Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review

Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review
15 min read
02 November 2020

This laptop is smaller and lighter  compared to most others considering   the powerful specs it’s packing. It’s known  as the MAX-15 from Eluktronics in the US,   and sold here in Australia as  the Vapor 15X from Aftershock. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewYou can customize it when ordering. The build quality feels nice, it’s  got a silver magnesium alloy finish   on both the lid and interior,  and no sharp corners or edges. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThe weight is listed at 1.7kg and  mine was around this or 3.9lb,   then 2.6kg or 5.8lb with the  230w power brick and cables. It’s on the smaller side for a 15” gaming laptop  with these specs, coming in under 2cm thick. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewIt’s got a 15.6” 1080p 240Hz display, no G-Sync  or FreeSync though. There’s an option in the   BIOS to enable or disable optimus though, and  this will give a performance boost in games.

I’ve measured the average grey-to-grey  response time at 4.6ms.Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review It’s one of the best response times  out of the laptops that I’ve testedAftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review  and only just below the 4.16ms  needed for a 240Hz screen. I’ve tested the screen with  the Spyder 5, and got 98%   of sRGB, 71% of NTSC, 76% of AdobeRGB and 76%  of DCI-P3, decent results for a gaming laptop.

Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewMy panel was right on 300 nits at 100%  brightness with a 520:1 contrast ratio,   so although quite low for the contrast I can’t  say I noticed it and brightness was average. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewBacklight bleed was minor, I never  noticed it when viewing darker content,   but this will vary between panels.

There’s a 720p camera below the display in  the middle, and it’s got IR for Windows Hello,   though you have to tilt the screen  back so it can see you to unlock. As the camera is down the bottom your fingers do  kind of get in the way a bit while typing, and   you’ve got to push the screen back to actually get  yourself in frame.

The keyboard has 4 zones of RGB backlighting  which lights up all keys and secondary functions. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review There’s 4 levels of key brightness which can  be controlled using the keyboard shortcuts   or software. I liked typing with the  keyboard, it felt nice and tactile.

The glass precision touchpad  is smooth and worked alright,   but I’m testing the larger 17” at the same  time and that one just feels much better. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewIt does a decent job of hiding fingerprints  and dirt as it’s not matte black, and the   smooth surface makes cleaning  easy with a microfiber cloth. The weight distribution felt good, allowing  for one finger opening, and the screen goes   a fair way back.

Keyboard flex was only minor  when pushing down hard, it feels quite solid,   there was some flex to the lid but it is on  the thinner side, it felt sturdy enough.  

Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review On the left we’ve got a Kensington lock  slot up the back, air exhaust vent,   USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A port and separate  3.5mm microphone and headphone jacks. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThe right has a MicroSD card slot, two USB  3.1 Gen1 Type-A ports and an air exhaust vent. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThe rest is on the back, from left  to right there’s a USB Type-C port   with DisplayPort output and Thunderbolt 3  support, HDMI 2.0 output, gigabit ethernet,   and the power input. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThe front has a little  groove in the middle to aid opening the lid,   as well as an RGB light bar which can be  customized through software with the keyboard.

Both display outputs connect  directly to the Nvidia graphics,   but Type-C cannot be used to charge the laptop. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewUnderneath has plenty of air vents  towards the back half of the machine,   and the rubber feet do a good job of preventing  sliding on my desk.Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review It’s easy to get inside,   just take out 11 Phillips head screws  and the panel basically comes right off. Inside we’ve got the battery down the  front, two M.2 slots above it on the left,   two memory slots in the middle, and  WiFi 6 card to the right of that.   Plenty of shared heatpipes and VRM  coverage up the back for cooling.

The two speakers are on the left  and right sides towards the front.   They sound about average, not too clear  at max volume, there was a little bass,   but also some vibration or distortion at max,  and the latencymon results weren’t too bad.

It’s powered by a 4-Cell 62Wh battery.  I’ve tested it with RGB lighting off,   background apps disabled and screen at 50%  brightness. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThe battery life wasn’t great,   pretty bad given the size compared to  others. This is something I’ve seen with   other Tongfang laptops prior to BIOS updates,  so I would expect this to improve over time.

Let’s check out thermals next. The control center software lets you change  between three different performance modes,   which from lowest to highest are office  mode, game mode and beast mode. Office   mode lets you pick different fan profiles or set  a custom fan curve, and also toggle ECO mode.   Game and beast modes also give you the option  to enable fan boost to max out the fans. None of these modes applied any  GPU overclocking. By default   undervolting is allowed through the BIOS,  and you can also undervolt through BIOS.

Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThe idle temperatures were fine  with a 21 degree Celsius room,   stress tests were done with the Aida64 CPU  stress test with stress CPU only checked and   the Heaven GPU benchmark run at the same time,  while gaming was tested playing Watch Dogs 2. I might have gone a bit overboard on  the testing here. Basically office mode   seems to limit the CPU to an 80 degree thermal  throttle cap, game mode increases this to 85,   and then beast mode boosts this to 90 degrees.  This means it’s not possible for the CPU to   rise above 90 degrees Celsius, which I think is  good even if it means some thermal throttling,   personally I’d prefer it to not get hotter but  that’s me. The GPU was thermal throttling at 86   in the game with beast mode enabled though,  this was only removed with the cooling pad.

These are the clock speeds for the same  tests just shown. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThere’s not that big of   a difference in beast mode with the  game running with the cooling pad,   so the GPU thermal throttle must have been small.  GPU speeds were only really lower in office mode.   I also didn’t see much difference with or  without ECO mode enabled, more on that soon.   CPU speeds rise in game mode because the thermal  throttle cap increases, then again in beast mode   for the same reason. Setting the fan to max speed  didn’t change anything because it was already   running at full speed under both of these tests.  The undervolt almost gets us 300Mhz extra clock   speed, then the cooling pad helped out more as  again, thermals are the limit to more performance.

