Schenker Announces XMG Core M21 Gaming Laptop with Core i7-11800H and RTX 3060 and CPU Undervolting

[btarunr]

Following the Intel versions of the high-end laptops from the NEO model series, XMG is also revamping the CORE 15 and CORE 17 from the upper mid-range performance sector. The discreetly elegant gaming notebooks combine Intel's Core i7-11800H with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 with maximum TGP. But the upgrade to the new Tiger Lake processors is not only accompanied by the transition to PCI Express 4.0 connections to the graphics card and M.2 SSD. The M21 model generation of the CORE laptops also integrates a Thunderbolt 4 connection for the first time and introduces extended options for CPU undervolting and memory tuning.

Just this January, XMG introduced the E21 model generation of its CORE laptops with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 and either AMD or Intel processors. Following the launch of the new 11th generation Core processors, the Intel-based versions of the XMG CORE 15 and CORE 17 (M21) now receive an update to the latest eight-core CPU i7-11800H. This is still accompanied by a GeForce RTX 3060 in the maximum configuration with a TGP of up to 130 watts, including 15 watts Dynamic Boost 2.0. A MUX switch allows NVIDIA Optimus to be disabled via the BIOS.



In contrast to all previous CORE versions, the graphics card in the M21 models now operates via PCI Express 4.0 and with a full 16 lane connection. AMD-based notebooks currently have to make do with eight PCIe 3.0 lanes.

Both laptops offer a choice between a 144 Hz IPS panel with Full HD resolution and a high-resolution, 165Hz WQHD IPS display with 350 nits and 95 percent coverage of the sRGB colour space.

Dimensions and weight amount to 360.2 x 243.5 x 23 mm and 2.1 kg (XMG CORE 15) and 395.7 x 263.6 x 30.05 mm and around 2.5 kg (XMG CORE 17). The elegant and discreet appearance is still characterised by the undercover gaming design, without excessive RGB lighting elements. The webcam is placed on the upper edge of the display, and both laptops integrate a 62 Wh battery. The 15.6 inch model additionally features a display lid and a top shell made of aluminium.

M21 model update adds CPU undervolting and RAM tuning
The XMG Control Center now offers experienced users the possibility to manually adjust the voltage of the Core i7-11800H. A freely adjustable undervolting range of up to -100 mV allows the optimal setting to be sounded out for quieter, cooler and thus ultimately faster operation in the long run. There is also more room for adjustment in the opposite direction: the setting options allow the regular 45 watt power limit of the Core i7-11800H to be lifted in order to be able to call up more power when the system demands it.

As the third pillar of comprehensive tuning options for the CORE 15 and CORE 17, XMG introduces extended manual control of the RAM settings. All relevant RAM timings can now be individually set in the BIOS.

M.2 SSD connection via PCIe 4.0 and, for the first time in XMG CORE, Thunderbolt 4
Two RAID-capable M.2 slots for fast PCI Express SSDs enable the use of up to 16 TB of high-performance storage. Due to the modern Tiger Lake platform, the primary M.2 slot already has a PCIe 4.0 connection via four lanes. More speed is also available for the memory: while the Comet Lake-based XMG CORE supported a maximum of 2933 MHz DDR4 modules in SO-DIMM format, the new model can hold up to 64 GB DDR4-3200.

Another highlight: for the first time, XMG integrates a Thunderbolt 4 port in its upper mid-range laptops. Until now, the CORE laptops only offered conventional USB-C. In addition, there are three USB-A ports, HDMI 2.1, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, an SDXC card reader and separate audio jacks for headphones and a microphone. To ensure precise inputs, XMG has installed a Microsoft Precision-compliant touchpad and a keyboard with adjustable RGB lighting and Fn-Lock control for the F-keys.

Price and availability
The starting configuration of the XMG CORE 15 (M21) and XMG CORE 17 (M21), which can be freely configured at bestware.com, includes Intel's Core i7-11800H, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 8 GB DDR4-3200, a 250 GB Kingston A2000 SSD and a Full HD IPS display running at 144 Hz. The prices of the laptops, which are expected to be available for order and shipping from the beginning of July, start from 1,579 (CORE 15) and 1,599 Euros (CORE 17) incl. 19% VAT (in some countries different tax rates apply). An upgrade to the high-resolution WQHD display is available for an additional € 79.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[MKRonin]

Just...no.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

This is like Apple levels of BS right here...

You deliberately engineer a defect into the product -- in this case the problem is HEAT.

