Intel-TongFang QC7 (Element/Fusion 15/MAG-15/Vapor 15 Pro)

What sucks about the search? What are you searching for and what shortcomings are you coming across when searching?

 

Hey B0B, when you put 35W for PL limits. It's for the short or for the long boost ?
0.800 is low :O Can you show me the curve ? i'm a little lost with this numbers and how apply them in the curve editor :/
Thanks for your reply.
Sorry for my english ... I come from Belgium

 

Well it's not like you can just simply swap over to another bulletin board software to solve these sorts of issues. It's just generally overally not as good as in other forums. For these silly little reasons. Maybe you could potentially change some forum templates or settings to improve some aspect.

My findings about your forum search were along these lines:

* Can't advanced search in thread without clicking through 'search again', at which point a new selected thread field magically appears in advanced search. Which wasnt there in advanced before, so your mind plays tricks and mentally blanks it out because you didn't expect it there.

* Can't change number of results displayed per page for a single page ctrl+f on the returned results

* When searching within a specific thread, a large percentage of the results text ents up being the Thread name repeated again and again for each result. But we already know which thread we were searching in. So it's space that wasted which could otherwise have been used to display more of the results [posts] text.

* The actual useful returned text of every post is truncated to only 1 line. This simply is very often not enough context to adequately determine whether a specific result in the listing is actually the post that you were looking for and/or actually contains valuable information to click through to. So the consequence of that is you end up giving up click through after n << X returned results. And trying to search for other keywords ends up filtering out the post you were searching for completely. There is really no useful medium balance there. So only if that specific quoted sentence (which included the keyword) happened to be providing a critical indication is it going to end up with a fast / happy click through. I have encountered this problem multiple times now and (to me) is probably the most frustrating aspect of everything I am listing here.

* In search keywords field (in the 'Search Threads and Posts' tab)... There is no other checkboxs / or options / or obvious help tooltip etc. way for me to know or control whether i am searching for multiple keywords in combination 'exact phrase' or all or some. Or combinations of (2 text fields). Which is actually a common option and level of keywords search control available in many other forums which i visit. Perhaps it's possible to use "quotation marks" or AND and OR connector commands however there is no obvious help displayed directly on the search page to indicate this and clicking help at the bottom of the page does not seem to lead any similar explainations of how to use the search keywords box either.

* Finally if i want to search for all posts by a given user I also have to put a keyword in the main search box in order for the search to work. However I may not know what specific keyword(s) that forum user used in their post and/or that specific user may not have used the same keyword or set of words amongst all of their posts which i wish returned. I can type 'the' isntead, being the most common word in the alphabet hoever it still might miss some of the users posts because: some people just post screenshots or pictures only on occasion. Or a smiley face with an attachment etc.


Maybe some of this you can fix but I don't really hold my breath. But thank you if you can do anything to improve the built in forum search in the future. Otherwise nevermind about it.

 

@B0B

 

Anyhow after saying all that about the drawbacks of this forum's search, I was lucky enough (this time!) to actually find 1 pretty useful post for the per-key illumination. That is: for the previous model laptop. Which is here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...gk5cq7z-gk5cp0z.815943/page-430#post-10920858

However that is for linux. So you would need to install linux etc. to try that software out. But elsewhere on the same thread I remember there is also a different 3rd party / open source control centre software made for windows too. Plus some other useful and related posts before that where some guy had found the original Tongfang sources on github, and other talk about it etc.

Anyhow if you click through above that linux link ^^ you can see more hardware information about the keyboard rgb controller in the Github readme. What the chip is etc. Which can then be used to compare against whatever you might find in the mag15. To see if it has the same one.

 

I really hope I can use this but I think the rgb controller is locked from Intel. Hopefully not because I would REALLY like to buy into the mag 15 with electroboost (if the fix the temp limit).

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

 

Another way to search the forums is to use google.
Put in a query like this:
site:forum.notebookreview.com search terms

e.g. site:forum.notebookreview.com tongfang per-key

Charles

 

Where those reviews at? I need some confirmation that this laptop is awesome

 

OwnOrDisown has one on his youtube channel, i presume @B0B 's will come sooner or later too

 

The awesomeness might not be there because of the 75c GPU thermal throttle limit.
@Bob is working with Elektronik’s to find a fix but we are still waiting for a news on that end.
Shame really because overall it seemed like a great alternative.

 

It is a shame they chose to throttle at 75C, even 80C would have been much better from my experience with my XPS laptops in the past. When Dell lowered the throttling setpoint it really hurt the performance of the GPU.

 

I’m waiting on BIOS information. Don’t expect anything to change from the 75c limit.

Also waiting on a software update that might not come till the first week of October.

 

75C is nothing. You have to live in the sahara to get this kind of temps on the GPU. In my alienware m15 r1 without repasting it reaches 74. (rtx 2060 at 1600-1700mhz)

 

What's the issue if it limits itself at 75 degree. Isn't it a good thing for the longetivity of the laptop? Yes you lose some performance but is it too much of a performance loss?
Or is it like for the performance lost it performs closer to a 2060

 

Apples and oranges. You can’t compare across different units, cooling designs, power limits in terms of absolute temperatures like that. Fact of the matter is, 75C is a significantly limiting factor on the GPU in this unit.

Speaking for the 115W EluktroBoosted 2070 on the MAG-15 in particular, the 75C limit drops its performance to 80W 2070MQ or 2060 level in games after sustained heatsoak, or lower in combined load stress toasts with higher heat output on the CPU, since it is a shared cooling design. It is essentially preventing EluktroBoost from stretching its legs at all outside of short 3DMark runs.

 

Alienware M15's are known for horrible cooling. If this laptop can easily sustain 74C, then this laptop should be able also. My previous Y540 had no problem in keeping Gpu temps at 70C

 

Alienwares are known for horrible CPU cooling. Also a 115W 2070 puts out more heat than an 80W or 90W 2060.

 

Does EluktroBoost try to push 115W on the Mag-15 too? Or have they removed that?

 

Yes, 115W for the 2070 and 90W for the 1660 Ti.

 

How significant is the limitation for the 1660ti version ? Shouldn't it be less impacted than the 2070 ?

 

It is definitely impacted less. You can look at Bob’s video in the OP for an example of what a tuned 1660 Ti can do within the 75C limit.

 

Yeah just went and checked that out, thanks. It bids the question though, how much tweaking was done on @B0B's machine to get these results ? are they easy manipulations or complex tech witchcraft ?

 

Undervolting and adjusting the CPU power limits using ThrottleStop, and undervolting the GPU using the voltage/frequency curve editor in MSI Afterburner. Bob has videos going over these aspects on his channel.

 

Something I found on Dell subreddit which may be useful for people who bought this crippled MAG-15 laptop:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/d5jj0e/there_is_a_way_to_bypass_the_thermal_target_of

Just for the record, the poster is incorrect when saying all Dell laptops have this thermal limit, my G7 has 87c default limit.

 

You can also try the latest Nvidia Inspector beta with Turing support and see if it allows increasing the temp limit: http://download.orbmu2k.de/files/nviBeta.zip

 

That’s not necessarily true at all, it depends on the chassis and cooling system itself, you compare your AW that reaches 74c so if that was true for the AW would you like to live on the edge of thermally throttle every time?

 

The performance loss depends on many factors, for example how hot your room gets or which games you play. Just out of curiosity I tried to limit 2070 Max-q GPU to 75c and ran Division 2 benchmark, I also covered the air intakes to let the laptop reach thermal throttling point faster. The GPU was thermally throttling and I got 62fps. When I put temp limit back to 87c - I got 66 fps without thermal throttling. You may see even larger difference in games which actually utilize CPU and GPU well, like Forza Horizon 4, or less with games which do not use GPU and CPU well (such as Apex). Especially if you have a hot room and not a room at 78f or 80f.

 

How did you "limit" it?

 

Look at the previous post. Using Asus utility from the Reddit post which does work with my Dell G7, and may also work with this MAG-15.

 

Meanwhile, to whom it may concern, some news from our side:

• There will be a Control Center update in the next 1-2 weeks that is joing to adjust the reporting of CPU TDP PL1/PL2 values. We don't know yet exactly which (if any) changes it is going to have on thermals and system behaviour.
  
• We expect a BIOS Update (current version is 0048) that will improve compatibility with USB-C/DP adapters, including the ones that are shipping with each laptops.
• We have started assembling pre-orders and we are going to ship the first customer units early next week (daily updates in this thread).
  
• Intel has expedited their global logistics and we are probably not going to run out of stock on either the GTX 1660 Ti, nor the RTX 2070 in the next few weeks, despite a high number of pre-orders.
• Review samples are currently in process at Notebookcheck, Computerbase, heise c't and a few others.
• I have edited this post on page 12 of this thread and added Intel's CPU Temperature Targets aka 'Tcc offset' values.

By the way, XMG's CEO Robert Schenker and yours truly will be at CES in January 2020 and we will probably meet a lot of Intel people there. Why don't we have a little Notebookreview roundtable in Las Vegas? Send me a PM if you're interested!

Cheers,
XMG|Tom

 

Does this mean, in your configuration, the Silent profile isn't as battery friendly as it could be? This could lead to worse battery life test results in all the upcomming reviews!

There needs to be a profile for using the device on the go. The top mobile priority is longer battery life. Not for playing silently. And I would actually assume that such a profile is automatically applied when the power cable is disconnected.

