• out of stock

Kraken M15 (Intel NUC X15) Gaming Laptop - 15.6" QHD 165Hz, i7-11800H, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, RTX 3060 $1499 Shipped @ BPC Tech

650

Saw the other two deals posted on here today and thought to bring this bad boy up again. As far as I am considered this is a far better deal. Basically the same machine as the one from mwave for 400$ cheaper - another 16gb 3200mhz stick and some extra storage would certainly not set you back for more than 400$ plus you get the liberty to choose what model of storage you want. Also note that you can also redeem a COD bundle like other intel deals right now.

Windows is installed but not activated as per usual with these machines

Specs are as follows:

  • i7-11800H (8 core 16 threads, 24M Cache, up to 4.60 GHz)

  • Narrow Bezel IPS 16:9 ratio, QHD 165 Hz

  • Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060 (115W TDP + 15W Dynamic Boost)

  • Per Key RGB Mechanical Keyboard

  • Kingston ValueRam 16GB (1x 16GB) DDR4 3200MHz SO-DIMM Memory - CL22 - Memory: 16GB - Pin: 260 Pin - Voltage: 1.2V - Dual Rank - KVR32S22D8/16

  • Kingston NV1 500GB PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD

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closed Comments

  • When does the sale end? Am undecided still!

    • +4

      It's always at this price.

  • Is this good for gaming?

    • +14

      This laptop has a RTX 3060 GPU with a TDP of 130W which will outperform a RTX 3070 with 80W TDP listed in this current deal Acer Nitro 5
      so yes this laptop will be good for gaming

    • As a laptop branded as gaming, you would certainly hope so!

  • Don't game, but keen on the 2 dimm slot and 2 x M2 SSD, anyone now if we can disable the GPU to get longer battery life?

    • +12

      Why not find an alternative instead of buying a gaming laptop?

      • trying to find at least 15.6 screen with 2 x SSD, 2 DIMM, no GPU, no Numpad, I'm using Thinkpad X1 Extreme now, and even with GPU disabled the battery life is still poor.

        • +3

          Gaming laptop are usually paired with a power hungry CPU to match the GPU. Even with the GPU disabled, battery won’t be great.

        • Have you tried mac?

        • Yeah I have the Thinkpad too . Looks great Super thin but battery life and especially thermals are atrocious for gaming.

        • I see you're also looking to wrangle yourself a unicorn! Whilst it's a compromise on the screen size, have you looked at the Framework laptop? Whilst only one M.2 slot, you can add a 1TB expansion card (no doubt bigger ones available in the future) and still connected to the PCIe bus.

          And upgradeable in the future.

          Just thought I'd throw it out as an option if you weren't aware

        • Disabling the gpu in device manager makes the power use worse. The dGPU cannot go into power saving or sleep states without the drivers running.

          My 3070 based Kraken with power saving settings can get up to 8-9 hours of light usage.

          If the 3070 keeps waking up though it quickly drops to 2 hours.

          If you're actually needing the power of the CPU you're not getting battery life with an Intel. Ryzen based would be better.

      • Seems to be the issue for me too, finding powerful CPU with upgradeable ram!

    • +2

      If you want battery life avoid Intel 10/11th gen H CPUs , haven't tested 12th gen

      • +2

        They all shit. Go ryzen and you double battery life.

    • Battery life is horse on this, at least from my experience, I have limited a bunch of apps to run on the best power-saving settings and have attempted to under volt the CPU in the bios. Would love to know if anyone is getting reasonable battery life on this. Also if you plan to use this while moving around a lot, I broke the charger pretty quick from mediocre using throwing it in my computer bag.

    • I'm wondering the same, looking for QHD screen for an everyday use laptop (won't use for gaming as I have a PC).

  • +2

    Might hold off til black friday. Would love this type of lappy at around 1200… I certainly do appreciate these posts. Thank you

    • Yeah definitely waiting is not abad call especially considering 40 series mobile debut in january so we should be expecting retailers to drop prices to clear old stocks soon

  • What's the deal with these nuc laptops? Is this a separate line of mobile chips from Intel or is this intels mobile range now? And are these the same chips in regular nucs?

    • +1

      They just borrowed the nuc's name. This is a line of intel laptops that they co develop with other laptop oems (in this case tongfang).

      The chips used are just your normal mobile intel chips. They are different from nucs, most nucs use more power efficient and weaker cpus, unless we are talking about the nuc extreme series where they use either i7-11700B (and slightly different i7-11800H) or the i9-11900KB (a slightly different i9-11980HK)

  • I bought RTX 3070 with 1TB version for around $1900 4 months back. These laptops are great.

