Ionico 15 Review (R9 5900HX and RTX 3070)

[Brookes_117]

The Ionico 15 is light, compact beast of a notebook.

My model has:
CPU: Ryzen 9 5900HX,
GPU: RTX 3070 140w TGP,
RAM: Corsair 16 GB 2933MHz,
Display: 165Hz and 1440P at 15.6".
Battery: 62Wh (Ionico 17 has much larger 92Wh battery.
MUX: yes
Storage: 500GB Samsung 970 Evo PCIe NVMe SSD and 1TB PCS NVMe SSD

The chassis is a light gunmetal grey colour made of magnesium alloy it has a premium finish and has minimal fingerprint marking when handling. It is light weight and portable at just 1.7Kg without the charger/power supply.

The screen is very nice and I'm not a content creator, so perfect colour accuracy and colour gamut is not a priority for me but the screen gets plenty bright at 340nits with minimal backlight bleed. The 1440p panel looks great and is perfect for watching Netflix and YouTube. Additionally the 1440p panel allows the maximum use potential of the RTX3070 that I have in my model and achieves 60FPS and above at ultra settings with ray tracing on in all titles with the exception of cyberpunk 2077 (45-60 FPS average).

The Ionico comes with a mux switch for dedicated GPU which gives a 15% average increase in FPS performance and the 165Hz refresh rate is perfect for playing eSports titles like fortnight, csGO, overwatch, pubG etc as the laptop easily achieves 300+ FPS at 1440p in these titles. All other titles (narrative titles) don't achieve high enough FPS (165) to maximize the use of the 165Hz refresh rate but it is still nice even at 80-120 FPS.

This laptop handles cyberpunk 2077 at ultra settings with ray tracing to medium and DLSS at quality at 1080p like a dream (average FPS 72). The glass precision track pad is really sizeable, lt gestures well and has the ability to be easily disabled if using a separate mouse or controller. As track pads go it's really solid. no unnecessary flex.

Additionally, the keyboard has 4zone RGB for being cool! And the travel on the membrane keys is decent. If you're used to typing on a laptop then these keys will be well suited to you. The keys have some slight wobble if you rub your finger over the tops of the keypads but nothing notable if you're not looking for it. It's a decent key board. Key separation is quite small so takes some getting used to in order to not accidentally press multiple keys whilst typing quickly.

The Inputs for HDMI 2.1 and display port 1.4 via USB C and ethernet and power supply are all conveniently placed at the back of the machine for hooking up to a monitor. And there's 3 USB type A ports on the sides as well as a micro SD card reader which is quite slow but it's there! So you have enough USBs for a wireless mouse an external harddrive and a controller or separate keyboard if plugging in to a desk set up, which I find really useful.

Thermals: CPU idles at 45 degC and under light use is around 55degC during benchmarks such as 3dmark firestrike the CPU gets to 62-65degC. During long gaming sessions the CPU get to 91degC and does not thermal throttle but remains plateaued at 91degC with a clock speed of around 4300MHz. The GPU In majority of games remains between 60-70 degC in more demanding titles running using the dGPU at ultra settings (cyberpunk etc) the GPU temps reach 82degC but rarely any higher. The fans at max do a great job at moving air through the narrow chassis and cooling the laptop, as long as the laptop is raised on a stand to allow air flow.

The fans at max reach 53dB which is quite loud like a tornado (or sounds like you're frying onions as my girlfriend said ha) so you'll want to wear headphones for gaming.

At idle or in office mode the laptop is whisper quite at 28-30 dB and office mode is perfect for doing basic tasks like browsing and using Microsoft office but if you're running some more complicated CPU intensive softwares or doing creative work you'll want the extra performance from gaming and turbo mode but the fans will spin up!

The battery life of the 62wh battery in the Ionico 15 is terrible. with these specifications and a 1440p screen @ 165Hz and using a dedicated graphics card the battery will last 1hr 45mins whilst not gaming. whilst gaming it's lasts 50mins. Therefore I would not recommend gaming on this laptop on battery. If you use hybrid GPU, 1080p resolution, battery saver on, refresh rate at 40Hz and brightness on 50% you can squeeze 6hrs from the tiny battery whilst doing general use tasks.

