ROG Magic X 2-in-1 computer experience: the tablet volume is stuffed with the i9 core, this is the “Porsche” in the PC

ROG isn't the creator of 2-in-1s, but it's likely to disrupt the segment.

After experiencing the ROG Magic X 2-in-1 computer, I can't help but sigh.

If a tablet is a product between a notebook computer and a mobile phone, then the two-in-one computer is a category further subdivided between the tablet and the notebook, positioned as a light office product that is "portable like a tablet and produced like a notebook" .

For portability, manufacturers often compromise on the performance of 2-in-1 computers. Over time, people have the inherent impression of "mediocre performance" on such products.

Can a 2-in-1 computer really meet the three needs of performance, portability and appearance at the same time?

Equipped with Intel's latest generation Core i9-12900H standard pressure processor, NVIDIA RTX 3050Ti graphics card, and the ROG Magic X, which weighs only 1.2Kg, may give you the answer.

Tailored for hardcore gamers

Put down, spread the stand, and flip open the keyboard on the screen. Does this action seem familiar?

From a styling point of view, ROG Magic X is exactly the same as its predecessor Surface.

Tablet stand, touch screen, magnetic external keyboard, Surface's "rules" for 2-in-1 computers can be found almost on ROG Magic X.

But looking at it from the back from another angle, you shouldn't associate the ROG Magic X with the smooth Surface.

With a mecha-shaped matte metal casing, eye-catching hollowing out, and iconic RGB lighting effects, ROG Magic X has a very clear design orientation – it was born to please hardcore users.

Let's first look at the shell. ROG Magic X is made of high-density aluminum alloy material with a delicate feel, and has been treated with anti-fingerprint treatment. It is not easy to leave stains on the metal surface after long-term use.

ROG also put a lot of thought into the opening of the casing. The dense strip openings on the left form the eye-catching "OG" word as the air inlet of the fuselage, but where did the "R" go?

When I first started, I thought about it for a while, and it was not until I closed the notebook that I realized that the original "R" was at the bottom of the keyboard, forming a text-surrounding effect with the "OG" on the back, which was a rather novel design ingenuity.

There are many similar interesting small designs. For example, many mecha lines are outlined on the fuselage, which visually gives you some high-performance hints of "not easy to mess with".

A small tab protruding slightly on the lower right corner of the stand makes it easier for you to snap the tight hinges when you open the stand.

If I have to be "prickly" in appearance, I can only complain that the iconic "eye of the prodigal family" is too small. If it can cover the entire bracket, the design of the whole machine should look more flamboyant.

The hollow part on the back of the fuselage is the finishing touch of ROG Magic X.

You can see the motherboard parts inside the fuselage through the glass, just like a powerful supercar showing its muscles through the transparent hood, plus a set of RGB lighting effects, it can be said that this is probably the most A tablet that will be "handsome".

Equally striking is the seemingly unremarkable keyboard.

The back of the black keyboard is made of soft suede material, and the front that fits the palm is made of leather-like material, which feels very textured.

Similar to Surface, ROG Magic X is also connected to the keyboard through a magnetic interface.

It supports two-stage height adjustment, and the magnetic attraction is also very firm and reliable.

The difference is that the keyboard of ROG Magic X actually supports RGB lighting effect backlight, which is rare in 2-in-1 computers.

The keyboard backlight can be adjusted in 3 levels. Like the RGB light group on the back panel, all light effects support ROG's synchronous adjustment of the light. If you have a mouse and other ROG peripherals, you can link the light effects in Aura Creator. Customize the lighting effect you like.

But compared to the cool look and feel, what impresses me more is the typing feel of this keyboard.

Although it is an external keyboard, the key travel is also 1.7mm, which is longer than the key travel of many thin and light notebooks. It can give the fingers clear rebound feedback, and the fingers are not easy to feel tired when typing or gaming for a long time.

Lighting the screen, this 13.4-inch touch screen with a resolution of 1920*1200 (16:10) and a refresh rate of 120Hz is also difficult for me to pick out the fault.

