This year, we have witnessed some peculiar trends in the tech market. The so-called "AI PCs" in the form of ultrabooks are hitting prices well above 6000 yuan, entering the "quasi high-end standard line."
On the other hand, gaming laptops like the Colorful iGame G15 24, equipped with Intel i7 and RTX 4060 discrete graphics, are gradually approaching the "mainstream price range" of around 5000 yuan. If you had a budget of 6000 yuan, which type of product would you lean towards?
Now, let's focus on the main topic: Is it worth spending 6000 yuan on a gaming laptop with an RTX 4060 in 2024? Let's dive into a hands-on review of the Colorful iGame G15 24!
With a blend of anime and sci-fi elements, the Colorful iGame G15 24 caters to the younger generation.
Many people first encountered Colorful through graphics cards, but now, after over three years in the laptop industry, Colorful has been expanding its influence and product lines like iGame and iGame Space, earning a good reputation among users for its excellent value for money and configurations that meet user needs.
Compared to the iGame series that focuses on Chinese aesthetics, high-end specs, slim design, and high performance, the iGame Space series stands out more in terms of "tech-inspired design" and "value for money," catering better to the needs of younger users. For instance, the previously released Colorful iGame Space P16 TA allowed many gamers to get their hands on an RTX 4070 gaming laptop for just over 7000 yuan. In people's minds, Colorful iGame Space has become the rising star in terms of "value for money."
The newly launched Colorful iGame G15 24 targets the 5000-6000 yuan price range, featuring a 2K resolution 165Hz high refresh rate screen, an i7 processor, RTX 4060 discrete graphics with direct connection, support for new technologies like ray tracing and DLSS3, and an impressive AI computing power of up to 233 TOPS.
Can it draw on the success of its predecessor and become a more user-friendly "2K high-definition 3A artifact"?
Firstly, in terms of appearance, the Colorful iGame G15 24 still maintains a youthful and highly recognizable design, with this Carbon Gray color scheme exuding a subtle vibe.
According to official sources, the design inspiration for the Colorful iGame G15 24's casing comes from a "spaceship." The central design on the front panel resembles a spaceship ready to launch into the universe, exploring unknown territories and uncovering massive celestial phenomena hidden in the darkness.
The metallic strip in the middle features the iconic colorful light reflection effect of the Rainbow family, giving the impression of a circulating extraterrestrial energy when viewed from different angles.
The elongated bias design of the heat dissipation holes also exudes a futuristic and technological feel, further highlighting the avant-garde design language.
Rainbow has also synchronized the release of the "Yinji Virtual Spokesperson" with the G15 24, which has been showcased on the new desktop. With elements of anime and science fiction, the design of the Rainbow Hidden Star G15 24 is appealing to both anime culture enthusiasts and cutting-edge gamers who seek fashion and technology.
When it comes to the keyboard, the feel of a laptop keyboard has always been a point of concern for many people. The key travel of the Colorful iGame G15 24 is moderate, with excellent rebound feel, so even during long gaming sessions or typing, it won't cause wrist fatigue. The keyboard also features a numeric keypad. Perhaps due to cost constraints, it only has white backlighting.
In terms of interfaces, the Colorful iGame G15 24 retains three traditional Type-A USB 3.1 ports, along with a new Type-C port (USB 3.1 Gen2) that supports DP 1.4 video output, an HDMI port, and a standard RJ45 Ethernet port.
Whether it's connecting a USB flash drive, external hard drive, external monitor, or wired network, it can meet daily needs. In terms of interface layout, the RJ45 Ethernet port on the right side may occupy the mouse operation space after connecting the network cable, so some laptop models have moved all these ports to the rear of the chassis.
The appearance of the Colorful iGame G15 24 is infused with a futuristic and sci-fi design, making it more appealing to most young people.
The 2.5K high refresh rate screen performs very well after simple color calibration!
Furthermore, as a gaming laptop, the display experience has always been one of the most focused aspects.
The Colorful iGame G15 24 features a 2.5K (2560x1440) high-resolution IPS wide-angle panel, offering nearly 1.8 times higher pixel density compared to 1080P. Even when zoomed in, the picture remains delicate and sharp, delivering richer details in gaming and video playback.