If you don't want to have to carry around the large 230W power supply then I recommend the Ionico 17.

I'm really happy with this laptop it performs like a champ runs games like a dream gets hot but manages to stay just cool enough over long gaming sessions to not throttle down or get dangerous for the components and is a powerhouse for creative and scientific workloads.

I would highly recommend this laptop and PC specialist have done a really good job building mine. The build quality Is premium the performance is premium the only downside is the battery life but you can opt for the larger Ionico 17 for that if you want the sleek aesthetics and portability of the Ionico.

Another downside of a Ryzen mobile CPU is that it can't be undervolted conveniently as of yet but the Nvidia GPU can.

My build time was 28days for my Ionico with a Ryzen 9 5900Hx and RTX 3070 which are really popular components right now. So all in all PC specialist have made a great laptop the software which has a mux switch, three different user profiles: office, gaming and turbo, along with ability to customise the CPU wattage and GPU wattage and fan controls is great I really love it and would highly recommend!!

Thank you PC specialist.

 

[Deleted member 41971]

The Ionico 15 is light, compact beast of a notebook.

My model has:
CPU: Ryzen 9 5900HX,
GPU: RTX 3070 140w TGP,
RAM: Corsair 16 GB 2933MHz,
Display: 165Hz and 1440P at 15.6".
Battery: 62Wh (Ionico 17 has much larger 92Wh battery.
MUX: yes
Storage: 500GB Samsung 970 Evo PCIe NVMe SSD and 1TB PCS NVMe SSD

The chassis is a light gunmetal grey colour made of magnesium alloy it has a premium finish and has minimal fingerprint marking when handling. It is light weight and portable at just 1.7Kg without the charger/power supply.

The screen is very nice and I'm not a content creator some perfect colour accuracy and colour gamut is not a priority for me but the screen gets plenty bright at 340nits with minimal backlight bleed. The 1440p panel looks great and is perfect for watching Netflix and YouTube. Additionally the 1440p panel allows the maximum potential of the RTX3070 I have in my model and achieves 60FPS and above at ultra settings with ray tracing on in all titles with the exception of cyberpunk 2077 (45-60 FPS average). The Ionico comes with a mux switch for dedicated GPU only which gives a 15% average increase in FPS performance and the 165Hz refresh rate is perfect for playing eSports titles like fortnight, csGO, overwatch, pubG etc as the laptop easily achieves 300+ FPS at 1440p all other titles don't achieve high enough FPS (165) to maximize the use of the 165Hz refresh rate but it still is nice even at 60FPS.

This laptop handles cyberpunk 2077 at ultra settings with ray tracing to medium and DLSS at quality at 1080p like a dream (average FPS 72). The glass precision track pad is really sizeable lt gestures well and has the ability to be easily disabled if using a separate mouse. As track pads go it's really solid.

Additionally, the keyboard has 4zone RGB for being cool! And the travel on the membrane keys is decent. If you're used to typing on a laptop then these keys will be well suited to you. They keys have some slight wobble if you rub your finger over the tops of the keypads but nothing notable if you're not looking for it. It's a decent key board. Key separation is quite small so takes some getting used to in order to not accidentally press multiple keys whilst typing quickly.

The Inputs for HDMI 2.1 and display port 1.4 via USB C and ethernet and power supply are all conveniently placed at the back of the machine for hooking up to a monitor. And there's 3 USB type A ports on the sides as well as a micro SD card reader which is quite slow but it's there! So you have enough USBs for a wireless mouse an external harddrive and a controller or separate keyboard if plugging in to a desk set up which I find really useful.