Then you engineer a solution into the product in the most lazy way possible and say "Yeah, that will be another $500 for the privilege"

They could have just overbuilt the cooling solution a little more to deal with the heat. Added more vapour chambers, fans, heatpipes. But no, We are going to make the laptop super hot then allow you the ability to undervolt.

 

[watzupken]

While it’s nice to have the ability to undervolt laptop processors, Schenker basically just acknowledged that,
1. Intel Tiger Lake pulls too much power, and consequently is going to run too hot,

2. They had to compromise cooling to make the laptop light and slim. So by allowing you the option to undervolt, it’s like passing the problem to their buyers.
Sadly, I am not sure if the vast majority of laptop buyers will be savvy enough to fiddle with undervolting. So I rather they build a system with a cooling that is fit for purpose in the first place and put slim and light as a secondary consideration. People buying gaming laptops should expect some compromise when it comes to form factor and weight.

 

[XMG Support]

Guys, just because you can undervolt, doesn't mean you have to.

Before the consumer tech world got polarized between Intel and AMD fans, the audience would have applauded OEMs who give tuning power into the hands of knowledgabe end-users. While most OEMs have restricted Undervolting (in some cases with after-sales BIOS updates) in the wake of 2019's (highly academic) Plundervolt reveal, we have continued to fight with Intel and our ODMs to give our users the ability to do undervolting on their systems, either via a simple drop-down menu in BIOS setup or a slider in Control Center.

Screenshot from XMG CORE and NEO with Intel Core 11th Gen:

It's so simple, even a Technological Technocrat can do it!

Just because a systems is running well at stock voltage doesn't mean it's not awesome to be able to make it run even better with undervolting. Don't you agree?

About a year ago, we ran this poll in our sub-reddit:

This clearly shows that there is demand for tuning options, no matter how good our thermal solutions are. Because 'better' is better than 'good'.

If you want to learn more about our Control Center for XMG CORE and NEO (both Intel and AMD), check out this thread.

If you want to learn more about the cooling solution of our XMG CORE series: review samples with Tiger Lake have been sent out and you can soon check the first reviews.

Here is a little preview without Undervolting with maxed-out Power Limits in 3DMark Time Spy, Prime95 and The Witcher 3:

Polling Rate 2000ms in HWiNFO64. Length:

• Time Spy: 6 minutes
• Prime95: 15 minutes
• Witcher 3: 14 minutes

We are open for questions.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[VEGGIM]

This is like Apple levels of BS right here...

You deliberately engineer a defect into the product -- in this case the problem is HEAT.

Then you engineer a solution into the product in the most lazy way possible and say "Yeah, that will be another $500 for the privilege"

They could have just overbuilt the cooling solution a little more to deal with the heat. Added more vapour chambers, fans, heatpipes. But no, We are going to make the laptop super hot then allow you the ability to undervolt.

They didn't add vaperchambers because that would make it heavy. And tell that totongfang not xmg. they are the ones who have control over it, also there is no way you are going to fit 4 fans in a 15 inch unless you move everything to the bottom or solder something. Pcb sizes has its limit you know

 

[Caring1]

Guys, just because you can undervolt, doesn't mean you have to.
Screenshot from XMG CORE and NEO with Intel Core 11th Gen:
Just because a systems is running well at stock voltage doesn't mean it's not awesome to be able to make it run even better with undervolting.
Here is a little preview without Undervolting with maxed-out Power Limits in 3DMark Time Spy, Prime95 and The Witcher 3:

View attachment 204154

View attachment 204155

View attachment 204156

We are open for questions.

Cheers,
Tom

Those charts only show to me that with better cooling the power limits can be increased.
By capping the power limit you are constraining the device to fit within a certain thermal envelope.

 

[GamerGuy]

How much does that cost though? I'm looking at an all AMD Advantage laptop, like the Asus ROG Strix G15, with a 5900HX + 16GB RAM + RX 6800M which should be pretty good for gaming. I may be going overseas for an extended stay, so a good gaming laptop is fast becoming a priority.

 

[nguyen]

With the same power limit (45W for laptop CPU), undervolting meaning you will get 5-10% extra performance depending on how much you can undervolt, basically free performance upgrade, I don't get why there are people complaining about this.
This is can shown with Cinebench, with the TDP untouched, undervolting will give you 10% higher score, i'm not even kidding. Tuning your laptop can be quite fun too, where everything you do will result in noticeable performance uplift or noise reduction (changing the TIM, undervolting CPU and GPU, adding a cooling pad, etc...).