The screen of the Colorful iGame G15 24 is sourced from BOE, with the model identified as NE156QHM-NY2. Screen testing with a colorimeter shows a measured color gamut coverage of 94.2% sRGB, while a brightness meter recorded a maximum brightness of 336 nits in the central area of the screen.
In terms of color accuracy, this screen exhibits a color cast in its default factory settings. However, after calibration, we found that the screen's color accuracy can reach an average △E of 0.2, demonstrating excellent color performance.
In addition, this panel also boasts a high refresh rate of 165Hz, which undoubtedly enhances the smoothness experience for popular FPS shooting games today. As long as your hardware is capable of maintaining high frame rate output, it can provide an ultra-low gaming operation response experience that meets the demands of esports gaming.
With ample performance configuration, the i7-13620H+RTX4060 is a powerhouse!
As a laptop targeting gamers and creators, the Colorful Xingxing G15 24 has spared no expense in selecting core hardware. Starting with the CPU, it features the 13th generation Intel Core i7-13620H processor, with 10 cores and 16 threads, sufficient to handle various types of games and intensive creative work.
Based on our tests, this processor performs at an upper level compared to similarly priced products in both single-threaded and multi-threaded performance in CineBench R23/R24 benchmarks.
CineBench R23 scores: Multi-core 15480, Single-core 1848.
CineBench R24 scores: Multi-core 802, Single-core 110. GPU score: 9357.
Paired with the i7-13620H is NVIDIA's latest RTX 4060 laptop GPU. This GPU, based on the Ada architecture, offers an overall performance boost of around 20-25%, with a significant improvement in ray tracing capabilities.
In terms of theoretical performance, in a DX11 scenario like 3DMark Fire Strike, the GPU achieves a graphics score of 26626 points.
It is worth mentioning that the Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 4060 also features the dedicated graphics card direct connection function, which can maximize the performance of the RTX 4060, especially enhancing the frame rate performance of high-frame games like "CS2".
In our tests of several AAA titles, the Colorful iGame G15 24 with RTX 4060 can smoothly drive 2K resolution, maintaining an average frame rate of over 60 frames per second. Some games, when using DLSS technology, can even exceed 100 frames per second.
"Grid Legends" is a well-optimized game on the Windows platform. The game now supports DLSS 3 and NVIDIA Reflex, enhancing frame rates with almost no loss in visual quality, while providing a gaming experience with low latency and excellent response speed.
At a resolution of 2560x1440 with ultra-high graphics settings, without enabling DLSS3 and frame interpolation, the average frame rate can reach 90 frames.
After enabling DLSS3, we conducted another test, and the frame rate increased to 111 frames per second, a significant boost of up to 23%. High frame rates greatly enhance the gaming experience in racing games, especially when paired with a 165Hz high refresh rate screen. The visuals presented in front of us are now doubled per second, making it much easier to spot braking points, entry and exit points for each turn.
Similarly, the advantages of the RTX 4060 discrete graphics card, direct connection, and the 165Hz high refresh rate screen are also evident in FPS games like "CS2". In real-world testing at a resolution of 2560*1440, with high preset graphics settings, the frame rate on the Desert City 2 map can reach around 200 frames per second.
Upon receiving the RTX 4060 GPU, many naturally want to experience the charm of ray tracing in games. So, can the Colorful iGame G15 24 with the 2K dessert card RTX 4060 easily handle the ray-traced visuals of "Cyberpunk 2077"?
Maintaining a resolution of 2560x1440 and setting the graphics to "Ray Tracing: Low," the built-in benchmark test revealed an average frame rate of 78 frames, providing a very smooth experience.
The average frame rate of "Dying Light 2" at a resolution of 2560x1440 with ray tracing enabled can reach 76 frames per second.
At a resolution of 2560x1440 and with high ray tracing graphics, "Bright Memory: Infinite" also achieved an impressive average of 64 frames per second.
In addition to gaming, the RTX 40 series GPUs also boast powerful creative performance and AI acceleration capabilities, excelling in areas such as video encoding, 3D rendering, and AI-generated content creation.
