Intel Launches NUC X15 Reference Gaming Laptops

[Uskompuf]

Intel have recently launched five NUC X15 Laptop Kits featuring Tiger Lake processors and NVIDIA RTX 30 Series graphics. The Intel NUC laptops are sold direct to system integrators without memory or storage and are not available for direct consumer purchase so availability and pricing are unknown. Intel has two processor options available with the Core i5-11400H and i7-11800H paired with an RTX 3060 or RTX 3070 graphics card. The three display options all feature narrow bezel IPS panels and are available in 144 Hz FHD, 240 Hz FHD, and 165 Hz QHD configurations. The laptops all feature mechanical keyboards with RGB lighting, WiFi 6, Thunderbolt 4, PCIe Gen 4 storage, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 2.1, Windows Hello, and a 94 Wh battery.



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[excessiveobserver]

Intel is still the king of mobile computing

 

[eidairaman1]

Intel is still the king of mobile computing

You crack me up

 

[Space Lynx]

wait, these laptops are like actually made by Intel? the entire laptop? no third party at all? who makes the mobo, Intel official not like a third party Eurocom mobo?

I wasn't aware Intel or AMD ever in history made a gaming laptop... without third party help... I am so confused right now

 

[Flanker]

I guess the timing couldn't wait for their own GPUs

wait, these laptops are like actually made by Intel? the entire laptop? no third party at all? who makes the mobo, Intel official not like a third party Eurocom mobo?

I wasn't aware Intel or AMD ever in history made a gaming laptop... without third party help... I am so confused right now

Probably designed it and have it made by Foxconn, Pegatron or some other OEM

 

[Space Lynx]

I guess the timing couldn't wait for their own GPUs

yeah I agree, would have made more sense to wait for their mobile gpu next year and then have an all official Intel laptop, intel cpu, intel mobo, and intel gpu all in one package. and market it with a clean look to directly compete with Apple. Apple still has one major flaw, it really can't game that well.

 

[Tomorrow]

I wish they sold one without the GPU. That way i could buy my own memory and storage and keep the costs reasonable. Im not gaming on a laptop anyway so the iGPU is good enough.

 

[Space Lynx]

I wish they sold one without the GPU. That way i could buy my own memory and storage and keep the costs reasonable. Im not gaming on a laptop anyway so the iGPU is good enough.

there are plenty of brands that already offer that at a variety of price ranges, what is the appeal of the Intel NUC official to you? I am asking out of genuine curiosity.

 

[Tomorrow]

there are plenty of brands that already offer that at a variety of price ranges, what is the appeal of the Intel NUC official to you? I am asking out of genuine curiosity.

Yes but most if not all of these assume people want low end cheap stuff. Powerful CPU's, good keyboards and high refresh rate displays are limited to laptops with a dGPU. So essentially i have to pay extra for something i will not use and that consumes battery (unless im able to force everything to use iGPU).

Maybe im odd but i think the priorities are a bit screwed up. iGPU is forced on desktop (even the F models still have it) where i absolutely dont need it and could use extra cache or cores (unless going with Ryzen) and dGPU is forced on mobile (if you want other high end features) where i dont need it.

Is it really so hard to believe that some people want a laptop with a powerful CPU that is easy to take apart and upgrade while having high refresh rate for smooth experience even on an iGPU?

That is why something like NUC laptop that lacks dGPU would appeal to me.

 

[katzi]

WTF are those model names omg lol...

 

[Arcdar]

Yes but most if not all of these assume people want low end cheap stuff. Powerful CPU's, good keyboards and high refresh rate displays are limited to laptops with a dGPU. So essentially i have to pay extra for something i will not use and that consumes battery (unless im able to force everything to use iGPU).

Maybe im odd but i think the priorities are a bit screwed up. iGPU is forced on desktop (even the F models still have it) where i absolutely dont need it and could use extra cache or cores (unless going with Ryzen) and dGPU is forced on mobile (if you want other high end features) where i dont need it.

Is it really so hard to believe that some people want a laptop with a powerful CPU that is easy to take apart and upgrade while having high refresh rate for smooth experience even on an iGPU?

That is why something like NUC laptop that lacks dGPU would appeal to me.

