Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Evaluate

There’s undoubtedly been an unbelievable quantity of anticipation surrounding the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. The explanations for this embody the truth that its powered by AMD’s Ryzen 4000-series processors, and in addition the truth that it manages to pack an 8-core 16 thread CPU together with an Nvidida GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q in a comparatively slim, 14-inch chassis. The Zephyrus G14 is unquestionably the primary of its sort, by way of the mix of energy and form-factor, so there have been positively lots of expectations. We’ve been following the event of the machine since November final 12 months, having performed with two totally different prototypes alongside the way in which. Asus India graciously shared the ultimate, retail unit with us for evaluate and we actually put it by way of a tough time to see whether or not the machine justified the months lengthy wait and hype. When you’re contemplating shopping for the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, you may need to learn this evaluate first.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Specs

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is being launched in a varity of configurations, which embody the AMD Ryzen 5 4600H, Ryzen 7 4800HS and Ryzen 9 4900HS processors. Based mostly on the processor, you get to select from an unlimited pool of Nvidia GPUs, going as excessive because the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q.  Show choices vary between a 1080p 120Hz panel and a 2K 60Hz show, each of which make the most of IPS know-how and are Pantone validated. For our evaluate the configuration shared by Asus was the very top-of-the-line mannequin. The configuration on this unit is as follows:

Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS

RAM: 16GB DDR4

Storage: 1TB NVMe (Intel 660p)

GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q

Show: 2560×1440, 60Hz

Anime Matrix Lid: Sure

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Gaming Efficiency

We had hoped that Asus would share the Zephyrus G14 with the sooner refresh charge show with us, however that’s okay. This solely meant that together with our typical testing course of, we dig just a little deeper. For the reason that panel helps a most of 60Hz refresh charge, we determined to check 14 video games in each 1440p and 1080p resolutions. Moreover, for every of the resolutions, we ran the video games on their Highest and one-less-than-highest graphics preset to see what sort of numbers we are able to count on. We hoped for at least 60fps throughout the board, regardless of the sport. Fortunately, disappointment was not on the playing cards. You may see the numbers for the video games in each 1440p and 1080 within the charts under.

For sure, no matter recreation you throw on the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, it’ll run it at impressively playable body charges. We simply couldn’t assist however with that Asus had despatched us a unit with the sooner refresh charge.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Artistic Workloads Efficiency

Top-of-the-line issues concerning the Zephyrus G14 is that that regardless of being  gaming laptop computer, its {hardware} is completely suited to creators as properly. The AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS packs Eight cores and 16 threads paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q. This mixture makes it a terrific device for anybody utilizing Adobe Lightroom Basic, Premiere Professional, DaVinci Resolve or any of the various artistic purposes on the market. We use Lightroom Basic and Adobe Premiere to check the laptop computer’s capabilities for dealing with artistic workloads. For Lightroom we export batches of 50, 100, 250 and 500 RAW information shot on a Nikon D850 and for Premiere, we export a 4K venture with the length of 5 minutes and 20  minutes to see how a lot time it takes to render the clips to disk. Throughout each the purposes, we see the G14 ship very spectacular outcomes.

Going by the above numbers, there’s little question that the CPU-GPU combo can tackle even essentially the most demanding of render hundreds. The one bottleneck within the course of is the 16GB of reminiscence, which will get maxed out by each Lightroom and Premiere. Having 32GB of reminiscence would defdinitely be much more helpful for creators and hopefully, we’ll see a variant with this type of reminiscence quickly.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Thermals

If the Asus Zephyrus G14 has a weak spot, its thermals. Don’t get me flawed, the Ryzen 9 4900HS can run at as much as 105 diploma Celsius and there’s no hurt if it will get into the excessive 90s, which if usually does. Throughout all our gaming and rendering runs, the CPU would often go all the way in which as much as 98-degrees, which is okay. The issue, nonetheless stems from the truth that the floor temperatures throughout the keyboard and the underside have been uncomfortably scorching. The middle of the keyboard hits 50 levels often, with the WASD keys being the one cool ones. After two hours of gaming, the keyboard on our evaluate unit was principally ok to warmth a cup of tea on. No joke.