We tested the rendering performance of the RTX 4060 in ray tracing scenes using Blender Benchmark (4.1.1). This software can measure the hardware's rendering times per minute, reflecting the level of hardware rendering performance.
In the "monster" scene, the rendering score reached 1605 points, while the "junkshop" scene scored 900 points, and the "classroom" scene scored 863 points, showcasing high levels of performance that are difficult to achieve with CPU rendering alone.
The RTX 4060 discrete graphics card also boasts powerful AI computing capabilities, with an official rating of up to 233 TOPS. In our testing using Procyon AI for inference, it scored 831 and 1723 points in FP32 and FP16 calculations, respectively, far surpassing other AI hardware with only double-digit TOPS levels.
In practical AI applications, we attempted to use StableDiffusion for text-to-image generation. We conducted tests with sampling set to Euler a, 50 iterations, 10 total batches, 2 images per batch, resulting in a total of 20 images at a resolution of 512x512. The entire process took only 1 minute and 56 seconds, demonstrating high efficiency in image generation with good quality output, showcasing significant practical value.
With a powerful CPU/GPU, the Colorful iGame G15 24 also offers dual SO-DIMM memory slots (expandable up to 64GB DDR4 3200MHz) and dual M.2 PCIe 4.0 solid-state drive slots, allowing gamers to further upgrade memory and storage capacity in the future.
The machine comes with a WD SN540 solid-state drive as the factory configuration, which is a PCIe 3.0*4 specification, with measured read speeds of 3335MB/s and write speeds of 1506MB/s, showing average performance. Moreover, the 512GB version has a lifespan of only 150TBW, significantly lower than the 600TBW of the 2TB version. With the 512GB capacity becoming limited for increasingly larger games, it is recommended that users with the means consider replacing or adding a high-capacity PCIe 4.0 M.2 solid-state drive for storing and running games.
Although the Rainbow G15 24's hard drive and memory specifications may not match those of more expensive RTX 4060 laptops, overall, whether for high-performance creation or heavy gaming, the Rainbow G15 24's performance justifies its price, providing players with an experience beyond expectations. For users who enjoy single-player games, esports, and light to moderate creative work, if they happen to have some DIY upgrade capabilities, it will be a very good choice.
135W overall performance release, but limited battery life
As a high-performance gaming laptop, heat dissipation and battery life are also important factors affecting the user experience. The Rainbow G15 24 features a new "Ice Crystal Heat Dissipation Architecture," including thickened 10mm+8mm dual heat pipes, and a dual-turbo fan cooling design.
According to our tests, using AIDA64 FPU+FurMark stress test in turbo mode, the Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Advanced OC graphics card can reach a full load power consumption of 135 watts, with the CPU consuming around 35 watts and the GPU consuming around 100 watts.
At full load with 135W power consumption, the noise level does not exceed 60 dB, making it a relatively quiet noise level that people can tolerate for extended periods.
In addition, the Colorful iGame G15 24 also incorporates the design concept of "heat zone offset," which keeps the main heating area away from the palm position, reducing the risk of users directly touching hot spots.
Our tests have shown that when used at full load with a power consumption of 135W in a 26°C air-conditioned room, the heat generated does not raise the surface temperature of core areas like WASD above 37.1°C. The overall temperature of the machine is kept within an acceptable range, ensuring it remains comfortable to touch, providing a very pleasant user experience.
In terms of battery life, using office software in integrated graphics mode and power-saving mode, the Colorful iGame G15 24 can achieve 4 hours of office use (PCMark10 modern office battery life). However, this may not be ideal for users who expect to use their laptops for extended periods while on the go.
Summary:
Overall, the Colorful iGame G15 24, equipped with an RTX 4060 discrete graphics card, offers a good balance of performance and value for money within the price range of under 6000 yuan, making it accessible as an entry-level gaming laptop. Its performance, cooling system, and battery life all fall within the expected good range, achieving a blend of performance and affordability.
Moreover, the thoughtful design in aspects like screen performance, keyboard feel, and overall user experience make a lasting impression. I would recommend it for users with a budget around 6000 yuan, looking for a laptop capable of handling 2K high-quality 3A games or esports titles, or those requiring AI applications with high computational demands.
