last year i did a video on what i
thought was the best gaming laptop of
2020. the mac 15 g3 from electronics
well now it's been updated to amd's new
ryzen 5000 processors
and this is the same tongfeng chassis
sold by xmg the neo15 and mine has the 8
core ryzen 7 5800 h cpu and nvidia rtx
3070 graphics
the laptop has a matte black finish that
heaven mkbhd would approve of
the top and interior are metal while the
bottom panel is plastic there are no
sharp corners or edges and overall build
quality felt nice
the laptop alone weighs just under 2.2
kilos or 4.8 pounds
or over 3 kilos or 6.7 pounds with the
230 watt brick and cables
this new 2021 model is 0.3 centimeters
thicker compared to last gen
otherwise the width and depth are still
the same i've got the 1440p 165 hertz
option but there is also a 1080p 240hz
panel mine has a 48hz to 165hz freesync
range when the amd integrated graphics
are in use however we can disable
optimus with a reboot which will improve
gaming performance at the expense of
battery life
but doing this does also mean no more
freesync so that's a compromise
average greater grey response time was
measured at seven milliseconds there's a
link in the description if you need an
explanation on what all these numbers
mean
it's not quite at the six milliseconds
needed for all transitions to occur
within the refresh window but not too
bad when compared to some others
i've tested the screen with the spyder 5
and got 98 of srgb
69 of ntsc 75 of adobe rgb
and 74 of dci p3 so decent results for a
gaming panel
screen brightness was over the 300 sweet
spot at 100 brightness and contrast
ratio was also great at a thousand and
forty nine to one though i just moved
over to using the x right i1 pro so
results going forward aren't comparable
to my older ones
this means i can also start measuring
color accuracy and i measured a delta e
of 0.5
after calibration which is excellent
backlight bleed looked a little patchy
in this worst case example
i never had any problems during normal
use but this will vary between panels
the 720p camera was below the screen
last generation but now it's up top and
it's got ir for windows hello this is
what the camera and microphone look and
sound like
this is what it sounds like to type on
the keyboard and this is what it sounds
like if i set the fan to full speed
so it's not doing a great job of
isolating my voiceover
the mechanical keyboard has perky rgb
backlighting with four keys of key
brightness
and all keys and secondary functions are
illuminated the tactile switches have
two millimeters of key travel and a one
millimeter actuation point personally i
like the distinct clicky feeling of the
mechanical keys
but this does mean typing is louder
here's how it sounds to give you an idea
of what to expect
it's also compatible with project aurora
if you're after further customizations
the power button is separate to the
keyboard and above it on the right along
with a button for switching between the
three performance modes
more on those shortly otherwise there
appear to be some subtle air vents above
the keyboard the precision touch pad is
excellent it's extremely smooth to the
touch and works well while feeling very
accurate and is a decent size too
fingerprints and dirt can be obvious
depending on the lighting but they're
easy to clean with a microfiber cloth
due to the smooth finish
on the left from the back there's a
kensington lock air exhaust vent usb
3.2 gen 2 type a port and separate 3.5
millimeter mic and headphone jacks
the right has a full sized sd card slot
2 usb 3.2 gen1 type a ports and an air
exhaust vent on this side too the rest
is on the back
between the rear air exhausts we've got
a usb 3.2 gen 2 type
c port hdmi 2.1 output 2.5 gigabit
ethernet and the power input
both the hdmi and type c port with
displayport 1.4 support connect directly
to the nvidia graphics
so good to go for vr the type c port
does not have thunderbolt and it cannot
be used to charge the laptop
the front has a small groove to help
with opening the lid it felt well
balanced
sat fine on my lap and was easy to open
with one finger screenflex was on the
lower side due to the metal lid and it
looks like it slides around a bit on my
desk
but i think this is just an issue with
my early sample unit there wasn't too
much keyboard flex the chassis felt
quite solid
though again you can see when i push on
the right side it's not even which
should not be present with a production
model you might have noticed the light
bar on the front you're meant to be able
to customize it through software and
turn it off but the software on my early
sample doesn't have this functionality
so
i can't show you it underneath the vents
are a bit different to last gen but
there are still plenty of them present
getting inside is very easy just take
out 10 phillips head screws of same
length and the panel comes right off
inside we've got the battery down the
front two m.2 storage slots above on the
left
two memory slots to the center and the
wi-fi six card to the right of that
it's worth noting that the heat pipes of
this new model are a little different
compared to the older intel 10875h
plus rtx 2070 supermodel and also that
although the intel model came with a
liquid metal option
xmg aren't offering the ryzen model with
liquid metal they said it would have a
higher level of risk involved as there's
less space to set up a proper barrier
the two speakers are on the left and