I totally agree with this. I'd also rather have Desktop CPU's specialized on certain use-cases (low end with iGPU which are anyway mostly used for office and streaming purposes, high performance parts without iGPU as they are in general paired with a dGPU anyway but for that the space on the DIE is used for more cache - cores are enough by now ) and mobile with high end CPU with good quality screen, case and laptop without dGPU for long battery life with a high quality overall product for long use....

I really enjoyed the first MS-Book with its tablet/laptop option where the keyboard was only for more battery and having the keyboard (if you bought it without the dGPU) which gave it a pretty decent battery-life, good overall build quality and feel. But here you also only got the best CPU option with a dGPU again *sigh* ... I also had an old Asus (Vivobook? or something like that) which was one of the first gen. of ultrabooks, with a decent cpu (again not the biggest model but at least the 2nd biggest one was available without the "gaming gpu") and a pretty small dGPU that didn't use too much battery .... also not "perfect" (as iGPU would have been just as good and even more power saving) but ... at least it was small, light, full aluminum body and lasted a very very long time (battery wise and lifetime overall).


Sadly right now you can't chose "high quality parts and finish without dGPU" - you can only chose "cheap whatever it is without igpu", " """buisiness""" laptops with mediocre hardware and finish" or "high end gaming" with good hardware choices and finish but ONLY combined with dGPU and thus lower / crappy battery life....

 

[Chrispy_]

Doesn't say if the displays are VRR or not.
Honestly, for laptops where GPU performance is limited by thermals, VRR is possibly more important than high refresh rates.

 

[dyonoctis]

Yes but most if not all of these assume people want low end cheap stuff. Powerful CPU's, good keyboards and high refresh rate displays are limited to laptops with a dGPU. So essentially i have to pay extra for something i will not use and that consumes battery (unless im able to force everything to use iGPU).

Maybe im odd but i think the priorities are a bit screwed up. iGPU is forced on desktop (even the F models still have it) where i absolutely dont need it and could use extra cache or cores (unless going with Ryzen) and dGPU is forced on mobile (if you want other high end features) where i dont need it.

Is it really so hard to believe that some people want a laptop with a powerful CPU that is easy to take apart and upgrade while having high refresh rate for smooth experience even on an iGPU?

That is why something like NUC laptop that lacks dGPU would appeal to me.

Well, that's the thing: "some people" isn't enough. Laptop makers don't want to have a stock of a product that doesn't sell that well because the majority of the consumers are not interested in the features (or lack of) offered.

If you want a premium laptop with an iGPU you'll mostly find thin and light laptop meant for office work, with a long battery life, where a Tiger lake H core i7 is overkill, and right now High refresh rate on windows doesn't mix well with long battery life, High refresh rate phone have a dynamic refresh rate that adjust to what the user is doing. (but that might change with windows 11)
Dynamic refresh rate – Get the best of both worlds | DirectX Developer Blog (microsoft.com)

If there's a powerful CPU, the mindset is to offer a balanced machine, there's many software that are performing better with GPU acceleration, and it's better to assume that the end user will use those kind of software rather than not, especially since you can't upgrade if your needs evolved.

Trying to make a product for every single type of user is a ressources nightmare, if you don't produce them en mass, it's going to be more expensive, if your overestimate the demand, you'll have overstock, and those core i7 could have ended up in laptops that sells better.

And about the battery life, nowadays laptops with a dGPU are faring way better than they used to. 12h47 with something like a RTX3050 was unheard of just a couple of years ago.

 

[Flanker]

Yes but most if not all of these assume people want low end cheap stuff. Powerful CPU's, good keyboards and high refresh rate displays are limited to laptops with a dGPU. So essentially i have to pay extra for something i will not use and that consumes battery (unless im able to force everything to use iGPU).

Maybe im odd but i think the priorities are a bit screwed up. iGPU is forced on desktop (even the F models still have it) where i absolutely dont need it and could use extra cache or cores (unless going with Ryzen) and dGPU is forced on mobile (if you want other high end features) where i dont need it.

Is it really so hard to believe that some people want a laptop with a powerful CPU that is easy to take apart and upgrade while having high refresh rate for smooth experience even on an iGPU?

That is why something like NUC laptop that lacks dGPU would appeal to me.