    • +1

      Any cooling issues? Or it's been good to you?

      • I play Dota 2 and some VR games. I limited the fps on Dota 2 to 120hz at max settings. Without the limit I can hear the fans. I haven't had throttling with PC games or PCVR.

    • How it the driver setup process? (I would imagine it would be fine with Intel but it's not always as smooth with OEM/Sager/Metabox based laptops)

      • You need to download the NUC X15 drivers from intel website and install the nuc studio from microsoft store. Install in the order they say and it's good.

    • How are the temps? This laptop has 2 exhaust vents. Most gaming laptops have 3-4 exhaust vents

      • +1

        ? Theres 4 exhausts mate, two at the back and two at the side like others.

        • Middle of the keyboard gets warm and during cold days I use the side vents to warm my finger tips. It has 4 wents.

        • oh i must have not seen the side ones on my mobile phone screen.

  • I got the plain (non-Kraken) Intel NUC X15 version of this with Win10Pro for $1899 in April. It died after only 2 months, store (not BPC) sent it back to Intel and they replaced it with a new one (took them over a month though). The replacement is going strong so far and it can handle all my games very well. It's really well built and very easy to upgrade. I was a bit hesitant about the 15" QHD screen (and it is a real battery drain) but the higher resolution turned out to be a blessing for my strategy games when I don't have my larger monitor around. My only complaints would be the lack of charging via Thunderbolt/USB-C and the weight (even though it's only 1.9kg.)

    • The weight is very good for a gaming laptop this size actually, the lack of PD charging via thunderbolt is the real downer here - even though it is supposed to be part of the requirement for thunderbolt.

  • +4

    Bought this laptop last August and it does the job and im very happy with it.

    Keep in mind that this laptop does not have a MUX switch, so you do lose a bit of performance around 5-10% when playing on the laptop screen. Though if you are plugging this laptop on an external display, you wont have that perfomance lost. The laptop gets warm to the touch but not enough to make it uncomfortable when its on your lap. Because you cant turn off the dGPU, battery life isnt that great around a 4-6 hours on full charge on standard mostly doing office/videos.

    Aesthetic-wise, the laptops looks really professional, no stickers (stickers are included if you want to put them) or any of those gaming designs you see on most gaming laptops.

    Last thing, you can manage how the laptop performs using the intel software, it has very limited presets and does not allow you to configure fan curves. Fans average around 4000rpm on gaming and keeps CPU GPU temps around 75 degC. It has a benchmark preset that sets the fans to max ~5000rpm and boosts the GPU for extra juice. Undervolting the CPU and GPU can also help keep temps down.

    • Does the bios let you set voltages on cpu and gpu? I wonder if kraken models use same bios

      • +1

        All use the same bios. The tweaking is shit.

        You can undervolt the CPU and the iGPU in BIOS.

        Nothing on the dGPU.

    • Anywhere I can read up on that MUX switch issue you mentioned? I wasn't aware that was a thing?

      • https://www.laptopmag.com/features/should-you-get-a-mux-switch-enabled-gaming-laptop#:~:text=A%20MUX%20(multiplexer)%20switch%20improves,ll%20channel%20the%20discrete%20GPU.

  • Can anyone explain me why this laptop is good? it doesn't look cheap compare to other laptops with same cpu and gpu.

    Does this have special feature? or better build quality or something?

    • Its well priced for what you are getting
      What are tou comparing to?

  • Would this even be able to achieve 1440p60? GPU seems not strong enough for this resolution

  • This is an okay deal, but for my money I'd go with the Legion 5 Pro for an extra $300 (or $500 for a 3070 model) that has been on sale a few times:

    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/723655

    • Can you tell me why you would pay an extra $300 for the same speced Legion 5 Pro? Is it not the same other than the brand names?

      • +2

        Basically the overall build quality, screen quality (brightness, colour accuracy & response time), battery life and system/cooling performance. Although I can't speak to these aspects of the kraken (look up some reviews/user recounts), some things to consider:

        • L5Pro has 100% SRGB display, fast response time ect
        • L5Pro can run integrated graphics to save battery life (apparently 8.5hrs non gaming use)
        • L5Pro has 2x8gb of ram to run in dual channel, the kraken has a single 16gb in single channel
        • L5Pro comes with a copy of Windows

        It's always best to look at as many reviews of the particular model you're looking at as possible, to get an idea of if it ticks the boxes for your specific use case. Probably most important for "Gaming" use, is the sustained performance under load. Similarly spec'd laptops can have vastly different performance based on the cooling system and power delivery. I'd take a lower spec'd Legion over a higher spec'd Acer Nitro for example.

