At the exhibition held in January CES 2023 company ASUS presented a lineup of new laptops for 2023. She did not bypass, of course, her gaming laptops from the lines Republic of Gaming and TUF Gamingwho have not only switched to a new generation of cards from NVIDIA on architecture Ampere, but also built on the basis of new mobile processors AMD Ryzen 5000 series.
Quite recently, a fresh model from the line came to our editorial office for a test. Republic of Gaming – ROG Zephyrus G15 (GA503Q), which we hastened to study and are ready to tell you about it today.
The official cost for this line of laptops starts from 135,990 rubles from AMD Ryzen 7 and RTX 3060… Our top configuration AMD Ryzen 9 and video card RTX 3080 estimated at 197,990 rubles…
PACKAGING AND COMPLETE SET
The laptop comes in a cardboard box with a comfortable plastic handle with an embossed ROG logo. The front side and, in combination, the box lid is divided diagonally into black and white sides. On the white one is the mirrored Republic of Gamers logo, which shimmers in various colors of the rainbow depending on the rotation in space, and on the black one the manufacturer indicated only the name of the ROG ZEPHYRUS series in a corporate font. There are also iridescent relief dots at the junction of the white and black sides. Drawing of them resembles a graphic equalizer.
The box opens like a casket. Traditionally, when opening, the laptop rises inside for easy removal. Under the lid, the manufacturer inscribed ROG and Republic of Gamers in glossy black matte cardboard. All additional components can be found directly under the laptop itself. There you will find a thin cardboard box, which contains various instructions, guarantees and a letter of thanks for the purchase from the ROG team. On the sides of the box with pieces of paper, the manufacturer has placed two secret sections. On the right, you’ll find a 200-watt power adapter and mains cable, and on the left, there should be a 100-watt USB-C charging adapter, but it wasn’t in the test sample. According to the manufacturer, the kit may also include an external camera, mouse or backpack, so it’s best to check before purchasing.
APPEARANCE
At first glance, the design of the new G15 has not changed much, but in reality it is not. Previously, the lid was divided diagonally by a texture in the form of polished metal in two directions, but now this division is divided into a matte surface and a part dotted with 8279 dots, under which a prismatic film is hidden. When light hits at a certain angle, the dots begin to flicker with all the colors of the rainbow, giving the laptop an unusual look.
The lid, like the entire body, is made of magnesium-aluminum alloy, which is not only strong enough, but also lightweight. The matte surface of the case is very pleasant to the touch. In addition, a glossy Republic of Gamers nameplate was placed on the lid in the corner at the back, and a glossy line was stretched along the back edge, which also attracts attention when you first look at the laptop.
It is also worth noting that now the lid has no cutout between the hinges and completely covers the base of the laptop.
In terms of exterior design, the ROG Zephyrus G15 (GA503Q) is almost the same as the 2023 G14 we wrote about earlier. It is also worth noting that now the laptop is not presented in black – it was replaced by gray (Eclipse Gray) and white (Moonlight White) options. We got a sample in a white case, and it is worth noting that it is very eye-catching.
The cooling system holes have also undergone changes.
Firstly, an air outlet appeared on the left side, which was absent in the previous generation G15. The shape of the holes on the sides now resembles more diamonds, and on the back, the holes with a grill directed at an angle of 45 degrees evoke associations with alien spaceships or with the back of an expensive hypercar. Three LEDs fit well in the middle, which notify about the operation of the device, charging and loading the internal disk.
The bottom of the laptop has much more air intake holes, and the manufacturer has replaced many separate rubber feet with just two long ones with different heights across the width of the device. The built-in speaker holes in the front of the ROG Zephyrus G15 (GA503Q) also look down.
The laptop is 2.5 cm thick, excluding the legs. The length is 25.1 cm, and the width is 36.1 cm. The weight is 1996 grams, which is not much for a gaming solution with a 15-inch screen. The 200 W power supply is large enough, but quite standard in weight for its class. Together with the network cable, it weighs 602 grams. The 100W Type-C PSU is more compact and much lighter, so you can safely take it with you on the road.
Most of the device’s connectors are located on the left side of the base. Here the manufacturer has placed a power connector for connecting a complete 200-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, two USB 3.2 Type-C with DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery 3.0 support and 3.5mm combo audio output for connecting wired headphones, microphones and headsets. On the right side of the laptop is another USB 3.2 Type-A, a microSD card reader, which, according to the manufacturer, has a bandwidth of 312 MB / s, as well as a Kensington lock hole. Compared to the previous generation G15, the main innovation can be called a card reader, which is good news, since they can not be found in every gaming laptop. The manufacturer also replaced one USB 3.2 Type-A with USB 3.2 Type-C. Of the minuses, it is perhaps worth noting HDMI 2.0b, which looks outdated with a discrete 30-series card from NVIDIA inside.
As we said above, the screen hinge has also undergone changes. Due to its design, when opening the laptop, it raises the base by about 15 degrees, which allows you to more comfortably place your hands on the laptop, for example when typing.
