Recently, MSI sent their first-ever laptop with an AMD CPU and GPU implemented, and it’s also the world’s first 7nm gaming laptop. The Alpha 15 is expected to be launched in Europe and America before the end of this year. So, what surprise has this laptop got in store for us?
Product Specification
MSI Alpha 15 A3DDK Tech Specs from Official Website
https://www.msi.com/Laptop/Alpha-15-A3DX/Specification
Product Unboxing
Package Appearance
The outer packaging is still packed with a yellow recycled carton
The inner box is made of black cardboard. The new green Alpha logo and MSI is printed in the middle of the box
The side of the inner box has the specs and model number printed on the label as usual
The laptop is protected by a thick and shock-proof foam, and the main body is wrapped by a double-layered suit which has an anti-static layer and a black fabric layer
Accessories bag contains an instruction manual and some M.2 mount screws
Product Analysis
Compared to the GP65 series, Alpha 15 has the same design on the A panel. The only difference is the Alpha logo is actually printed on the panel and it won’t light up
The D panel has a similar design, or they are using the exact same case
The maximum opening angle is about 140°
The 144 Hz Free-sync supported B panel has a thin-bezel design, using a full-sized keyboard and a large-sized Key-separation designed touchpad
The RGB Per-key keyboard comes from Steelseries
The AMD Ryzen & Radeon sticker
The Alpha 15 nameplate sticker
The large touchpad
There is a small triangle shape design next to the arrow key
The HD camera supports 30fps@720p and the microphone is next to it
The rear side of the laptop has a GT series like design, which increases the cooling area
The power supply is the 180W ADP-180MBK from Delta, the output is 19.5, 9.23A
I/O Analysis
The laptop front side – the three indicators in the middle are wifi, battery, and hard drive
The laptop rear side – The vent is not a symmetrical design
The laptop right side – I/O is 2 x USB3.2 Type-A Gen1, a full-size SD (XC/HC) card readers and the power jack
The laptop left side – I/O is the Kensington lock port, Killer Gb LAN, an HDMI(4K @ 60Hz), a mini DP, a USB3.2 Type-A Gen2 and headphone + microphone port
Disassembling Analysis
From the back vent we can see through the black colourised heatsink
Quickly removed all screws from the D panel, the inside of this laptop is shown below — the heatsink with 7 heat pipes is covering the CPU, GPU and their power supply chips
The D Panel plate
The back side view of the Alpha 15. The ram area is covered by an isolated pad
The ram and SSD area. Only 1 SSD slot and 2 so-dimm slots are implemented
The 2.5″ HDD area. This socket allows users to put an extra 2.5″ HDD/SSD for storage expansion
After removing the motherboard, we can see the Keyboard ribbon cable and the touchpad PCB
The motherboard front/back
The AMD Ryzen CPU – YM3700C4T4MFG with Radeon RX Vega 10 GPU. FP5 socket, Max Turbo 4.0GHz 4 core / 8 Threads
The AMD RadeonT RX5500M Graphic chip
The wireless chip – a rare AzureWave AW-CB375NF 2×2 802.11AC with Bluetooth v5
The Samsung 16G (2 x 8G) DDR4 2666 So-dimm
The 6-Cell 51Wh Battery BTY-M6H manufactory by Simplo
The Giant-sized speaker, this version is not certified by Dynaudio
SSD is from Western Digital, SN520 NVMe PCIe Gen3 x 2, Up to 1700/1400 MB/s Read/Write speed
The 7-pipes designed Heatsink with black colour finished design
The exhausting fans are from Aavid Thermalloy
PAAD06015SL 0.55A 5VDC N426
PABD07012SH 1.0A 5VDC N425
Thermal & Noise Analysis
We are running Aida64 pressure test get a CPU and GPU temperature recording
