Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 laptop review: Eye-catcher

[Redaktion]

The Zephyrus G15 might look like a stylish all-rounder laptop at first glance. However, there's powerful high-end hardware from AMD and Nvidia under the hood. We have tested the 15-inch gaming device extensively.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Zephyrus-G15-laptop-review-Eye-catcher.517789.0.html

[dude what]

Embarrassing performance for a 3080 (a decent 3070 will wipe the floor with it), soldered RAM (in 2021, really) and ASUS being shady about TDP are enough to trash this style over substance piece of junk.

[RB15 Owner]

At least grab the right scores for your graph when comparing 2080 Super Max-Q performance, like the Razer Blade's Time Spy Graphics score is in its 'Balanced' mode, not when it's not set to GPU: High/CPU:High in Synapse, with which it scores 8100.

A better comparison would've been the 100W (peak usage 111W) 2080 Super Max-Q in the Razer Blade Pro (17") which has a similar TDP and also gets 9300-9400 in Time Spy Graphics with maximum performance settings... so this has to be the most useless RTX 3080 (at least the most useless one with a dynamic boost of 100W).

[Brightsmith]

A pity the XMG Neo was not taken into account when benchmarking, the rtx 3070 150w defeats handsomely this '3080' gpu.

[dasdasdas]

Slow GPU...too bad nvidia didn't use 7nm tsmc as amd.

[Bobby]

A pity the XMG Neo was not taken into account when benchmarking, the rtx 3070 150w defeats handsomely this '3080' gpu.

Should we really be impressed that an rtx 3070 at 150w outperforms a 100w rtx 3080? In a 17 inch laptop with 3.5hrs of battery life compared to 15 inch much more compact and lighter laptop with great speakers and 9.5hrs battery. One is a portable desktop and the other is a multipurpose laptop and they are suited to different people.

[phakim]

When in "silent mode" as selected in Armory Crate software do the fans always stay off? If they do sometimes turn on, how common is that?

I have a Helios 300 (2019) and the fans are almost always on, even at idle, and they are distracting when I am trying to work.

I would like to get a laptop that I can make silent for work but can turn up when I need it for gaming. Thanks!

[saunupe1911]

I just want to know why Asus didn't implement HDMI 2.1 in these laptops. Using these laptops to game and watch HDR content in FULL RGB 10/12 4k60 or 4k120 is a must for me on my LG CX. Alienware and Razor has HDMI 2.1 on their 30 series laptops. That's a huge differentiator for them.

[phakim]

Did your unit have coil whine? I saw someone complaining about that on reddit.

[Q-Man]

Phew, thanks just saved me from wasting my money! Sold my Razer Blade 15 RTX2080 Super Max-Q to fund this RTX3080 laptop; after seeing these abysmal graphics scores (relatively) will now look elsewhere.

[S.Yu]

At least grab the right scores for your graph when comparing 2080 Super Max-Q performance, like the Razer Blade's Time Spy Graphics score is in its 'Balanced' mode, not when it's not set to GPU: High/CPU:High in Synapse, with which it scores 8100.

A better comparison would've been the 100W (peak usage 111W) 2080 Super Max-Q in the Razer Blade Pro (17") which has a similar TDP and also gets 9300-9400 in Time Spy Graphics with maximum performance settings... so this has to be the most useless RTX 3080 (at least the most useless one with a dynamic boost of 100W).

What you can see is the Blade 15 consistently dissipates about 25W more heat than this model under load, and the idle numbers suggest a minor difference between the other components, so assuming the AMD CPU saves 10W under load(just a guess), the 2080SMQ in the Blade still gets >10W more. They mentioned this is the 80W version 3080MQ and IIRC the Blade had the 90W version 2080SMQ, so these real life numbers match up quite nicely.
That said, that Razer is probably still more expensive while being less efficient and slower than this model, so if we look past the issue that they're one generation apart, then this model still has pretty good value, it's not like this is one of those crude Tongfang barebones or something, it's a refined chassis too. Looking at it this way my only gripe would be that it only has a MicroSD slot instead of the proper sized one, which completely beats the point of the slot as devices that use MicroSD probably have far easier ways of connecting to the PC anyway.

[Dorby]

"The keyboard neither reacts particularly crisp nor particularly mushy to input"
Translation: It is mushy.

"With a brightness of just under 310 cd/m² and a contrast of around 1,000:1, the ROG Zephyrus G15 settles in the midfield"
Bummer, I was really hoping for at least 400nit. Coming from a 15" 450nit 100%P3 OLED, even a QHD 165Hz would be a serious downgrade for me. These specs were "midfield" back in 2014, certainly not today at this price point.

"Asus uses the weakest version of the RTX 3080 laptop GPU that has an 80-watt TDP"
I imagine most folks will get the 3070. There was no illusion from the beginning that this laptop would be able to cool a full 3080.

Also I don't have a problem with this, but I can see the lack of HDMI 2.1 port and a 2280 PCIe 4.0 slot on a gaming laptop in 2021 being a deal-breaker for a lot of people concerned about future-proofing.

[Prokshit Angadi]

Great Review! Kindly correct the device price link (amazon)

[TKay]

I'm confused by the translation of the PWM section.  Does it use PWM or not, please?

[ChinaLiedPeopleDied]

No webcam, no buy.

How can there be no webcam over a year after a global pandemic?! Who signs off these products for production?

CCP, you now have my blessing to invade Taiwan, take a poopkebab on Asus and add their management to the  Xinjiang "training camps" for their lack of market awareness that disrupts harmony of society.