My laptop on stage is a heavy gaming laptop, and the adapter alone weighs more than four pounds. You can imagine the weight of the main body from the picture below.
330W Adapter, 135W Savior PD Adapter, MX Anywhere 3
If you lose the office on weekdays, take it home on weekends, and there is a public computer when you go out, so it’s okay to use it. At the beginning of the year, when the broadband at home was upgraded, and the speed was measured upstairs and downstairs with the computer, the disadvantage of poor portability was greatly demonstrated. Then I saw that the performance of the Intel 12th-generation Core has been greatly improved, so I replaced this ” portable desktop ” and chose one ” Portable Notebook”, after a comparison, I chose the Magic 16.
Daily use experience
I bought the i9-12900H + RTX 3080Ti top version, and I have been disappointed and surprised after using it for three months. The black body of the Magic 16 is relatively low-key, the whole machine is 2.0 KG, which is slightly heavier than the 1.8 KG of the ThinkBook 16, and slightly lighter than the 2.1 KG of the MacBook 16. It has been tested and I naturally feel that it is not light. The Magic 16 has fewer game elements, and with the subsequent performance, it is more like an all-around book than a game book.
The Magic 16 is equipped with a 2560 * 1600 165 Hz high refresh rate screen, with an IR camera at the top of the screen, and supports Windows Hello facial recognition. It can quickly identify and enter the desktop no matter the day or night. The Magic 16 can also be opened and closed with one hand . (Modern Standby 1 ) The experience is quite good. Open the lid to wake up and unlock in one go, which is comparable to the iPhone. Compared with my game book, I have to wake up from hibernation. I don’t know how high it is.
The infrared light shot by the mobile phone is quite cool
The screen display effect is also good, if the resolution is higher, it will be better, then you can open 200% zoom to get a better display effect. Magic 16 is quite quiet and quiet in daily use, the keyboard feels good, and the touchpad area is large enough to be used. Equipped with a large 90 Wh battery, the battery life is OK, in 4~6 hours.
The Thunderbolt interface and Type-C interface on the left both support 100W PD. In terms of video output, HDMI and the Type-C interface marked with DP are directly connected to the independent display. The integrated display mode must be turned off to output the picture. The Thunderbolt interface is output by the nuclear display.
The overall experience of Windows 11 is OK. Like the multi-screen memory function, the more convenient and quick split screen has improved the efficiency. The new non-linear animation with high refresh rate screen is also good, but the UI details are still not completely polished. The advertised Android The subsystem can only be regarded as a beta version. Fortunately, it does not affect the efficiency. I have updated the Dev version myself. According to the efficiency of the latest update, I will be able to use the full version in one year.
There are also some problems. The first is that when the cover is closed, the mouse wakes up the computer. Instead of prompting for a PIN, Windows Hello is displayed first, and the UI may be misplaced. When Modern Standby was using the stand-alone display, there were two cases where the black screen could not be woken up. It may be a driver problem, which will be fixed in the subsequent update.
bug is indispensable
Intel’s energy-saving function will affect the ionization display effect, so it is recommended to close it directly.
The screen propaganda supports Dolby Vision, but does not support HDR 2. Netflix can activate DV, which should only be supported by software, but the sound effect is good, and the Windows camp can be regarded as the first echelon.
The screen refresh rate switching will temporarily black screen, turn on the smart refresh rate 3 , and plug in other devices with the multi-port PD charger 4 , the refresh rate will continuously switch the refresh rate and cause two black screens, which is not a hardware problem.
Switching to the direct connection of the independent display requires a hot restart, which has little impact. When fully loaded, the noise is loud and the surface temperature of the fuselage is very high. I only recommend the basic i7-12700H + RTX 3060 Magic 16, which will be explained in the performance analysis below.
Theoretical performance analysis
CPU
Performance comparison under different power consumption
It may be because I installed the Windows preview version, the system process occupancy is always above 6% under no-load conditions, so the running score is slightly lower than the media evaluation.