The screen surface of ROG Magic X is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass to ensure durability, and the screen brightness of 500 nits can maintain a clear look and feel even in outdoor scenes under the sun.

It is worth mentioning that when holding the tablet, I noticed that the screen will reduce the refresh rate by default to improve battery life.

Later, when debugging the system, I found that the automatic adjustment can be turned off in the system's own performance debugging software ARMOURY CREATE, which can be adjusted according to personal habits. Here I turn it off for a better look and feel.

If after reading the appearance, your impression of ROG Magic X is still on "a Surface that kills Matt", then its performance will give you a new view of the 2-in-1 computer.

Small in size, but not in performance

Before the performance test starts, let me go into a few more words and give a name for the hardware configuration of ROG Magic X:

• Intel's latest 12th generation Core i9-12900H processor (6 performance cores, 8 energy efficiency cores, 14 cores and 20 threads in total)
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050Ti
• 16GB DDR5 memory (8GB*2 onboard)
• 1TB SSD hard drive

When I first got the ROG Magic X, I didn't expect much of its performance.

Because many thin and light notebooks larger in size and volume only use low-performance low-voltage processors, can such a small tablet body suppress the flagship i9 standard-pressure processor?

As it turns out, my worries were superfluous.

Let’s first look at a set of Geekbench 5 running scores. Compared with the previous generation flagship mobile processor i9-11980HK (the test model is Alienware X17), the single-core performance has increased by 13.6%, and the multi-core performance has increased by 29.8%. Very impressive.

In the offline condition of no external power supply and only relying on the battery, the i9-12900H of ROG Magic X can still maintain good performance. It seems that Intel has really squeezed a lot of pipes on the 12th generation processor this time. "toothpaste".

Can the size of the ROG Magic X tablet hold down a CPU that's soaring in performance?

When the fan inside the fuselage keeps running at full speed, the noise is only equivalent to the working sound of a small hand-held fan at mid-range air volume, which is still a long way from the wind noise of a large game book "helicopter taking off".

The cooling fans are arranged on both sides of the top of the ROG Magic X body. In most cases, it is difficult for me to perceive the sound of the fan operation. Only in high power consumption scenarios such as running 3A games can I hear slight wind noise, so I am quite satisfied with its cooling performance.

As a two-in-one computer for gamers, how does ROG Magic X perform in specific games?

In CS:GO, which focuses on CPU performance, under the condition that the screen is set to full-high special effects and 1920*1200 resolution, the average frame rate of the FPS Benchmark test of ROG Magic X is 340FPS, and the average 300FPS picture can also be maintained in the game. It can take advantage of the high refresh rate of this 120Hz screen.

And if you feel that the small screen is not enough fun, you need to expand the 2K large screen to shoot the gun, and run the same test with the screen set to full high special effects and 2560*1440 resolution. The average frame rate of ROG Magic X can also reach 170 FPS. .

In addition to mainstream online games, can popular 3A masterpieces be played?

I chose the exotic Horizon 5 for testing. Under the screen settings of 1920*1200 resolution, full high special effects, and medium ray tracing, the average frame rate measured by Horizon 5's own performance test was 71FPS, which is enough for the vast Smooth speed in the map of Mexico.

The read and write speed of the 1TB M.2 2230 SSD is quite satisfactory. If you want a larger or faster hard drive, you can upgrade it yourself through the quick release port under the bracket.

The ROG Magic X is available in three graphics card configuration versions, namely the integrated display, the NVIDIA RTX 3050 and the RTX 3050Ti that was launched this time.

From the graphics card running point test, the graphics performance of the RTX 3050Ti is comparable to the desktop version of the GTX 1650. The former adds support for ray tracing, and appropriately lowers the special effects at 1080P resolution to ensure the smoothness of most 3 games. run.

Before that, playing 3A games on a thin tablet was almost unthinkable, which is why I think ROG Magic X will subvert people's inherent impression of weak 2-in-1 performance.

However, it should be noted that compared with professional gaming PCs equipped with graphics cards above RTX 3060, ROG Magic X has just passed the threshold of "playable".

