Aftershock Vapor 15 Review

You've probably heard a lot of hype around the Eluktronics MAG-15. I've got the Australian version of that here, the Vapor 15 Pro from Aftershock which uses the same chassis, so let’s find out how hot it runs, see if there’s any throttling, and see what can be done to improve performance.

For the specs there’s an Intel i7-9750H CPU, Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti graphics, 16gb of memory in dual channel, and a 144Hz 1080p screen. It’s also available with RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics though, I’ll test this in the future, you can find updated prices to both configurations linked in the description.

Air is pulled in underneath the machine through the fairly large vented area towards the back. It’s then exhausted out of the two vents on the back, and left and right sides towards the back. There are two fans inside with plastic blades with three heatpipes shared between the processor and graphics.

The control center software allows us to swap between different power settings, and I’ve tested using all available options. These modify things like power limits and fan speed. By default, the CPU was also undervolted by -0.05v, however I’ve also pushed this further to -0.15v to see what further improvements this gets us. The Benchmark mode option basically just maxed out the fan speed, I didn’t find it to further adjust power limits higher than what the performance modes already applied.

There’s also a fan button next to the power button above the keyboard which lets you change between these same modes available in the software. If you make changes they stick, for instance if you set the performance power mode to use the standard fan mode it will remember the change. To keep things simple I’ve just tested each power mode with the same default fan mode.

Thermal testing was completed in an ambient room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, so expect different results in different environments. At idle it was on the warmer side, however this was with the fan set to quiet and it was completely silent, it would run a bit cooler with small fan noise otherwise. The rest of the results are from combined CPU and GPU workloads, and are meant to represent worst case scenarios as I ran them for extended periods of time. The gaming results towards the upper half of the graph were tested by playing Watch Dogs 2, as I find it to use a good combination of processor and graphics. The stress test results shown on the lower half of the graph are from running the Aida64 CPU stress test with only the stress CPU option checked, and the Heaven GPU benchmark at max settings at the same time to fully load the system.

Any time the CPU was at 85 degrees Celsius it was thermal throttling and I was not able to modify this. Most other laptops typically allow the CPU to run up to 90 degrees, but on the plus side this does mean you don’t have to worry about thermals at all, and I’ll discuss why this is the case later. The battery saver results were the lowest as this mode restricted power limits. Temperatures rise with balanced mode as power limits rise a little here, then the highest temperatures were seen with performance mode. With the stress tests running it wasn’t possible to fully remove the CPU thermal throttle, even with a cooling pad and additional undervolting. With this particular game the cooling pad in isolation didn’t remove it, but undervolting in combination with the cooling pad did.

These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown. The GPU clock speeds in battery saver or balanced mode were quite low, we’ll see some gaming FPS numbers with the different modes soon though. The CPU speed rose significantly in balanced mode, and was about the same in performance mode, however performance mode also improved GPU performance. As thermal throttling was the limit on the CPU, adding the cooling pad or instead raising the CPU undervolt by an extra -0.1v improved performance, with the best result seen when combining the two together. With these best case tweaks in place we’re not too far behind the 4GHz all core turbo boost speed of the 9750H.

These are the TDP values during these same tests. Basically the 1660 Ti was only allowed to go to its 80 watt limit in performance mode, so this was clearly needed for optimal gaming performance. Otherwise it was interesting to see that the CPU power limit was able to average above the 45 watts that we typically see from most other laptops when under combined CPU and GPU workloads. The power limits were fine, again the limitation was thermal throttling on the CPU, as this was defined to 85 degrees. Here are the CPU clock speeds while under a CPU only stress test, the results are higher as the GPU is not contributing heat to the system. Simply enabling performance mode was enough to hit the 4GHz all core turbo boost speed in this workload, which isn’t bad given many machines can’t reach this best case. The temperatures weren’t too high either, easily below the 85 degree throttle limit, it’s worth noting with the extra undervolt applied although it’s 7 degrees cooler, the fan was also significantly quieter.

The 65 watt power limit was never being hit in these workloads, and although we could raise this with software like Intel XTU, it offered no benefit in this specific workload. To demonstrate how this translates into performance I’ve got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks. In performance mode the result from the 9750H was pretty decent due to the higher CPU only power limit of 65 watts, and with the extra undervolt a score of above 3000 was possible, again a good result for this CPU. It was possible to improve upon this a little more by manually boosting the power limit, however that 85 degree thermal throttle limit became the next limitation.