If you add back this part of the performance loss and look at Intel’s official promotion, then the i9-12900H’s victory over the M1 Max at 35W is not groundless. It should be noted that the i7-12700H, i9-12900H, and i9-12900HK are almost the same in specifications. They are all 6 large cores, 8 small cores and 20 threads. Only the i9-12900HX has 8 large cores, 8 small cores and 24 threads, which is consistent with the desktop specifications. The only difference is that the i9-12900H can be boosted to a higher frequency, which means that there will be a gap of less than 10% for a single core, while the multi-core performance does not show the gap due to the power consumption limit of the notebook.
So buying the i9-12900H is not a pure grudge~ That’s not true. The i9 has a better physique than the i7. The K series is better without K. The good physique means that the CPU voltage can be greatly reduced, and the performance is the same. The power consumption is lower, and the power consumption limit performance is stronger, but the Magic 16 no longer supports voltage reduction after the BIOS update, so it is not recommended to purchase the i9-12900H version.
GPU
Comparison of different power consumption of 3DMark Time Spy
The 3080Ti uses the GA103 core, the number of CUDA is 7424, and the specifications are between the desktop 3070 and 3080. It can be seen that the performance of the 3080Ti varies greatly with the increase in power consumption. The performance of the 175W full blood notebook 3080Ti is similar to that of the 3070 but not as good as the 3070Ti of GDDR6X, while the power consumption of 80W at the base frequency can only be comparable to the performance of the desktop 3060 and 140W notebook 3060.
The 120W GPU performance released by the Magic 16 is the same as other 30 series notebooks. In fact, it is 105W+15W dynamic power consumption. It can only be stabilized at 100W under normal conditions, and only 120W can be stabilized by an external radiator. Magic 16 can use 100W to equalize my previous 200W 2080S gaming notebook, which is really good. Samsung’s 8nm process is a lot better than TSMC ‘s 12nm process (essentially it is still an extended version of TSMC ‘s 16nm FF+ process), although the absolute performance has not improved , due to the CPU upgrade, open world games 5 with more units like 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2 and poorly optimized ported games like Detroit: Become Human have actually improved a lot, and the increase in the minimum frame has eliminated frequent Stuck and stopped.
Magic 16 runs at 100W, the surface temperature is high and the noise is loud. I suggest that the power consumption of the graphics card should be controlled within 80W, and the experience of using a 3060 is better. At this time, the wind noise is not too big at about 45 decibels.
And this performance can also play many 3A masterpieces in 4K60, Death Stranding can open DLSS quality + highest picture quality, Devil May Cry 5 can also open highest picture quality, Dragon Quest 11s can even run under 80W, of course, like 2077 this This kind of graphics card killer can only be opened to DLSS performance + high picture quality.
Death Stranding director’s cut version DLSS quality + power consumption under the highest quality fluctuates around 80W
The 3080Ti on the Magic 16 is very far from the game book, and the cost performance is extremely low, but it is not completely meaningless, such as running emulation software and waifu2x, with the larger memory capacity and CUDA scale, in the case of failing to fully load the graphics card , does have a big performance boost. But in general, upgrading to 3080Ti is of little significance. In summary, I only recommend the basic version of Magic 16. In fact, unless thick bricks are used, specifications above 3060 are not recommended.
The theoretical performance of M1 Max is similar to that of RTX 3060, and the following incorrect formula can be roughly obtained
80W RTX 3080Ti Mobile ≈ RTX 3060 ≈ 60W M1 Max
The 115W i9-12900H + RTX 3080Ti can match the 100W M1 Max. It seems that the energy efficiency ratio of the traditional camp seems to be good, then you are wrong.
daily power consumption
When I wrote this article, I opened about 50 web pages and some common apps. The power consumption of the CPU fluctuated between 5 and 10W, and the power consumption of the whole machine was within 20W. Although the gap with the M1 is not small under low load, it is still good. It is acceptable. The energy efficiency of the medium load is very good. I can also accept the idea of changing the power consumption for performance under high load.
