We’ve already tested Intel’s latest generation i7-11700K, and the results are as predictable as you can expect. Without further ado, let’s check out the video below! Please ‘like’ and subscribe to my channel, and don’t forget to click the ‘bell’ icon to get the latest video updates.

Asus sent their new motherboard for testing, the ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, this motherboard is similar to the Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), the difference lies in the all-black design, the ROG RGB light on the IO cover, 7.1channel sound card (unfortunately not 8 channel), and the Bluetooth module supports v5.1.

Package appearance
The whole package design of CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO
Package Front

Package Back

Package Side

Opening the box

The manual book, instruction guide and ROG sticker

The driver cd, coaster and metal ROG badge

The WIFI | Bluetooth antenna, SATA cable, m.2 screw and RGB extension cable

Product Analysis
The large radiator fins have been painted black and the ROG logo on the IO hood has been twill-printed to add a strong Retro touch
The front and back look

The top I/O includes 8+4-pin CPU power socket with ProCool shields and a total of 3 fan headers and Debug indicator

The side I/O – In this area of the motherboard, in addition to the 4 OptiMEM III supported DIMM DDR4 memory slots, RGB headers (12v 4pin & 5v 3pin addressable). Plus, a front USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type E sockets, 24pin power header etc

The bottom I/O, includes HD audio header, LN2 switch, safe boot and retry button, TPM header, RGB headers, Node header, USB 2.0 headers, Slow mode switch, 2 fan headers and fPanel headers

The rear I/O :
1 x Optical S/PDIF out
1 x Clear CMOS button(s)
1 x ASUS Wi-Fi Module
5 x Gold-plated audio jacks
4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 (up to 5Gbps) ports
8 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10Gbps) ports ()
1 x BIOS FlashBack™ Button(s)
1 x Anti-surge 2.5G LAN (RJ45) port
Anti-surge LAN (RJ45) port

The AM4 CPU socket

This motherboard includes 2 x M.2 SSD slots (Both supports SATA & PCIe 4.0 x 4)

The M.2 SSD and PCH heat sinks

The solid back shield with RGB lighting effects

The sound card SupermeFX chipset

Power button

The look after we removed all heatsink and covers

The AM4 bracket

The M.2 SSD heatsink cover

The Sound card cover

The PCH chipset metal cover with an RGB ROG eye

The VRM heatsink

The I/O cover with an RGB ROG logo

The processor power supply adopts a 14+2 phase CPU core power supply

The Wifi 6 and Bluetooth card – Intel AX200NGW

The PCH chipset

The ASUS SupremeFX supported sound card is ALC1220 from Realtek with ESS Sabre ES9023P, it also uses the famous golden capacitors from Nichicon

The Pericom PI3EQX16 PCI-E 4.0 re-drivers

The Asmedia ASM2480B is a PCIe lane switch chip used to split the PCIe x16 of the graphics card into PCIe x8 + x8.

ASUS TurboV Processing Unit chip

The BIOS flashback controller chip

The Asmedia ASM1074 is a USB 3.0 hub controller chip

The Intel WGI211AT Ethernet controller chip

The RTL8125 is based on a PCIe Gen2 x1 2.5G Gigabit Ethernet NIC

CPU in the socket

Overall
The Crosshair VIII Dark Hero as a twin model of the normal C8H is also an entry-level version of the ROG, but thanks to the enhanced overall specifications of the AMD X570 chipset, it can even rival previous Extreme boards. The large surface area of the complex heat dissipation module and the new ROG design language echoes the integrity of the extremely strong, 14+2 phase digital power supply, high-quality electrical components, the unique optimisation of circuit design allows it to more easily carry more performance.

In addition to this, Crosshair VIII Dark Hero owners can also be proud of the luxurious hardware package: 2.5Gb LAN, The latest PCIe Gen4 controller chip, As well as a variety of unique technical support such as Gamefirst, sonic radar, etc., this makes it a golden nugget on the outside.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE: 89.5/100

EPIC REWARD: DESIGN AWARD, EPIC RECOMMENDED AWARD

ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE

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