With the APEX 17 M23, XMG offers a new version of its popular mid-range gaming laptop. This relies on NVIDIA RTX 4000 GPUs and Ryzen 7000 CPUs, which is a very up-to-date combination!
Despite the midrange focus, the APEX 17 is not a super slim or compact gaming notebook, but relies on an uncompromising housing with high power limits and strong cooling.
Let’s take a closer look at the XMG APEX 17 M23 in the test. Can this convince?
At this point many thanks to XMG for lending the APEX 17 M23 for this test.
The XMG APEX 17 M23 in review
The APEX 17 is a big notebook! This shouldn’t come as a surprise with the 17-inch display, but making the APEX as “portable” as possible didn’t seem to have had top priority.
The notebook is 24.9 mm thick and weighs 2.47 kg.
This isn’t too thick or bulky, but there are definitely lighter and thinner notebooks out there with comparable performance on paper.
On the other hand, the notebook also appears to be built quite massively and stably. However, XMG uses its standard “design” here. We have a completely black notebook, which itself has a very clean design. While we do have a few more “flashy” edges and shapes, the APEX remains simple overall.
The largest part of the notebook is made of plastic, only the lid is made of metal.
The connections of the APEX 17 are distributed over three sides.
2x USB-A 3.2 Gen1 (powered) card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC) power supply connection RJ45 port (LAN) HDMI 2.1 (G-SYNC compatible | HDCP 2.3 | 48 Gbps) USB-C 3.2 Gen2×1 (DisplayPort: no | Power Delivery: no) Mini DisplayPort 1.4a (G-SYNC compatible | 2 streams with a total of 32.4 Gbps) Headphone output (compatible with combi plug headsets) Microphone input USB-A 2.0 (powered)
This is a decent set of ports for an AMD notebook, although I wouldn’t have objected to a USB C 4 port.
Included with the APEX 17 is an FSP 230W power supply.
the display
The APEX 17 features a 17.3-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels and a refresh rate of 144Hz.
So we have a typical gaming notebook here. The RTX 4060/4050 will have no problems at all driving games at high frame rates with Full HD resolution.
However, Full HD on 17.3 inches is not overly sharp either! It’s possible, it’s not that noticeable in games in particular, but you can see from the edges of text that Full HD has gotten a bit old in the meantime. A 2K screen option would have been nice, but personally I can handle Full HD in gaming.
But what about the quality of the display?
Here we get solid standard fare. 95% sRGB color space, 333 cd/m² maximum brightness, 1430:1 contrast and a solid color fidelity of Delta E 1.45 on average.
This makes the display look decent and is well suited for gaming, but it would not be my first choice for professional photo and video editing
speaker
My expectations as far as the loudspeakers in XMG notebooks are concerned are very low! Unfortunately, XMG notebooks very often have very poor speakers.
However, the APEX 17 exceeded my expectations here! The speakers of the notebook are OK. These sound decent, are sufficiently loud and full. The notebook also sounds relatively wide.
However, we have to be honest, compared to an Apple MacBook or Dell XPS, the speakers are still rather weak.
However, these are ok for a gaming notebook. ASUS and Co have comparable speakers in their mid-range gaming notebooks.
keyboard and trackpad
The APEX 17 has a classic German QWERTZ keyboard with a number pad. The latter is always a matter of taste.
In itself, however, the keyboard of the notebook is decent! The typing feel is precise and crisp and the stroke is good. I would say this is a “good+” keyboard for both gaming and typing.
Only the illumination of the keyboard is “unspectacular”. It does its job, but is nothing special.
However, I’m a bit torn when it comes to the trackpad. In itself, this is nice and big and feels quite good (the surface). But the tracking was a bit “jumpy” for me. The trackpad sometimes worked great, then suddenly the pointer made a small jump or registered a gesture.
Maybe it’s a driver problem, because I’m usually used to something better from XMG.
Performance, hohe Powerlimits!
The heart of the XMG APEX 17 M23 is the AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS. The AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS is a top current 8 core CPU with up to 4.75 Ghz.
XMG relies on a TDP of 54W+! Usually this is a 35-45W CPU. Due to the higher maximum TDP, the Ryzen 7 7735HS can achieve a higher clock and thus more performance under full load.