However, it is different when using the independent display. In the mixed mode, when there is a program using the video memory, even if the load is zero, the power consumption is 10W. When the output of the independent display is still, the power consumption is 15W. Running, compared with the rescuer of the 3050, the output power consumption of the independent display is only 5W, and the video is only 8W, and the power consumption difference is nearly three times.
The good news is that even if the double-speed gun barrage still plays the video Hurricane 4K 120Hz (AV1 encoding) video, the power consumption is still in the early 20Ws. At this time, the power consumption of the 3050 is also close to 20W.
Turning on the independent display and using the power consumption of the whole machine went to 50W. Compared with the M1, the power consumption of the whole machine is less than 5W, which is ten times the difference. The worst thing is that the body heats up and the fan does not turn very much. At first I thought it was to control the noise. , and later found that the fan strategy of different configurations of Magic 16 seems to be the same, and different temperatures correspond to different speeds, but can the power consumption of 60° mobile phone Soc, 3060, and 3080Ti be the same, high EQ is called noise control, and low EQ is called no optimization.
The independent display also greatly reduces the experience of Modern Standby. It only consumes 3W of power during normal standby, so that the notebook can still have a touch of technology in the air-conditioned room in winter or summer without being cold ? But the standby power consumption of the independent display is 10W to It started to get hot without using this technology for a long time. Fortunately, in order to ensure that the game book can wake up at any time, I turned off the sleep mode and equipped a cooling base with the minimum speed to keep blowing. If you haven’t purchased a base, it is recommended to sleep manually. Another point is that the program switching between the independent display and the integrated display is bad. When you go out, you have to save and close every program that uses the independent display. Although there will be a prompt when the power is off, it is still very troublesome, and you need to save it for the best performance when you come back. Close and reopen.
Magic 16 is good but Nvidia card sucks
It can be seen that my dissatisfaction with the Magic 16 is basically all on the independent display. Even on the desktop side, many people have complained about the high power consumption of the N card. It is rumored that the maximum power consumption of the 40 series graphics card will reach 800W.
Lao Huang, you are extremely sinful, but the users are helpless
After the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which was released one after another this month, changed from Samsung’s 4nm process to TSMC’s 4nm process, it suddenly changed from electronic waste to A14-like existence, and the top game card 3090 didn’t even use this, and still used Samsung 8nm process.
All mining cards use TSMC technology!
Obviously nVidia is not stupid, they used TSMC’s 7nm process in professional cards. The reason is that Lao Huang’s “rotten” is still because the opponent is not strong, and the N card family is the dominant player in the market. Even if AMD’s game cards use the more advanced TSMC process, the N card still maintains the absolute performance lead, with DLSS and CUDA becoming the only choice in the field of gaming and productivity. It is almost necessary to play 3A games at 4K resolution in DLSS. Although AMD has FSR to deal with it, even the actual performance of FSR 2.0 is quite different from DLSS 2.0. The NVENC and NVIDIA Boardcast functions that can be used in N card live broadcast, AMD can’t match 6 . In terms of productivity, nVidia has been working hard for many years, and most professional software uses CUDA to double the performance, while AMD is basically blank in this regard, and whether it can be used is a problem.
Recently, Intel graphics cards have also been released. The highlight lies in the powerful video encoding and decoding performance. It is the only consumer-grade graphics card that supports av1 encoding and decoding. It is a differentiated competition. , I can only say that the future is promising, I hope I can give Lao Huang a little pressure in the low-end.
As for Apple, it’s basically not on the same track, and aside from video editing, usability is still poor in gaming and general productivity. The biggest feeling is that macOS is not so stuck. In the past, Intel core graphics with a high-resolution screen was still quite difficult. Although the external independent graphics card is not stuck, the power consumption is too high. The temperature rise will cause the frequency reduction to drop frames. The M1 is upgraded. Although the 1050 level nuclear display still has no time to play games, it solves the problem of stuttering.
