In May, the company Intel introduced an update to its line of mobile processors Tiger-Lake-Hthat boasted an increase in the number of cores up to 8, a clock speed of up to 5 GHz and support for 20 lines PCI Express 4.0…
Along with the announcement of new processors, laptop manufacturers quickly presented their solutions. Company ASUS among the leaders announced model updates ROG Zephyrus S17 and Zephyrus M16…
Today we will just talk about the model ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 (GU603), which is located in the middle between the more expensive Zephyrus S17 and more accessible Zephyrus G15… The official cost of this line of laptops starts at 144,990 rubles.
PACKAGING, COMPLETE SET AND APPEARANCE
The laptop comes in a cardboard box with a comfortable plastic handle with embossed ROG logo.
The front side and the box lid are divided diagonally into black and white sides. On the white one there is a rainbow-colored logo of the Republic of Gamers, and on the black one the manufacturer indicated only the name of the ROG ZEPHYRUS series in a corporate font. The junction of the black and white sides is dotted with a multi-point relief, reminiscent of a graphic equalizer and a nod to the laptop’s signature prismatic texture design.
The lid of the box opens like a casket, and the laptop, as always, rises so that it can be easily and conveniently pulled out. The glossy Republic of Gamers inscription on the back of the lid reminds of the gaming orientation of the device.
Directly underneath the laptop is a thin cardboard box with a branded iridescent logo, which contains instructions, a warranty card and a flyer with information about the MyASUS app. On the sides of the box with the documentation, the manufacturer has placed two secret sections. On the right, you’ll find a 240 watt power adapter and power cord, while on the left, the compartment was empty. Perhaps there should be a 100-watt USB-C charger or some other accessory like a mouse. It all depends on which region and store you buy this laptop, so it is better to clarify this point before buying from sellers.
The design and dimensions of the ROG Zephyrus M16 are identical to those of the G15, as ASUS engineers managed to fit a 16-inch 16:10 screen into the 15-inch ROG Zephyrus. The laptop is 2 cm thick, excluding the legs. The length is 24.3 cm, and the width is 35.5 cm. The weight is 2.054 kg, which is not a lot for a gaming laptop with a 16-inch screen. The 240W PSU is a standard thin brick shape, and the 732g weight with power cord is just above the gaming laptop average.
The Zephyrus M16 is crafted from a magnesium-aluminum alloy in the only available matte black finish. It is pleasant to the touch and looks very good until it picks up greasy fingerprints. Fortunately, the latter are easily erased if you use a soft cloth.
As in the case of the G15, the laptop lid is dotted with 8279 points, under which a prismatic film is hidden. A mirror nameplate with the Republic of Gamers logo, as in the younger model, is located on the corner of the lid and draws attention to itself.
Ventilation slots on the sides and back. The side vents are diamond-shaped, and the rear vents are reminiscent of the Lamborghini Centenario rear bumper, which flaunts on the cover of the third part of Forza Horizon.
Well in the middle at the back there are three LEDs that notify about the operation of the device, charging and loading the system disk. Cooling air is drawn in through a plurality of openings at the bottom. The laptop stands securely on the table and does not slip thanks to two long rubber feet. On the front edges of the bottom, the holes of the built-in speakers look down.
Most of the connectors are located on the left side of the laptop base. Here the manufacturer has placed a power connector for connecting a complete 240-watt charger, an HDMI 2.0b port for displaying images on external screens with a resolution of up to 4K and 60 Hz, an RJ-45 connector for connecting a wired Internet, one USB 3.2 Type-A, one Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C with DisplayPort and Power Delivery support, plus a 3.5mm combo audio output for wired headphones, microphones and headsets. On the right side of the laptop is another USB 3.2 Type-A, a microSD card reader, and a Kensington lock hole.
The lid of the laptop can be opened easily with one hand, since the main weight is on the base. The proprietary ErgoLift hinge, which we have already seen in the G15, raises the base about 15 degrees above the surface, which gives an additional flow of air to the laptop. The screen can be opened 180 degrees thanks to the hinge design.
The bezel around the screen is very thin. The sides are only 3 mm, 7 mm on top, and only 10 mm on the bottom with the ROG ZEPHYRUS inscription – about half is obscured by the case, which makes it seem that the top and bottom frames are about the same thickness. The manufacturer was able to achieve this thanks to the choice of the 16:10 screen format instead of the usual 16: 9. In addition, the manufacturer was able to fit a WEB-camera above the screen. This is a standard 1-megapixel webcam with a maximum recording resolution of 720p. Along with the camera is an array microphone that supports three modes (one-way, stereo and omnidirectional) and noise cancellation, which uses the CPU to intelligently process incoming audio.
