The Apex 15X is a gaming laptop from Aftershock using the popular Tongfang chassis, and it’s
now been updated to include Nvidia’s RTX graphics, so just how well does it perform
in games? I’ve benchmarked 17 different games at all setting levels to show you how
well it runs and compared it with some other laptops to help you decide if it’s a laptop
you should consider buying.
Just quickly before we jump into the benchmark results I’ll cover off the specs in my unit.
There’s an Intel i7-8750H CPU, Nvidia RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics and 16GB of memory running
in dual channel, however you’ve got a few options to pick from when configuring it,
including more memory or RTX 2060 graphics, so expect different results with different
configurations.
I was running Windows 10 with these Nvidia drivers, and just a reminder we’re only
looking at gaming performance in this video, if you’re new here get subscribed for the
upcoming full review.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode and not in multiplayer mode, as it’s easier
to consistently reproduce the test run. The purple bars show the results with ray tracing
disabled, while the green bars show RTX on. The results with RTX on were good at low and
medium, and it was kind of playable at higher settings, personally I prefer higher frame
rates for a first person shooter though so I’d leave RTX off here.
Apex Legends was tested with either all settings at maximum, or all settings on the lowest
possible values, as it doesn’t have predefined setting presets. The game played smoothly
for me even maxed out, and was just able to average 100 frames per second.
Metro Exodus was tested using the built in benchmark, which performs worse than actual
game play, making this more of a synthetic test rather than indicative of actual game
performance.
Far Cry New Dawn was tested with the built in benchmark as well, and over 60 FPS was
still possible with ultra settings.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the built in benchmark, and performed a bit better than
the newer Far Cry New Dawn just shown, with over 100 FPS possible at low settings.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and as a well optimized game it was running
very well at epic settings, almost able to average 100 FPS.
Overwatch was also performing very well as it’s another well optimized game. I tested
it in the practice range, and even with epic settings the frame rate was extremely high,
easily able to take full advantage of the 144Hz screen at 1080p.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, and I’ve found this
to be more of a graphically intensive test, with 100 FPS average possible at low settings
and above 60 at highest settings.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and the results were good for this test, with
100 FPS averages possible at high settings, but not really too much of a difference between
the different levels.
CS:GO was tested using the Ulletical FPS benchmark, so as usual high frame rates were easily achievable
with a 1080p resolution.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark, and is a game I’ve found to
benefit from Nvidia’s new turing architecture, which means we’re seeing very high frame
rates from this test.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was another that was tested with the built in benchmark, and
it seems to be a poorly optimized game, however doesn’t need a high frame rate to play so
these results aren’t too bad.
Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane with an average amount of action going on,
and even with all settings at maximum 120 FPS was possible, so it was running perfectly
fine without any problems.
Watch Dogs 2 is a resource intensive game, although it doesn’t need a high frame rate
to play, a solid 30 FPS is enough for me, so even at ultra settings it was running well
on this laptop.
Ghost Recon is another demanding game and was tested using the built in benchmark, and
most laptops that I test aren’t able to handle ultra settings in this game, though
the 2070 Max-Q didn’t do too badly here, with almost 100 FPS possible at low settings.
The Witcher 3 was also running very well with hairworks disabled, and even with ultra settings
it played perfectly fine, I don’t think this game really needs a high frame rate so
90 FPS is just fine.
Shadow of War was tested with the built in benchmark, and is another game that I’ve
found to benefit from Nvidia’s new Turing architecture, as a result the performance
in this test was also quite good.
Let’s also take a look at how the Apex 15X compares with some other laptops to see how
it stacks up, use these results as a rough guide only as they were tested at different
times with different versions of Nvidia drivers.
In Battlefield 5 I’ve got the Apex 15X down the bottom in red, and we can see it’s a
bit faster than the Aero 15 X9, due to CPU throttling I noted in my Aero review. Otherwise
it’s only a little ahead of the RTX 2060, while the 2080 Max-Q in the ASUS GX701 is
well ahead.
Here are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings, and similar results here too. Interestingly
the 1% low was the same in the Apex 15X and the 2080 Max-Q laptop, perhaps a CPU bottleneck
once a certain level of GPU power is available, still great FPS average though.
These are the results from Shadow of the Tomb raider with the built in benchmark at highest
settings, and the results follow the same trend as the other games, with the 2070 Max-Q
in the Apex 15X performing nicely, though not too far ahead of the 2060 in the Aorus
15.
The Apex 15X gaming laptop performed quite well in all of the games tested, the 2070
Max-Q graphics, i7-8750H CPU and dual channel memory are a fairly powerful combination,
capable of easily playing any of the games tested at 1080p even with higher settings.
It of course depends on the game, some will need lower settings if you want to instead
target a higher frame rate to utilize the 144Hz screen.
So how do you guys think the Apex 15X gaming laptop from Aftershock did in these games?
Let me know your thoughts down in the comments, and if you’re new here get subscribed so
you don’t miss the full review of the Apex 15X.