So how do these different changes actually affect game performance? I’ve tested a couple of games to find out. Battlefield V was tested in campaign mode at ultra settings. The battery saver mode was unplayable, at least with the ultra preset. Balanced was somewhat more usable, but it was still about half the frame rate of performance mode. Extra undervolting and using a cooling pad didn’t seem to change anything. Far Cry 5 was tested with the built in benchmark at ultra settings, and the results closely match the ratios that we just saw in the last game. I wouldn’t want to use the lowest mode for gaming, but balanced wasn’t too terrible while being a fair bit quieter, as you’ll hear soon. In any case, it does seem like it’s already tuned pretty well out of the box given my tweaks hardly did anything.

If you want to see more gaming benchmarks on this machine, check the card in the top right where I’ve tested 20 games at all setting levels. As for the external temperatures where you’ll actually be putting your hands, at idle it was in the mid 30s in the center, no issues here. With the stress tests running in the battery saver mode it’s only getting a few degrees warmer, as we saw earlier the power limits in this mode are still very low. Stepping up to balanced mode got a little warmer, mid 40s in the center and up to 50 right up the back in the middle where it was now starting to get hot. With performance mode enabled it’s actually a little cooler now while also performing better, as the fan speed increases, as you’ll hear next. At idle in the battery saver mode with quiet fan profile it was completely silent. With the stress tests running, in the same mode it was still quiet, but as we saw earlier resource heavy games didn’t really work. It gets a little louder in balanced mode, and despite the lower GPU power we saw earlier, the higher CPU performance did make many games playable. In performance mode it does get quite loud, unfortunately there was no way in the control center software that came installed to customize the fan curve. Overall the thermals were looking good, mostly thanks to the 85 degree limit that’s in place for the CPU. I’ve been told that Intel specifically designed this unique thermal limit for the Vapor 15 so that the laptop can achieve the best possible operating surface temperatures while also keeping longevity and reliability in mind. The trade off is of course a little lower performance due to this BIOS level setting, which did not appear to be user configurable. To be fair though, as we saw in my previous game benchmark video the laptop was still one of the better machines I’ve tested with the i7-9750H and GTX 1660 Ti.

This means you don’t have to concern yourself with thermals and the machine will still run quite well out of the box, the default undervolt is greatly appreciated.

It is however important to note that the Eluktronics MAG-15 in the US appears to have a 90 degree limit on the CPU based on what others have reported, so it should perform a little better than what I’ve shown here at the expense of additional heat. I’m not sure why other regions appear to have the higher 90 degree limit. In theory maybe you could flash the BIOS with a different one that has a higher limit, however do so completely at your own risk, this is not something I’ve looked into and probably isn’t supported.

The lower temperature limit means that additional undervolting or applying a cooling pad will be more likely to improve performance, and as we’ve seen here these things both helped out.

Owners of the US variant also reported a 75 degree GPU limit, granted that could be increased, however mine was limited to 87 degrees and thermal throttling on the GPU was never hit in my unit. It seems like I’ve got a lower CPU limit, but higher GPU limit. Speaking of the MAG-15, they also have the option of eluktroboost, I couldn’t see something similar with the Vapor 15.

These differences in performance shown aren’t hard and fast rules, there are different factors which will vary results, primarily the temperature of the room you’re running in, application of thermal paste, and even the specific hardware which comes down to the silicon lottery. You may not be able to undervolt or overclock your hardware the same as me, it depends on the chip and its specific power requirements, so don’t just blindly copy my settings and do some testing to find out where your stable point is for best results.

It may be possible to further improve temperatures by swapping the thermal paste. Aftershock offer this model both with a stock thermal compound, or you can pay more for Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. I’ve been advised that my review unit has the stock thermal compound, so we could expect some further improvements with the better paste. Considering that CPU performance was capped when it reaches 85 degrees, doing this to try and keep it cooler should help improve performance.

If you’re able to change the paste yourself it’s worth investigating, otherwise personally I’d just pay for the better paste when buying. Additional undervolting and using a cooling pad are much easier for most people to do themselves, and as we’ve seen these tweaks did help improve performance and temperatures with the Vapor 15.

Let me know what you thought about the thermals from the Aftershock Vapor 15 Pro gaming laptop down in the comments.