SCREEN, SOUND AND FUNCTIONAL
The screen in this laptop is from the Taiwanese manufacturer AU Optronics with a matte antiglare surface. This is an 8-bit IPS-matrix with a resolution of WQXGA (2560 by 1600 pixels) and a refresh rate of 165 Hz.
The screen has a maximum brightness of 500 nits and a contrast ratio of 1000: 1. With this brightness, this notebook can be used outdoors in direct sunlight. To prevent tearing and distortion in dynamic scenes, the display is equipped with Adaptive-Sync technologies. The response time from gray to gray is 3ms, the average is 6ms. The matrix supports 100% DCI-P3, 100% sRGB and 87% Adobe RGB color gamut. Color reproduction is high when viewed from any angle. Also from the pleasant moments – the complete absence of PWM with a decrease in brightness, but microscopic highlights in a static black picture were found in black in the lower left corner. They can be seen on the startup black screen when the laptop is turned on, but they are not noticeable during dynamic scenes.
For sound reproduction on the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 (GU603), six speakers of 2 W each are responsible at once. The two tweeters point upward and output sound to the user through the openings on the sides of the keyboard. Two pairs of woofers are located in the front of the cabinet and point downward. They sound very good and loud, there is even a pronounced bass. Good surround and panning sound is also achieved thanks to support for Dolby Atmos technology, which can be activated with the installed Dolby Acess app.
The laptop power button is located on the right above the keyboard. It is made of glass and has the shape of a symmetrical hexagon. It has a built-in fingerprint sensor for quickly unlocking the laptop using a scan of the fingerprints registered in the system. The scanner works without problems. Turning on the machine takes about 10 seconds, which is within the normal range for a solution on an SSD M.2 drive.
Most of the base inside is occupied by the keyboard, which is slightly recessed into the body, which is why the keys are flush with the surface where the touchpad is located. There is no digital block here, since the manufacturer has placed the holes for the tweeters instead. The arrows have been cut in half, which not everyone will like. Additional buttons PageUp, PageDown, Home and End are assigned to them, which work in combination with the FN button.
Above the keyboard, there are four additional buttons that are responsible for adjusting the sound, turning on / off the microphone and quick access to the ASUS Armory Crate app. The keyboard travel is 1.7 mm, and the built-in proprietary ROG Overstroke technology handles pressing already in the middle of the travel, and not when the key is pressed completely.
The keys themselves are pleasant to the touch. Typing is comfortable enough, and the clicks are quiet. The keyboard is equipped with AURA RGB lighting, which has three levels of brightness and is adjustable by the FN + F2 / F3 keyboard shortcut, and FN + F4 allows you to change the lighting effect. In the dark, it does not dazzle and it is enough to use it comfortably in the dark.
The glass touchpad is very large here. Its dimensions are 128 by 83 mm. The surface is very pleasant to the touch, and the sensor perfectly fulfills all commands and supports multi-finger gesture control. The bottom corners are pressed through and mimic the main mouse buttons.
FILLING, BATTERY, OPERATION AND TESTS
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 that came to us for the test is built on the basis of a 10-nanometer Intel Core i9-11900H processor, clocked at 2.5 GHz. The processor is 8-core and operates in 16 threads and 24 MB of L3 cache, and the maximum frequency is 4900 MHz. TDP of the central processor – 45 W.
There are two video adapters in the laptop: an Intel UHD accelerator built into the CPU and a discrete NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop card with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. The TDP of this GPU is 80 W, which can go up to 100 W under favorable conditions using the NVIDIA Max-Q Dynamic Boost technology, which redistributes the TDP between the processor and the graphics accelerator.
The laptop has two 16GB memory modules each (operating at 1600 MHz in dual-channel mode) with a maximum frequency of 3200 MHz from Samsung. One module is soldered on the board, and the second can be replaced if desired up to 32 GB, which will eventually give 48 GB. The internal drive in the test sample was played by a 2 terabyte NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD from Samsung. It is also possible to install a second drive in a free M.2 slot.
The disk speed in Crystal Disk Mark was 7101 MB / s for reading and 5113 MB / s for writing. The AS SDD test, as usual, shows much more modest results – 5589 MB / s for reading and 4083 MB / s for writing. The drive’s performance is impressive, but when using PCIe 4.0, it’s not very surprising. Under loads, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 (GU603) warmed up to 62 degrees.
