XPG Xenia 15 KC Review

XPG gaming products have been hit or miss in our experience so far, as the fledgling offshoot of Taiwanese component maker ADATA ramps up its portfolio. From the able-bodied XPG Xenia 14 laptop to the good-enough XPG Mage keyboard, the products we’ve seen are increasingly solid efforts from an emerging, rising brand. The XPG Xenia 15 KC ($2,300 as tested) attempts to step up the brand's profile further, promising a bespoke gaming experience that includes a bounty of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, and an Intel Core i7-11800H CPU. In practice, it's a good effort, though some uneven performance keeps this unit front reaching the top tier of offerings. On several tests, it comes up short against other gaming laptops with similar setups, and the price difference isn't big enough to offset that. But it's by far XPG's best gaming laptop so far, even if doesn't have the value factor of the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE or other gaming laptops with near-identical setups.

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Familiar Territory

The XPG Xenia 15 KC doesn’t look much different than XPG’s previous attempt at a 15-inch gaming laptop, the XPG Xenia—but that’s hardly a bad thing. Opting for simplicity, the XPG Xenia 15 KC commits to an all-black color scheme, with just the silver XPG logo on the lid cutting through the matte darkness. The RGB lightbar just below the touchpad delivers a splash of color. 

(Photo: Molly Flores)

The laptop is compact, too, at just 0.8 by 14 by 9.2 inches (HWD). The Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model is a touch slimmer at 0.6 inch, but the Xenia 15 KC weighs less at just 4.2 pounds. You can thank the magnesium alloy for the lightweight chassis. You’ll also notice plenty of vents on almost every side of the machine. They do a decent job of keeping the laptop cool, though it will get quite hot while playing demanding games, so be sure to place it on a surface and not your lap.

The sleek and simple design comes in part due to XPG’s collaboration with Intel to ensure that both the design and performance are top of the line. While this isn’t new for XPG (or in general, as most major laptop manufacturers work closely with the likes of Intel, AMD, and Nvidia) it does result in impressive specs. Our review unit comes stacked with the aforementioned RTX 3070 and Core i7-11800H, as well as 1TB of PCIe Gen 4 M.2 solid-state drive and 32GB of DDR4 RAM. Together, they aim to provide blazing fast speeds for both gaming and productivity workflows (more on whether that's actually the case later).

(Photo: Molly Flores)

While there aren’t any other configurations to choose from upon checkout, those looking for customization and willing to do DIY upgrades will be pleased to know that the Xenia 15 KC comes with an additional M.2 PCI Express Gen 3 slot for storage and support for up to 64GB of RAM. The Xenia 15 KC comes with Windows 10 installed, but you can update to Windows 11 when it's available.

The Xenia 15 KC's display doesn't disappoint. The 15.6-inch IPS panel supports a resolution of 2,560 by 1,440 pixels and offers a 165Hz refresh rate, adequate for a midrange gaming laptop, though nowhere near the highs of the 2021 Acer Predator Helios 300’s 240Hz screen or the Razer Blade 15’s 360Hz. Still, it likely won’t make too much of a difference to those not playing fast-paced shooters and the like.  

With an 85% screen-to-body ratio, the narrow bezels offer a great amount of screen space. The hinges holding the lid in place are solid, and you can even bend the laptop open to a 180-degree angle. There’s no variable refresh rate support, but the 100% sRGB color gamut does help colors pop in photos, games, and videos. I do wish for more brightness: the screen clocks in at a maximum of 331 nits in our testing, so it's not particularly viewable in direct sunlight. At the top of the screen, you'll find a 720p IR webcam with Windows Hello support.

Packed With Ports

The RGB lit keyboard is the same “floating” top design that we've seen in other XPG laptops. While XPG claims it’s a mechanical keyboard, I’d hesitate to compare it to a proper desktop mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches, the go-to choice for gamers thanks to their low actuation force. Still, I grew to appreciate the tactile keyboard, and its satisfying clicks and clacks won me over after a few hours. The gaps between the keys are just asking to trap dust and debris, but they can be cleaned pretty easily.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

At the top right corner of the keyboard, you’ll find the power button as well as the Mode button, which shifts the laptop's operating mode from Balanced to Performance and Battery Saver modes. At the bottom sits a fairly standard touchpad. 

Performance settings, as well as keyboard lighting and other display options, can easily be adjusted using the preinstalled Intel NUC Software Studio. Other preinstalled software includes Spotify, Disney+, Xbox, and the Microsoft Office suite. 

(Photo: Molly Flores)

The speakers, tucked away under the right and left sides of the laptop, deliver crystal clear audio, even with the volume turned all the way up. As with many laptops of all price ranges, the Xenia 15 KC's bass is often lacking, but it’s hardly a deal-breaker. 

As for ports, the Xenia 15 KC is covered on almost all sides. To the right, you’ll find two USB 3.2 ports and a 2-in-1 SD card reader.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

And on the left side, you’ll find another USB 3.2 port, as well as a physical Kensington lock and a headset jack.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

On the back of the laptop, you’ll find one HDMI port, a LAN port, a power connector, and a Thunderbolt 4 port.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 round out the rest of the laptop's connectivity features.

Benchmarking the Xenia 15: Ups and Downs

On paper, the XPG Xenia 15 KC is in peak fighting form, with enough theoretical horsepower to play just about any game with the settings cranked up to Ultra. But how does it fare in direct competition with other gaming notebooks? We put it up against the Alienware x15, this year's model of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, the MSI GE76 Raider, and the Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model to find out. Each notebook in this comparison features similar GPU and CPU setups.