In my understanding, the profiles are meant to be like this:
1. Power level over 9000 (e.g. for gaming)
2. Default desktop mode (power when you need it, but regulates itself without thinking about it)
3. Mobile mode (silent and battery friendly - remember: this is a thin and light laptop for mobile use, not a desktop pc)

 

I ordered my XMG fusion 15 with 1660ti. I hope the keyboard is very good and the trackpad isn't as bad as people are saying. All the previous laptops I used had great trackpads. I ordered it now, because it's 3 week pre order time. So lets hope some reviews come out before this, then I should be able to make a decision to keep or cancel the order.

@Noro at least we can change the profiles ourselves. I'm definitely going to change the silent profile everything to 3.

 

Yes, but most customers and reviewers won't know about this, won't (dare to) change it and therefore will experience worse battery life than expected. This could also be the reason, why the promotion videos say "up to 10 hours" and xmg|tom wrote about "up to 6-7 hours" somewhere.
I think it was a bad decision to favor a "silent gaming mode" to a true mobility mode. Nobody purchases such an expensive and highly portable laptop solely for gaming (especially not for silent gaming with limited performance).

 

Silent gaming mode is indeed useless. This design and specs is going to attract people who want to game at home, but also use laptop for work/business related stuff. For them a silent gaming seems pointless. They should have added at least one more mod which is for silent gaming and one is for battery/light use.

 

Seriously, don't panic. Those P3/G2/F2 settings concern the power ceiling, not the baseline. The Idle/Office/Web power consumption does not just magically increase just because you switch to a different profile - especially not in the case of the GPU.

Our custom "GPU Mode 2" in Silent profile only applies when you actually put load on the NVIDIA GPU.

In any other case, when Optimus is set up correctly (which it is, by default), all your desktop apps are running on the Intel graphics (iGPU). In this situation, the dGPU is very much fully 'OFF' and takes exactly zero power. Thus, having the option to boost it up to G2 does not affect your "mobile work" battery life at all.

You can check this for yourself. Run a monitoring tool like HWiNFO64 or NVIDIA Inspector. If you don't get any temps, clock or usage numbers reported, it means that the dGPU is 'OFF'.

But watch out: certain monitoring apps including GPU-Z manually turn the dGPU to 'ON' to get their data - this wouldn't happen in real-world usage. So if you try this, try it with HWiNFO64 or NVIDIA Inspector.



In short: the battery life of our XMG Silent profile is the same as Intel's Original SIlent profile, as long as you're not playing games or running CUDA.

However, if you are playing games or running CUDA, you might actually welcome a "silent work" mode where your GPU performance is not totally crippled and where your fan speeds won't reach the levels they would normally reach in Balanced mode.

Let's not call it "Silent Gaming", call it "Meeting-room friendly 3D construction".

We have reshuffled and compared these profiles in many different situations and we are confident that our choices strike the best balance.

But thank you everyone for the feedback! I will edit my previous post to include additional explanation to avoid any such misunderstandings.

This feature request has already been submitted to Intel for future projects. If it comes, it's going to be optional.

I for one would disable this automatic switch. With such a huge battery, I'd rather have the Balanced profile as default, even in battery mode. I often do Adobe Lightroom on battery and I'd like to keep it in Balanced at all times, otherwise it get's too sluggish. (Lightroom is slooooow)

In the non-techie world, users expect their systems to behave identically between Power Supply and Battery mode, especially on CPU and system performance. Look at Apple: they don't even have performance profiles - they just work. This is how it's supposed to be done.

In battery mode, certain performance ceilings are applied anyway. For example, dGPU performance is curbed in battery mode in order to save the battery from overcharging issues.

Cheers,
XMG|Tom

 

@XMG Tom, is there any flex in the chassis when pressing on around the track pad or the bottom of laptop. My alienware m15 at the moment has no flex at all, which makes it feel very rigid

 

@elgreco14 The only flex I can see from the front of the chassis comes from the rubber feet, if you press it really hard. Unlike Aluminum (or as it is properly spelled: Aluminium), Magnesium is just as hard as my conviction to not give you any negative impression of XMG FUSION 15, hahaha. (But it's the truth!)


Btw, the Power Profile post is now also on reddit. Permalink

 

Here's a pretty good review that just came out of the Vapor 15, i don't think there's anything different from the MAG apart from the logo at the top, they even have the same kyeboard.

https://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/review-aftershock-vapor-15-pro-review-specs-features-price-singapore

Despite the 75°C limit, performance seems to be very similar to the competition, about 5 fps behind in games.

To me this solidifies this laptop as a very good choice in the portable gaming department. I understand the drawbacks that some people are pointing in this thread, but it doesn't seem like they would matter to the general consumer.