Predictions for the future
Apple Silicon
performance
I don’t have any expectations for the future of the basic chip. The improvement in the CPU part of the M2 is actually very small, and the IPC improvement is very small. The performance improvement brought by the main frequency is accompanied by an increase in power consumption, and Apple’s heat dissipation is well known. With the gradual disappearance of the process bonus, it will be difficult for M3 and M4 in the future to see performance improvement and power consumption reduction like Intel turning to Apple Silicon. I’m more looking forward to the rumored M2 Extreme, looking forward to how large and powerful chips Apple can pile up.
market size
From the statistics around, the upgraded M1 MacBooks are basically old Mac users. Although Apple Silicon is very good, due to price and ecological factors, it is still a hurdle for ordinary consumers to get around. The introduction of cheap Macs will greatly increase sales. , but Apple won’t do this “dumb thing” because the iPhone XR and iPhone XS generations have proven that it hurts profits. In the next few years, the performance of M1 will not be outdated. If the basic model is not discontinued, the price will be more attractive to ordinary users if the price is reduced to 5000. The market share of Mac will increase slightly, but it will not be qualitatively different from the Intel era.
game
The newly announced Metal 3 has neither ray tracing nor DLSS, and the Mac’s high resolution cannot run high-definition games without DLSS-like technology. You imagine that thin and light notebooks can also play 3A games simultaneously, and Apple plans to play in Apple Arcade on iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV in the living room, or on Mac in the future. For high-quality mobile games, maybe the only difference on the Mac in the future is to add back the modeling and special effects of the shrinking mobile terminal. The most important game lineup and cost performance also have no advantage, and Apple’s revenue is mostly on the mobile side. The game is released on Steam for less than a cent, and there is no willingness to promote it. I am pessimistic.
traditional notebook
Lenovo has taken the lead in the past two years, and now there are 16+512GB notebooks with 2K high brush and narrow borders everywhere, and the price is only in the early 4000s. However, the software experience still needs to be improved, such as battery health and fan control functions, some are built-in, some are downloaded from the official website, and some can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store, which is very confusing. Some easy-to-use functions are like the mobile phone linked to the computer app, and the notebooks made by mobile phone manufacturers can be used immediately. The used Asus and Dell have to be downloaded from the Play Store, and they are still not easy to use. Traditional manufacturers should turn to Xiaomi, Huawei, and Honor for new entrants. mobile phone manufacturers.
ARM on Windows
status quo
Windows ARM notebooks are basically expensive products above $1000, with poor performance, weak compatibility, and few choices, which means they cannot be used. Fortunately, Microsoft has also begun to pay attention, the software development kit is basically ready, and the development tool based on Qualcomm platform 7 is also launched on the hardware. Project Volterra 8 refers to the time interval between Apple DTK and M1 MacBook. We may see usable ones next year. Windows ARM64 devices now.
future
M1 has proved the strength of mobile chips. With the advancement of technology, the top mobile chips have reached the performance of mainstream X86 chips. In fact, M1 is the renamed A14X. The single core is the same as the A14. It has reached the level of Ryzen 5 5600X with AMD Zen 3 architecture.
Comparing this year’s hot mid-range chip Dimensity 8100 with Intel’s 10th generation standard pressure processor, we can see that the gap is not big. The commonly used Chrome and Office have been adapted to ARM, as long as there are drivers to run Windows ARM64 performance is enough .
If manufacturers use mobile phone chips to manufacture notebooks, on the one hand, they do not need fans to dissipate heat. On the other hand, the notebook space is much larger than that of mobile phones, and the difficulty of motherboard design will be much lower. If you give up the subsequent upgrade capability, you can directly apply the mobile phone motherboard. ARM on Windows will not become famous like M1. It is more likely to win by low price like Chromebook. It will enter below 3000~4000 by low cost and low cost, and there will be a lot of software adaptation to gain market share.
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