The hinge, dubbed ErgoLift, also allows the screen to open up to 180 degrees. The practical application of such a function is, perhaps, only if you decide to connect a monitor and lower the screen so low that it does not obstruct the external one. The lid of the laptop can be opened effortlessly with one hand, since the main weight is on the base.
The bezels are very thin. The side ones are only 4 mm each, the top is only 7 mm, and the bottom with the ROG ZEPHYRUS inscription is traditionally the largest by 31 mm. This laptop does not have a built-in camera, but there is a microphone array located above the screen. It supports three modes (one-way, stereo and omnidirectional) and noise cancellation, which uses the CPU to intelligently process incoming audio.
SCREEN
ROG Zephyrus G15 (GA503Q) received a screen from the Taiwanese manufacturer Chimei Innolux Corporation with a matte surface. This is an 8-bit IPS-matrix with a resolution of WQHD (2560 by 1440 pixels), 100% DCI-P3 color gamut and a refresh rate of 165 Hz, the response time from gray to gray is 3 ms. Brightness is 300 nits and contrast is 1000: 1. To prevent tearing and distortion in dynamic scenes, the laptop screen is equipped with Adaptive-Sync technologies. Despite the impressive characteristics of the display, on black we found two small highlights in the upper left part of the screen (on the left and upper edges of the screen not far from the corner). They are visible to the naked eye when you first turn on the device on the initial animation with a black background and the ROG logo.
Otherwise, the display is bright enough to be used outdoors in sunny weather, has excellent viewing angles and displays pleasing natural colors. It should be noted that this matrix is available only on laptops with RTX 3070 and 3080 graphics accelerators. ROG Zephyrus G15 laptops with RTX 3060 are available with a Full HD screen and a refresh rate of 144 Hz.
SOUND AND FUNCTIONAL
To achieve high-quality sound, ASUS decided to install as many as 6 speakers in the laptop. The two tweeters point upward and output sound to the user through the openings on the sides of the keyboard. The two pairs of woofers are located in the front of the cabinet and point downwards. This decision of the engineers from ASUS was worth it, since the laptop sounds very good. The sound turned out to be loud, voluminous, with a pleasant balanced bass.
Good surround and panning sound is also achieved thanks to support for Dolby Atmos technology, which can be activated with the Dolby Access app installed. The application allows you to either independently adjust the device’s equalizer settings by selecting the dynamic mode, or select various options for music, games, movies, and also configure three user profiles for yourself.
The laptop power button is located on the right above the keyboard, is made of glass and has the shape of an asymmetric hexagon. It does not have a backlight, but there is a built-in fingerprint scanner for using the Windows Hello function and thereby unlocking the laptop using a fingerprint. The scanner works without problems, but only if the laptop is not very hot after a long load.
When the case heats up under the load from games and you decide to close the screen, then until the laptop cools down, you will have to enter it using a password or pin code, since the scanner will not respond to a fingerprint. Let’s hope this is a problem with the pre-production sample that came to our test. It took the laptop about 16 seconds to turn on, which is normal for an M.2 SSD solution.
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 rest of the surface. The keyboard travel is quite pleasant and is 1.7 mm, which is undoubtedly a plus when typing. The clicks are quiet enough unless you hit the keys like crazy.
The keyboard uses independent pressure processing, as well as proprietary ROG Overstroke technology, which processes the press before the key is fully pressed, that is, it is already triggered in the middle of the stroke. The manufacturer could not fit the digital block because of the holes on the sides of the keyboard, where the high-frequency speakers are hidden. However, above the keyboard there are 4 additional buttons that are responsible for adjusting the sound, turning on / off the microphone and quick access to the proprietary ASUS Armory Crate application. There is a white backlighting of the keys, which is activated and adjusted in 4 positions (off and 3 brightness levels) using the FN + F2 / F3 keyboard shortcut, but for it to work, you first need to activate the function in the Armory Crate application. The backlight shines evenly and does not blind your eyes at night, even at the maximum brightness level.
The ROG Zephyrus G15 has a very large touchpad measuring 128 x 83 mm. The surface of the touch panel is made of glass with a satin finish.
The glass 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 simulate the main mouse buttons.
FILLING, BATTERY, OPERATION AND TESTS
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 that came to us for the test is built on the basis of a 7-nanometer AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS processor, clocked at 3.0 GHz. The processor is 8-core and operates in 16 threads and 16 MB of L3 cache, and the maximum frequency is 4600 MHz. There are two video adapters in the laptop: an AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 accelerator built into the CPU with 512 MB of video memory and a discrete NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop card with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. It is worth noting that the TDP of this GPU is only 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 maximum boost frequency for this GPU can reach 1345 MHz.
To cool all this and keep the laptop compact and lightweight, ASUS has adopted several recent solutions. All ROG laptops use a liquid metal thermal interface to cool the CPU, making it more efficient. A massive yet compact cooling system with two Arc Flow fans with a large number of blades, six heat pipes for efficient distribution of cooling air and an improved cleaning system contribute to the reliable operation of the device.
