Water cooled gaming laptops are about to get better than ever!
This is the Neo 16 from XMG, and both the laptop and liquid cooler have been redesigned this year!
Along with up to Intel’s 24 core 32 thread Core i9-13900HX CPU and Nvidia’s RTX 4090 graphics
at maximum power limit, performance is going to be next level compared to last year’s 15 inch Neo 15.
The new 16 inch version is actually slightly thinner and not quite as wide, but it’s a
little deeper in order to fit the taller 16:10 screen. But despite that taller 16:10 screen,
there’s still a fair amount of plastic chin below the screen, as it houses the PCB of the screen,
but it also raises the screen up a little so you don’t have to look down as much.
The 2560 by 1600 240Hz screen has G-Sync,
there’s a MUX switch, and it’s got advanced optimus now too.
The touchpad sizes are very similar with the new one ever so slightly smaller,
but with how much extra space is around it now, perhaps it could have been a little bigger.
The battery size has increased from 93Wh last year to 99Wh this year,
and along with the pipe the liquid cooler’s water travels through,
we can see there’s an extra MOSFET and VRM heatpipe now that wasn’t there before.
More heat pipes and bigger batteries apparently don’t come for nothing,
because the Neo 16 is a little heavier compared to last year’s 15.
There’s thermal grizzly conductonaut liquid metal on both the CPU and GPU,
last year it was CPU only but now it’s both.
Otherwise inside we’ve still got two PCIe Gen 4 M.2 storage slots,
removable Wi-Fi 6E card and two memory slots which can support up to DDR5-6400 with XMP.
XMG notes that this laptop will be available with specially optimized
DDR5-6400 CL40 sticks, which I assume will cost more money,
because that’s quite a bit faster compared to last generation’s DDR5-4800 CL40. And higher
than what most other laptops are going to offer this generation for that matter.
Intel’s HX processors are unlocked,
and the BIOS gives you options to customize and tune both the processor and memory.
These are the sorts of performance boosts we’re looking at with the different memory,
based on these results from XMG, for the most part there are some decent improvements,
though it will of course depend on the specific workload and how memory intensive it is.
There’s a mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX ultra low profile switches
with per-key RGB lighting, but it’s an optional upgrade for more money.
By default it’s got a silent membrane keyboard with 4 zones of RGB lighting.
It’s way louder compared to last year’s version,
and my partner summarized it best by saying that it feels like you’re typing on a typewriter,
as the keys do just require more effort to press down.
That said, I liked how it felt and that there’s a little more spacing between
the keys now. They’re not all crammed together like before, but yeah, the new 16 is way louder.
Fort ports the left has a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port and separate 3.5mm mic and headphone jacks,
the right has an SD card slot and two more USB Type-A ports, but slower 3.2 Gen 1 on this side,
then on the back from left to right we’ve got the liquid cooler connector,
Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 Type-C port with DisplayPort 1.4a, HDMI 2.1 output,
2.5 gigabit ethernet, and the power connector.
The ethernet port seems to be the same as last year’s Neo 17,
where it’s got this annoying bit of metal you need to first push down with the cable
before being able to get the cable in. I don’t know, maybe I just didn’t use
it enough to get used to getting that cable in, but I’m not really a fan of that design.
There’s also RGB lighting in the rear ports now, kind of like Lenovo’s Legion 7 from 2022,
but you can of course turn them off if that’s not your thing,
and the front light bar from last year seems to be gone.
The liquid cooler connector doesn’t have a rubber cover over it anymore,
it doesn’t need it because the new one uses a self sealing connector.
This means that it now automatically closes when you pull out the cooler tubes,
and it connects by magnets. Initially I thought that connecting it by magnets
might not be the best idea. What if you accidentally bump it?
After watching Brandon’s hands-on video on the Gizmosliptech channel with Tom from XMG,
it looks like a fair amount of force is needed, and I suppose even if you did accidentally bump
it and disconnect it, it doesn’t really matter. All that should happen is the
laptop might start getting a bit warmer and the fans might start ramping up. Pulling off at any
time seems to just be how you disconnect it now. Another cool thing is that apparently
you don’t need to drain the loop in the laptop when you disconnect it anymore,
so that makes it much more practical to just pull off the cooler and take the laptop straight away.
Apparently it is still possible for some small water droplets to come out during this process,
but overall it sounds like a much nicer improvement. I’ll leave a link to that
hands on video with the cooler below this one, because as you can see I’ve only got the laptop
and not the new cooler yet. And don’t worry if you’ve got a last gen cooler, because you
can still use those with the new laptop. XMG says that you just have to replace the connector tubes.
XMG provided this graph demonstrating the difference between and and liquid cooling with
the new Neo 16. The two lines closer to the bottom show the GPU temperature over time in Timespy,
with the orange line being air and the green line below being liquid, which seems to settle
in about 10 degrees cooler. The lines above represent GPU clock speed, but divided by 10
so they fit on the same graph, so multiply by 10 for the actual clock speed. Again green on water
cooling is doing better, around 400MHz faster after running the test for about 8 minutes.
This graph shows the power usage by the GPU in the same timespy stress
test. It looks like air cooling can still maintain the maximum 175 watt
power limit on the GPU in the timespy stress test, and XMG notes that there’s
a significantly more powerful air cooling system compared to last year’s Neo 15.
That sounds great, but honestly it doesn’t tell the full story,
because without the liquid cooler, the fans would probably be maxed out and running super
loud. I’ve already shown in my own air vs liquid cooling video how much quieter the
laptop can be when on the liquid cooler. Not to mention performing better too!
XMG also provided the same sort of graph for CPU performance with Cinebench. Long term,
it looks like the CPU settles in at just under 90 degrees Celsius,
but the CPU power limit is able to run more than 20 watts higher,
which equals more performance, and not to mention with quieter operation.
XMG also said the 13900HX was scoring above 30000 points in the Cinebench R23 multicore,
but that was with just one single test run. Though in theory, if you
had the liquid cooler connected, I suppose there wouldn’t be any thermal throttling,
so you might also get somewhat close to that with the liquid cooler in a longer test.
The Neo 16 is available with RTX 4060, 4070,
4080 or 4090 GPUs, all with maximum GPU power limit for best performance.
This one is just an engineering sample so I can’t test it yet, but XMG are sending
me 4 of these laptops with all of those GPU options so that I can compare them all fairly.
As for pricing and availability, pre-orders start from the first of February and it’s starting from
2200 Euro with the RTX 4060, which includes 19% VAT. Eluktronics in the US also sell it
as the Mech-16 GP, but they don’t seem to be listing prices just yet, just noting purchase
availability is February. It’s 125 Euro to get the mechanical keyboard, and after the RTX 4070,
the 4080 and 4090 GPU pricing looks pretty crazy! Obviously I haven’t tested them yet so I can’t
say whether or not that’s going to be worth it, but for most people that aren’t made of money,
I’m guessing probably not. High end just always costs more compared to the mid-range sweet spot.
XMG shared this roadmap outlining what models they’ve got coming this year. We’re getting the
Neo 16 and 17 first up, though only the 16 we’ve covered here is a new redesign,
the 17 is an update to last year’s chassis with new specs. And other
new models are also coming in the first quarter of the year.
I’ll be reviewing one of these new laptops very soon, so make sure you’re subscribed!
Until then, you can find out about all the other new gaming laptops coming out this year over
here. There are a lot more interesting models with cool features, I’ll see you in one of those next!