 

Another fake "review" similar to Dave2D ;-) Especially this page:
https://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/rev...es-price-singapore/battery-life-temperature-4
Peak GPU and CPU temperatures are 69c after multiple runs of FireStrike Extreme? Suuure The reviewer probably measured temperatures when running graphics test 1 and 2, but those are not "peak temperatures", the peak temperatures happen in Physics test. Which will look something like this if you have liquid metal on both CPU and GPU in your laptop with 9750h and 2070 Max-q and run laptop at 77F room temperature (25C) without undervolting:

That depends on what people play. If you are playing a game with low CPU and GPU utilization, like Apex or Minecraft or WoW - then sure, you'll get plenty of FPS so you will not even notice when GPU will start to thermally throttle. If you are playing game with very high GPU utilization with a lot of modern special effects (such as RTX lighting effects) like Metro Exodus - you will want to have a maximum performance out of your GPU, to prevent it from dropping below 30fps. And again, it especially matters to people in very hot climates, especially if they cannot use air conditioner for any reason.

 

Big videos coming next week. Ideally I’ll have three.
-The review
-The expectations and tuning (fix) guides
-The TIM testing, stock, MasterGel and LM

If you want this laptop then I promise you won’t find a better place to be.

 

Hah, no plans for a Aero Vs MAG video too? I mean you've got nothing else on your plate right

 

Can you test for "pump out" effect? I have tried MasterGel Maker Nano paste in several laptops, ALL of them initially posted excellent temperatures but ALL of them started to increase temperatures under same condition after several days of active use, forcing me to repaste. I am not sure whether I got a bad batch of this paste or if this is typical to expect from any laptop. You can even release this as separate video if you won't be able to fit it into your existing videos.

Also, can you test if Asus app works for MAG-15 for increasing GPU thermal throttle limit?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/d5jj0e/there_is_a_way_to_bypass_the_thermal_target_of

 

Well if you want to avoid pump out (and are not using Liquid Metal). Then you should be using a higher viscocity paste instead of whatever that stuff was. There are not actually very many high viscocity pastes out there... so the choice is pretty simple:

* Gelid GC Extreme
* IC Diamond
* Kingpin KPX

And of those ones the Gelid GC Extreme has the lowest viscocity and is therefore going to need a repaste sooner than the other two. Personally I would like to see a comparison between the IC Diamond and the Kingpin KPX.

There may also be 1-2 other higher viscocity pastes however I forget the name(s) of those other ones. And am far less certain where they would place in this lineup compared to those 3 which I already quoted above.

Anyhow that topic isn't specific exclusively to the Mag-15. It applies to many other laptop(s).

 

@B0B Did you already try unlocking the gpu temp limit with the ASUS GPU Tweak II? As was mentioned earlier here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-15-vapor-15-pro.830272/page-18#post-10953689

But I am expecting that is not going to work. It seems to be getting locked down by the nvidia BIOS.

 

I tried Gelid too. It also worked well at the beginning but lost performance after few days. I posted about it in other thread in "Hardware" section. I ended up just using liquid metal.

 

Prolimatech PK-3 is another high viscosity paste that hasn't been mentioned yet.

 

Oh, and @B0B if this is not really a bother to you - I would REALLY like to see a Forza Horizon 4 used as benchmark. It does not cost anything - the demo is FREE and available at Windows Store and includes benchmark. It takes only a couple of minutes to run the benchmark. I am really curious how MAG-15 would perform in terms of temperatures with different pastes. If you will run it - here is the settings I used:

The Frame Rate can be set to "off", I just forgot to do this. And here are the results of running this benchmark I am interested to see for comparison purposes:

 

A new update today. A great deal of work has gone into this. Seriously a book could be written. It’s why I haven’t posted a video in nearly three weeks.

Some of the nitty gritty content that you’d love to see cannot be revealed in my review.

I will tactfully handle this and perhaps direct some of this information here in the OP post review.

In the grande scheme of views the video will get versus the few to see this post, as well as this thread, I can only hope the integrity of the review isn’t compromised.

Sometimes it’s the price you pay for above and beyond efforts and not able to fully share them with the community.

I will handle this to the best of my ability which is definitely one of my strengths.

Stay tuned.

 

That's the mark of a true enthusiast. I'm sure that people will appreciate the effort you put into this.

If I may ask, how will integrity be compromised? Is there an NDA?

 

Do you Guys think the absence of G-Sync in this laptop is a big deal? With an RTX2070MQ you're well equipped, but reaching over 100 FPS with high graphics settings in some AAA Games isn't guaranteed to fire the 144Hz screen without tearing. This flatter, lighter, higher quality MAG-15 w/o G-Sync and danger of tearing - or the thicker, heavier EVOC PB51EF-G wG-Sync, and accept its extra weight and design loss? With an use case of 50% gaming, but also 50% just to surf on the couch/some office work, it's a hard decision..