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A laptop to replace them all: this is the promise of the Zephyrus G14, the latest high-end laptop in the "ROG" gaming family from the Taiwanese manufacturer Asus. In terms of mobility, it is a 14 inch machine less than 20 mm thick, capable of holding 8 hours of video playback. In terms of power, it has a processor up to 8 cores / 16 tasks, up to 32 GB of RAM and up to an Nvidia RTX 2060. The best of both worlds in one machine. Really ? After several weeks of testing, the answer is yes, with a few details!
What you will learn
The Ryzen 4000 asset
Announced at CES 2023 last January, the Zephyrus G14 is the first machine to be announced with AMD's new generation mobile chips, the Ryzen 4000s. Chips which are, on paper, the first real signed laptop processors AMD to be able to stand up to, or even outright overshadow the Intel Core, arch-dominant on the laptop segment. Taking advantage of a fine engraving of 7 nm, these SoCs have everything to please: they carry a lot of cores, go up well in frequency and integrate a Radeon Vega graphics chip which already allows you to start playing well.
All in reduced thermal envelopes: the chip that equips our Review model is nothing less than the most upscale Ryzen 4000, the Ryzen 9 4900HS, a version exclusive to Asus for a few months, which deploys as many power than the 4000H … but whose TDP is reduced from 45 W to 35 W. In other words the most powerful and energy-efficient mobile processor ever launched by AMD. To top it off, Asus added to this super processor an Nvidia RTX 2060 MaxQ. Enough to play almost all AAA titles all options thoroughly in 1080p. Without exploding electrical consumption.
A bomb in an ultra portable
Few PCs for 14 inch players, even fewer are those that weigh 1.6 kilograms. And there is currently no machine of this weight and size that takes on such firepower. But as you know, the problem with weapons is that they heat up: to the 35 W of TDP of the CPU is added the 65 W of the GPU, which gives us a platform which releases about 100 W in full load.
This is why Asus engineers have developed a chassis with small onions in order to dissipate heat as well as possible. Optimized air flow, hinge that raises the lower part of the device when the screen is opened, eight heat pipes coupled to two fans with double air intake, etc. Asus offers an excellent copy here so that the device never overheats.
This does not mean that the machine does not get hot: in the middle of a gaming session, it is better not to have the machine on your knees! But thanks to the energy efficiency of the AMD processor – long live 7nm – the PC neither heats nor produces annoying noise in conventional tasks – office automation, video streaming, etc.
It’s the very first PC in this format that can be both a gaming machine and an ultraportable professional. Because if he develops power when asked, he can be sober and enduring.
Very enduring for a gaming laptop
Having tested the machine in a "confined" world, we have not yet been able to deploy the conventional Review battery to measure battery endurance. But the use of "dad who works at health home" allows us to affirm this: it is the only gaming PC (it’s an ROG all the same!) That we could take with us for reporting.
The animal is indeed incredibly enduring when the GPU is not switched on. In a non-scientific way and according to usage, we can say that in office & multimedia mode, we get away with 7 hours of screen autonomy fully, a duration that can be extended by going offline and dropping a little the brightness – the 8:00 am are in its strings. Plenty of things to write or consult documents at a Paris> Las Vegas to go to CES for example (take as many real examples, right?).
We can also gain more endurance by setting the panel to 60 Hz, the native 120 Hz tending to consume a little more. We must be able to push up to 10 hours of endurance in offline mode, the screen at 70% brightness. Too bad the modification had to be done by hand: it would have been good if the switch to battery mode automatically reduced the frequency or that Asus’s control application, Armor Crate, offered quick access to the parameter.
Two possible chargers, two atmospheres
The 180 W charger supplied with the PC is not very heavy (545 g with its large cable), but you can travel even lighter with the Zephyrus G14 if you have a USB C type charger. '' at least 40 W, you can not only recharge the battery when the device is off (even if the charge is longer than with the basic charger) or even work normally on the mains, provided that you do not launch games or applications call to GPU of Nvidia.
Clearly: you can keep the large charger at health home or in your suitcase, and keep only a small USB C charger to recharge your smartphone and Zephyrus G14 on the go. A feat made possible by the sobriety of the on-board CPU and its very contained thermal envelope. Please note: the maximum power accepted for USB-C PD charging is 65W. It is therefore impossible to play fully with a USB-C charger since the battery drains faster than it charges.
Note that the designers of the machine have obviously thought of the case where you connect two chargers simultaneously – yes, we crossed our fingers a little while trying. The Asus interface then displays the presence of the two chargers without panicking in the least. It is likely that this does not speed up the load at all or very little, but it is at least reassuring that you do not risk damaging the machine.