Haha it was many years ago I bought a Dell laptop and could do some customization. I said to the sales rep I wanted a i7 sandy bridge and no dGPU, I swear I heard his head explode through the phone

 

[Tomorrow]

Indeed and that is why eGPU solutions never really took off. Pairing a powerful eGPU with a gaming laptop that already has dGPU makes little sense. But pairing it with a good laptop with a powerful CPU is not possible because generally the best CPU's are reserved for dGPU laptops. And hence using eGPU for it's intended usecase would mean massive CPU bottleneck and horrible frametimes.

For example out of 76 Ryzen 9 laptops only 3 do not have an iGPU. Two are Lenovo Yoga 7 Pro models that for some idiotic reason come with Win10 Home. If a product has a Pro in the name the least it could do is pair it with a Pro version of OS too. Atleast the screen is 90Hz so better than average 60Hz. Tho it still costs 1200€+
And then theres one ASUS TUF model with a 144Hz screen but it has horrible 62% sRGB coverage so goodbye decent colors and last gen 4900HS CPU as opposed to 5900HX on Lenovo's models.

It is even worse in the Intel camp where there are only two i9 models without a dGPU. One is last gen 10885H and one 11950H. Both with 60Hz screens and price tags 2700/3200€. 11980HK is limited to 10 models. All with a dGPU's that raise the prices above 4000€. Just stupid.

Well, that's the thing: "some people" isn't enough. Laptop makers don't want to have a stock of a product that doesn't sell that well because the majority of the consumers are not interested in the features (or lack of) offered.

If you want a premium laptop with an iGPU you'll mostly find thin and light laptop meant for office work, with a long battery life, where a Tiger lake H core i7 is overkill, and right now High refresh rate on windows doesn't mix well with long battery life, High refresh rate phone have a dynamic refresh rate that adjust to what the user is doing. (but that might change with windows 11)
Dynamic refresh rate – Get the best of both worlds | DirectX Developer Blog (microsoft.com)

If there's a powerful CPU, the mindset is to offer a balanced machine, there's many software that are performing better with GPU acceleration, and it's better to assume that the end user will use those kind of software rather than not, especially since you can't upgrade if your needs evolved.

Trying to make a product for every single type of user is a ressources nightmare, if you don't produce them en mass, it's going to be more expensive, if your overestimate the demand, you'll have overstock, and those core i7 could have ended up in laptops that sells better.

It's the chicken and egg problem. If you only sell eggs then ofcourse everyone will buy eggs. No on wants to be the odd guy out asking for chickens.

Same thing happened in the smartphone market with phones with <5" screens and powerful internals. People did not stop buying them. Just manufacturers started pushing phablet size phones with bigger price tags and now you basicly cant even buy such small phones even if you wanted to. And i doubt most would want to having been conditioned to buy bigger and bigger. Plus the only options being a few gen old S10e or newer Zenfone 8 as only options (both barely under 6"). Well iPhone 12 Mini too from the Apple camp (will not get a successor because of...poor sales). Or if there are such small ones they a seriously lacking in terms of memory, storage, SoC or all of the above with the exception of the 3 mentioned above.

 

[dyonoctis]

It's the chicken and egg problem. If you only sell eggs then ofcourse everyone will buy eggs. No on wants to be the odd guy out asking for chickens.

Same thing happened in the smartphone market with phones with <5" screens and powerful internals. People did not stop buying them. Just manufacturers started pushing phablet size phones with bigger price tags and now you basicly cant even buy such small phones even if you wanted to. And i doubt most would want to having been conditioned to buy bigger and bigger. Plus the only options being a few gen old S10e or newer Zenfone 8 as only options (both barely under 6"). Well iPhone 12 Mini too from the Apple camp (will not get a successor because of...poor sales). Or if there are such small ones they a seriously lacking in terms of memory, storage, SoC or all of the above with the exception of the 3 mentioned above.

True, although you could argue that the way that smartphone are being used right now is different than what it used to be in the 2010's, most companies are designing their product based on data from the customers habits and trends, and try to anticipate: website are getting more visits from mobile devices, and faster network enable new usage.