right sides towards the front i thought
they sounded okay they get the job done
but aren't great though there was some
minor base and the latency model results
were alright the laptop is powered by a
93 watt hour battery i've tested it with
keyboard lighting off background apps
disabled and screen set to 50
brightness it lasted for over nine hours
in the youtube playback test so
an excellent result for a laptop with
this level of specs inside it didn't
quite make two hours in the gaming test
however there was still 14
charge remaining when i cancelled the
test as the frame rate dipped to 16 fps
and became unplayable
the control center software also has
three different battery modes that we
can use to help prolong the lifespan of
the battery by limiting its maximum
charge level
let's check out thermals next the
control center software lets us pick
between three different performance
modes which from lowest to highest a
balanced enthusiast and overboost
no gpu overclocking was done by default
each of these three modes has five
customization presets that you can
modify and you can click fan boost in
any mode to max out the fan
we've also got the option of customizing
the fan speed based on the cpu or gpu
temperature though
now here's something i thought was
awesome we've got power limit sliders
for both the cpu and gpu here
something i've never seen provided
before without third party or custom
software
this level of supported tuning is
impressive and i hope we see more of
this in future the idle temperatures
were fine with the 21 degree celsius
ambient room temp stress tests were done
with the ada64 cpu stress test with
stress cpu only checked and the heaven
gpu benchmark run at the same time
while gaming was tested playing
watchdogs too i think the cpu was
thermal throttling at 95 degrees celsius
as i never saw higher than this and
we're not reaching max boost clock i'm
sure people hear thermal throttling and
irrationally panic but as you'll see
soon the performance is still there
balanced mode was quite cooler compared
to the others enthusiast mode was a
little cooler on the gpu compared to
overboost mode setting the fan to max
speed in overboost mode lowered the gpu
temp then using a cooling pad helped
most of all these are the clock speeds
for the same tests just shown
we can see why balanced mode was much
cooler the gpu performance is way down
basically unusable levels which makes
sense as the game wasn't playable in
this task
the gpu speeds rise going from
enthusiast to overboost mode otherwise
not too much difference for the
processor the exception being the stress
test with the cooling pad again
presumably as this helps reduce the
thermal throttling on the processor in
this worst case example we can see why
the gpu performance was so bad in
balanced mode the 3070 wasn't passing 28
watts
the power limit seems to be 115 watts in
enthusiast mode then this boosts higher
to 125 watts in overboost
technically it can go up to 140 watts
maximum with dynamic boost 2.0 however
this is only possible when the processor
is running below 35 watts
something that wouldn't be happening
during any of these heavy workloads
here's how an actual game performs with
the different performance modes in use
so yeah balanced mode isn't going to be
too useful for any workloads that
require discrete graphics power here's
how cpu only performance looks in
cinebench with the gpu now idle so
no major difference to single core
scores regardless of the mode in use
while multi-core progressively gets
better at the higher performance levels
if we compare it against others well the
multi-core score is one of the best i've
ever seen from a laptop though the
single core can't quite match intel's
11th gen tiger lake processors
but regardless it's still around 13
percent better than the 4800h from last
generation when idling the keyboard was
around the low 30 degrees celsius point
if that so pretty normal it's still in
the mid to low 30s in the center even
with the stress tests going but remember
in balanced mode the gpu isn't doing
much
enthusiast mode was a bit warmer in the
center but still nowhere near hot to the
touch
overboost mode with the fan maxed out is
cooler despite performing better the
fact that the wasd
area is around 20 degrees and cold is
quite impressive
as air is pulled in through the keyboard
but let's have a listen to how loud the
fans got
the fans sounded silent to me at idle
balanced mode was still on the quieter
side even under stress dust
enthusiast and overboost modes were
about the same then max fan was a little
louder still
personally i think this is a good thing
as you can customize the fan curve so
you can get things running how you
prefer now let's check out how well this
gaming laptop performs in games
and see how it compares against others
i've tested with overboost mode enabled
all power sliders maxed out and
optimus disabled for best results i've
tested battlefield v
in campaign mode at ultra settings and
the neo15 is highlighted in red
this is an excellent result only being
beaten by the 180 watt rtx 2080 in the
triton 900
or 200 watt 2080 in the msi gt76 desktop
replacement the one percent low was also
quite good too compared to most others
though in this game i have found that to
vary more so than average frame rate
despite the fact that i'm taking the
averages of four test runs here this new
hardware combination moves up one
position
