Hitman: Absolution, DiRT, And Arkham City
Hitman: Absolution
Hitman: Absolution places a heavy load on a system’s CPU and GPU. In the case on the Blade’s GeForce GTX 660M, frame rates are limited by the graphics processor. In comparison, MSI's GX60 is almost certainly being held back by its A10 APU. While the benchmark presents a low average frame rate, the game should still be fairly playable at 1366x768 using the Ultra preset.
Dropping to High settings yields some relief for the Nvidia modules. Unfortunately, the Trinity-based machine is still processor-limited to 22 FPS.
Taking the details down to Medium yields an average frame rate bump on the Blade R2 and both comparison machines. Because the 1366x768 and 1680x1050 results are so similar, though, we suspect that turning the graphics down this low is exposing platform- or aspect ratio-oriented bottlenecks.
DiRT: Showdown
With settings maxed-out and resolution set to 1920x1080, the Blade R2 generates a marginal 21 frames per second on average. Both higher-end cards are twice as fast, helping with fluidity. It's worth noting that the Blade still seemed playable, though you may want to lower the settings a bit (even less detail still looks really good).
Bumping the quality settings down to the High preset yields a significant speed-up that we'd be inclined to recommend. Because it proves to be platform-limited, the AMD-based system's Radeon HD 7970M only gets a small performance bump.
Going to the Medium yields yet another jump on average frame rates.
Batman: Arkham City
Due to its heinous DRM, Batman: Arkham City has already been phased out in our graphics card reviews. Even when we unregister our test machines, we continue running out of available activations. It's still a fairly demanding benchmark though, which recently enjoyed an infusion of new content. We'll dust it off once more to test the Blade.
The Ultra quality benchmark reflects our experience playing the game. The GeForce GTX 680M and Radeon HD 7970M are naturally quite a bit faster, but it's still possible to play the game on Razer's Blade.
Taking the quality down to High improves frame rates a bit, though this preset is difficult to distinguish from the Ultra setting.
Medium quality again yields a small speed-up. This chart is more for comparing to older, slower graphics cards.
