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The company Dream Machines has consistently pleased us with gaming laptops with impressive characteristics. These are the models that appeared in our reviews earlier. Therefore, the opinion could be formed that Dream Machines are exclusively large-sized super-powerful laptops. But the company’s model range also includes more compact modern devices of the gaming class. We will get to know such a laptop in this review.
This laptop is made in black, but can be equipped with a sticker with a unique pattern. We got our hands on a variant with a camouflage color, which well emphasizes the modern realities of our citizens.
The size of the laptop is 361 x 241 x 25 mm with a weight of up to 2.2 kg. For a gaming laptop with a 15.6-inch screen, these are small dimensions. And it can be called gaming, since the configuration is built on a modern Intel Core i7-12700H processor (20 threads) in combination with a GeForce RTX 3060 video card and 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. For data storage, the manufacturer provided a fast NVMe M.2 drive from Kingston with a volume of 1 TB. The screen supports a resolution of 2560×1440 at a frequency of 165 Hz.
Full indicators are presented in the table.
| Laptop model | Dream Machines RG3060-15UA38 (V155PNPQ) |
|---|---|
| Product page | dreammachines.com.ua |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-12700H 14 cores, 20 threads 2.3 GHz (up to 4.7 GHz in Boost mode) |
| RAM | 16 GB, DDR4-3200 |
| Display | 15.6″, 2560×1440, 165 Гц (BOE NE156QHM-NY1)WVA |
| Video card | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 6GB (80W) |
| Disk subsystem | SSD NVMe M.2 Kingston SA2000M8/1000G 1 ТБ |
| Input/output ports | USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, USB 2.0 Type-A, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, mini DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, Ethernet RJ-45, headphone output, microphone input |
| Communications | Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5.2 |
| Multimedia | Webcam 720p, microphone, audio system 2.0, |
| Security | Kensington Lock |
| Battery, mAh | 3410 |
| Power adapter, W | 180 W |
| Dimensions, mm | 361 x 241 x 25 |
| Mass, kg | 2,2 |
| Cost | 71299 hryvnias |
Supply set
The laptop comes in a large black box with a carrying handle.
Complete with instructions, thermal pad and screws for the NVMe drive, power supply unit with the appropriate cable.
The Chicony A17-180P4A power supply is designed for 180 W.
Appearance
The laptop is made of black plastic. The body is rigid, but the screen cover is thin and bends under stress.
There is a DM logo on the case, but our example has the actual battle livery with its painted logo.
The bottom has many slots, which ensures a good flow of air. Large rubber inserts provide good fixation on any work surface and lift the case.
At the corners of the case there are holes for blowing hot air. Massive copper radiators are clearly visible through them, which gives it a certain charm and solidity.
There are also USB 3.2 Type-C, mini DisplayPort and HDMI connectors in the back. In the center is the connector for connecting the power supply unit, which is much more convenient for organizing the workplace than the power connector on the side.
On the left side is a slot for a Kensington lock, one USB 3.2 and one USB 2.0. Another nice detail is two audio connectors, which allows you to combine different headphones and microphones.
On the right is another USB 3.2 connector and an RJ-45 Ethernet port.
The screen is tilted by about 130 degrees — everything is standard here. The cover is thin, the side frame is narrow.
The inner surface is made in a single black color. The plastic is smooth, but not branded.
Above the screen is a webcam with built-in microphones.
The membrane-type keyboard, full-format, has a numeric block.
The keys have a translucent border and backlight.
The power button is located separately from the main array of keys in the right corner.
The touchpad with keys is made in the form of a single panel.
Screen
Dream Machines has a matte screen with a diagonal of 15.6 inches.
IPS-matrix BOE NE156QHM-NY1 is used. Resolution 2560×1440 pixels, refresh rate 165 Hz.
For measurements we used X-Rate i1 Display Pro, Argyll + DisplayCAL and HCFR Colormeter. The brightness is only set at 120 cd/m.
According to measurements, the screen provides full coverage of the sRGB color range and 98% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, which is an excellent result.
The brightness of the screen is adjustable in the range from 20 cd/m² to 296 cd/m². The contrast ratio is 1060:1. The color temperature is at the level of 7000K, there is a certain shift towards the cold spectrum.
There is a shift in color accuracy in certain parts of the spectrum, although the overall DeltaE deviation of 2.4 units is not high. The optimal value of the DeltaE coefficient is less than 2 units.
