Liquid metal WLP: XMG Neo 17 switches to 8 cores and a 62 Wh battery

XMG Neo 17 Laptop

The notebook series XMG Neo 15 and Neo 17 are offered by Schenker Technologies henceforth with Intel’s eight-core notebook CPU Core i7-10875H with 45-watt TDP. The larger of the two notebooks is even exclusive. The new entry price is 1,754 euros.

A CPU upgrade for the XMG Neo 17 as product maintenance

The gaming notebooks of the XMG family, the Neo 15 and the Neo 17 based on Intel Comet Lake-H processors, presented in an updated version at the beginning of April by Schenker, receive a new upgrade after only a few months. Instead of offering the Core i7-10750H alone with six cores, the 15-inch as well as the 17-inch model can now be ordered with the higher clocking eight-core Core i7-10875H (test).

The two more cores offering and overall faster H-CPU of the 45-watt line (TDP) with a boost clock of up to 5.1 GHz is combined with the 17-inch display simultaneously to the standard. In addition, the larger of the two XMG neo-models will always be delivered with an increased battery from 46 to 62 watt hours in the future.

6-core CPU continues to be the entry point in the 15-inch Neo

In contrast, the 15-inch offshoot with a 93 watt-hour battery remains the king in terms of capacity. In addition, Schenker does not make the CPU upgrade for the 15-inch model standard and continues to offer the six-core model Core i7-10750H in the basic configuration in combination with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 refresh. The choice of the GPU will otherwise remain unchanged. XMG Neo 15 and Neo 17 are as before optionally configurable with GeForce RTX 2060 Refresh, RTX 2070 Refresh and RTX 2070 Super in the Max-P version, which is granted the highest possible power budget of up to 115 watts.

Liquid metal thermal compound for the CPU remains an advantage

In the course of the product refresh, Schenker once again points out the advantages of the installed cooling solution. The used liquid metal thermal compound for the CPU, which remains a basic building block for the notebooks, is now named. Thermal Grizzly’s "Conductonaut" is used as an alternative to classic silicone-based thermal compound and produces heat transfer between the CPU and the cooler. The biggest advantage is an improved heat dissipation and thus associated lower temperatures at identical fan speed, whereby the CPU can achieve on average higher clock rates, especially at high multi-core load. Proprietary measurements should illustrate the differences in CPU performance and temperature.

Schenker has also considered the disadvantages of liquid metal and does not promise any restrictions on the XMG Neo 15 and Neo17 due to special adjustments.

In order to prevent one of the greatest reservations regarding the use of liquid metal, the carrier plate of the processors is provided with a special foam material, which absorbs the liquefied heat conducting material in case of need and prevents leakage. A particularly strict quality control with regard to the flatness of the heat sink ensures that the cooling system and the liquid metal work together at optimum pressure.

As a further small but not insignificant detail when using liquid metal, the "cold plate" of the CPU cooling unit is additionally nickel-plated in order to prevent undesired chemical reactions between the normally uncured copper and liquid metal. According to Schenker, even after several years of intensive use of the XMG Neo, the required cooling capacity remains. Compared to silicone pastes, a new application of the heat conducting agent is not necessary, which speaks for a high long-term durability of the container.

With VAT reduction the XMG Neo 17 costs from 1.754 Euro

The XMG Neo 15 and equally the XMG Neo 17 remain unchanged in the equipment apart from the mentioned adjustments. The built-in full HD displays are 240 Hz fast, Thunderbolt 3, Wi-Fi 6 and an optomechanical keyboard are also features of the gaming notebooks. At 1,754 euros, the new entry-level price of the faster XMG Neo 17 is around 50 euros higher than before. By contrast, the starting price of the XMG Neo 15 has fallen by almost 50 euros to 1,608 euros including 16 percent VAT.