Thermals: CPU idles at 45 degC and under light use is around 55degC during benchmarks such as 3dmark firestrike the CPU gets to 62-65degC. During long gaming sessions the CPU get to 91degC and does not thermal throttle but remains plateaued at 91degC with a clock speed of around 4300MHz. The GPU In majority of games remains between 60-70 degC in more demanding titles running using the dGPU at ultra settings (cyberpunk etc) the GPU temps reach 82degC but rarely any higher. The fans at max do a great job at moving air through the narrow chassis and cooling the laptop as long as the laptop is raised on a stand to allow air flow.

The fans at max reach 53dB which is quite loud like a tornado (or sounds like you're frying onions as my girlfriend said ha) so you'll want to wear headphones for gaming.

At idle or in office mode the laptop is whisper quite at 28-30 dB and office mode is perfect for doing basic tasks like browsing and using Microsoft office but if you're running some more complicated CPU intensive softwares or doing creative work you'll want the extra performance from gaming and turbo mode but the fans will spin up!

The battery life of the 62wh battery in the Ionico 15 is terrible. with these specifications and a 1440p screen @ 165Hz and using a dedicated graphics card the battery will last 1hr 45mins whilst not gaming. whilst gaming it's lasts 50mins. Therefore I would not recommend gaming on this laptop on battery. If you use hybrid GPU, 1080p resolution, battery saver on, refresh rate at 40Hz and brightness on 50% you can squeeze 6hrs from the tiny battery whilst doing general use tasks.

If you don't want to have to carry around the large 230W power supply then I recommend the Ionico 17.

I'm really happy with this laptop it performs like a champ runs games like a dream gets hot but manages to stay just cool enough over long gaming sessions to not throttle down or get dangerous for the components and is a powerhouse for creative and scientific workloads.

I would highly recommend this laptop and PC specialist have done a really good job building mine. The build quality Is premium the performance is premium the only downside is the battery life but you can opt for the larger Ionico 17 for that if you want the sleek aesthetics and portability of the Ionico.

Another downside of a Ryzen mobile CPU is that it can't be undervolted conveniently as of yet but the Nvidia GPU can.

My build time was 28days for my Ionico with a Ryzen 9 5900Hx and RTX 3070 which are really popular components right now. So all in all PC specialist have made a great laptop the software which has a mux switch, three different user profiles: office, gaming and turbo, along with ability to customise the CPU wattage and GPU wattage and fan controls is great I really love it and would highly recommend!!

Thank you PC specialist.

good to know you are happy with your purchase,

also interesting to know regarding cyberpunk, its this generations crysis can it run

 

[Brookes_117]

good to know you are happy with your purchase,

also interesting to know regarding cyberpunk, its this generations crysis can it run

Thanks, yeah i really love it!

 

[ycogiusti]

Nice review, I'm struggling between your configuration and the one with the Intel i7 11800h + RTX 3080 (for 340 euro more).

I have a small question: can you use the type-c in the back to charge the laptop? since the battery is really small I would like to have a backup during daily commuting and I don't want to carry the beast 230W power charger.

Thanks in advance

 

[Macco26]

I have a small question: can you use the type-c in the back to charge the laptop? since the battery is really small I would like to have a backup during daily commuting and I don't want to carry the beast 230W power charger.

I can answer to this: no. No Tongfang (neither Clevo IIRC) are allowed to take advanage to USB-C Power Delivery. They simply requires too much power and have this PD feature disabled.

 

[ycogiusti]

oh no... I was so close to click on the order button Now I have to re-think a bit the whole solution. So correct me if I'm wrong: it would be actually better to go with the AMD + 3070 because it will drain a bit less battery than the intel + 3080, and the battery would technically last a bit longer?

 

[Macco26]

Don't even think of using RTX during battery operation. I mean, you can, but your battery life will be like 1 hr or so. This laptop must be used in MSHybrid (aka Nvidia Optimus, e.g. driven by the iGPU most of the time) if you want to achieve the advertised 5-6 hour mark. So it's moot to choose the apprpriate RTX. It won't change anything, basically. It's true that AMD might be (as a CPU) a lil better at battery lasting as it's less power hungry than the Intel 11th gen, given the fact it has not PCI 4.0 and other power hungry features.