 

[watzupken]

With the same power limit (45W for laptop CPU), undervolting meaning you will get 5-10% extra performance depending on how much you can undervolt, basically free performance upgrade, I don't get why there are people complaining about this.
This is can shown with Cinebench, with the TDP untouched, undervolting will give you 10% higher score, i'm not even kidding.

There is no dispute about the potential benefit that undervolting can bring to the table. I certainly would like the feature, and as someone pointed out earlier, I really wanted this feature in my last Intel based gaming laptop from Clevo, but it is not available without flashing the system with a custom BIOS then. I've not seen the cooling capability of this laptop, but if you have good cooling + the ability to undervolt, that's the best combination. However if they are offering this feature while scrimping on cooling (which seems to be the case because from the weight, it kind of tells you something's got to give), then that's not ideal. Again, I don't believe a lot of laptop buyers are tech savvy to know what or how to undervolt. Moving the slider is easy for sure, but first they need to know what the slider does, and in case they run into instability due to excessive undervolting, what should the user do. The fortunate thing is that undervolting is unlikely to kill the system, but overdoing it will crash the system under load.

They didn't add vaperchambers because that would make it heavy. And tell that totongfang not xmg. they are the ones who have control over it, also there is no way you are going to fit 4 fans in a 15 inch unless you move everything to the bottom or solder something. Pcb sizes has its limit you know

The OEM is TongFang, but Schenker have the option not to select this chassis. It is a choice they can make. As to PCB size, I agree that there is a limit to how small it can get. But hey, you can have a slightly thicker chassis to accommodate a thicker heatsink and fan right? The chase for slimmer and lighter laptops generally runs counter to the cooling capability of the laptop. I am not asking for a laptop that is as thick as a brick, but adding that few mm to the thickness and grams to weight may result in a laptop that have a better cooling solution.

 

[nguyen]

There is no dispute about the potential benefit that undervolting can bring to the table. I certainly would like the feature, and as someone pointed out earlier, I really wanted this feature in my last Intel based gaming laptop from Clevo, but it is not available without flashing the system with a custom BIOS then. I've not seen the cooling capability of this laptop, but if you have good cooling + the ability to undervolt, that's the best combination. However if they are offering this feature while scrimping on cooling (which seems to be the case because from the weight, it kind of tells you something's got to give), then that's not ideal. Again, I don't believe a lot of laptop buyers are tech savvy to know what or how to undervolt. Moving the slider is easy for sure, but first they need to know what the slider does, and in case they run into instability due to excessive undervolting, what should the user do. The fortunate thing is that undervolting is unlikely to kill the system, but overdoing it will crash the system under load.

That's why you should look at reviews before buying laptop, reviewers will tell you how all those laptop perform with stock settings (no undervolt). If any laptop that perform poorly at stocks config (low performance, high fan noise), no amount of undervolting can fix it. However if a laptop perform very similar to others but has the ability to undervolt, then that is a bonus point.

 

[phanbuey]

Guys, just because you can undervolt, doesn't mean you have to.

Before the consumer tech world got polarized between Intel and AMD fans, the audience would have applauded OEMs who give tuning power into the hands of knowledgabe end-users. While most OEMs have restricted Undervolting (in some cases with after-sales BIOS updates) in the wake of 2019's (highly academic) Plundervolt reveal, we have continued to fight with Intel and our ODMs to give our users the ability to do undervolting on their systems, either via a simple drop-down menu in BIOS setup or a slider in Control Center.

Screenshot from XMG CORE and NEO with Intel Core 11th Gen:

View attachment 204152

It's so simple, even a Technological Technocrat can do it!

Just because a systems is running well at stock voltage doesn't mean it's not awesome to be able to make it run even better with undervolting. Don't you agree?

About a year ago, we ran this poll in our sub-reddit:

View attachment 204153

This clearly shows that there is demand for tuning options, no matter how good our thermal solutions are. Because 'better' is better than 'good'.

If you want to learn more about our Control Center for XMG CORE and NEO (both Intel and AMD), check out this thread.

If you want to learn more about the cooling solution of our XMG CORE series: review samples with Tiger Lake have been sent out and you can soon check the first reviews.

Here is a little preview without Undervolting with maxed-out Power Limits in 3DMark Time Spy, Prime95 and The Witcher 3:

View attachment 204154

View attachment 204155

View attachment 204156

Polling Rate 2000ms in HWiNFO64. Length:

• Time Spy: 6 minutes
• Prime95: 15 minutes
• Witcher 3: 14 minutes

We are open for questions.

Cheers,
Tom

Very nice.