ASUS absolutely wowed us with last 12 months's Zephyrus G14. It become thin, mild and some of the strongest notebooks we would ever viewed, because of AMD's Ryzen 4000 processor. however, given the sheer insanity of 2020, I under no circumstances acquired an opportunity to check out its bigger sibling, the G15. It truly took most of what I cherished in regards to the G14, and put it in a extra traditional 15-inch notebook. sounds like a surefire winner, appropriate? Now after testing out the 2021 edition of the Zephyrus G15, it’s clearer than ever that ASUS has essentially mastered the paintings of constructing gaming laptops.
It wasn't always this way for ASUS. Its normal Zephyrus desktop became one of the vital first skinny and light-weight machines to stuff in NVIDIA's GTX 1080 GPU, nevertheless it become really high priced and had terrible battery life. over the years, ASUS refined its designs to be lots more purposeful. The Zephyrus G14 become in particular miraculous since it weighed just 3.5 kilos, yet it managed to fit in an RTX 2060 GPU, a shockingly effective AMD CPU, and a decent battery efficiency.
Naturally, the G15 is never as light, however at four.2 kilos or not it's still slightly less difficult to lift than the four.5-pound Razer Blade and most other 15-inch notebooks. it be additionally simply as extraordinary as the G14 design-wise, with a sturdy magnesium-aluminum case and a distinct dot-matrix pattern on the lid. ASUS filled these tiny holes with a distinct prismatic material in our evaluation unit, however on some models they may have tiny LEDs for showing pixelated photographs.
beneath the hood, the G15 features AMD's Ryzen 9 5900HS, NVIDIA's RTX 30-collection GPUs, and an non-compulsory 1,440p (Quad HD) screen running at 165Hz with G-SYNC/FreeSync aid. it's some of the first gaming laptops to rock AMD's new hardware, and that alone makes it a compelling purchase. We're still waiting for Intel to release its beefier eleventh-gen H-series chips. So in case you want whatever slightly greater future-proof, a Ryzen 5000 workstation simply makes greater feel.
© offered through EngadgetOur evaluation unit covered NVIDIA's RTX 3080 Max-Q and that 1,440p display, which felt like an ideal pairing. As I wrote in our MSI GS66 Stealth review, that decision is a pleasant upgrade over 1080p displays, with out being as stressful as a 4K monitors. while mowing down baddies in fate 2, or hopping via a couple of rounds of Overwatch, the G15 seemed silky smooth. And when i was able to take a breath, it became easy to peer how high-quality edges and other details seemed a little clearer than on a 1080p displays.
whereas the Zephyrus G15 is effective adequate to deliver over 100FPS in 1,440p with snap shots cranked on each video games, what mattered more to me turned into how neatly the monitor kept up with all of the motion. And boy, did it deliver. I felt like I had an extra competencies all the way through frenetic firefights, when you consider that the reveal was capable of with ease comply with my twitchy mouse actions, and it become additionally valuable after I necessary to decelerate and line up a sniper shot. Having a excessive refresh velocity, and a screen that may instantly synchronize with your current body rate, is the gaming equal of hearing a symphony in ultimate harmony.
The G15 does not have the speediest 1,440p display round — MSI's GS66 can attain up to 240Hz — however faster alternatives additionally cost much more. And except you are an aspiring e-activities participant, you are going to likely have a troublesome time even seeing the change past 120Hz.
© provided via Engadgetjust like with NVIDIA's RTX 2080 cellular GPUs although, do not are expecting computing device-level efficiency with its 30-series desktop hardware. Even the RTX 3080 in our evaluate unit struggled to run Cyberpunk 2077 with maxed out ray tracing settings and pix in 1,440p. It chugged alongside between 40 and 45 FPS, which is playable however now not precisely what i would like to see from such a pricey desktop. Even NVIDIA's DLSS technology, which boosts framerates by way of rendering games at a a bit of reduce decision, failed to help a lot. I settled on taking part in Cyberpunk with medium ray tracing settings and DLSS to get a smoother 55-63 FPS.
PCMark 10
3DMark (TimeSpy excessive)
Geekbench 5
ATTO (appropriate reads/writes)
ASUS Zephyrus G15 (AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS, NVIDIA RTX 3080 Max-Q)
6,881
4,530
1,426/7,267
three.3 GB/s / 2.eighty five GB/s
MSI GS66 Stealth (2021, Intel i7-10870H, NVIDIA RTX 3080 Max-Q)
5,369
4,538
1,247/6,505
three.1 GB/s / 2.9 GB/s
Gigabyte Aero 17 HDR XB (Intel i7-10875H, NVIDIA RTX 2070 super Max-Q)
5,one hundred fifty five
three,495
1,137/5,681
2.93 GB/s / 2.59 GB/s
ASUS Zephyrus Duo 15 (Intel i9-10980HK, NVIDIA RTX 2080 super Max-Q)
5,616
three,680
1,365/8,055
3 GB/s / 3.24 GB/s
ASUS Zephyrus G14 (AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS, NVIDIA RTX 2060 Max-Q)
5,436
2,725
1,189/7,705
1.7 GB/s / 1.sixty seven GB/s
When it comes to benchmarks, the Zephyrus G15 outperformed MSI's GS66 in Geekbench 5's multicore rating, however in any other case the two laptops have been pretty neck-and-neck. Their 3DMark TimeSpy excessive numbers, for instance, were very nearly similar. That may well be an indication of simply how a good deal Intel caught as much as AMD's performance final 12 months, as MSI's pc changed into powered by an older 10th-gen CPU. under load, ASUS's fans are actually important, but now not very nearly as traumatic as the GS66's whiny blowers. The G15 also lasted an awesome eight hours and 50 minutes on our battery test, well beneath the near 13-hour benchmark of the G14 , however 25 minutes stronger than the GS66.
© offered through Engadget ASUS Zephyrus G15Now, a gaming laptop wants greater than just energy, it also has to consider good to play on. fortunately, ASUS's keyboard held as much as hours of trying out. The G15's keys function a healthy 1.7mm of go back and forth, and while they're no longer mechanical just like the CherryMX hardware coming to Alienware's new laptops, they nevertheless feel springy and responsive. Its quiet performance also goes a protracted approach against making the G15 fit into non-gamer environments like school rooms and workplaces. The trackpad, in the meantime, is most effective for web searching, editing documents and different productiveness projects. i'm simply grateful or not it's now not shoved off to the facet of the keyboard like so many other ASUS laptops.
The extra I demonstrated the G15, the more considerate ASUS’s design selections felt. That incorporates over to its wealth of connectivity: It elements an HDMI port, Ethernet, three USB 3.2 class-A connections, one USB-C and a MicroSD card slot. in my opinion, i would nevertheless want to see a full-sized SD slot, but it’s getting easier to flow over to microSD for your cameras and different devices. And yes, there is one most important lacking accessory on the G15: a webcam. just like with the G14, I did not leave out it too a great deal, nonetheless it does consider awkward when so many people reside on Zoom video chats. moving ahead, maybe ASUS should still just consist of a cheap exterior webcam in the box.
© supplied via EngadgetThe Zephyrus G15 currently begins at $1,499 with an RTX 3060 and 16GB of RAM, which isn't too unhealthy on account that it nonetheless has the Ryzen 9 and the quickly 1,440p reveal. Our evaluation unit sells for $2,500 with the RTX 3080 and 32GB of RAM, but i am now not somewhat bound this is price the $1,000 top rate. The 3060 will still convey marvelous Quad HD performance and has greater than ample memory for gaming and streaming simultaneously. as soon as again, ASUS is offering a major value for the price — the latest Razer Blade begins at $1,seven hundred with an RTX 3060 and a 1080p 144Hz screen. Saving $200 for a much better display appears like a no brainer to me.
© Devindra Hardawar/Engadget ASUS Zephyrus G15all of it boils down to this: The Zephyrus G15 has very nearly everything i might desire in a pretty good gaming computing device, with out breaking the bank. or not it's rather lightweight, effective and much more cost-effective than other top class notebooks. I do not mind that it would not have a developed-in webcam, peculiarly when you consider that most gamers would decide on a higher-fine external digicam. for many gamers, the G15 is basically a dream desktop.