 

[ycogiusti]

Thanks a lot for your advice! Do you think that the lack of PCI 4.0 could be a reason to switch to the Intel CPU?
I'm quite a long-term buyer ( I have my MacBook pro since 2012 and is serving me quite well, with all of the limitations of the case).

 

[Macco26]

Uhm, people says the new games will use DirectStorage and will use hugely the SSD speed. Frankly I don't believe our eye can be trained enough to distinguish the difference in speed between 3.0 and 4.0, but I might be wrong and them be right.
However the Intel 10800H is a very capable machine. And it'll come with 165W RTX3080 99% of chance. It's a beast. Yet, if the cost is way larger than expected, an AMD + 3070 is PERFECTLY fine and you'll find like 20-25 FPS difference max, and no difference at all in productivity workloads. So.. it's up to you.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Uhm, people says the new games will use DirectStorage and will use hugely the SSD speed. Frankly I don't believe our eye can be trained enough to distinguish the difference in speed between 3.0 and 4.0, but I might be wrong and them be right.
However the Intel 10800H is a very capable machine. And it'll come with 165W RTX3080 99% of chance. It's a beast. Yet, if the cost is way larger than expected, an AMD + 3070 is PERFECTLY fine and you'll find like 20-25 FPS difference max, and no difference at all in productivity workloads. So.. it's up to you.

Have you not seen the gameplay videos for something like Ratchet & Clank that uses the technology on PS5? There are no level loads, it's instant from one to another. Makes a huge difference.

That being said, I still think a good performing Gen 3 drive will still be a good experience.

 

[Macco26]

I believe DirectStorage is a massive improvement vs the same game not taking advantage of DirectStorage.

I am genuinely unsure if the naked eye could see, in the game loading and progress, any tangible difference between 3.0 and 4.0class.
Does it exist any video with such benchmark and DirectStorage? I am genuinely interested. Might be my mistake to consider 3.0 and 4.0 almost the same for games, even including DirectStorage.

PS: of course we are considering like same manufacturer class, like 970EVO vs 980, no crap 3.0 vs flagship 4.0, as you correctly noted.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I believe DirectStorage is a massive improvement vs the same game not taking advantage of DirectStorage.

I am genuinely unsure if the naked eye could see, in the game loading and progress, any tangible difference between 3.0 and 4.0class.
Does it exist any video with such benchmark and DirectStorage? I am genuinely interested. Might be my mistake to consider 3.0 and 4.0 almost the same for games, even including DirectStorage.

PS: of course we are considering like same manufacturer class, like 970EVO vs 980, no crap 3.0 vs flagship 4.0, as you correctly noted.

DirectStorage itself has no benchmarks yet as far as I know, not even sure if it’s in the current preview windows 11 builds.

But Ratchett & Clank uses the same tech (although Sony’s version of it) and you can see gameplay footage of the level loads, basically there are none, it’s real-time loading.

Ratchet And Clank: Rift Apart's Almost Instant Load Times Show Why It Is Skipping PS4

This really wouldn't have the same effect if a loading screen was inserted into the mix for a minute or so.

www.google.co.uk

PS5 is a SOC with Ryzen 3700x and roughly a 5700XT. The M2 is gen 4

 

[barlew]

@Macco26 I am currently looking at coming back to PCS and getting the Ionico 17. I would appreciate an update on how you are finding the laptop now you have had it a year.

Is yours still performing well?

Have you got any new observations good or bad?

 

[Macco26]

Hi Barlew, yes, it is performing very good so far (writing from it). Please do note I am using the discontinued 10875H model, now they rock Intel 11800H or Zen, but things should go quite well as well.
I've heard Zen3 Tongfangs might have some problems upon resuming from standby (I've heard like laptop keeps running hot in the backpack to some people), a thing never happened in my Intel unit. Suspends/Resumes perfectly.

