Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS Tested
One of the best AMD-based laptops we’ve ever seen.
www.tomshardware.com
On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (highest, 1920 x 1080), the Zephyrus ran at 49 fps, tying it with both the Acer Predator Triton 500 (i7-8750H, RTX 2060) and Dell G7 15 (i7-9750H, RTX 2060).
Asus’ laptop ran Hitman (ultra, 1920 x 1080) at 89 fps, two frames ahead of the Predator and one frame ahead of the Dell.
The Zephyrus outperformed on Grand Theft Auto V’s benchmark (very high, 1920 x 1080) at 115 fps, losing by two frames to the Dell but easily beating the Predator with 87 fps.
We also ran our gaming stress test, in which we ran Metro Exodus 15 times on a loop to simulate half an hour of gaming. In this case, we ran the game at the ultra preset at 1080p. The game ran at an average of 40.5 fps, and with RTX on it dropped to 37.8 fps. The average CPU clock speed was 3.1 GHz, and it had an average temperature of 78.4 degrees Celsius (173.1 degrees Fahrenheit). The GPU ran at an average of 425.1 MHz and a temperature of 64.8 degrees Celsius (148.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
It’s truly incredible how long the Zephyrus lasted on our battery test. Generally, only the best ultraportables last between eight and 10 hours on our test, which continuously browses the web, streams video and runs OpenGL tests, all while connected to Wi-Fi with the display at 150 nits brightness.
The Zephyrus endured for 11 hours and 32 minutes. That’s incredible for a gaming notebook and even for some ultrabooks. The premium gaming average is just under 4 hours. This means the Zephyrus is suitable to use as your everyday system in addition to being your gaming machine.
For comparison, the Acer Predator Triton 500, with an i7-8750H and RTX 2060, ran for 4:24 and the Dell G7 15, with an i7-9750H and RTX 2060, died after 3:12. The Razer Blade Stealth 13, with a 25W Ice Lake processor ( i7-1065G7) lasted 8:53. The Dell XPS 13, with a 6-core/12-thread i7-10710U Comet Lake CPU ran for 7:56, albeit with a more taxing 4K display.
And while it’s not quite the best comparison, the MSI Alpha 15, a budget all-AMD gaming laptop with an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H and a Radeon RX 5500M graphics lasted only 3:53.
I had imagined the real cringe inducing info would find it's way on the forums since yesterday... I guess it falls on me to deliver the critical blow.With Lenovo Legion 5 the trend continues that the Intel version of the laptop gets stronger versions of Nvidia dGPUs
What makes you think it's "the best case scenario"? And how is an ASUS product something "AMD can come up"?The G14 is the best case scenario that AMD can come up with in this setup.
Completely inane combination indeed.I had imagined the real cringe inducing info would find it's way on the forums since yesterday... I guess it falls on me to deliver the critical blow.
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. UX434IQ
Source
- AMD R7 4700U
- 16GB LPDDR4x 4266MHz
- GeForce MX350
This actually benefits amd, the cpu shines more instead of the competitor component.With Lenovo Legion 5 the trend continues that the Intel version of the laptop gets stronger versions of Nvidia dGPUs and less options like for screen refresh rate than the AMD counterpart.
I wonder when Nvidia is going to step in to avoid its high end mobile dGPUs being associated with all the (both performance and battery life wise) worse laptop versions across the board.
A.) Can come up with is design wins. Laptops have a whole lot more vendor involvement then a Desktop. B.) To get something as effective as the G14, AMD had to work with Asus on developing the requirements AMD wanted to see when using these "special" chips. Gave Asus a half year exclusivity in using them. All while actually working tightly with Asus for the overall design of the G14. As far as power is concerned the 2080 for example is a chip where power budgets are developed around it. 2070 a little less so but is primarily just for less priced variations of lines that also support the 2080. In the end nothing AMD proves about power efficiency matters in this space and Nvidia can set parameters in their help integrating requiring Intel products with certain lines to promote top end performance. They don't have to worry about looking worse using Intel cpu's under the HK if they don't allow AMD in the playground. The HK CPU's and their high silicon limit means they can always have a laptop out there that shows that AMD isn't the gaming solution.What makes you think it's "the best case scenario"? And how is an ASUS product something "AMD can come up"?