The difficulty appears to stem from an issue with fan profiles. The Armory Crate software program permits you to choose efficiency profile presets that go as much as Turbo, however even in Turbo mode, the followers on our unit wouldn’t spin as much as 100 %. On this scenario, temperatures would go as excessive as 54 levels on the keyboard. Once we turned the fan profile to guide and set the followers to run at 100 %, temperatures did come all the way down to a comparatively decrease 50 diploma Celsius, however even then, its too scorching. What’s problematic is that in Turbo profile, the followers didn’t ramp as much as 100 % even when the laptop computer was principally turning into a really high-tech toaster. The difficulty could possibly be remoted to our explicit evaluate unit, but when a evaluate unit can h ave this problem, we don’t count on retail models to fare any higher. We strongly suggest stress testing it to see if Armory Crate will routinely ramp up the followers to 100 % with a purpose to maintain the temps beneath verify. From our finish, we made certain that every one requisite updates have been put in and the bios up to date, so its both a flaw with the {hardware} on the whole or with our explicit unit. Asus wasn’t capable of share a second unit with us to confirm the purpose of failure by the point of publishing this evaluate.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Storage

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 comes geared up with the Intel 660p NVMe drive, primarily based on QLC cache. Our unit ships with a terabyte-sized drive, which is aplenty as a main drive. Sadly, and understandably, there’s no secondary m.2 slot on this tiny machine. When it comes to read-write speeds, customers can count on 1740MB/s learn and 1690MB/s write. These are pretty commonplace speeds you get from a PCIe 3.zero x4 drive, however the QLC nature of the drive is its Achilles heel. SSD drives, relying on their whole dimension, have a small portion that’s made up of a a lot sooner SLC cache. That is what permits the drive to exhibit “blazing quick” switch speeds. On the Intel 660p, this portion is simply 30GB in dimension. Whereas it gained’t be an issue on a day-to-day foundation, there are areas the place this velocity limitation shall be very irritating.

The primary actual world, use case situation the place this 30GB SLC cache proves to be grossly inadequate is when restoring massive recreation backups. Right this moment, AAA titles will be anyplace between 40-150GB in dimension, so restoring them generally is a ache on this drive. Once we tried restoring out 200GB sized Steam library off of a Sandisk Excessive Professional 1TB SSD, we observed that as predicted, switch speeds got here all the way down to 80-90MB/s vary after the primary 30GB have been transferred. I really feel that the primary time setup is the extra painful half, as in each day utilization, you gained’t ever be transferring greater than 30GB of knowledge frequently. Creators then again shall be impacted, particularly video creators. When you shoot weighs bigger than 30GB, you’ll as soon as once more discover sluggish switch speeds after a degree. That is after all assuming you’re utilizing a high-speed reminiscence card like an XQD card or a CFExpress card.

This wouldn’t actually be a problem if it wasn’t clearly a value saving measure on a laptop computer that prices Rs 1,61,990. The less expensive HP Omen 15 we reviewed just lately prices far much less, and packs a a lot sooner Samsung-made NVMe drive, with the identical capability. The Samsung drive within the HP Omen 15 2020 additionally manages to ship roughly 3000MB/s read-write speeds. You’re simply going to have to simply accept that your shiny new Zephyrus G14 runs an inferior drive to cheaper machines, and  sure, 1700MB/s vs. 3000MB/s does have real-world influence.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Keyboard, Trackpad and IO

The keys on the G14’s keyboard are fairly attention-grabbing. They’re rounded across the edges and supply 1.4mm of journey, similar to the Zenbook 14. Utilizing the keyboard itself is a reasonably superior expertise, had it not been for the uncontrolled thermals. The actuation level of the keys is constant and the suggestions is fairly substantial to encourage confidence in each typing and gaming. The place the keyboard does endure a loss in factors is the truth that its lacking some important, commonplace keys. There’s no Web page Up or Web page Down keys, not at the same time as a combo. The performance simply doesn’t exist. The just lately launched ZenBook 14 appears to fare loads higher within the keyboard, with all its commonplace keys intact, so we don’t imagine that “there’s solely a lot you possibly can slot in a 14 inch chassis” argument.

The trackpad is once more on the smaller facet from what we’ve seen on 14 inch laptops from Asus themselves, however its not likely very problematic. The floor is manufactured from glass and your fingers will generously glide over the floor, with the cursor responding to each contact and each gesture. The trackpad could be very a lot purposeful for navigating the home windows interface, though its nonetheless finest to recreation utilizing an exterior mouse.