The first on our list of benchmarks is the PCMark 10 test, a productivity test that simulates a variety of Windows programs and gives an overall performance score for typical office workflows. In this test, a result between 4,000 and 5,000 points is a clear indicator of excellent performance.

Even intense CPU-driven tasks are no problem for any of the machines on our list, all of which fly past 6,000 points with ease. The GE76 Raider stops just short of 7,000 points and takes first place on this first test, but the Xenia 15 KC does well, coming in a not-so-distant second place.

Unfortunately, the Xenia takes a tumble in the next test—the PCMark Full System Drive storage subtest, which measures program load times and the throughput of the laptop's boot drive. This time, it came in a distant third place, trailing behind both the MSI GE76 Raider and the Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model by almost 1,000 points, despite using a PCI Express Gen 4 drive.

Next, we run Handbrake 1.4, an open-source tool for converting multimedia files to different resolutions and formats. Here's where, surprisingly, the Xenia 15 KC tied the Razer for last place.

With our focus still on CPU performance, we run the Cinebench R23 benchmark, a multi-core test meant to exercise all of a processor's cores and threads. Here the Xenia 15 KC stumbles again, coming up short behind almost all of its competition.

The Xenia 15 KC comes in fourth place again in our Geekbench test, another CPU stress test meant to simulate real-world activities. The difference here is not as great as the Cinebench results.

Our final productivity test is PugetBench for Photoshop, another content creation benchmark that employs a broad range of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks, exercising both the CPU and GPU. In this test, the Xenia 15 KC found its footing once again, coming in just behind the GE76 Raider.

Game Testing: Frames Dropped

The bread and butter of our gaming laptop tests lie here, beginning with the 3DMark benchmark, a graphics test suite for Windows that contains a number of benchmarks for different GPU functions and software APIs. Using the benchmark, we run 3DMark Night Raid, a modest stress test aimed for laptops and mobile devices, and 3DMark Time Spy, a more demanding test suited for high-performance PCs.

The Xenia 15 KC didn't blow the competition out the water, and its overall score was middling in both the 1080p Night Raid test and the 1440p Time Spy test. It fared better in the GFXBench 5.0 benchmark, another graphics stress test that runs routines like texturing and game-like image rendering to gauge GPU performance. It performed as we expected it to, in both the 1440p Aztec Ruins or 1080p Car Chase tests, coming up short behind the MSI GE76 Raider's RTX 3080. (Note: the GFXBench test was unable to run on the Alienware x15 and Blade 15.)

Our next three tests involve running the built-in benchmarks for an AAA title (Assassin's Creed Valhalla), a sports racing sim (F1 2021), and a fast-paced esports shooter (Rainbow Six: Siege). In these tests, the Xenia did reasonably well, but it wasn't class-leading. It handled Rainbow Six and Assassin's Creed well, but it scored below expectations with F1 2021. On that benchmark, it barely peeked over 60 frames per second without DLSS, Nvidia's video-rendering technique designed to help boost frame rates without sacrificing too much visual quality. With DLSS on, we were able to squeeze a couple more frames from the game, but it didn't quite blow us away.

Every GPU of a given family is not always configured the same, especially when it comes to GeForce RTX 30-Series laptops, which can be configured in different peak wattage arrangements laptop to laptop. (The case of the Xenia 15, it's a 125-watt implementation of the RTX 3070.) In a few of these tests (notably, one of the 3DMarks, and F1), we saw the Xenia 15 KC underperform when it should have kept pace with the competition.

Size, maximum available power, and thermal layouts can all play a role in performance, which can cause some laptops to underperform despite having ample tools for the job. For example, the RTX 3070 found in the XPG has a maximum power draw of 125 watts, while the RTX 3070 in the Alienware x15 has a maximum of 110 watts, though the latter recorded better scores in our 3DMark benchmarks.

Resilient Battery Life

Our final few tests take aim at the laptop's battery life and display quality. To test the battery, we store a locally a copy of the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel on a loop at 50% brightness and at 100% volume, turn off the Wi-Fi, and make a few other battery-testing tweaks before letting it run its course.

The Xenia 15 KC was just a few minutes shy of the top spot, outlasting the majority of its competition. At over ten hours, the Xenia 15 KC's battery life sits comfortably on the higher end of the gaming laptop standard.

Finally, we use Datacolor's SpyderX Elite calibrator tools to measure display performance. We test screen-brightness output levels at 50% and 100% brightness, as well as measure gamut settings for the three most relevant color spaces for laptop users: the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 standards.

XPG's 100% sRGB color gamut promise held strong, though its brightness paled in comparison to the Razer Blade 15 Advanced Model and the Alienware x15.

In Fighting Form

At the end of our testing, despite some uneven results, we came away mostly happy with the XPG Xenia 15 KC. The abundance of RAM with the combination of a high-end GPU and CPU makes for a solid system, and easily XPG's best gaming laptop, despite the up-and-down performance in some areas. While it doesn't blow away the competition, the Xenia is still a solid gaming laptop (and could be even more appealing with a price drop). If you're in the market for a 15-inch gaming laptop with an RTX 3000-series GPU for under $2,000, be sure to also check out the Editors' Choice-winning Predator Triton 300 SE.