My favorite gaming laptop from the last couple of years is getting liquid cooling support in
2022! This Tongfang chassis is the XMG Neo 15 in Europe, or the Eluktronics Mech-15 G3 in the US,
and basically there’s going to be an optional external liquid cooler you can upgrade to.
This year the laptop has been updated to Intel’s 12th gen processors with
DDR5 memory and up to Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti graphics with the maximum 175 watt power
limit. This is why the power brick has gone up from 230 to 280 watts,
and there are plans for a Ryzen 6000 model, it’s just not confirmed yet.
You know what, out of all the new RTX 3080 Ti gaming laptops I’ve heard about coming this year,
this is only the second one I’ve seen with the full 175 watt power limit so far.
So maybe that’s why water cooling was needed.
I’m just joking but seriously the 3060 and 3070 Ti options are also available with water
cooling too. XMG just thinks that liquid cooling should be available for everyone
as long as you know how to handle it and well fair enough. Who wouldn’t want lower temperatures,
better performance and less fan noise regardless of what specs you’re running.
They’re calling this the XMG Oasis, an external all-in-one liquid cooling solution for their
Neo 15 laptop. It sits externally to the laptop and contains a liquid reservoir,
pump, 120mm fan and radiator. A couple of tubes come out of it and connect to the back
of the laptop with a quick release connector, creating a closed circuit. Liquid flows into
the laptop from one tube and out through the other. The connector is reversible so
you could have cooler liquid hitting the CPU or GPU first based on orientation,
but I’m told there's no measurable difference based on which way you connect it.
Here’s how the internals of the neo 15 laptop look. We can see the extra aluminum pipe that
runs in from the back and allows the liquid to pass over both the CPU and GPU areas,
and this is soldered to the regular copper heat pipes underneath. Despite the extra metal pipe,
nothing else appears to be missing here. We’ve still got the 93Wh battery down the bottom,
two Gen 4 M.2 slots just above to the left,
two DDR5 memory slots in the middle, and Wi-Fi card to the right of that. I’m also told the
presence of the additional metal pipe for the liquid doesn’t affect regular air cooling.
That’s great because all Neo 15 laptops this year are going to come with that extra pipe,
so you can upgrade to liquid cooling at any time.
Alright, let’s check out a demo and see what this thing can do!
XMG also provided this video with hardware info running during a sustained CPU plus GPU
stress test. Furmark and Cinebench are both running at the same time,
and the CPU is running at about 90 degrees Celsius while the GPU is at 84.
The liquid cooling is connected while the laptop is running and within a minute
both the processor and graphics have lowered by almost 30 degrees, a massive difference.
Now unfortunately that was tested with the older 230 watt power brick,
so we should expect different results with the newer 280 watt brick. But regardless,
we can still see the Oasis unit making a pretty big difference.
XMG also provided some fan noise samples, so let’s have a listen.
In the highest overboost performance mode we’re seeing a 10 decibel dip by connecting
the liquid cooler. Now there is definitely still audible noise,
but it’s not as loud, though it does sound a little different due to the pump.
I’ve got some more benchmarks from XMG,
but from a different laptop, and this time the workload was Furmark and Prime95.
Laptop fan speed on water is apparently half as much. CPU power is able to run 12 watts higher,
while the GPU is able to run 19 watts higher on water. Not only are the CPU
and GPU consuming more power, which means better performance,
the CPU temperature is 16 degrees Celsius lower on water while the GPU is 20 degrees lower.
Not quite as big of a change as the earlier demo, but still a big drop.
Just for reference, these are the power levels that are being targeted for the actual production
laptop, so full powered GPUs in all cases, and let’s not forget that the control center
software actually lets us manually tell the GPU to use the full wattage range rather than having
some reserved for dynamic boost. A feature I still haven’t seen from any other laptops.
Oh and most importantly of all, there’s some customizable RGB
lighting on the Oasis unit which can be controlled from the laptop via Bluetooth,
so you can set it to match the laptop for even higher FPS in games.
Now while there are clearly excellent improvements with a setup like this,
it’s not without its downsides.
Disconnecting the tubes from the cooler seems to introduce the biggest possible issues,
because when you do this there’s a small amount of leakage that needs to be wiped off.
You need to carefully hold the laptop a certain way and
be careful to avoid water dripping into the air vents or other ports.
Liquid shouldn’t just flow out everywhere after disconnection until you start tilting it left and
right. It’s recommended that you drain the laptop before transportation, however there’s a rubber
seal over the rear holes of the laptop so you don’t have to get absolutely every last drop, but
it’s also not recommended to keep it full either in case it comes loose in your bag or something.
As the disconnect process removes some liquid from the system, you’ll need to top it up over
time. There’s a narrow window on the front of the Oasis unit so you can check the fill
level. Total liquid volume including what’s in the laptop is about 230ml, but there’s a
big range between minimum and optimum reservoir fill levels. The circuit inside the laptop alone
holds about 20ml of liquid, so it depends if you’re fully draining that with each disconnect
or just plugging it up straight away, and that choice I think depends on your risk tolerance.
For the coolant you can just use the same sort of stuff that you’d
put in a liquid cooled desktop PC. XMG are suggesting EK’s Cryofuel,
and they also suggest sticking to just one kind of coolant rather than
mixing and matching as that might cause issues in future. But all of the metal components on
the inside that come into contact with the liquid are aluminum so there shouldn’t be any corrosion.
The connector on the laptop is designed to be compatible with future laptop models,
but also possible larger coolers in future could be compatible too. This is meant to
be a forward thinking design and not a one off proof of concept,
however that said future products will depend on the success of this one.
To help reduce potential problems, XMG are offering a free checkup within the
warranty period, otherwise it’s 59 euros plus taxes if you’re outside of Germany,
and this involves them inspecting the hardware for defects, cleaning it,
replacing thermal paste, and benchmarks to make sure it’s all working as expected.
So, who is something like this for? Obviously the actual Oasis unit
isn’t anywhere near as portable as just the laptop by itself,
so I’d imagine you’d probably leave the cooler at home or something and just dock with it.
The way I see it, it’s for enthusiasts that want the best temperatures,
performance and lower fan noise in the environment they’re gaming or working in,
while still having the option to disconnect and go portable if needed.
I also really like the fact that the Neo 15 just comes with the extra pipe built in by default, so
everyone’s got the option of upgrading to a water cooled setup in future.
Combined with the fact that XMG are saying the actual Oasis unit itself
shouldn’t exceed 200 Euros, I don’t think it’s too expensive for what’s on offer.
At least when you consider the laptop with these specs is targeting 2500 euro,
so less than 10% extra to add on liquid cooling.
Both the Neo 15 and Oasis will be available for pre-order at the end of January and they’ll start
shipping in mid February. Now there is definitely extra work with a setup like this, especially when
it comes time to disconnect. That’s probably why a lot of other companies aren’t offering liquid
cooled laptops. But at the same time, there’s no denying that the end results aren’t awesome.
You can get lower fan noise, lower temperatures and more performance
out of your hardware and I honestly can’t wait to test out the Oasis.
You’re definitely going to want to make sure you’re subscribed for when I get it into
review. But while you wait for that one you can check out the rest of the gaming laptops
coming this year in my CES 2022 coverage, so I’ll see you over in another video next.