The published battery life numbers already show a huge gap between versions with Ryzen Mobile 4000 and those with Intel chips. We will see how CPU performance fares, but since those are thermally limited it will be hard to flip the situation there with such a huge gap in power usage.
It's a good question. What I heard one of the main reason why we aren't seeing anything better than the 2060 Max-Q is the top that Nvidia was offering to integrators using an AMD cpu. Don't know if that is true and it could be all on the OEM's. I know Gigabyte isn't because most of their stack are basic refreshes and no new chasis solutions. But the Asus one I think tells the story. They weren't against new chasis and they tend to have a million offers of a million configs. But AMD all at the bottom of the stack.And you are right not sure how is nvidia interests in all this, or are they the ones screwing amd and not the oems?
You think that's insane? Look at this Ice Lake device:I had imagined the real cringe inducing info would find it's way on the forums since yesterday... I guess it falls on me to deliver the critical blow.
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. UX434IQ
Source
- AMD R7 4700U
- 16GB LPDDR4x 4266MHz
- GeForce MX350
How's the display for you? I've heard mixed things, one guy I know said he saw ghosting, another said he didn't.Pre-ordered this laptop from Best Buy and it arrived on the 15th.
Having to link an account with MS to even get the thing to work was incredibly irritating.
The only other issue is that, in default mode, the fans are a bit loud. I don't think it's loud in an absolute sense but it's higher pitched than you'd get with larger fans so it's more noticeable.
And it doesn't have an SD card reader.
Overall I think it's a fantastic laptop for the money. It's not quite Ultrabook small but it's close enough.
You should still be able to do it without linking the account, either through less visible options or just by cutting internet access of the device. (I did a fresh Win 10 install on a laptop about 3 weeks ago)Having to link an account with MS to even get the thing to work was incredibly irritating.
Icelake is about ~10% faster than Zen2 (desktop version). It's not a massive advantage but it's not small either. The clear upper hand is AVX512 stuff but that is super niche and basically irrelevant for 99% of the market. Once Zen3 arrives AMD will again have IPC advantage (even Vs TGL), albeit a smaller one.
Is AMD doing that though? All I see is AMD letting the spec sheets talk, and those do talk loudly once one compares them.AMD can pound the sand on effciancy all they want
How's the display for you? I've heard mixed things, one guy I know said he saw ghosting, another said he didn't.
You see anything like that?
Well keep in mind how the discussion has bounced around. My original comment to you was in regards to your question about Nvidia stepping in because anything short of the HK cpu's would in theory be handicapped by using an Intel solution and therefore make their products look weaker then they are. So my point was that I don't think Nvidia cares and as long as 1 product shows their potential their interest would be in limiting AMD's avenues into mobile gaming even with just their CPU's.Is AMD doing that though? All I see is AMD letting the spec sheets talk, and those do talk loudly once one compares them.
The Lenovo Legion 5 I was talking about, and you responding to, was about 4600H/4800H (no S for special AMD involvement) against 10300H/10750H/10875H. Battery life according to the spec sheet: 12.5h with 60Wh/13.5h with 80Wh versus 6.8h with 60Wh/7.7h with 80Wh.
Pre-ordered this laptop from Best Buy and it arrived on the 15th.
Having to link an account with MS to even get the thing to work was incredibly irritating.
Honestly, its my first step on a personal laptop or one for friends. Get it in, update to latest major release, do a wipe and reload.I installed win 10 fresh a few weeks ago on a new laptop. If you do not connect to your wireless during the setup, once it gets to the part to login with MS account, you can choose create new, but it will not have internet access so it will give the option to make a local account instead.
I installed win 10 fresh a few weeks ago on a new laptop. If you do not connect to your wireless during the setup, once it gets to the part to login with MS account, you can choose create new, but it will not have internet access so it will give the option to make a local account instead.
AMD mentioned 135 Mobile design wins - that is MUCH more then anytime I can remember - AMD will have high end models NVDA would be stupid to price them self out with a more expensive INTC CPU.I find that a little sad too. I wonder what kind of contracts nVidia has with Intel regarding their mobile GPUs. It might have even made perfect sense at the time. We knew zen 2 in mobile was going to be great, but I never expected it to be this good. Even with the best mobile processors on the market, though, there's just no way AMD laptops can out bench a 2080 with a 2060. Maybe the upcoming Supers won't be exclusive?
Der8auer, of course. What does he NOT tear down?