Viewing angles are good. A small deviation does not affect the perception of the picture. And a high refresh rate improves the perception of a dynamic picture.
Internal structure
To access the internal components, unscrew the bottom cover. Here we see a solid cooling system with heat pipes, where copper plates cover almost all elements of the board. There is a place for an additional 2.5-inch drive near the battery. If you wish, you can immediately order a configuration with a main NVMe drive and an additional hard disk. There are stereo speakers in the lower corners of the case.
In the upper corners, there are turbine blocks that blow the exhausted hot air through the side openings in the case. The processor cooling unit has two heat pipes, the video card has three pipes. All power components and video card memory chips are covered with radiator plates. As an additional option when ordering a laptop, you can choose the highly efficient thermal interface Thermal Grizzly, which will further improve the efficiency of the cooling system.
In the lower part of the case, under the arms, there is a 3410 mAh battery.
An NVMe M.2 Kingston SA2000M8/1000G drive with a capacity of one terabyte is installed. Nearby is the Intel AX201NGW wireless communication module, which provides Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.
Two memory slots are available, and when ordered, the memory can be configured differently using one or two slots. In our version, two DDR4 bars are installed for operation in dual-channel mode.
The laptop is based on an Intel Core i7-12700H processor from the Alder Lake family. It has six productive cores with Hyper Threading and eight energy-efficient cores, processing 20 data streams simultaneously. The maximum frequency in Turbo mode can reach 4.7 GHz. The declared base power is 45 W with a maximum value in Turbo mode up to 115 W.
DDR4-3200 memory works in dual-channel mode with delays of 22-22-22-52. The total amount of memory is 16 gigabytes.
Graphics are handled by the GeForce RTX 3060 mobile video card. It is based on the GA106 graphics processor with 3840 stream processors. By the way, the desktop version of GeForce RTX 3060 has 3584 streaming processors, but at higher frequencies. In this case, the video card is limited to 80 W and the Boost Clock is set to 1425 MHz. It uses six gigabytes of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, with an effective frequency of 14,000 MHz.
In 2D mode, the system switches to Intel Iris Xe graphics built into the processor.
Software
Dream Machines RG3060-15UA38 runs Windows 11 Home operating system. The Control Center program is installed to monitor and control hardware parameters.
The main menu has four sections. In Power Modes, you can manually change the performance profiles, choosing between autonomy or maximum speed.
The Fan Speed Setting section displays temperature and fan speed monitoring data. It is possible to activate the mode with improved cooling due to the acceleration of rotations or to manually adjust the mode of the fans.
In the FlexiKey section, you can set macros for keyboard keys. It is possible to create several profiles with different parameters
The LED Keyboard has backlight settings. You can choose a pleasant color and one of the backlight brightness modes. Individual key settings and visual effects are not supported.
Cooling system efficiency and noise level
Let’s move on to temperature tests in heavy applications.
The laptop was tested in a room with a temperature of 26 °C. To simulate a long game load, a looped 3DMark Time Spy stress test was run.
In such conditions, the GPU showed frequencies of about 1400 MHz at temperatures up to 72 °C. The processor cores heated up to 90 °C at the peak, but the average temperature is around 60 °C. Core frequencies jumped to 4 GHz and higher, periodically showing values up to 4.6 GHz. The fan speed reached 4600 rpm.
The second test will be an extreme load on the processor and memory subsystem in the AIDA64 stress test.
After peak temperatures were reached, the frequency of processor cores gradually decreased to 2.6-2.7 GHz. The average core temperature is about 70 °C with peak values up to 90 °C. At the same time, the fan speed is below 3800 rpm.
At high load, the body heats up in the central part and under the screen. It does not cause discomfort.
GeForce RTX 3060 overclocking
We experimented a bit with overclocking the mobile video card. The benefit from such overclocking is often negligible, but it is interesting to look at the potential of the video card. First of all, the Maximum mode was activated for the fans in the Control Center. Then the working frequency configuration is selected. It was possible to accelerate the GPU to 130 MHz, the memory is accelerated to 15060 MHz. Higher frequency values led to unstable operation.
The actual acceleration by GPU frequencies is minimal. In the 3DMark Time Spy stress test, the average Boost increased to 1450 MHz at temperatures of up to 69 °C.
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