Half AMD, Half Nvidia… half Intel!
Ok, three halves is a little too much, but the title serves to draw your attention to the fact that if the two flagship components are well signed AMD (CPU) and Nvidia (GPU), the giant Intel is indeed present in the machine . First of all through the network, with the AX200 chipset in charge of Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. AMD does not design network chips, Asus had to source elsewhere, and Intel is currently mass producing one of the best computer chips. Intel is also present in another key component: storage. The SSD drive is indeed an Intel 660P, in a terabyte version on our Review configuration.
An inexpensive SSD that offers good general performance. With an excellent capacity / price ratio, the Intel 660P is a flagship SSD at the moment. But in such a powerful machine, it turns out to be the Achilles heel of the whole. Limited by its QLC technology, it performs poorly during sustained write operations. Updating Adobe Creative Cloud applications almost paralyzes the machine by pushing inputs / outputs to 100%. The time of (big) updates to Photoshop and Premiere, impossible to do much in parallel.
Raw power and long term power
Once again, confinement prevented us from having access to all of the performance measurement tools – you can't imagine how annoying CineBench 20 bored 4-year-olds sitting on your lap. But nevertheless we were able to launch many games (when the child was sleeping, don't worry) as well as CineBench 20.
A performance measurement tool that pushes the CPU to its limits. Where rather the CPUs since with its 8 physical cores capable of managing 16 tasks simultaneously, the Ryzen 9 4900 HS sends heavy, with a maximum score of 4168 points.
Why specify "maximum score"? Quite simply because this value decreases as the tests progress to stabilize around 3650 points (3656, 3671, etc.). The reason ? As long as the machine is cold, the Ryzen 9 4900 HS takes advantage of the sleep of the Nvidia GPU (CineBench does not use it) to push its frequencies a little further beyond the guaranteed Turbo to climb up to 43 W instead of 35 W for which the chip is qualified. But once the platform is "at temperature", the processor returns to its factory limit, thus avoiding overheating.
Convenient for demanding punctual tasks, such as video encoding of ten minutes or large calculations (compression / decompression zip, etc.). Beyond fifteen minutes, the platform does not collapse however, the 16 logical cores of the chip having more under the pedal than most desktop PC processors.
Full HD almost without limits
ROG meaning "Republic of Gamers", this Zephyrus was originally designed for gamers. And it's not our Review setup that will say otherwise. Admittedly, this is a MaxQ chip with lower frequencies compared to desktop chips, but the RTX2060 Max Q integrated in our Review machine has enough under the hood to play all games in Full HD, most of the time with all options (or almost) fully.
It’s also when playing that the 120 Hz panel shows its interest, FPS being much more enjoyable, especially online. Note, however, that the absence of an RJ45 jack will require you to purchase a multiformat USB-C adapter to enjoy latency that matches your display.
It didn't make me any better – make fun, make fun, but fatherhood clearly harms gamers' performances – but at more than 75-80 fps under The Division 2, the hardware could not help me. apologize for my nullity. I'm old, that's all.
As for Doom (2016), we have reached 120 constant fps, in Full HD, all graphics options activated, using the Vulkan API. It's beautiful (if you like hell and exploding monsters), it's nervous, it's fluid. And I'm still bad, but I take care of myself.
In "almost perfect" there is "almost"
Both powerful in games and multimedia applications and able to be enduring, the ROG Zephyrus G14 is an impressive 1.6 kg ultraportable capable of everything. But like all human creation, it has its flaws. The main one in our view being that part of the RAM is soldered. For our 16 GB version, 8 GB are indeed integrated into the motherboard and the 8 GB remaining present in the form of a removable bar.
There is little point in changing it for a 16 GB bar, because it would only be fully exploited (dual channel) on the first 8 GB. Some heavy applications which require keeping a lot of information in memory, could benefit of 24 GB of RAM, but not really gamers. The craziest players and creators will prefer to buy the 32 GB version (16 GB integrated, 16 GB in removable bar) when it is available.
Creators who will regret in passing the impossibility of adding an additional SSD (it will be necessary to buy a 2 TB disk and make an image of the system to migrate the license) as well as the absence of Thunderbolt socket or slot for SD card. The 14 inch format does not allow integrating all the sockets that can be found in a 15 inch.
Then, and while modern humans often have to convert to more or less forced telework, we discover that the webcam has been sacrificed on the altar of integration or cost reduction (or a little of both). Two microphones are however present on the upper part of the screen frame, which does not prevent VoIP communication. However, the purchase of an external webcam will be compulsory for certain profiles.
If none of these faults is unacceptable for you, the machine is (almost) perfect.
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