The laptop has two 16GB memory modules each (operating at 1600 MHz in dual-channel mode) with a maximum frequency of 3200 MHz from Micron. One module is soldered on the board, and the second can be replaced, if desired, with a solution of up to 32 GB, which will eventually give 48 GB. The internal drive in the test sample was played by a 1 terabyte NVMe SSD from SK hynix. It is also possible to install a second drive in a free M.2 slot.
The laptop comes with a 4-cell 90Wh Li-ion battery. A full charge will last for 8-10 hours of normal use (at 50% screen brightness) – for example, surfing the Internet, working with documents, watching videos and listening to music. In active gaming (efficiency) mode, the laptop runs for about 80-90 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 (quiet) mode, AIDA64 shows the following temperatures on average:
- CPU – 42 ° C
- AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 – 40 ° C
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop – 0 ° C
- SK hynix – 53 ° C
With a long maximum load in tests, the laptop’s CPU heated up to 97 degrees, and on average under load, the temperature remained at 80-85 degrees. In the multi-threaded test Cinebench R20, the processor was able to score 5141 points, and the frequency was kept around 4 GHz. In a single-threaded CPU, I was able to earn 577 points at an operating frequency of 3 to 4.5 GHz.
In graphics tests and games, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop performs well enough. All tests were carried out in system performance mode (Turbo) with power on:
- In the Superposition benchmark test on the Unigine 2 engine in 1080p mode at extreme settings, the system showed from 39 to 59 frames, while in the optimized mode in 4K the GPU was able to show from 55 to 80 frames.
- In the Chinese Boundary 2K ray-traced benchmark, the laptop was able to get 100 frames per second with DLSS in Ultra Performance mode.
- In the Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition benchmark, the laptop at high settings at 1440p graphics was able to score 7141 points and a score of “High”, and in 4K – 4539 points and “High enough”.
- The system was also tested in in-game tests for Forza Horizon 4 and Gears 5 at maximum settings at 1440p and 1080p. In both cases, frame rate lock was disabled. In the shooter from Coalition with the installed ultra-textures and the maximum ray level, the average frequency was 60.6 FPS in 2K and 82.8 in Full HD. The popular arcade racing game in the open world managed to achieve 83 frames at 1440p and 104 frames at 1080p.
- Next, we tested Red Dead Redemption 2, one of the most beautiful and demanding games out there. They were tested at the highest available settings at 1440p. In the snowy prologue, the average frame rate was in the range of 50-70 frames. In the RTX 3080 in-game test, the Laptop was able to reach an average speed of 57 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 launched the project, as always, at 1440p at maximum graphics settings with RTX and DLSS with a rendering resolution of 960p. With these settings, the picture on the monitor screen looked very clear and beautiful, and the average frame rate in complex battle scenes was kept at around 45-50 frames. If you lower the rendering quality to 720p, then the average frame rate rises to 60-70 frames.
- The last graphics test was Cyberpunk 2077. We tested the game at maximum settings at 1440p with RTX and DLSS in ultra performance mode and received an average of 50-60 frames in dynamic scenes during battles in closed locations, as well as 55-70 frames in the city.
We were able to fix the maximum temperature of the GPU at around 82 degrees, and on average under load in games it kept at around 75-78 degrees. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop should be enough to play at ultra-max settings at 1440p with RTX.
CrystalDisk Info benchmarks indicate an average solid state drive temperature of 46 ° C. The disk speed in Crystal Disk Mark was 3590 MB / s for reading and 3023 MB / s for writing. The AS SDD test, as usual, shows results much faster – 2964 MB / s for reading and 1841 MB / s for writing.
As for the noise figure, the laptop is practically inaudible in quiet mode at a room noise level of 30-35 dB. Under heavy loads, powerful cooling starts to work and the device becomes noisy, and the case near the keyboard gets very hot. The average noise level under load is 48-50 db, which is within the normal range for gaming laptops. However, even at maximum volume, the rumble of the fan will still be heard in the background, so it’s better to play with headphones.
RESULTS
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 turned out to be a very pleasant gaming device that combines powerful hardware, beautiful design, good battery life, high-quality screen and acoustics. Из минусов, пожалуй, стоит отметить шумноватую систему охлаждения, греющийся в области клавиатуры корпус и низкий TDP для RTX 3080. Последнее вообще усложнило выбор ноутбука в 2023 году, так как теперь нужно смотреть не только на название карты, но и изучать её возможности в плане энергоэффективности, от которой зависит на каких частотах она работает. Хотя в данном случае всё это сделано в угоду уменьшения размеров и веса устройства, так что чем-то всё же приходится жертвовать. С другой стороны, для 2K-гейминга данный ноутбук подходит идеально. И это просто здорово.
Автор: Сергей Дьяконенко (Madnfs)
Read also: Для самых современных игр с лучшей графикой: Обзор видеокарты ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 3080 O10G…
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