I am excited when a new laptop brand enters the gaming market. The space is a bit crowded at the moment, but it can be refreshing to discuss something new. In my experience, there is usually a feature or a hardware combination that I haven’t seen before, or the thermals are as pleasant as my grandma’s minestrone soup – not too hot but just right. Adata’s XPG Xenia gaming notebook, the first gaming notebook the company ever made, checks many of the right boxes. It was originally released in April 2020, which has been a long time, but I’m glad I finally got to spend some time on it. It’s a near-perfect gaming laptop that I wouldn’t mind owning myself, but I hope it can maintain the same quality and consistency when it comes to thermals if Adata chooses to have a revamped version with a newer processor in the future. (which I hope they do!).
It’s a solid machine with everything I expected from a company that makes SSDs, DRAM modules, CPU coolers, peripherals and more. Adata knows the leeway. Well versed in the all-too-familiar balance of packing a rig with the right specifications for a reasonable price while keeping the PC cool – and the XPG Xenia beautifully demonstrates Adata’s expertise in those areas. Although some of the components are the last generation or will soon be the last, thanks to all the laptop announcements weis about to come over the course of CES, the XPG Xenia is still worthy of a solid look.
This gaming notebook is equipped with an Intel Core i7-9750H, Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti GPU, 32 GB DDR4 2666 MHz DRAM and a 1 TB M.2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD. The IPS FHD screen is 15.6 inches with a 144Hz refresh rate and an NTSC color gamut of 72%. For the most part, that color gamut is average on gaming laptops under $ 2,000, but the 85% screen-to-body ratio makes this laptop a perfect match for all other slim-looking notebooks that are stealth gaming machines.
The battery life is above average for a gaming notebook, almost six hours. Not quite the 10+ hour battery life advertised by Adata, but battery life will always vary based on the programs you’re using, your screen brightness, and how much RGB you’ve turned on. The XPG Xenia’s battery life is actually longer than a few other more expensive gaming laptops we’ve tested before, such as the Acer Predator Triton 500 (3 hours 20 minutes), Razer Blade Pro 17 (3 hours 36 minutes), and the Asus Strix Scar G15 (4 hours 45 minutes). It comes within minutes of it Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and the Acer Nitro 5.
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The overall design is subtle and professional, which is certainly nice for gamers who want to use their laptops for both work and play. Pre-pandemic, I would always feel weird taking my three-year-old gaming laptop to a coffee shop to work as the sharp lines etched into the lid completely stood out – not to mention the thick bezels of the screen and look strange. It looked aggressive, so it’s nice to see companies making more understated and mature looking gaming laptops these days.
While the plastic keycaps feel a bit on the thin side, the low-profile mechanical keyboard is great for typing. My fingers seemed to adjust to the layout of course, and clicking the keys was pleasantly quiet. There’s also a slight bump on the actuation point, so those of you who prefer quiet and tactile keys might like this one as much as I do. The XPG Xenia got it perfect. The RGB lighting is also per key, so if you want to make the WASD or other commonly used keys stand out while gaming, you can do that.
This gaming notebook is a surprising powerhouse too, thanks to that 32GB of DRAM and how cool the Xenia keeps all its components, which I’ll get to in a moment. In our gaming benchmarks, it certainly held its own against many of the other higher spec laptops we tested: laptops with an Intel i9-10885H and an RTX 2070 Max-Q, or an AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS and an RTX 2060 Max-Q for example average: 87 frames per second at 1080p ultra on Far Cry 5; 63 fps on Total War: Warhammer II; 79 fps on Shadow of the Tomb Raider; and 42 fps on Metro Exodus.
Even compared to the Acer Nitro 5, which has the same CPU but an RTX 2060 and 16 GB of memory, the XPG Xenia has generated the same number of frames in all the same games. It was even faster than the Nitro 5 rendering a 3D image in Blender, about 11 minutes and 30 seconds compared to about 13 minutes, and faster transcoding of a 4K video to 1080p in Handbrake, about 11 minutes to 12 minutes and 30 seconds.
But here comes the caveat, and it’s not Adata’s fault: Intel decided to discontinue its 300 series chipset, which includes the QMS380 laptop chipset. The Intel Core i7-9750H in the XPG Xenia uses that chipset. As of now, you can still get devices with the compatible motherboard, but July of this year is the last chance for someone to place orders for something that needs a 300 series chipset. Adata could then potentially place its final orders, so it will have this model in stock until the end of 2021, but after that it will have to use Intel 10th (or 11th generation) CPUs, which worries me due to thermal requirements.
Almost all of the 10th generation Intel laptops I’ve tested in the last year have gotten warmer than anyone concerned about their machine’s lifespan should feel comfortable, especially the i7s and i9s. Max CPU temperatures reached over 90 degrees Celsius (over 194 degrees Fahrenheit), often within a few degrees of Intel’s maximum temperature rating of 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit.) Skin temperatures can easily reach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher in certain areas around or above the keyboard.
But the 9th generation chips run so much cooler, and Adata’s cooling solution for the XPG Xenia is one of the best I’ve seen in a gaming laptop, even with the naturally cooler 9th generation chip. The maximum temperatures of the Xenia only reached the high 80s (Celsius) compared to the Nitro 5’s low 90s. Average temperatures stayed in the mid-60s, which is the perfect place for a CPU under load.
Skin temperatures stayed in the high 30s to low 40s, except for one place above the keyboard that got as hot as 48 degrees Celsius. I could feel the air from the spinning fans coming through the keyboard, keeping my hands (well, left fingers) nice and cool while gaming. There are also more vents on the sides, bottom, and back of the laptop, so this thing is well-ventilated.
Sure, the fans were 747 take-off loud because the laptop was in Turbo mode while I was running these tests, but I was so happy to see much cooler temperatures that I didn’t mind too much. In balanced mode, there was not much difference in temperature and there was a small drop in frame rate, about 2-3 frames. The fans were also a bit quieter, but not much.
That’s all to say Adata might have a good chance of taming Intel’s 10th-gen chip thermals, but now if you’re looking for a good 1080p gaming laptop and have a little more than a big burn, the XPG Xenia is there one too seriously consider. Yes, there are new laptops around the corner, and there are laptops with newer parts. Yes, the 300 series chipset is on the way. But for $ 1,250 as it is currently priced on Adata’s site? Yes, that’s good value for a professional-looking, well-specified gaming laptop.
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- Good performance, runs surprisingly smoothly
- Loud fans
- Okay battery life
- The regular price is steep compared to comparable gaming laptops, but it is available for purchase as of the publication of this review for a more reasonable price.
- Lots of ports, weighing in at just over four pounds