I don’t think this is too bad when we remember  that this has an 8 core Intel processor and   115 watt RTX 2060 graphics in a 15 inch chassis  that’s thinner and lighter than most other laptops   I’ve covered.

You’ve also got the option of  upgrading to better thermal paste when ordering,   and realistically more than 4GHz over 8 cores  for an Intel based laptop is a good result. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThe 2060 had no problems running at its 115 watt  limit regardless of the performance mode in use.   We can see that office mode regardless of whether  or not ECO was ticked seems to cap at 25 watts,   otherwise the CPU power is limited by  the thermal throttle limits for each   mode.

With good cooling though, it’s  possible to surpass a 55 watt TDP,   which I think is good as other laptops will cap  this arbitrarily to 45 watts as per Intel spec,   leaving performance on the  table for lower temperatures.

Here’s how CPU only performance looks in Cinebench  with the GPU now idle. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewECO mode is actually making   a difference now, as we saw earlier it didn’t seem  to do much in CPU plus GPU workloads like gaming.   I found game mode and beast mode similar in  terms of CPU performance, so it looks like the   only difference may be the thermal throttle  limits of the processor as noted earlier.

Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewWhen we compare the best result against others,  it’s doing very well for a 10875H laptop,   the best single core result I’ve seen  anyway and ahead of all the Ryzen laptops,   though the multicore performance is being  beaten by those 8 core 4800H machines above it.

The middle of the keyboard was warmer when  idling compared to most laptops I’ve tested,   but it was hardly warm to the touch.Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review It starts  approaching hot in the middle with the stress   tests running in the same lowest office  mode.Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review It’s not too different in game mode,   still quite uncomfortable in the middle  and up the back.Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review It’s the same deal with   the highest beast mode, but the left and  right sides are much cooler comparatively,   no problems playing a game and resting  on WASD.Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review

The fans were still audible at idle, then when  under load I found no difference to fan volume   whether in game mode, beast  mode, or enabling fan boost,   so it was always at max  regardless during these tests.

Now let’s check out how well the Vapor 15x   performs in games and see how  it compares with other laptops.

I’ve tested Battlefield 5 in campaign mode at  ultra settings, and the 15x is highlighted in   red. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewIt’s just 1 FPS ahead of the only other  115 watt 2060 I’ve tested in the MSI GL65,   which is just below it, though the 1% low  is almost 9% higher presumably due to the   better processor, and there’s not that much of a  gain to be had from the 2070 machines above it.

These are the results from Far Cry 5  with ultra settings in the built in   benchmark. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThis test depends more on  the processor, which is probably why   it’s now ahead of the more powerful  2070 in the Dell G7 just below it.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also tested with  the games benchmark tool with the highest setting   preset. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThe average frame rate was the same as  the 115 watt 2060 in the GL65 in this more GPU   heavy test, just a few frames behind a 2070. I’ve  said it before and I’ll say it again, after the   2060 you really start getting into diminishing  returns for the amount of money you’re spending.

Now for the benchmarking tools. I’ve used Adobe Premiere to export  one of my laptop review videos at 4K.  Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review Lower times are better here, and the 15X is  similar to other RTX 2060 laptops tested.

Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewI’ve also tested Premiere but  with the Puget systems benchmark   which also accounts for things like live  playback, and the 15X is doing quite well,   though there are some Ryzen options  with lower powered GPUs that do better. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen ReviewThe results were similar in Adobe Photoshop,  this tends to be more of a CPU focussed test,   however it’s one of the lower  results from a 10875H laptop.   I thought it would do better  due to the higher power limits.Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review DaVinci Resolve is more GPU heavy,   though it’s basically the same as the 65 watt  Max-Q 2060 in the ASUS G14 just above it.Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review I’ve also tested SPECviewperf which tests  out various professional 3D workloads. 

I’ve used Crystal disk mark  to test the 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD,   and both reads and writes were great, though this  will vary based on drive selection when ordering.Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review  The microSD card slot was also doing ok, and  the card sticks out a little when inserted. Aftershock Vapor 15X / Eluktronics MAX 15 10th Gen Review

As for prices the Vapor   15X starts from $2160 AUD. This config just has one   stick of memory, I definitely recommend upgrading  to dual channel for the performance boost. In the US they don’t seem to  offer the 115 watt 2060 option,   instead opting for 2070, 2070  Super, or 2080 Super Max-Q. So to conclude, the Vapor 15x offers great  gaming performance due to the higher wattage   2060 graphics and 8 core processor, especially  for the size and weight of the machine. If   you’re after a good mixture of portability  and power then this one is worth considering.

As a result of that combination, it  can get hot to the touch in the middle,   but the WASD area and sides were cool. The  internals are capped to different thermal   throttle limits based on the mode in use which I  think is a good way to prevent it getting hotter,   and you can get further improvements  with some undervolting or a cooling pad. CPU performance was great,  especially for single core,   though multicore was still behind cheaper Ryzen  options, but that’s just the current state of   Intel 10th gen mobile processors when it  comes to rendering workloads like this.

The screen was great for gaming,  240Hz with low response time,   good colour gamut for some content creation,  brightness was average but contrast was low,   at least when I measured it, I can’t  say I noticed it myself when using it. The main issue I had was with the battery life,   but I’ve found similar problems with tongfang  laptops in the past prior to BIOS updates,   so that will probably improve over  time based on the size of the battery.

Anyway let me know what you thought about this  laptop down in the comments.

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JT 1.4K
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