putting them both to the test in a head-to-head shootout in the latest PCWorld video on YouTube.
The Zenbook Pro 14 is the sleeker and lighter of the two, possibly because it’s more general purpose with its 14-core Intel Core i9-13900H, OLED screen, and the GPU running at 110 watts. Compare that to Razer’s AMD-powered Ryzen 9 7940HS, a 240Hz LED screen, and a boosted 140 watts to the GPU, and you can see the latter is more geared towards gaming. That said, both of them are absolute monsters in terms of specs, especially at this size.
The guys put these machines through their paces with Cinebench, Blender, Crossmark, GeekBench, PugetBench, Time Spy, Speed Way, V-Ray, and OctaneBench, as well as comparing both results with power throttling in mind. The two laptops are fairly comparable in terms of pure performance, especially watt-for-watt, though the Asus beats out the Razer in mult-core CPU tasks thanks to having that Intel six-core advantage. That’s a big boost for multitasking and some rendering programs, but not such a big deal for gaming, where Razer’s AMD hardware gets the edge. For a detailed breakdown, check out the full video.
The latest Razer Blade 14 in this configuration costs $2400, while the Asus Zenbook Pro 14 (which gets double the memory at 32GB) is $2100. For more deep dives into the latest and greatest laptops, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube!
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.