Eluktronics Mag-15u mini review: unfortunately failed DPC latency testing.

[Schmidi]

I have been researching a new laptop for the last month, and I believe I've found a winner for audio work. I thought I would share my findings in case it help in anyone's quest for a good audio production and gig ready laptop.

Initially I was all about getting a gaming laptop. I know from my own experience that a dedicated GPU really helps when you have a lot of GUI elements moving in real time (VU meters, etc), and plugins are getting more GUI fancy all the time.

The big thing I learned when researching is that most gaming rigs are pushed to the absolute limits of their thermal possibilities, yet manufacturers are still trying to make them slimmer and lighter while at the same time overclocking them. This often causes thermal throttling, and when you look on forums you repeatedly read about having to perform UNDERvolting (as opposed to overclocking). There are fancy liquid metal cooling/heatsink solutions, but you must realize that these are recommended to be reapplied every six months! That's a lot of maintenance and room for errors!
I've read tons of thermal throttling complaints about the major brands. I absolutely wanted to avoid that as I regularly perform live with my laptops.

If all this power has to be tuned down in order to not overheat the laptop, what is the use in having so much power in the first place! So I went a different route and started looking at 2in1s and ultrabooks (which slim sizes present their own thermal issues). Last week I demo'd and returned a nice Lenovo C940 2in1, due to terrible wifi speeds and very poor DPC latency (beautiful design, sh!t components)

After that I found a very nice alternate to the gaming machines that still has a dedicated GPU. I just received an Eluktronics Mag-15u yesterday and it appears to be an excellent production and performance machine at a very reasonable price. Initially I was looking at a gaming machine, but I wanted more portability and battery life (something gaming books suck at).

This is the config I bought: https://www.amazon.com/Eluktronics-MAG- ... r=8-1&th=1

The i7 in this is a bit older, but raw speed has really not changed a ton over the last 5 years, and honestly audio work doesn't require a billion gHz if you work efficiently. (The new RyZen 4000's are the only CPU I wish it had due to their low power consumption vs performance)

Basically this is a super long life battery, super lightweight but well constructed (all magnesium alloy) 15" that still has a dedicated GPU. That's exactly what I wanted.

DPC latency (THE most important bench for audio work) is excellent so far (measured with latencymon).

Windows: no bloatware at all!

Build: feels sturdy, 2nd only to my old Elitebooks (which I rate as "take into battle" tough). very minimal fingerprints too!

Keyboard: (I am no great typist mind you), has a satisfying travel and click. Backlight is a NON-blinding solid white.

Trackpad: plenty good, but I very much wish it had left and right dedicated buttons.

Screen: plenty good for me (I believe around 320 nits per youtube reviews). (I'm no RGB power user mind you)

Thermals: appear to hover around 40c which is great. The laptop remains cool to the touch on all surfaces.

Graphics: haven't really tested games, but this does have the higher 25 watt MX250. All benches I've seen rate it well above 100FPS in Overwatch if that's any marker for you.

Battery Life: Best I've ever had in a laptop, bar none. I have downloaded and installed over 50 plugs, 15 sample libraries, Three DAWs, performed windows audio optimizations/updates/driver installs and I still have 40% on my battery (I've at least had it running for 10 hours on battery + a full 8 hours on sleep not plugged in). I'm estimating 20 hours + of actual use is possible here!

Fans: so far silent during the above tasks.

Cons: only 1 ram slot but many bench's show that this doesn't effect the majority of processing tasks nearly as much as we think. (I had to see some online benches myself to get over this belief as well)

Wish it had a few more USB ports, but I'm spoiled by my old beast tank HP 8770w (multiple of every port you could think of including 5 USBs!)

Anyway, I promise to update if things go south. So far it's about the best mix of features and performance to price that I have found outside of 2011-2015 used Elitebooks.

Update @ 1.5 weeks: Windows 10, 1909 update applied. This update did cause some DPC latency spikes, and audio crackles via realtek + Asio4All as well as a Traktor Audio 2 mk2. My MPC Live and Komplete Audio 6 mk2 were not affected by crackles. (*There is a mountain of internet reading out there speculating DPC latency causes and fixes I've learned).

Still seems like a pretty decent laptop for music once I did some more low level tweeks (turning off many Services, disabling ACPI battery monitor, adjusting power plans etc). I also had a successful 1 hour livestream (no DAW/VST duties, just FB live with 2 cam feeds and audio).

Battery Update: I'd estimate more likely about 10 solid hours of productivity.

[Schmidi]

Well, after getting everything up and running, the DPC spikes have crept up and things are not as rosey.

Win10 1909 update didn't help at all. I will try 2004 tonight but I'm not optimistic. The laptop is not completely unusable, but I want better performance and no crackles damn it. Returning

[t3toooo]

Could you do a test and add the "Ultimate Performance Power Plan"?
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/107 ... -10-a.html

Then lock the CPU to a specific frequency, like so.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/955 ... -10-a.html

Set both the minimum and maximum processor state at the same time to either 99% for non Turbo and 100% for full Turbo mode ( yes, this is important )

For this test you could turn off Bluetooth and Wifi. It would be interesting how this is working for you in a DAW. Some DPC spikes should not do too much harm.

Please post the results.

[Schmidi]

Interesting, I will try these. I've already done the ultimate performance plan, but never tried 99% VS 100% CPU.

[t3toooo]

Don't know why you did not report back but did you test the Laptop with the locked CPU?

[Schmidi]

Hey sorry, it's been a hectic week at work (hospital RN). I did try the 99% min/max but averages hovered at 250u and spikes up to 850 at idle. Any touch pad (mouse) movement spiked it up higher. Win10 1909 update definitely worsened the latency compared to 1903 on this laptop.

I've returned the Mag 15u and have ordered a Sager i7 10875H/RTX 2060 and will evaluate and post next week.

[t3toooo]

Thank you for reply.

What i'm interested in, beside the DPC latency. Did you manage to run something crackle-free on the Mag-15U for example when not touching the TouchPad?
In other words, maybe there are workarounds to get a Budget U-CPU up and running?

[Schmidi]

Yes, two of my three interfaces worked crackle free but I never pushed the CPU too hard. Example: playing Arturia Pigments with a Tube compressor/saturator called Goliath by Tone Empire on the same channel.

Working interfaces:
NI Komplete Audio 6 mk2
Akai MPC Live

Not working:
NI Traktor Audio 2 mk2 (despite many tweeks it would not run without crackles, regardless of host)
Onboard Realtek with ASIO4ALL (Again, despite lots of attempts, I could never get it crackle free)

So, my two most portable interfaces...for my shiny new portable laptop... didn't work!

I also have a gut feeling that if pushed harder, crackles would appear on my working interfaces, hence my return of the laptop.

I am curious if a newer Ryzen (4000 series) ultrabook would work though...