Data show that Youtube gets 70% of their watch time on mobile, and mobile gaming make lots of money, so they probably though : "if people are doing so much on their phones, they probably want to have bigger screens" and they got better at making them too, a curent 6" phone is smaller than the old 5" phones

To get back on topic, the same thing is happening with laptops: when I was in High school ( around 2006) most SKU were about multimedia, or office. You only had two or three SKU made for gaming. Now there's a dozen of of gaming SKU for each brands zephyrus, strix, rog, omen, legion, nitro, g etc... and all of that is happening in that era where gaming isn't a "basement" hobby anymore, now that you got gamers/streamers being celebrities making millions, so I'm not surprised of the direction that intel is taking right now.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Well, that's the thing: "some people" isn't enough. Laptop makers don't want to have a stock of a product that doesn't sell that well because the majority of the consumers are not interested in the features (or lack of) offered.

If you want a premium laptop with an iGPU you'll mostly find thin and light laptop meant for office work, with a long battery life, where a Tiger lake H core i7 is overkill, and right now High refresh rate on windows doesn't mix well with long battery life, High refresh rate phone have a dynamic refresh rate that adjust to what the user is doing. (but that might change with windows 11)
Dynamic refresh rate – Get the best of both worlds | DirectX Developer Blog (microsoft.com)

If there's a powerful CPU, the mindset is to offer a balanced machine, there's many software that are performing better with GPU acceleration, and it's better to assume that the end user will use those kind of software rather than not, especially since you can't upgrade if your needs evolved.

Trying to make a product for every single type of user is a ressources nightmare, if you don't produce them en mass, it's going to be more expensive, if your overestimate the demand, you'll have overstock, and those core i7 could have ended up in laptops that sells better.

And about the battery life, nowadays laptops with a dGPU are faring way better than they used to. 12h47 with something like a RTX3050 was unheard of just a couple of years ago.
View attachment 215884

It is enough, it's just that, much like big car makers, a niche model isnt profitable ENOUGH. If it doesnt print a billion $$$ they're not interested.

there is absolutely a market though, and the smaller chinese brands fill in that niche. My laptop is one of them, with a 4800H, a 90Wh battery, and no dGPU to speak of. It's fantastic. You dont see Dell, HP, or Lenovo making such a machine though.

 

[dyonoctis]

It is enough, it's just that, much like big car makers, a niche model isnt profitable ENOUGH. If it doesnt print a billion $$$ they're not interested.

there is absolutely a market though, and the smaller chinese brands fill in that niche. My laptop is one of them, with a 4800H, a 90Wh battery, and no dGPU to speak of. It's fantastic. You dont see Dell, HP, or Lenovo making such a machine though.

well there's the Dell Inspiron 16 plus...
6 or 8 core i7, 4k 16:10, 100% sRVB screen, an aluminum body, thunderbolt 4 and you can buy an iGPU only version. But Dell is the only big brand doing such a laptop, and I'm not sure they'll keep that line. They have the habit to shake their line-up at each generation. Some Inpiron are now filling a spot that used to be taken by the lower end XPS (when the latter became much more expensive)
Ordinateur portable Dell Inspiron 16 Plus avec processeur de 11e génération | Dell France

 

[chstamos]

Well at least they're including a basic IR biometric webcamera, whereas with stingy "brand" manufacturers you often have to go all the way to the luxury top-range mad-expensive models for a simple windows hello compatible webcam that probably adds less than 30-40 bucks to the whole cost.

 

[micropage7]

they bring back the thick design? when today many get thinner and lighter than the previous one

 

[StefanM]

wait, these laptops are like actually made by Intel? the entire laptop? no third party at all? who makes the mobo, Intel official not like a third party Eurocom mobo?

Judging from latest driver's ListDevices.txt the barebone is made by Tongfang (8086 = Intel)

nvtf.inf:
DEV_249D&SUBSYS_30188086 "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU"
DEV_2520&SUBSYS_30178086 "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU"

 

[Deleted member 212040]

Do these feature Intel's traditional lap melting technology?

 

[Ferd]

So essentially i have to pay extra for something i will not use and that consumes battery (unless im able to force everything to use iGPU).

I agree, and it only gets worse down the line, few years you’re left with a decent cpu in most cases , but the dgpu is too slow to keep up , the lack of balance is out of their hands and I understand that , but the lack of choice is painful, you know that you’re paying for something that will be gpu bound couple of years later , and it’s worse when it’s not mxm mounted ...