The only, IMO very minor issue I have (expected from a Tongfang, you know this well), is that some keys in the keyboard have the white paint.. more translucent than the rest.
I explain with two pictures below.
The while paint of the letters, on the most used keys (e.g. WASD) became more translucent, like an opaque glass.
This gives a bad appearance while RGB lighting is off.
But since I keep RGB lighting on at all times, the result is those keys are even brighter than the rest, as more light passes through the translucent vs the white paint. I don't think you can get a long lasting pristine keyboard on Tongfangs, so I am ok with that, frankly.

Other than that, all is perfect. And the Control Center is a joy to use. I can set max temperatures for anything, You can set fan profiles at will, you can set CPU and GPU power levels. You can set your given game won't reach, let's say, 90°C CPU no matter what, and it will follow.

Just bear in mind if you want to squeeze the power of the GPU indefinitely you might need the help of an active cooling pad. With the game CONTROL, for example, I saw my 3070 couldn't keep 140W sustained unless fresh air spilling beneath the laptop via two large fans. The 20 mm thickness of the Ionico is really too thin for keeping those thermals at bay without any external help.

PS: with the 11800H you get the PCIe 4.0 SSD slot (one of the two, the one nearer the back of the laptop) and Thunderbolt 4. I am not sure that Nvidia is attached to that Thunderbolt 4.0 port in the PCSpecialist configuration (or passes via Nvidia Optmus through the Intel Xe iGPU). HDMI is NVIDIA attached for sure.
Zen3 variant has no Thunderbolt (it's USB-C with Display port connected to the NVIDIA)

 

[barlew]

Hi Barlew, yes, it is performing very good so far (writing from it). Please do note I am using the discontinued 10875H model, now they rock Intel 11800H or Zen, but things should go quite well as well.
I've heard Zen3 Tongfangs might have some problems upon resuming from standby (I've heard like laptop keeps running hot in the backpack to some people), a thing never happened in my Intel unit. Suspends/Resumes perfectly.

The only, IMO very minor issue I have (expected from a Tongfang, you know this well), is that some keys in the keyboard have the white paint.. more translucent than the rest.
I explain with two pictures below.
The while paint of the letters, on the most used keys (e.g. WASD) became more translucent, like an opaque glass.
This gives a bad appearance while RGB lighting is off.
But since I keep RGB lighting on at all times, the result is those keys are even brighter than the rest, as more light passes through the translucent vs the white paint. I don't think you can get a long lasting pristine keyboard on Tongfangs, so I am ok with that, frankly.View attachment 30320View attachment 30321

Other than that, all is perfect. And the Control Center is a joy to use. I can set max temperatures for anything, You can set fan profiles at will, you can set CPU and GPU power levels. You can set your given game won't reach, let's say, 90°C CPU no matter what, and it will follow.

Just bear in mind if you want to squeeze the power of the GPU indefinitely you might need the help of an active cooling pad. With the game CONTROL, for example, I saw my 3070 couldn't keep 140W sustained unless fresh air spilling beneath the laptop via two large fans. The 20 mm thickness of the Ionico is really too thin for keeping those thermals at bay without any external help.

PS: with the 11800H you get the PCIe 4.0 SSD slot (one of the two, the one nearer the back of the laptop) and Thunderbolt 4. I am not sure that Nvidia is attached to that Thunderbolt 4.0 port in the PCSpecialist configuration (or passes via Nvidia Optmus through the Intel Xe iGPU). HDMI is NVIDIA attached for sure.
Zen3 variant has no Thunderbolt (it's USB-C with Display port connected to the NVIDIA)

Thanks very much for the detailed response @Macco26 really appreciate it. I'm glad the laptop is still working well.

I will be getting the 11800h with it. I had the 5900hx in my last laptop and whilst it was good it wasnt as impressive as I was expecting. Plus it ran hot and couldn't be undervolted.

To be fair your keyboard seems to have stood the test of time. With the old Vyper keyboards the black started scratching off so the lettering would start to dissappear.

That is a great point about the Thubderbolt. I'll have to speak to PCS and confirm its a direct connection to the GPU as I'll be running my monitor off it.

Are you still happy with choosing the 3070? No regrets about not getting a 3080?