The Eluktronics RP-15 might just be the coolest Ryzen based gaming laptop I’ve tested so
far, let’s find out what level of performance is on offer and see how hot it runs.
These are the specs we’re looking at, so Ryzen 7 4800H CPU, Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics
and dual channel memory.
Air comes in through the large vents underneath which are positioned above the fans, it then
gets exhausted out of the left and right sides towards the back, as well as from the back
corners.
There are a couple of fans inside with two heatpipes shared between the CPU and GPU,
but it also looks like we’ve got some VRM coverage.
The gaming center software lets you select between different performance modes, which
from lowest to highest are office mode, game mode and turbo mode.
In office mode you can also toggle standard or ECO which lowers the CPU power limit, while
game and turbo modes have a fan boost button to set the fans to max speed.
Turbo mode also enables Eluktroboost, which should get the RTX 2060 boosting up to 110
watts.
Software doesn’t report the boost from 90 to 110 watts on the GPU when you enable turbo
mode, but by monitoring the power draw from the wall it was possible to see the difference,
plus the GPU gets hotter too as a result of the increased power.
There’s also a button above the keyboard to quickly swap between these different modes,
and I didn’t find any GPU overclocking to be done with these different modes.
Thermals were tested with a 21 degree Celsius ambient room temperature.
Idle results down the bottom were a bit warm, but no problem there, we’ll listen to fan
noise a bit later.
Worst case stress tests were done with the Aida64 CPU stress test with CPU only checked
and the Heaven benchmark at max settings at the same time, while gaming was tested with
Watch Dogs 2 as I find it to use a good combination of processor and graphics.
Office mode with ECO enabled was the coolest, changing from ECO to standard increases the
temperatures as fan noise stays the same but power limits increase, so better performance
at the expense of more heat, but still not really hot yet.
In game mode the CPU gets hotter due to further increase to the power limit, but the GPU gets
a bit cooler as a result of the increased fan speed.
In turbo mode the GPU was actually thermal throttling at 86 degrees Celsius, whether
under stress test or while gaming, as a reminder this is the eluktroboost mode.
It was possible to lower the temperatures by around 15 degrees on the CPU by limiting
the processor to base clock speed, or we could instead use a cooling pad, which helped nicely
too thanks to the large vents underneath.
These are the average clock speeds while running the same tests.
The GPU clock speed only really changes once we enable turbo mode, as this boosts the max
power limit of the 2060 up to 110 watts.
The CPU was otherwise hitting 4.0 to 4.1GHz on all 8 cores at stock in game or turbo modes,
a good result.
Of course capping to base clock limits this to 2.9GHz, which was only a little below using
ECO mode.
You’re going to have to take the GPU power values here with a grain of salt, as hardware
info does not report the boosting to 110 watts in turbo mode, interestingly the GPU power
is reporting as lower than 90 watts in turbo mode as it was apparently thermal throttling
at 86 degrees as we saw earlier, but again not too sure on the accuracy of the GPU results.
Office mode with ECO enabled caps the processor to 25 watts, standard mode seems to let it
run around 40 watts or so, then in turbo mode we’re able to get up to 50, so much more
compared to the 36 watts I saw best case with the ASUS TUF A15, while also running cooler.
Let’s actually see how games perform with these different settings.
I’ve tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider with the highest setting preset using the game’s
benchmark tool.
This test tends to be more GPU heavy, and the difference isn’t that big between the
different levels.
Even with the lowest office mode with ECO we’re still reaching above 70 FPS, and turbo
gave the biggest boost, presumably due to the extra GPU power with eluktroboost.
If you want to see more gaming benchmarks from the Eluktronics RP-15 gaming laptop,
check the card in the top right or link in the description where I’ve tested 20 games
at all setting levels.
In a CPU only stress test with the GPU now idle, we’re able to reach much higher power
levels on the processor, these are the highest power levels for a 4800H I’ve seen so far,
for brief comparison the TUF A15 topped out at 47 watts in the same test.
The temperatures are only a couple of degrees hotter than the TUF in this test too, and
by either limiting the CPU power in ECO mode or by capping the base clock speed we could
bring the temperatures lower, though this of course comes at the expense of lower clock
speeds.
We’re pretty much able to get 4.1GHz on all 8 cores in this stress test, again for
comparison the A15 got to 3.8GHz in this same test.
I’ve used Cinebench to show you how these different modes perform, it looks like ECO
mode makes more sense than limiting to base clock, not only are the fans quieter, but
ECO mode doesn’t sacrifice single core performance.
When we compare the RP-15 to other laptops we can see just how much of an advantage these
higher power limits are giving it.
It’s scoring around 10% higher in the multicore score over all other Ryzen 7 4800H machines
that I’ve tested, only being beaten by far thicker and much more expensive machines,
a seriously impressive result.
As for the external temperatures where you’ll actually be putting your hands, at idle in
office plus ECO mode it’s on the warmer side, most laptops are 30 degrees in this
test, but even so it barely felt warm.
With the stress tests going in the same mode it was a bit warmer in the center, by enabling
standard mode it’s a little warmer, which makes sense as this boosts CPU power limit
without changing fan speed.
In game mode it’s a bit cooler now as the fan speed increases, then in turbo mode it’s
pretty similar, warm in the middle but not hot and cool wrist rests, let’s have a listen
to the fans.
It sounded silent at idle, I just have a high noise floor.
The fan is audible when just browsing in Chrome.
Stress tests in standard mode were the same regardless of whether ECO or standard modes
were selected, then game and turbo modes are the same and maxed out in these particular
tests.
I didn’t need to test game and turbo modes separately with fan boost enabled and disabled,
as I found them to reach maximum fan speed under these CPU plus GPU workloads anyway.
So far, the Eluktronics RP-15 is the best Ryzen based gaming laptop I’ve tested when
it comes to thermals and performance.
The temperatures are a fair bit cooler when compared with others I’ve tested so far
such as the ASUS TUF A15 or Dell G5 special edition, I’m mainly referring to CPU temperatures,
but there are still quite a few other interesting models I need to get my hands on.
The only concern I had was the thermal throttling on the GPU in turbo mode, but I suppose that’s
just part of boosting the GPU above 90 watts.
It might also help explain why the RP-15 was a few frames behind the TUF A15 with 90 watt
2060 graphics, I mean it’s not a big difference, but with a higher wattage GPU, and better
CPU performance, I thought it would do a bit better here, regardless these differences
aren’t amounts you’d notice in practice.
I asked why the 90 watt 2060 was used with Eluktroboost up to 110 watts instead of just
the new 115 watt 2060 that Nvidia are offering, and was told that the extra 5 watts for the
GPU offered very little performance difference.
Basically this choice this allows more power to be reserved for the CPU instead, which
as we saw did have high limits and was destroying the other 4800H machines I’ve tested.
The big open vents on the bottom gives us the option to drop the temperatures significantly
with a cooling pad or stand, we can still get pretty good performance while running
with lower fans in office mode too if you prefer having a quieter system, so I didn’t
find much reason to cap the processor to base clock, but that’s an option too.
Let me know what you thought about the thermals from the Eluktronics RP-15 gaming laptop down
in the comments, and if you’re new to the channel you’ll definitely want to get subscribed
for the upcoming full review to find out everything about this machine.