Next Refresh of the AMG Neo 15... AMD and Ampere?

Hi All,

I am waiting to pull the trigger on my next laptop in the next 6 months and have narrowed it down to the next gen of two options:

1) XMG Neo 15 with ampere gpu and hopefuly an AMD processor.? Early 2021?

https://www.xmg.gg/en/xmg-neo-15-m19
2) Dell XPS 15 combined with an egpu

The XMG is my preferred option at present but I wanted to get thoughts on what the next iteration will likely have in store for us.

My current laptop is a 17" desktop replacement from XMG with dual 1080Ms and it is huge heavy and sounds like a fighter jet... oh and has dual power bricks.

This time around I want better portability and heat management but with the ability to enjoy the latest titles at high settings on a proper display with a high refresh, ideally 4k.

Happy to spend on the setup as my last laptop has lasted 4 years.

I am amazed no one offers a high end portable gaming laptop with a premium chassis and decent thermals like the xps laptops but with a proper gpu at the cost of slightly bigger footprint.

 

the thing is a GPU drains noticably more energy than a CPU. so the footprint would not be "slightly bigger", it would be much bigger if you want a realy GPU and not just some max-q crap.
even with the max-q crap, most GPU´s are throttling down the CPU´s A LOT, which doesnt matter for most people, especially not gamers. Except youre into CPU intensive strategy games, then you are screwed.

I would recommend the eGPU solution. I had it for a while as well with an 8950hk and an external 2080 and i did not regret it.
Just make sure the laptop holds a somewhat usable dGPU for mobile use, something like a 1660ti or so.

as for waiting for ampere: it usually takes 6-8months for the first laptop models to arrive after the next GPU gen has been released for desktop, and its much likely that XMG or any other clevo reseller will not be amongst the first ones receiving them, so if you can wait 10 months instead of six, then go for it. otherwise, dont bother waiting.

 

Thank you for a helpful response.

Yes, I assumed the 3080 maxq or whatever it is called could likely handle 4k at a minimum 144hz or ideally 240hz.

10 months is longer than I wanted to wait but I am not forced to jump ship as my current laptop is still running well. I have amrwady waited a little over 4 years to get a laptop so a bit longer wont kill me.

If I went for the likes of a dell 15 xps and an egpu the the combo would need to do 4k at 240hz.

The only thing that makes me hesitant at the moment is the likes of the dell xps 15 onky has a gtx 1650 and couldn't play games when I travel except on really low settings.

I tend to buy all the big new games titles (cod, battlefield, etc) and my favourite games of old that I still play are:
- Company of heroes 2
- Civilization

To not be able to play the new titles when I travel wiuld be a bummer.

I guess the question is what is the likelihood that the 3080 max q can run 4k at a good framerate. If it can then I will likely wait.

 

If you want portability and battery life the AMD APUs are the only choice really on the AMD side.

 

a 3080 max-q will never be able to play AAA games at 144 or even 240hz. never ever. even the 2080ti struggles to deliver stable 60fps on modern triple a games at 4k.
on high/ultra settings of course.
the 3090 or however it will be called (and its not even sure yet if it will replace the 2080ti or the titan rtx) is rumored to be 30-40% faster than the 2080ti, so maybe this card would be able to hit stable 100fps on most AAA games.
and that would be a 1400$ desktop card running on 350w, not a crippled down and bad binned non-ti, mobile, max-q version which will probably run on 80-90w tdp.

civ and company of heroes surely wont be a problem for any of these GPU´s, even at 4k.
civ mainly needs a strong cpu tho, and that means actually as strong as possible with as many cores as possible so AMD certainly is an option here.
problem is with amd, you cant go eGPU via thunderbolt. you would either have to tinker eGPU via m.2 (which actually is alot faster than thunderbolt) or use an intel cpu.

for amd, theres not much choice, especially when it comes to thin and light, your only options are basically the asus rog zephyrus g14 (no free m.2 slot!) or the asus rog zephyrus g15 (has a free m.2 slot).
for intel, i would go dell xps, hp envy, hp spectre (both also have very nice x360 models) for "expensive-budget" or hp zbook studio / hp zbook studio x360 with a xeon cpu if you want to go all in.

 

What you are saying makes plenty of sense.

I need to have decent gaming performance for at least 3 years with whatever I buy as a standalone device. So medium to high settings for the next 3 years at high framrates on a 1080 15" laptop screen is a must.

If I then need an egpu for 4k performance with good framrates when at home I can live with that.

I really fancy this screen (a higher refresh rate would have been ideal but 120hz isn't too bad) but think it might be too much for an egpu to handle:
Samsung CRG9
Screen size: 49-inch | Aspect ratio: 32:9 | Resolution: 5,120 x 1,440 | Brightness: 600cd/m2 – 1000cd/m2 | Refresh rate: 120Hz | Response time: 4ms | Viewing angle: 178°(H)/178°(V) | Contrast ratio: 3,000:1 | Color support: 1.07B

 

Check out the Tongfang models here at the 'Other Manufacturers' forum (we've been asking for a separate Tongfang forum for a while). They are arguably the best thin and light gaming laptops for the buck.

 

Something like a 1660ti, RTX2060, or RTX2070 max-q will be enough to play on full HD medium/high settings for the next 3 years.
For eGPU, the higher the resolution the better, because the performance loss of an eGPU drops significantly compared to a dGPU on high resolutions, simply because in such high resolutions you will never get a truly high refresh rate. The actual GPU power is what matters here and the GPU power stays the same no matter if eGPU or dGPU.
So yeah, this Monitor is just another reason to go for a strong eGPU since its resolution is almost 4K

 

FPS will depend on the settings, there are a fair few details you can tweak to get the FPS up.