relative to the same laptop selection in
shadow of the tomb raider
again it's actually beating out the 180
watt rtx 2080 and i9 9900k desktop
processor in the alienware 51m just
below it
it was only being beaten by one frame in
the far thicker msi gt76 titan
again with desktop 9900k and 200w 2080
making this a very impressive result
far cry 5 was also tested with the
game's benchmark tool although the neo15
result is one of the best i've got it's
beaten slightly by a lower wattage 2080
max q in the triton 500 just above it
otherwise to get much higher generally
we need much higher wattage gpus like
those 2080s in the gt76
or 51m i've found this test to depend
more on processor power than the other
two games
and based on what we saw with the 5800h
earlier i thought it might do a bit
better here i've also tested this laptop
in this video here in 14 different games
at both 1440p
and 1080p resolutions so that should
give you a pretty good idea of what to
expect with this level of hardware
now for the benchmarking tools i've
tested heaven valley and superposition
from unigine as well as fire strike time
spy and pored royal from 3dmark
just pause the video if you want a
detailed look at these results i've used
adobe premiere to export one of my
laptop review videos at 4k
lower times are better here and the neo
15 was one of the better results
though this export still benefits from
intel's quick sync which is why i think
it's not as high as some others
i've also tested premiere but with the
puget system's benchmark
as this tests for more things like live
playback rather than just
export times higher scores are better
now and the neo15 is one of the highest
scores for a laptop
adobe photoshop generally depends more
on processor performance
but again the neo 15 was at the top of
the list thanks to the new ryzen 7 5800
h cpu davinci resolve is more gpu heavy
and the new rtx 3070 is able to once
more give a chart-topping result i've
also tested spec view perf which tests
out various professional 3d workloads
i've used crystal diskmark to test the
storage
i've got a 512gb nvme m.2 ssd broken
into two partitions
bet results are going to vary based on
the storage you select when ordering
i've also tested the sd card slot and it
wasn't too bad but not amazing either
the card sticks out while sitting into
the machine
finally let's discuss price you can
check the links in the description for
updated prices
as these will change over time at the
time of recording it starts at 1700 euro
with the ryzen 7 5800 h processor
rtx 3060 graphics 1440p 165hz
screen 500 gig of storage and 16gb of
memory and dual channel but you've got
the option of paying more for rtx 3070
or 3080 graphics
or even for ryzen 9 5900 hx processor
instead though that's only available
with the 3080. electronics are also
selling the same chassis in the us
as the mech15 g3 though at the moment
they only have the 5800h with 3080
offered for 2500 us dollars
but you can also get the intel model
with 3070 for 2 000.
ryzen availability is listed for march
and xmg have publicly stated that ryzen
5000 availability is going to be
challenging
now let's conclude by summarizing both
the good and the bad aspects of this
laptop to help you decide if it's worth
it
overall i think this is an excellent
gaming laptop but as we're still early
in 2021 i won't go claiming that it's
the best yet but i think it is one that
others are going to have to try and beat
along with nice gaming performance and
chart topping results in cpu and content
creator workloads
it's got nice features like mechanical
keyboard big battery
sd card slot fan control 1440p high
refresh rate screen
good touchpad freesync and the option of
disabling optimus to boost performance
in games
the only things i didn't like is that
you lose presync when you disable
optimus
but that is just going to be an inherent
limitation of laptops that don't have
advanced optimus or g-sync the speakers
weren't amazing but that's pretty
typical
the internals do run hotter than last
gen but this is also next-gen hardware
and we don't have liquid metal like the
intel model did last year
xmg said that liquid metal just wasn't
something they were going to offer with
this model as there are more components
around the cpu so a liquid metal
application would increase the risk and
as we did see
despite some higher temperatures in cpu
plus gpu workloads the performance is
still there
otherwise the only real issue is going
to be availability which i'm sure no one
saw coming it sounds like we're looking
at a march time frame but there are some
uncertainties so we'll just have to wait
and see i also want to give some props
to xmg for actually specifying useful
information on their product page
they always list power limits for both
cpu and gpu so you know what you're
getting but also stuff like whether hdmi
or type c ports connect directly to the
nvidia gpu or not i do of course test
these things to verify them but my point
is is that they do specify this for
their laptops compared to a lot of other
bigger companies that don't
so if you can get your hands on it i
think the xmg nero 15 or electronics
mech 15 g3
is a good gaming laptop you'll
definitely want to check out this video
here if you want to see how well this
laptop does in 14 games at 1440p
and 1080p resolutions otherwise if
you're new to the channel then don't
forget to subscribe for future laptop
reviews like this one