After boosting CPU and Graphic card, we have taken this snapshot of the thermal distribution of the computer
Aida64 Single CPU Burnning test without activate Cooler Boost Fan
CPU Temperature ~78°C
Aida64 Single CPU Burning – Cooler Boost Fan activated
CPU Temperature ~79°C
It’s quite interesting because when Cooler Boost mode has been activated, the temperature has risen by 1°C
Aida64 CPU & GPU Burnning test without activate Cooler Boost Fan
CPU Temperature ~71°C
Aida64 CPU & GPU Burnning – Cooler Boost Fan activated
CPU Temperature ~70°C
It’s also interesting because when Cooler Boost mode was active this time, the temperature dropped by 1°C
Noise Level when idle ~48dB
Noise Level when full loading ~51.7dB
Noise Level when Cooler Boost mode activated ~65.4dB
Noise Level when Cooler Boost mode activated | in front ~56.7dB
Hardware & Software Introduction
AIDA64 Summary
HWiNFO64 System details
Aida64 CPU details
Aida64 Motherboard Details
Thaiphoon Burner – Memory Details
LAN chip – Killer E2600 Gigabit LAN
WIFI Card – Realtek 8822CE 802.11AC with Bluetooth v5
Screen Panel – 15.6″ FHD Panel, 1080P 144Hz manufactured by AUO
The MSI Alpha 15 desktop wallpaper
AMD Radeon Settings
MSI Dragon Center
Mode Settings – Gaming
Mode Settings – Creator
Mode Settings – User Scenario
Mode Settings – General Settings
Monitor
MSI Ambient RGB Link
MSI My Device
Live Update
Tools
Steelseries Engine 3 RGB Keyboard Settings
Normally the AMD platform is very susceptible to overheating, but this time, what we did not expect is that the temperature control of AMD Ryzen 3 platform is constantly stable. Even if the laptop is running at full speed, the overall temperature does not exceed 85°C. Compared with the same level Intel platform, which frequently exceeds 95°C overheating and throttling, the Ryzen 3 platform remains at about 79°C and does not have a large fluctuation. The result is very good.
Run-time Benchmark Test
CPU-Z snapshots
CPU-Z Benchmark – according to the result, there is around 80% performance compared with a desktop version
CPU-Z Onboard AGPU detail
GPU-Z Onboard AGPU snapshots
GPU-Z RX5500M
AIDA64 Memory & Cache benchmark
Cinebench R15 Results – Single core & multi-core
Cinebench R20 Results – Single core & multi-core
FURMARK test result
Aida64 GPGPU Benchmark
SSD Benchmark – Aida64
ASSSD 1G/10G test
Crystal Disk Info
PCMark : 4,910
PCMark Web results
3DMark Fire Strike : 10,342
3DMark Fire Strike Extreme : 5,657
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra : 3,123
3DMark Time Spy : 3,976
3DMark Time Spy Extreme : 1,819
3DMark Sky Diver : 21,713
3DMark Port Royal/VRS : Not Supported
3DMark API Overhead : Not Supported
Unigine Superposition (Normal 1080P) : 7,893 | Avg FPS : 69.04
Unigine Superposition (Extreme 1080P) : 2,447 | Avg FPS : 18.30
SUMMARY
In general, Alpha 15 is a mid-range mainstream gaming laptop with a relatively balanced configuration. Although the performance of the RX5500M is not perfect, it meets our expectations. This card has similar performance compared with a desktop GTX1060 6G, and it beats the AMD RX580 mobile version and is much better than the Nvidia GTX1650 mobile version. This means that AMD has returned to the mid-range market for gaming laptop graphics cards, indicating that AMD ’s massive counterattack is coming, and also adding a little competition to the gaming graphics card battlefield. It’s a good start.
The price of AU$1,599 is pretty good, plus its stable thermal control and overall performance, the MSI Alpha 15 will be very competitive in the recent gaming laptop market.
EPIC PC RATE SCORE: 84/100
EPIC REWARD: EDITOR’S CHOICE & VALUE AWARD
MSI Alpha 15 A3DDK OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE