Asus ROG Zephyrus G14—Ryzen 7nm mobile is here, and it’s awesome

The G14 is a solid mid-range gaming laptop with an out-of-this-world CPU.

Read the whole story

 

[Cooe]

Am I the only one who is subtly annoyed by the power connector being in the middle of the edge, rather than at the back?

Very weird placement - [the power jack] should be at the top/back corner or on the rear

No, I actually prefer it where it is. The closer it gets to the back, the more likely a user is to wedge it hard against something and break the jack loose from its solder joint internally.

The only thing I'm a little mad about is that it's using a DC jack at all, rather than a high speed USB-C charger. When users break USB-C, most frequently they break the cable. When they break a DC analog connector... Well, see above. Laptop ruined, either replace it or live with "hold your mouth just right" charging for the remainder of the laptop's life. (In theory, you can resolder the jack after a user breaks it. In practice... Eh.)

Granted, if this is only your laptop and you know better than to do that, the DC jack could go wherever. I've certainly never broken a jack on any of my own laptops, but I've had to deal with enough user-broken ones to have strong opinions.

Oh, and DC all the way on the rear is definitely not great. Larger airplanes (remember airplanes?) have on board power available for long flights, and you DEFINITELY gonna break stuff if you try to plug in to a rear power jack in confinement that tight.

Interesting - I've always had that trouble with Dell laptops, where it comes straight out from the side, but the (very non-gaming, passively cooled) Asus I have now that uses the right angled plug has had no issues. And it's (wow, really? I need a new laptop) 5 years old.

Also, am I to understand this doesn't support USB-C charging as well? Or is it just not high speed. It seems like a no brainer on a modern laptop. That way even if it's not high speed, I almost always have my phone charger as backup. If it's mentioned in the review I missed it.

It does charge over USB C, they just didn't bother getting it certified for Thunderbolt. I think so far the only AMD motherboard certified is an Asrock one: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-m ... tion-intel
That article does raise the question if this laptop (and other AMD based computers) supports thunderbolt even though it hasn't been certified and therefore isn't advertising it.

Thunderbolt on both Intel & AMD requires an external controller chip on the motherboard, (or an add-in card on desktops), so you won't see uncertified laptops that work with it. And while Intel has technically opened up the certification process to anyone, they've still deliberately kept it overly expensive, long, and onerous for any non-Intel hardware. This is why only ASRock has bothered, and only for like ≈4x boards out of their X570 lineup. Once Thunderbolt 3 officially becomes USB 4 (aka Intel stops being the certifying body and instead the USB Consortium does) later this year, this should all finally change though.

 

[Jim Salter]

Speaking of AMD's mobile chips and System76, do you have any insight into whether/when System76 might get on the AMD train?

I have a Galago Pro that I absolutely love, but a Galago Pro with these new AMD mobile CPUs would be a nearly immediate purchase for me.

I don't—but I'll reach out and ask.

 

[Cooe]

The Ryzen 9 4900HS has a base clock of 3GHz, not 3.3GHz and a max rated boost clock of 4.3GHz, not 4.4GHz like listed in the article (the numbers you listed would be for the 45W R9 4900H).

Sigh. Thanks.

Np man. Thanks for the quick response!

 

[Stern]

Here's hoping someone puts this CPU, or the 4900H, in a NUC or other kind of mini PC. The integrated graphics would be more than fine, since I'd just want to use it as a headless Linux build box.

 

[Crito]

Would it be any good for running VR on?

Depends on the headset and games ... but speaking generally, yes.

A desktop 1060 worked well with the Vive and Rift for me, but it couldn't drive the Index well enough.

A 2060 MaxQ should be at least something of a step up from the 1060 (though the article puts them at even via the Superposition benchmark). Unfortunately the lack of Thunderbolt 3 precludes an eGPU (I think?), so you're stuck.

 

[schizrade]

By xmas I hope we see these chips with properly matched top tier GPUs.

 

[Jim Salter]

Also, am I to understand this doesn't support USB-C charging as well? Or is it just not high speed. It seems like a no brainer on a modern laptop.

I don't know if it would support USB-C charging or not; it didn't come with a USB-C charger and I don't have one lying around (sadly, my current System76 laptop uses a DC jack also).

 

[hestermofet]

This looks like one hell of a laptop. Would've been cool to include some desktop Ryzen chips in the chart for comparison, though you did touch on it briefly with a comparison to your 3700X. I would like to see how it stacks up to my 2600X, though I'm afraid I'll be terribly disappointed.

2600X averages 14278/2410 on Passmark (multi/single). The 4900HS got Passmark 20492/2704 in my tests here.

So figure the single-threaded is about 10% faster, and all-cores is about half again as fast as your 2600X. It would definitely feel zippy.

Thanks. That's... depressing. I just built this rig in December!

 

[hestermofet]

Here's hoping someone puts this CPU, or the 4900H, in a NUC or other kind of mini PC. The integrated graphics would be more than fine, since I'd just want to use it as a headless Linux build box.

Such a box would be fantastic for a low-wattage ESXi/Proxmox/Other hypervisor for a home lab.

 

[exroofer]

I am salivating over desktop parts. Just bought a 3900X and will likely be upgrading if these trends hold...

Just swapped in a 3900x and 2 more sticks of Flarex 3200 CL14 ram for a total of 32 gb.
In to a Crosshair 6. Bios flash, dismount/remount cpu, thermal paste, remount cooler.
Hit power button, and away it went. Two minutes in bios, docp ram, enable PBO, done.
I had faith that when I bought overkill parts for the 1600x I had, ( spendy mobo, ram, 360mm aio), that our saviour Lisa Su was serious about forward compatibility.
Was not disappointed. 62 c steady state cpu temp while streaming Star Citizen. Seeing all those threads tear through the workload... oh my.

 

[betam4x]

I don't understand this keyboard.

Where's PageUp/PageDown?

Where's Home/End?

Why PrintScr instead of context menu? Can you change that in the BIOS?

Also, I assume those are USB-C proper ports, and not Thunderbolt 3? (because I've never heard of TB3 on AMD laptops)

Keyboards... why can't companies create normal keyboards with some sense of what keys are essential for most use cases - Office, browsing (pg up/dn, home/end), ... Just because of that I refuse to even bother with MSI laptops - they always fudge some of the most basic keys - slash where left windows key is supposed to be, .. wtf?

on TB - i am waiting for that as well on AMD. Didn't it go royalty-free? yes there is some cost attached to certification but i am sure it is well worth it...

sadly the ports future looks pretty messy, even with usb4... USB guys have really f*ked up the original intent of the port.

It also doesn’t include a number pad. I don’t understand the trend away from number pads.

number pad not included is understandable - there just isn't enough room to fit it in there without compromising key sizes on a 14" frame - negative on typing experience.

so i specifically limit myself to a 15.6" frame as there is a possibility they will have numpad and other benefits - but not all do. some leave empty space around keyboards, some put speakers, ... i have used 15.6" laptops without numpad and didn't really really miss it - unless you are in accounting or something where you have to work with numbers a lot then you need it, otherwise the usage justification isn't there for added cost, complexity, ...

I am not an accountant. However, as a left handed person I use the number pad for gaming. I am also an engineer, and find the number pad for insanely fast number entry. The number pad has a home row so you can quickly/easily input data using the surrounding keys.

 

[nexusofjoseph]

Am I the only one who is subtly annoyed by the power connector being in the middle of the edge, rather than at the back?

Very weird placement - [the power jack] should be at the top/back corner or on the rear

No, I actually prefer it where it is. The closer it gets to the back, the more likely a user is to wedge it hard against something and break the jack loose from its solder joint internally.

The only thing I'm a little mad about is that it's using a DC jack at all, rather than a high speed USB-C charger. When users break USB-C, most frequently they break the cable. When they break a DC analog connector... Well, see above. Laptop ruined, either replace it or live with "hold your mouth just right" charging for the remainder of the laptop's life. (In theory, you can resolder the jack after a user breaks it. In practice... Eh.)

Granted, if this is only your laptop and you know better than to do that, the DC jack could go wherever. I've certainly never broken a jack on any of my own laptops, but I've had to deal with enough user-broken ones to have strong opinions.

Oh, and DC all the way on the rear is definitely not great. Larger airplanes (remember airplanes?) have on board power available for long flights, and you DEFINITELY gonna break stuff if you try to plug in to a rear power jack in confinement that tight.

Interesting - I've always had that trouble with Dell laptops, where it comes straight out from the side, but the (very non-gaming, passively cooled) Asus I have now that uses the right angled plug has had no issues. And it's (wow, really? I need a new laptop) 5 years old.

Also, am I to understand this doesn't support USB-C charging as well? Or is it just not high speed. It seems like a no brainer on a modern laptop. That way even if it's not high speed, I almost always have my phone charger as backup. If it's mentioned in the review I missed it.

It does charge over USB C, they just didn't bother getting it certified for Thunderbolt. I think so far the only AMD motherboard certified is an Asrock one: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-m ... tion-intel
That article does raise the question if this laptop (and other AMD based computers) supports thunderbolt even though it hasn't been certified and therefore isn't advertising it.

Thunderbolt on both Intel & AMD requires an external controller chip on the motherboard, (or an add-in card on desktops), so you won't see uncertified laptops that work with it. And while Intel has technically opened up the certification process to anyone, they've still deliberately kept it overly expensive, long, and onerous for any non-Intel hardware. This is why only ASRock has bothered, and only for like ≈4x boards out of their X570 lineup. Once Thunderbolt 3 officially becomes USB 4 (aka Intel stops being the certifying body and instead the USB Consortium does) later this year, this should all finally change though.

Minor nitpick - USB4 is adopting the Thunderbolt 3 specification. Thunderbolt will still be here, and Intel has even already revealed Thunderbolt 4 at CES this year.

 

[ginger_swag]

Also, am I to understand this doesn't support USB-C charging as well? Or is it just not high speed. It seems like a no brainer on a modern laptop.

I don't know if it would support USB-C charging or not; it didn't come with a USB-C charger and I don't have one lying around (sadly, my current System76 laptop uses a DC jack also).

I use a USB pd-trigger with my Galago to charge with my Anker bank in a pinch. It supplies 35W easily and gives me up to 10Ah more battery life

 

[Turbofrog]

This looks like one hell of a laptop. Would've been cool to include some desktop Ryzen chips in the chart for comparison, though you did touch on it briefly with a comparison to your 3700X. I would like to see how it stacks up to my 2600X, though I'm afraid I'll be terribly disappointed.

2600X averages 14278/2410 on Passmark (multi/single). The 4900HS got Passmark 20492/2704 in my tests here.

So figure the single-threaded is about 10% faster, and all-cores is about half again as fast as your 2600X. It would definitely feel zippy.

Thanks. That's... depressing. I just built this rig in December!

But your 2600X was selling for dirt cheap at that point. Bang for buck and modularity are both significant parameters when it comes to desktop computers.

I was weighing a 2700X vs. 3600 (same price) for my build that I just made at the beginning of February, and ended up picking the 3600, but for the vast majority of ordinary use cases there is no real discernible difference between any of the excellent CPUs at this tier.

 

[xaxxon]

jacks

Everywhere you've written jack, in the article and the picture captions, you mean port. Jacks would be what you'd plug into them.

jack: a socket with two or more pairs of terminals designed to receive a jack plug.

 

[Turbofrog]

Noob question: I've been thinking about getting a gaming PC (because what else am I supposed to do in quarantine?) I don't want to play the newest games at the highest graphics-- I just want to run recent-ish games at decent settings, on a screen bigger than my Lenovo Thinkbook 14s. Would it be better to shell out for a full desktop, or get something like this ROG and hook it up to external monitor and keyboard? It seems hard to beat the value proposition of that processor+decent graphics+1 TB SSD storage. On the other hand, maybe I can do better and I just don't know where to look.

I would say it depends. Because of their inherently superior modularity, it's a lot easier to upgrade a desktop piecemeal and address the root performance issue you're having, so it leads to way better value over time.

I am basically on a 6 year cadence with my desktop where I will alternately upgrade GPU and CPU every 3 years, with monitor, memory, storage, or other miscellaneous upgrades sprinkled in where required. It works quite well, and has given me a really great workstation with extremely low annual costs. I only upgraded my case recently for the first time in 14 years or so.

 

[Scandinavian Film]

This looks like one hell of a laptop. Would've been cool to include some desktop Ryzen chips in the chart for comparison, though you did touch on it briefly with a comparison to your 3700X. I would like to see how it stacks up to my 2600X, though I'm afraid I'll be terribly disappointed.

2600X averages 14278/2410 on Passmark (multi/single). The 4900HS got Passmark 20492/2704 in my tests here.

So figure the single-threaded is about 10% faster, and all-cores is about half again as fast as your 2600X. It would definitely feel zippy.

Can we appreciate for a moment just how damn fast AMD went from "their desktop CPUs are woefully behind the competition" to "Zen 1 desktop CPUs are competitive with Intel's" to "OK now their laptop CPUs are faster than their Zen 1 desktop CPUs in both ST & MT workloads"?

 

[rosen380]

It really is too bad it doesn’t have an ethernet port.

Yeah, that really bugs me. I get that it would be difficult or impossible to include one without thickening the build,

Agreed...

but it seems like it should at least come WITH a USB-C Ethernet dongle, in that case.

...but if I'm going to NEED a dongle, I'd rather choose it myself than have it decided for me, so I can get the chipset that I want.

That said, looks like I can get a type-c to gigabit ethernet adapter on Amazon for $6.37.

If I can buy these individually for less than $7, I imagine they can get them in bulk for ~$4 dollars a piece and look like sports including it (even if some people are going to want to use a different one and many people won't use it at all)

 

[hestermofet]

This looks like one hell of a laptop. Would've been cool to include some desktop Ryzen chips in the chart for comparison, though you did touch on it briefly with a comparison to your 3700X. I would like to see how it stacks up to my 2600X, though I'm afraid I'll be terribly disappointed.

2600X averages 14278/2410 on Passmark (multi/single). The 4900HS got Passmark 20492/2704 in my tests here.

So figure the single-threaded is about 10% faster, and all-cores is about half again as fast as your 2600X. It would definitely feel zippy.

Thanks. That's... depressing. I just built this rig in December!

But your 2600X was selling for dirt cheap at that point. Bang for buck and modularity are both significant parameters when it comes to desktop computers.

I was weighing a 2700X vs. 3600 (same price) for my build that I just made at the beginning of February, and ended up picking the 3600, but for the vast majority of ordinary use cases there is no real discernible difference between any of the excellent CPUs at this tier.

True! I got my CPU for $100 CAD (~$75 USD?) because Amazon screwed up and gave me a partial refund.

 

[bull3964]

https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ROG-Zephyrus-G15/

The G15 has an Ethernet port, but sadly comes with "only" a 4800HS, versus the 4900HS. It does have the 65W version of the RTX2060 instead of the Max-Q in the G14, so swings and roundabouts.

65w is Max-Q even if they aren't reporting is as such on their spec page. It's the exact same way Asus lists the GPU in the G14. Full mobile 2060 starts at 90w and goes up from there.

Sadly, it seems as if a 65w GPU is the highest anyone is pairing to the the new Ryzen processors and likely will for awhile. Currently, they apparently aren't compatible with the Super GPUs which leaves the 2080 out since the non-super is being discontinued.

Beyond that, I image the OEMs are trying to create product differentiation. Given an equivalent GPU, the Ryzen version would be superior every time and there would be no reason to buy the intel part, so if they want to keep their current product lines intact, they have to cap the gaming performance of the Ryzen version.

The G15 is likely going to perform exactly the same as the G14 since there's negligible difference in processor and the GPU is the same. There's no evidence so far that the G14 is hitting thermal limits in the chassis, so the larger 15" chassis may only provide some fan nosie relief. Really, the only reason to buy the G15 over the G14 is the 15" panel (both in size and the hope that it has better response time.)

 

[aleph_nought]

Noob question: I've been thinking about getting a gaming PC (because what else am I supposed to do in quarantine?) I don't want to play the newest games at the highest graphics-- I just want to run recent-ish games at decent settings, on a screen bigger than my Lenovo Thinkbook 14s. Would it be better to shell out for a full desktop, or get something like this ROG and hook it up to external monitor and keyboard? It seems hard to beat the value proposition of that processor+decent graphics+1 TB SSD storage. On the other hand, maybe I can do better and I just don't know where to look.

I would say it depends. Because of their inherently superior modularity, it's a lot easier to upgrade a desktop piecemeal and address the root performance issue you're having, so it leads to way better value over time.

I am basically on a 6 year cadence with my desktop where I will alternately upgrade GPU and CPU every 3 years, with monitor, memory, storage, or other miscellaneous upgrades sprinkled in where required. It works quite well, and has given me a really great workstation with extremely low annual costs. I only upgraded my case recently for the first time in 14 years or so.

Ship of Theseus right there. I sure hope you're not using a 14-year-old power supply.

I have a decade-old desktop case with cheap new Ryzen 5 internals and a new PSU. The DVD drive hasn't been spun up in years so it acts more like a dust cover now. All my portable compute gear runs on Intel - this is my first AMD rig in a long time and I'm pleasantly surprised at the crazy good cost/benefit ratio of the new Ryzen chips.

 

[Jim Salter]

Noob question: I've been thinking about getting a gaming PC (because what else am I supposed to do in quarantine?) I don't want to play the newest games at the highest graphics-- I just want to run recent-ish games at decent settings, on a screen bigger than my Lenovo Thinkbook 14s. Would it be better to shell out for a full desktop, or get something like this ROG and hook it up to external monitor and keyboard? It seems hard to beat the value proposition of that processor+decent graphics+1 TB SSD storage. On the other hand, maybe I can do better and I just don't know where to look.

If you'd have to start completely from scratch on a gaming rig—meaning including monitor(s), mouse, keyboard, and everything—I think you'd have real difficulty putting something together that significantly outperformed this laptop for $1500 or less.

If you've already got the monitor/mouse/keyboard situation handled, you could probably squeeze out more FPS for the same money. It's mostly going to be about the video card here; a $360 RTX 2060 Super (not mobile!) will spank the RTX 2060 mobile in this laptop pretty hard.

You can expect 50-60FPS from most AAA games on High settings from this laptop. So the question might be "do you need or want more than that" or "do you demand Ultra/Extreme settings rather than High", or "do you want higher res than 1080p"?

You really can't skimp on the monitor if you expect to get better visual quality out of a desktop system, either. Match the higher-performing desktop RTX 2060 to the wrong monitor, and you're going to see some immersion-destroying artifacting, particularly in cutscenes where you've got more time to visually process the scene.

I mean... I can't believe I'm actually recommending a gaming laptop, here, but yeah, if you know the minimums you're looking to exceed, I think I'm kinda recommending a gaming laptop here.

 

[Mustachioed Copy Cat]

Can’t think of a worse time to release a laptop without a webcam.

I wouldn’t have given a shit three months ago.

 

[Rambie]

Are the AMD laptops still relegated to cheaper SKUs with poor build quality? Or are they being put in premium machines?

It looks like we're going to see them in premium machines in general. Lenovo has a Yoga Slim 7 coming up with a U-series i7 that looks like a flagship for that class of machine.

I don't know that I'd exactly tar this zephyrus g14 with the "cheap SKU / poor build quality" brush, either. The only flaws I see in it are common to Asus laptop builds across price ranges, and neither heat nor battery life seem substandard, particularly for a gaming laptop.

The only real question here is whether Asus pairs the RTX 2080 flagship GPU with the Ryzen 9, the upcoming "overclockable" Intel i9, or both later this year. I suspect they wanted to hit the larger market first with the mid-range G14; I can't imagine there are as many total buyers for full-on $4K gaming laptops.

I wouldn't mind seeing G14 parts in a 17" ROG laptop, keep the 1080p even at 17" to keep the performance up. Hopefully the extra space would allow it to be a little bit better on fan noise, add in a Ethernet port, etc.

 

[Rambie]

I would say it depends. Because of their inherently superior modularity, it's a lot easier to upgrade a desktop piecemeal and address the root performance issue you're having, so it leads to way better value over time.

I am basically on a 6 year cadence with my desktop where I will alternately upgrade GPU and CPU every 3 years, with monitor, memory, storage, or other miscellaneous upgrades sprinkled in where required. It works quite well, and has given me a really great workstation with extremely low annual costs. I only upgraded my case recently for the first time in 14 years or so.

I've done it both ways, built a gaming rig and upgraded parts over time and a gaming laptop. I'm currently at 5.5 years with my current laptop. Plan to upgrade next year --depending how bad all this Cov19 thing goes.

Granted, in a laptop you're pretty much stuck at the same level of performance instead of incremental upgrades, but less time tearing apart the system to upgrade X-part too.

 

[mikesmith]

Noob question: I've been thinking about getting a gaming PC (because what else am I supposed to do in quarantine?) I don't want to play the newest games at the highest graphics-- I just want to run recent-ish games at decent settings, on a screen bigger than my Lenovo Thinkbook 14s. Would it be better to shell out for a full desktop, or get something like this ROG and hook it up to external monitor and keyboard? It seems hard to beat the value proposition of that processor+decent graphics+1 TB SSD storage. On the other hand, maybe I can do better and I just don't know where to look.

If you'd have to start completely from scratch on a gaming rig—meaning including monitor(s), mouse, keyboard, and everything—I think you'd have real difficulty putting something together that significantly outperformed this laptop for $1500 or less.

If you've already got the monitor/mouse/keyboard situation handled, you could probably squeeze out more FPS for the same money. It's mostly going to be about the video card here; a $360 RTX 2060 Super (not mobile!) will spank the RTX 2060 mobile in this laptop pretty hard.

You can expect 50-60FPS from most AAA games on High settings from this laptop. So the question might be "do you need or want more than that" or "do you demand Ultra/Extreme settings rather than High", or "do you want higher res than 1080p"?

You really can't skimp on the monitor if you expect to get better visual quality out of a desktop system, either. Match the higher-performing desktop RTX 2060 to the wrong monitor, and you're going to see some immersion-destroying artifacting, particularly in cutscenes where you've got more time to visually process the scene.

I mean... I can't believe I'm actually recommending a gaming laptop, here, but yeah, if you know the minimums you're looking to exceed, I think I'm kinda recommending a gaming laptop here.

That doesn't sound right...

Ryzen 1600af $100, decent b450 mb $125, decent case $100, $16 GB ram $100, 1 TB SSD $150, Radeon 5700 video card $350, Windows $100, mechanical keyboard $100, gaming mouse $40, 24" 144 hz gaming monitor $200.

All together that's $1365 dollars and I rounded all prices up from what the lowest you can get and it would probably be closer to double the gaming performance of the Asus laptop reviewed, it also assumes you don't already have any of those parts or don't want to go with a deal like maybe a cheaper keyboard, case, and mouse. Oh almost left out a psu, so another $50.

 

[rosen380]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HWZwHB

I got $1389 for what you listed... but no psu, cooler, thermal paste, speakers, internal fans...? probably another $150 there.

Now the prices are close, but:
1) The pre-built includes labor
2) The pre-built includes a unified warranty
3) The pre-built is portable
4) the pre-built has a battery

 

[mikesmith]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HWZwHB

I got $1389 for what you listed... but no psu, cooler, thermal paste, speakers, internal fans...? probably another $150 there.

Now the prices are close, but:
1) The pre-built includes labor
2) The pre-built includes a unified warranty
3) The pre-built is portable
4) the pre-built has a battery

Not sure how you got any specific price since I didn't specify specific parts except for the CPU, but the cooler and thermal transfer material are included with AMD CPU. Internal fans aren't a necessity but many cases come with some of them, and you'll need decent headphones for either setup unless you're done with making do, in which case throw in $10 for some desktop cheapies. You're leaving out the most important part, though, the same price for a desktop gets you much more performance, for a lower price you can match the laptop gaming performance, and many of the parts listed won't actually be necessary for someone to buy since they already have them. Still if portability is your requirement then obviously you'd want to go in a different direction than desktop.

Your parts list has a radeon 5700 xt, not a 5700. You also chose a needlessly expensive SSD and screen, probably other parts, too, but no need to continue.

 

[uno2tres]

It really is too bad it doesn’t have an ethernet port.

Yeah, that really bugs me. I get that it would be difficult or impossible to include one without thickening the build, but it seems like it should at least come WITH a USB-C Ethernet dongle, in that case.

I wouldn't make the same complaint of a general purpose laptop. As much as I personally would rather always have Ethernet available, I get that most people aren't using them. But in a gaming laptop? Oof.

Nah, they could definitely include one, there are some (clearly not enough) thin laptops with collapsible fold-down ethernet ports (I just saw a Dell with one yesterday). I think the trend is similar to the "no more headphone jack" trend on phones: an ever-growing trend of "appliancificiation" that seems destined to lead to a world where more sophisticated users have less and less of a choice and are more and more forced to use devices that have been simplified enough that Grandma (those that aren't tech wizards!) can use them without confusion. Every product I like seems to vanish like dew in the hot sun, to be replaced by a dumbed-down box with a big button on the front.

edit: not so plenty

I actually really like Lenovo's solution of using a mini Ethernet jack + breakout adapter. No risk of breaking a funky origami port, but it still is hardware Ethernet. (At least for my use case- I just have two places where I need to plug into Ethernet, so adapters aren't really an issue.

 

[Ral]

https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ROG-Zephyrus-G15/

The G15 has an Ethernet port, but sadly comes with "only" a 4800HS, versus the 4900HS. It does have the 65W version of the RTX2060 instead of the Max-Q in the G14, so swings and roundabouts.

65w is Max-Q even if they aren't reporting is as such on their spec page. It's the exact same way Asus lists the GPU in the G14. Full mobile 2060 starts at 90w and goes up from there.

Sadly, it seems as if a 65w GPU is the highest anyone is pairing to the the new Ryzen processors and likely will for awhile. Currently, they apparently aren't compatible with the Super GPUs which leaves the 2080 out since the non-super is being discontinued.

Beyond that, I image the OEMs are trying to create product differentiation. Given an equivalent GPU, the Ryzen version would be superior every time and there would be no reason to buy the intel part, so if they want to keep their current product lines intact, they have to cap the gaming performance of the Ryzen version.

The G15 is likely going to perform exactly the same as the G14 since there's negligible difference in processor and the GPU is the same. There's no evidence so far that the G14 is hitting thermal limits in the chassis, so the larger 15" chassis may only provide some fan nosie relief. Really, the only reason to buy the G15 over the G14 is the 15" panel (both in size and the hope that it has better response time.)

Ah, that clears up that confusion about the GPUs, thank you.
That makes sense of the slightly lower price as well then, making the choice one between lower price and better screen or slightly faster CPU and slightly smaller/more portable device (with fancy schmancy customisable lights on the back of the screen in a little while).

Yeah, it's a pain if you really want high-end gaming without sacrificing productivity potential. Hopefully any delays in Zen3 won't be held against AMD in the current human malware climate and they will creep up in the model stack as they keep hitting delivery targets both time scale and performance-wise.

 

[Jim Salter]

Forget the stickers - they peel off (generally a day-one setup item for me). What I can't unsee is that keyboard. Who thought that spacebar was a good idea? Printscreen in the lower-right? Where are Page Up and Page Down?

For that matter, what is it like to type on?

It's... a laptop keyboard. It didn't impress me as either horrible or fantastic to type on. I can't say I've ever had a laptop that wowed me as far as doing tons of typing; they're either tolerable or not as far as I'm concerned, and this one has been tolerable.

 

[ginger_swag]

Noob question: I've been thinking about getting a gaming PC (because what else am I supposed to do in quarantine?) I don't want to play the newest games at the highest graphics-- I just want to run recent-ish games at decent settings, on a screen bigger than my Lenovo Thinkbook 14s. Would it be better to shell out for a full desktop, or get something like this ROG and hook it up to external monitor and keyboard? It seems hard to beat the value proposition of that processor+decent graphics+1 TB SSD storage. On the other hand, maybe I can do better and I just don't know where to look.

If you'd have to start completely from scratch on a gaming rig—meaning including monitor(s), mouse, keyboard, and everything—I think you'd have real difficulty putting something together that significantly outperformed this laptop for $1500 or less.

If you've already got the monitor/mouse/keyboard situation handled, you could probably squeeze out more FPS for the same money. It's mostly going to be about the video card here; a $360 RTX 2060 Super (not mobile!) will spank the RTX 2060 mobile in this laptop pretty hard.

You can expect 50-60FPS from most AAA games on High settings from this laptop. So the question might be "do you need or want more than that" or "do you demand Ultra/Extreme settings rather than High", or "do you want higher res than 1080p"?

You really can't skimp on the monitor if you expect to get better visual quality out of a desktop system, either. Match the higher-performing desktop RTX 2060 to the wrong monitor, and you're going to see some immersion-destroying artifacting, particularly in cutscenes where you've got more time to visually process the scene.

I mean... I can't believe I'm actually recommending a gaming laptop, here, but yeah, if you know the minimums you're looking to exceed, I think I'm kinda recommending a gaming laptop here.

That doesn't sound right...

Ryzen 1600af $100, decent b450 mb $125, decent case $100, $16 GB ram $100, 1 TB SSD $150, Radeon 5700 video card $350, Windows $100, mechanical keyboard $100, gaming mouse $40, 24" 144 hz gaming monitor $200.

All together that's $1365 dollars and I rounded all prices up from what the lowest you can get and it would probably be closer to double the gaming performance of the Asus laptop reviewed, it also assumes you don't already have any of those parts or don't want to go with a deal like maybe a cheaper keyboard, case, and mouse. Oh almost left out a psu, so another $50.

Not sure where you get double the performance, userbenchmark puts the 5700 at +35% over 2060 mobile, and the CPU is a slight dip in performance. I'd rank it above equivalent to moderately better, but not nearly double.

The monitor would make the biggest difference, 24" of screen is much nicer than a laptop screen for gaming. And a bronze or better psu would probably be closer to 65-85, but that's minor difference, especially given the mouse would be required either way

 

[mikesmith]

Not sure where you get double the performance, userbenchmark puts the 5700 at +35% over 2060 mobile, and the CPU is a slight dip in performance. I'd rank it above equivalent to moderately better, but not nearly double.

The monitor would make the biggest difference, 24" of screen is much nicer than a laptop screen for gaming. And a bronze or better psu would probably be closer to 65-85, but that's minor difference, especially given the mouse would be required either way

The GPU in this laptop isn't the real 2060, it's essentially a "max q" version.

Also userbenchmark is terrible.

 

[Statistical]

Am I the only one who is subtly annoyed by the power connector being in the middle of the edge, rather than at the back?

Very weird placement - [the power jack] should be at the top/back corner or on the rear

No, I actually prefer it where it is. The closer it gets to the back, the more likely a user is to wedge it hard against something and break the jack loose from its solder joint internally.

The only thing I'm a little mad about is that it's using a DC jack at all, rather than a high speed USB-C charger. When users break USB-C, most frequently they break the cable. When they break a DC analog connector... Well, see above. Laptop ruined, either replace it or live with "hold your mouth just right" charging for the remainder of the laptop's life. (In theory, you can resolder the jack after a user breaks it. In practice... Eh.)

Granted, if this is only your laptop and you know better than to do that, the DC jack could go wherever. I've certainly never broken a jack on any of my own laptops, but I've had to deal with enough user-broken ones to have strong opinions.

Oh, and DC all the way on the rear is definitely not great. Larger airplanes (remember airplanes?) have on board power available for long flights, and you DEFINITELY gonna break stuff if you try to plug in to a rear power jack in confinement that tight.

Interesting - I've always had that trouble with Dell laptops, where it comes straight out from the side, but the (very non-gaming, passively cooled) Asus I have now that uses the right angled plug has had no issues. And it's (wow, really? I need a new laptop) 5 years old.

Also, am I to understand this doesn't support USB-C charging as well? Or is it just not high speed. It seems like a no brainer on a modern laptop. That way even if it's not high speed, I almost always have my phone charger as backup. If it's mentioned in the review I missed it.

It does charge over USB C, they just didn't bother getting it certified for Thunderbolt. I think so far the only AMD motherboard certified is an Asrock one: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-m ... tion-intel
That article does raise the question if this laptop (and other AMD based computers) supports thunderbolt even though it hasn't been certified and therefore isn't advertising it.

Thunderbolt requires more than just certification. It requires a thunderbolt controller. There is nothing to suggest this has a thunderbolt controller.

 

[genekellyjr]

Glad to see Ars trying to get back into more serious hardware journalism, but this review could be better. There's a lot left out, maybe to make it more streamlined and easy to read? Either way, a future article can be streamlined and useful, I'm sure.

There is a fair amount of tossing out numbers with no relevant info given. The tidbit about the file decompression, I guess its supposed to be qualitative since the program used (Windows' built-in, 7-Zip, WinRAR?) is unmentioned - but those numbers are meaningless to me alone. Great it does 140 MB/s - unfortunately I don't have a list of usual decompression speeds in my head to compare to. And now I'm wondering how fast is the SSD that comes with this laptop in general. Ars could have a reference NVMe on hand to test 7-Zip's built-in benchmark, if you wanted to do that and avoid SSD bias (see Anandtech https://www.anandtech.com/show/14605/th ... the-bar/10, they do it for their CPU reviews). The GPU numbers are essentially just numbers thrown into a void, where's a chart?

The CPU charts, and at least there are charts, use Cinebench and Passmark only. Cinebench is a renderer, so toss in an encoding benchmark like a Handbrake run on the same video. That would be useful to see the CPU power. Passmark has such bad press too, https://www.planet3dnow.de/cms/55662-pa ... von-intel/. It's not a well-trusted synthetic, though there aren't any synthetics without criticism, due to them being synthetic and not real-world programs people actually use.

For the GPU performance, why are there no popular video game frame rates and 1% lows to show how the laptop does when actually playing a video game? Superposition is designed to be very GPU heavy and relatively CPU-light so the GPU is tested without CPU-bias (as much as possible). It won't show the power balancing that might occur with a real video game that uses the CPU and GPU extensively, it just shows how fast the laptop 2060 is (which is useful to know, when comparing against other laptop 2060 variations that might throttle more). And then the Passmark 2D and 3D benchmarks? The 2D one is absolutely useless, anything anyone (barring egregious edge cases) has done in the last decade on a laptop hasn't been 2D-bound. There's no point to benchmark that and show that as a relevant data point. The Passmark 3D benchmark isn't commonly used (stigma, again) - you mention Firestrike, which is used by the PCMark battery life test, why not just show Firestrike (DX11) and Time Spy (DX12)? They're much more well regarded and trusted numbers to approximately represent gaming performance. They even break out a system score and a graphics score (for GPU-only benchmarking). The Passmark 3D benchmark's also run D9 and D10 which are outdated and irrelevant now (any game from back then will run fine now - barring driver issues), but it counts them into the total score anyway. The 10% boost compared to the "baseline" possibly is from laptop 2060s that throttle harder, as it seems the Passmark 3D benchmarks try to be GPU-bound like Superposition - so the CPU might not factor much into the difference. And why the oddly cropped shots? The Passmark ones have a tiny hard-to-read chart and extraneous info everywhere, while the Superposition one is just a screenshot of the desktop (the camera button saves a picture of the Superposition window! not to mention just cropping). Ars' graphs are easy to read and some are right above those screen shots tauntingly. Give comparison Superposition numbers to desktop cards if you have to fill the chart, like what was done with the CPU chart.

There's nothing about the display, not even mentioning if it is IPS or TN or VA. They matter, as an IPS (other sites say it is an IPS) will have slow response times which will cause ghosting - but they won't have as big viewing angle issues (good for laptop usage). For 120 Hz gaming, the ghosting might be an issue you could mention. Testing fast-paced video games would have shown the ghosting issues, to boot. Superposition just pans around.

As for the GPU-usage issues, did you contact ASUS to figure it out (or other vendors if ASUS punted)? You probably have to target the PCMark .exe that handles the battery life test, not the launcher (middle-man) or Firestrike (which is called by the .exe that handles battery life test). I'm just guessing, but I'd love to see correct numbers - and if the 2060 throttles itself on battery. (I had a 700 series Nvidia GPU in a laptop that limited itself heavily on battery - OEM defined, probably) Does the similar times between the integrated and dedicated GPUs (despite being different programs) mean the laptop as a whole has a set power usage limit while on battery? Some interesting questions about the characteristics of the laptop for video gaming on battery, which while not ideal may occur sometimes (or even rendering on battery, for more productive workloads).

I hope the tirade can help improve upcoming hardware reviews. There's definitely room for a good hardware review that's between pages and pages of benchmarks and "the Verge" (though they did play a game on this laptop).

 

[Jim Salter]

Not sure where you get double the performance, userbenchmark puts the 5700 at +35% over 2060 mobile, and the [Ryzen 5 1600af] CPU is a slight dip in performance. I'd rank it above equivalent to moderately better, but not nearly double.

The monitor would make the biggest difference, 24" of screen is much nicer than a laptop screen for gaming. And a bronze or better psu would probably be closer to 65-85, but that's minor difference, especially given the mouse would be required either way

Agree on the monitor. I don't think I'd call the Ryzen 5 1600af a "slight" dip in performance, even for purely gaming workloads though. At Cinebench 2790 multi/373 single compared to 4145/488 for the 4900HS as tested here, that's a pretty solid step down no matter how you slice it.

Granted, most 1080P games will be bottlenecking on the GPU more than the CPU. Still... hell of a step down.

 

[mikesmith]

Not sure where you get double the performance, userbenchmark puts the 5700 at +35% over 2060 mobile, and the [Ryzen 5 1600af] CPU is a slight dip in performance. I'd rank it above equivalent to moderately better, but not nearly double.

The monitor would make the biggest difference, 24" of screen is much nicer than a laptop screen for gaming. And a bronze or better psu would probably be closer to 65-85, but that's minor difference, especially given the mouse would be required either way

Agree on the monitor. I don't think I'd call the Ryzen 5 1600af a "slight" dip in performance, even for purely gaming workloads though. At Cinebench 2790 multi/373 single compared to 4145/488 for the 4900HS as tested here, that's a pretty solid step down no matter how you slice it.

Granted, most 1080P games will be bottlenecking on the GPU more than the CPU. Still... hell of a step down.

The 4900hs is great, easily better than the 1600af, but the problem is you can't get it with a high performance GPU right now, and may never be able to be. Eventually the desktop version will come out, though and we can have forget discussion regarding it then. For now a 1600af with radeon 5700 will easily outperform the 4900hs with 2060 max q in current games.

 

[bull3964]

One thing I would like to see in a review is how badly things throttle when using USB-C charging rather than the full wattage charger. Does it just default to battery behavior, allow some better performance at the limits of the supplied power, or does it allow full performance using the battery to make up for the power deficit?

That makes a huge difference for portability. I would love to be able to leave the power adapter at my more "stationary" location and use USB-C while traveling or on the couch, but I don't really want to do that if the performance would be sacrificed too much. I know a 60w USB-C charger can't keep up with a 35w CPU and 65w GPU when running full tilt, but if it lessens the draw on the battery to provide performance with prolonged running time, that would be enough for me.

 

[Bolognesus]

https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ROG-Zephyrus-G15/

The G15 has an Ethernet port, but sadly comes with "only" a 4800HS, versus the 4900HS. It does have the 65W version of the RTX2060 instead of the Max-Q in the G14, so swings and roundabouts.

The main reason I'm leaning to it though is that at 15", there are a lot more panel options and therefore quality is higher. Notably, the refresh rate on the G14 has come in for a bit of criticism for causing blur while gaming. On the G15, refresh rate is reported as 3ms, while notebookcheck says the refresh rate on the G14 is, well, horrendous. The 14" panel on the G14 is measured at 43.6 and 34.8 ms b&w and colour respectively vs. 6.4 and 8.8 on the Zephyrus M, with the other 15" laptops all reporting numbers in the teens. If they put that 15"panel on the G15, that will be a winner.

A 4900HS is 3000/4300 base/boost, a 4800HS 2900/4200. All things being equal that's less than 3% performance difference. Seeing how most, if not all, sustained workloads that include the GPU will be thermally limited, I suspect even that 3% will drop close to 0% for most, if not just all of the time.

Of course that might be different if the 4900HS is binned wildly better as well, but I wouldn't bet on that. Not to mention that if you're getting either for gaming purposes (and generally you would be) the difference that unleashing that 2060 is going to make will be much more noticeable regardless.

 

[Toaste]

Why have you chosen to include not one but two Intel Desktop CPUs in the graph? It's unethically misleading.

Imagine if Car and Driver were to review the new Tesla Roadster, but include a Bentley and Bugatti Chiron in the chart. Nevermind that the other two aren't roadsters or in the same price category, the Tesla isn't allowed to see the top of the chart in as many categories as possible, and even 0-60 time had better look like it's close.