        • +1

          Plus
          + 16:10 screen ratio
          + able to charge using USB C
          + 500 nits brightness
          + under normal use fan doesn't turn on because of the big heatsink. Saving more battery and silent operation

          • missing SD card slot
        • Performance wise with similar spec NUC to Legion is very similar. So same ram and sdd and you'll have very similar performance.

          These come with Windows, you just have to activate it yourself with the code in the box.

          I think these are 100% srgb, but less on the DCI than the Legion IIRC.

          The Legion has better cooling/thermals. And a proper MUX switch.

          The Kraken gets the same battery life as long as the dGPU stays asleep, it actually has a larger 94wh battery than the Legion at 80wh, just you don't control this via a MUX so it isn't consistent.

          The Legion is 500g heavier at 2.4kg vs 1.9kg.

          Legion:
          356 mm (w) x 264.2 mm (d) x 26.85 mm

          NUC X15
          356. 4 mm x 233.8 mm x 21.65 mm

          For the below:
          16:10 ratio is a benefit if you want it.
          No USBC charging
          Brightness increase would be good when using outdoors.
          This has passive mode and can run with no fans on light usage.

  • +2

    Bought this laptop around 9 or so months ago for school.
    Battery life: really really mid, lasts like 3-4 hours, tbf I have like 40 chrome tabs open (no spotify or anything just chrome)
    Keyboard: great keyboard really nice to type on once you get used to it.
    Screen: Great screen, looks amazing and the hz feel amazing, rarely use it at full hz due to it being a battery drain
    Touchpad: Great touchpad really easy to use feels like a mac one, way better than most laptops I have used.
    Chassis: Scratches really easy mine is covered in scratches from moving around at school or attempting to put a USB in, unsucessfully.
    Charger: Mine is almost broken, replacement is $200, so I have taped the hell out of it to keep it going, it frayed really quickly from the shoving of it in my bag, would reccomend to be really careful with it.
    Hinges: made out of cheap plastic and have started to wobble and have cracked, not the actual mechanical hinges just the plastic covering.

    Overall: moving around in a school environment I wouldnt reccomend, with the mid battery life and crap charger. For home gaming or travel and gaming with good care of the charger would make an amazing cheap laptop.

    Notes:
    -Really easy to open and modify

    • I remember my workmate had an insane amount of scratches around the door key lock on the driver seat side because many many unsuccessful attempts in unlocking the car… It was because the after work beers, way too many.
      Thanks for the feedback man, might wait for black friday as someone suggested before and see how much this will go for.

    • Mine is 9 months old and still looks brand new. Same with the charger. No problems with hinges.

      I take mine back and forth to work in a backpack, but my backpack is nice and organised so it's well protected

  • +1

    Great laptop, I bought an Acer Nitro 5 with similar specs a few weeks before I saw this on offer for $100 more months ago, and am very very happy I swapped, it's a much better laptop in every way, especially the screen. Only issue is it does get significantly hotter (assume because it's metal instead of plastic)

    Very happy with it for the price and would recommend.

  • +2

    Apparently you also get a bonus headphones with purchase.

    Get Bonus GSP Gaming Headset!
    From: 26th Sep 2022 To: 31st Oct 2022

  • +1

    Can I say it? I really want to say it? Is it ok if I say it?
    RELEASE THE ……

  • Just wondering if how you guys claim the MW2 bundle?
    I tried looking for the intel master key in the receipt but there is none.

  • So for all you tech heads out there, how much would it cost to build this sort of spec in a PC in a Micro ATX case with 32Gb ram?

    • +2

      I spent 2 minutes on this part list so its probably not that good: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/rD73Mb

      • 5700x instead of the sad story thats 11th gen desktop

      • Tried to find some relatively cheap but well known parts

      • changed the storage to a 500gb crucial p2

      overall ended up at $1429 but if you watch out for some sales esp that 499$ 3060 should definitely drop you could be looking at 1.3k or lower me reckons for better performance on both the cpu and gpus

      • Thanks for doing that.. So even though I want to do a new PC build.. That laptop is looking mighty attractive for the price!? lol

        • I mean you would see better performance with the desktop but yeah the 1.2k price is pretty attractive for what you get

  • Has anyone received their order and could do an early review?

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