In addition to being limited by graphics performance and unable to play smoothly at 4K high resolution, because ROG Magic X has only 4GB of video memory, when running some large-scale 3A games, it may encounter "exploded video memory" due to insufficient video memory.

For example, when I tested the FPS masterpiece "Death Loop", I encountered the problem of the game crashing due to insufficient video memory.

If you are a hard-core player who is unwilling to compromise on the game screen, ROG also "intimately" prepares a choice for you that can significantly improve performance – the XG external graphics dock.

On the left side of the ROG Magic X, there is a dedicated XG graphics card expansion port for ROG. Through lossless graphics transmission, the graphics performance can be improved with a more powerful graphics card. We have seen similar "money capabilities" on last year's Magic 13. plan.

ROG provides a choice of RTX 3080 external graphics docking station with uncompromised performance. The graphics performance can be improved by nearly 5 times, which is enough to meet the smooth running of most 3A games under the conditions of 4K resolution and ray tracing effect.

In terms of content creation, according to the benchmark test data of PugetBench For Adobe Premiere Pro, an external RTX 3080 graphics dock can also bring about a double increase in efficiency.

Therefore, rather than saying that ROG Magic X is a two-in-one computer or gaming tablet, it is better to say that it is a "one-stop solution": all work and entertainment data are stored in it, and you can bring a stand-alone computer when you go to work or on business trips. Work efficiently in the office; connect the graphics dock at home and venture into the magical world of Ayrden Circle.

ROG Magic X is such a machine that "satisfies all wishes at once". Of course, there is a major premise for all this – you need to spend another 10,000 yuan to purchase this dedicated graphics card dock.

"Porsche" in laptops

In terms of interfaces, ROG Magic X has two USB Type-C, one USB 2.0 Type-A, one XG dedicated graphics card expansion docking port, one 3.5mm headphone jack, and a MicroSD card slot hidden inside the bracket.

The location and protocol of the two USB Type-C interfaces are not the same. The Type-C interface in the middle on the left supports the Thunderbolt 4 protocol.

The other Type-C interface and XG interface are hidden in the dustproof port on the lower left side, supporting USB 3.2 Gen2, DP 1.4 protocol, and 100W PD charging.

In daily use, if you want to connect multiple peripherals such as screen and mouse at the same time, it is inevitable to add an additional USB Type-C docking station.

From the perspective of hardware parameters, the ROG Magic X of "Nengwen Nengwu" has almost no shortcomings, but when I actually experienced it for a period of time, I found that it still has a place where it is "stuck in the throat" after solving the performance and heat dissipation problems – battery life .

When the power saving mode is turned on and the screen brightness is 40% (1080P), I only use it for Chrome web browsing. The actual test ROG Magic X can only last for 3 hours and 20 minutes, and the power is exhausted. If you're going to play games offline, you'll get a bigger discount on battery life.

Obviously, ROG Magic X is not an ideal portable office computer compared to Evo, MacBook and other notebooks that emphasize energy performance.

ROG Magic X is equipped with a 100W PD charger, which can quickly charge 50% of the power in 40 minutes, and use fast charging to make up for the short board of battery life to a certain extent.

However, the size of this charger is not small. If it has to be carried randomly every time, it is contrary to the portability emphasized by the two-in-one computer.

Therefore, I recommend that you equip it with a much lighter 65W PD charger, use the low-wattage charger for light work in the office and library, and use the original charger when you get home to give full play to 100% performance.

On the whole, ROG Magic X is like a Porsche – with strong performance, it can almost meet all kinds of needs including production, gaming and entertainment; it is designed online, and it is a thin and light notebook or two-in-one in a lot of business style. There is a unique recognition in the computer.

On this basis, you can also "optional" a powerful external graphics card to get the top game visual experience on the mobile platform; "optional" a 4096-level pressure-sensitive stylus, you can play your game anytime, anywhere. creative.

ROG Magic X is not only a collection of performance and design, but also the cornerstone of an all-in-one solution. In this regard, ROG Magic X is even closer than Surface to Microsoft's vision of "the most versatile computer" – can do anything , and do everything possible.

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