The port choice on the Zephyrus G14 is unquestionably one thing we have been fairly comfortable about. There are two full sized USB 3.zero ports on the appropriate facet that function at 5Gbps, accompanied by a USB-C port working at 10Gbps speeds. The left facet of the laptop computer homes the facility connector together with a full sized HDMI port and one other USB-C port with DisplayPort 1.four and 65W energy supply capabilities. All in all, the port choice is fairly stable, save for the truth that a machine that’s additionally catered in the direction of creators lacks an SD Card slot.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Show

The show specs on our evaluate unit are fairly spectacular, a minimum of on paper. The show has a very pointless 2560x1440p decision and a refresh charge of simply 60Hz. On a show that’s simply 14 inches in dimension, a 1440p show makes little to no sense. From a sensible viewpoint, we’d all find yourself scaling the show by 150 % (or extra) and as for the logic of “content material creators get more room,” properly, that’s simply not true. The area stays the identical; all of superb 14-inches, however all of the instruments and home windows develop into tiny, so sure, you possibly can match extra within the present area. However most often, instruments develop into too small to visually differentiate and preview home windows develop into tiny as properly. Whether or not you’re utilizing Adobe Premiere, Photoshop and even Lightroom Basic, not one of the instruments and home windows are usable at 1440p, 100 % scaling. You’re method higher off with a 1080p show, as you additionally get the upper 120Hz refresh charge.

Our show locked a peek brightness of 300 lux throughout the show, ergo, good brightness uniformity. The show is Pantone calibrated on the manufacturing facility. When you’re an editor doing color delicate work, you will be assured of fine color accuracy, though you’ll have to re-calibrate the show primarily based on the lighting in your working space. The matte coating does an excellent job of preserving reflections at bay, nonetheless if there’s a very brilliant point-source of sunshine proper behind you, count on it to create a muted circle on the show.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Battery Life

There’s lots of speak about how the AMD-based gaming machines are delivering distinctive battery life for gaming laptops. The truth is, our YouTube video has a number of feedback on methods you possibly can obtain as much as Eight hours of use on the battery, assuming you’re not gaming after all. Nevertheless, our repeated checks suing PCMark 10’s built-in Workplace battery benchmark returned us lower than stellar outcomes. Repeatedl;y, our battery life numbers hovered within the four hours 30 minute to three hour vary, even with the laptop computer set to Home windows profile in Armory crate, and Home windows selecting the very best battery life settings. Once more, I really feel that this was a problem particular to the unit shared by Asus, and never a common drawback with the G14. Asus was sadly unable to share a second unit with us to confirm the reason for the poor battery life as of publishing this evaluate.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Anime Matrix Show

Asus didn’t simply need to make a 14-inch powerhouse. Additionally they wished it to look actual good. That’s the place the Anime Matrix show is available in. That is an LED studded space on the outer lid, which is extra than simply flashy lights. You may add animated GIFs, textual content messages, and even a mixture of the 2. You can even make customized animation combos, which is fairly cool. It really is marvelous simply how properly thought out the software program for this characteristic is. Its constructed into armory crate and works as marketed. Initially, I assumed that white LEDs on a white physique gained’t actually be seen, however this was after I noticed a non-working prototype final 12 months. After having performed with the evaluate unit, its loads clear that there’s no method you’re not going to get observed with this. The LEDs are positively brilliant sufficient for clear legibility. That being mentioned, the additional LEDs on the outer lid are a battery drain and might usually be distracting to individuals who could also be sitting reverse you.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Verdict

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is undoubtedly a one-of-a-kind laptop computer. It manages to pack a lot into such a small form-factor. You get Eight beastly cores with 16 threads to chew by way of no matter workload chances are you’ll need to throw at it. What it prices you is thermal mal efficiency. Plus, the warmth from the CPU-GPU is exhausted by way of the rear vents which, because of the ergo-lift hinge, direct the air straight onto the show. What doesn’t assist the G14’s trigger is the usage of an NVMe drive that’s common at finest, and will be outperformed by drives obtainable in less expensive laptops. The surplus warmth and poor battery life on the Zephyrus G14 may need been remoted to our evaluate unit, however what worries us is that if a reviewer’s pattern can have such an enormous points, what sort of high quality management can we count on from shopper models? Outdoors of that, the G14 is definitely a reasonably well-rounded laptop computer, one which performs admirably properly and appears actually good doing so. Sure, for the worth, you should buy laptops that ship higher efficiency, however none of them shall be as moveable because the G14, and THAT is what you’re actually paying for. My suggestion could be to skip the 1440p variant and stick to 1 which provides a 120Hz panel.