To put it silly, the Ryzen 7 7735HS in the XMG APEX 17 M23 is faster than in many other notebooks with the same CPU.
In practice, I could even observe a CPU power consumption of 80W+ in “Overboost” mode, with a pure CPU load. Impressive!
On the GPU side, you have two models to choose from:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 | 6 GB GDDR6 | 115 W TGP* (+ 25 W Dynamic Boost) |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 115 W TGP* (+ 25 W Dynamic Boost) |
I would probably lean towards the RTX 4060 here, just because of the 8GB vs. 6GB VRAM. Here, too, we have quite high power limits with 115W.
First, let’s look at a few benchmarks.
This is where it gets exciting! Because there is an oddity. The APEX 17 performs particularly well in benchmarks that require high performance for a long time!
For example, in the rather short Cinebench 20 test, the notebook only came in 3rd place. In the long Cinebench 23 test (10 minutes constant load), it clearly came in 1st place!
The same with the Handbrake Video Encoding Test.
This means that the APEX 17 is also very exciting in terms of performance for video editing!
But how does it look in games?
Unsurprisingly very good! We easily exceeded the 60 FPS limit even in poorly optimized games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey or demanding AAA games like Hogwarts Legacy.
In games like Overwatch or Diablo 4 we break the 100 FPS limit on ultra quality.
The APEX 17 M23 thus scratches the performance of RTX 3080 notebooks or can even surpass models with lower power limits! Impressive!
SSD
At XMG you have the choice when ordering what kind of SSD you want in your notebook. There are models from Samsung, Crucial, Seagate, Corsair and Western Digital to choose from.
I would probably choose the Samsung 980 Pro, 990 Pro or WD SN570 here. The performance of the SSD in the notebook fluctuates accordingly.
volume
Fortunately, the APEX 17 M23 is a fairly quiet notebook despite the powerful hardware and the high power limits!
Even under high power, the notebook remains very quiet! Yes, you can still hear this in a quiet room, but it’s one of the quietest gaming notebooks I’ve laid my hands on in a while.
battery life
The APEX 17 M23 has a 63Wh battery. This isn’t a gigantic capacity, but that’s not surprising either.
So you can only expect a runtime of +- 1 hour under full load, which is the case with all gaming notebooks.
With a light load, for example playing a video, you can expect about 6:30-7:00 h. This is way better than I expected!
In practice, however, it is better to assume 4-5 hours if you have installed many programs such as Steam and other launchers that run in the background.
Conclusion
The APEX 17 M23 can strengthen with the usual XMG and score with the modern platform!
The mix of Ryzen 7735HS and Nvidia RTX 4060 offers excellent performance. Although this is only half the truth. What is special about the APEX 17 M23 are the very high power limits.
Here’s how to buy a Dell XPS 15 9530 with Nvidia RTX 4060. This is slimmer and more stylish than the APEX 17, but has a maximum of 50W GPU power. That means the RTX 4060 is throttled to a power consumption of 50W there.
In the APEX 17, the RTX 4060 can draw a maximum of 140W and clock much higher accordingly! The same applies to the Ryzen 7735HS, which has a TDP of 35-45W in most notebooks, here it is up to 80W!
Due to these very high power limits, the APEX 17 M23 can get significantly more out of its hardware and will even easily beat many ultra slim notebooks with graphics cards that are larger on paper.
In addition, the base of the notebook is more than solid! Yes, it’s not the slimmest or lightest notebook, but it’s not overly loud, even under full load. It’s also solidly built and easy to upgrade/repair.
With its Full HD resolution and 144Hz, the display is okay for gaming. For photo and video editing, it’s ok in a private setting, but not great either.
In short, are you looking for a flawless gaming notebook with high performance, a fair price and a manufacturer with top support? Then you’ve come to the right place with the XMG APEX 17 M23!
POSITIVE
Very high performance
Modern CPU and GPU (Ryzen 7xxx and Nvidia RTX 4xxx)
Very high power limits
SSD and RAM easily upgradeable
Very good manufacturer support
Good display for gaming
Solid Keyboard
Good connectivity
Nice big trackpad.
NEGATIVE
…. but a bit erratic
Only available with Full HD display