The laptop comes with a 4-cell 90Wh Li-ion battery. A full charge will last for 7-9 hours of normal use (at 50% screen brightness and Wi-Fi on), such as surfing the Internet, working with documents, watching videos and listening to music. In active gaming (efficiency) mode, the laptop runs for about 90-100 minutes. Maximum performance is achieved only in “Turbo” mode, which is available when the power supply is connected. You can control modes, as well as monitor temperature and performance data, through the ASUS Armory Crate App.
In standard mode, when idle, NWiNFO64 averages the following temperatures:
- CPU – 50 ° C
- GPU core – 49 ° C
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop – 49 ° C
- SAMSUNG MZVL22T0HBLB-00B00 – 45 ° C
With a long maximum load (turbo mode) in tests, the laptop’s CPU heats up to 96 degrees. In the multi-threaded test Cinebench R23, the processor was able to score 12,450 points. For most of the test, the cores were clocked at 3.0 to 4.8 GHz. In a single-threaded CPU, it was able to earn 1572 points at an average frequency of 4.3 GHz.
In graphics tests and games, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop shows decent results. All tests were carried out in system performance mode with power on:
- In the Superposition benchmark test on the Unigine 2 engine in 1080p mode at extreme settings, the system showed 34 to 54 frames, while in the optimized mode in 4K the GPU was able to show 48 to 70 frames.
- In the Boundary Chinese benchmark with ray tracing at 1600p, the laptop was able to achieve an average frame rate of 91.6 frames per second with DLSS in ultra performance mode. In DLSS mode, the quality with the same settings, the average FPS was 58 FPS.
- In the Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition benchmark, the laptop at high settings at 1440p graphics was able to score 6483 points and a score of “High”, and in 4K – 4025 points and “Standard”.
As usual, we also tested the device at 1080p and 1440p in three in-game tests – Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2:
- In the Playground race at maximum graphics settings, the laptop was able to produce an average FPS of 88 frames per second at 1600p and 114 FPS in Full HD.
- Gears 5 with ultra settings, max global illumination beams and ultra texture pack installed, averaged 53 FPS at 1600p and 78 FPS at 1200p.
- The in-game RDR2 benchmark was run on ultra settings (without activating additional settings) with TAA anti-aliasing (without activating additional settings) and as a result showed an average value of 52 FPS at 1600p and 72 FPS at 1200p.
Next, we tested the laptop for performance at 1600p at maximum graphics settings directly during gameplay:
- We first launched last year’s Doom Eternal in Full HD and Ultimate Nightmare graphics settings. The shooter recently received support for DLSS ray tracing and anti-aliasing technologies, which we also included in the test. DLSS has been set to “Performance” mode. The average frame rate in this dynamic shooter on the first level “Hell on Earth” was kept at around 122 FPS.
- The second project that we tested in gameplay was Control by Remedy, which supports DLSS 2.0 ray tracing and anti-aliasing technologies that we are interested in. We ran the project, as always, at 1600p at maximum graphics settings with RTX and DLSS with a rendering resolution of 1280 x 800. At these settings, the picture on the laptop screen looked good, and the average frame rate in complex battle scenes was kept at around 68 frames.
- The last graphics test was carried out in Cyberpunk 2077. We tested the game at maximum settings at 1600p with RTX and DLSS in ultra performance mode and got an average of 66 frames – both in dynamic scenes during battles in closed locations and while traveling around the city.
As for the noise indicators, the laptop is almost inaudible in quiet mode at a room noise level of 25-30 dB. Under heavy loads, powerful cooling starts to work and the device becomes noisy, and the case in the keyboard area gets very hot.
Average noise level under load is 50-53dB, which is slightly above average for gaming laptops. Even at the maximum volume of the speakers, the rumble of the fan will still be heard in the background, so it is better to play with headphones. It is also worth noting that while using the laptop, a clicking sound was heard on the left side. It sounds at intervals of about 1 second. This is where one of the laptop coolers is located. Perhaps there is some kind of defect in our test sample with it or something got inside.
RESULTS
The Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 is perfect for those looking for a high-performance laptop for gaming with a 16-inch screen, but still wanting a compact device. It has a beautiful look, a good screen with excellent color reproduction, high refresh rates and fairly low latency, loud speakers with pronounced bass and powerful cutting-edge hardware for 2K gaming. Of the minuses, it is worth noting the high noise level, but the younger brother of the device in the face of the G15 also did not differ much in this regard, and all this for the sake of compactness and lightness. However, we prefer to play with headphones, and during normal load, when watching videos and using the browser, the noise is almost invisible. And that’s great.
Author: Sergey Dyakonenko (Madnfs)
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