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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So this is a laptop with NVIDIA's new Max-Q design,
00:09specifically the Asus GX501. And, well, here's the thing. For years, ever since, like, gaming laptops existed,
00:17people have been trying to find that perfect balance between power and portability.
00:22And, honestly, it doesn't really exist, because when you have a gaming laptop, it's usually thick, or loud, or thick and loud.
00:29Until now. NVIDIA's Max-Q approach is an approach to building a laptop that's thin, and quiet, and powerful.
00:35Basically, they're building the perfect laptop. So everything from the GPU, to the drivers, to the thermal components,
00:41the electrical components, everything is geared towards this Max-Q approach. And it's essentially all about efficiency.
00:47So first, let's talk about the GPU. It's a GTX 1080 chip. It has all the CUDA cores, all the memory, but it's clocked slower.
00:54They've reduced the clock speed a bit for this Max-Q approach, but the trade-off is a very nice reduction in power consumption.
01:00So in terms of total wattage, a regular GTX 1080 laptop will pull maybe 250, 260 watts under full load.
01:07This laptop pulls 170 watts under full load. And that's like a 90-watt difference, which means smaller AC adapters for portability,
01:14and less heat output. And when you have less heat to deal with, you can make your laptops thinner, your fans don't need to work as hard,
01:20and on the Asus Zephyrus, the bottom actually opens up when you lift the screen, which allows for better airflow.
01:25Now this machine is running some very early drivers, but I was just curious to see how it would do for benchmarks.
01:30The Max-Q design Zephyrus is about 13-15% slower than a regular laptop GTX 1080, which is around what I'd expected.
01:37And it's about 10, maybe 12% faster than a GTX 1070 laptop. So it kind of sits between the two in terms of just raw performance.
01:43But the thing is, the fans on this laptop are super quiet in comparison to anything else on this chart.
01:48It's so weird to see this kind of performance in something this quiet.
01:52Now I wanted to focus on Nvidia's Max-Q design for this video, but because I've been using this for a while,
01:56I thought I'd give it kind of like a mini-review. The build quality is really good. It's a premium Asus device.
02:01I think it's the best-looking laptop that Asus has ever made. There's lots of brushed aluminum, great materials with just a hint of gamer DNA.
02:09It doesn't have any, like, red racing stripes and stuff. It has a solid port selection for a 15-inch laptop,
02:14but there's no SD slot if you're looking for one. The NVMe drive inside is really fast.
02:19It's upgradable, but it's not easy to open it up. The thermals are comfortable when playing games,
02:23but Max-Q does limit the thermal output automatically.
02:26The configuration on the top deck here is obviously a little bit different.
02:30They've shifted the keyboard down for better component airflow.
02:32It has customizable backlighting, and the keys have pretty short travel. It's very chickly.
02:37I am comfortable gaming on it, but I don't think it's ideal for typing a ton of stuff.
02:41Now, because it's positioned so close to the bottom of the keyboard, Asus includes a wrist rest.
02:45I didn't find it useful. I mean, I found it comfortable enough to use without, but everyone's gonna be a little bit different.
02:50The trackpad slash keypad, I find it super cool. It switches between the two.
02:54It uses Windows Precision Drivers with good tracking, and when it's in number pad mode, it's very accurate.
02:59It's obviously positioned a little weird being on the side, but I got used to it quickly. I am right-handed, though.
03:05The speakers are pretty nice, and because of how quiet the system is, even under load, you can totally rely on them for games.
03:11It houses a 50-watt-hour battery underneath the keyboard, and battery life is short.
03:15I'm getting three hours of battery life with my regular tests, but that's just the nature of a thin and light, high-performance laptop.
03:20There's no more room in there for a bigger battery.
03:23So I played a lot of games on this at first, and it just crushes them at 1080p.
03:35With the G-Sync panel, games look super smooth at 120Hz.
03:39It's just a very enjoyable gaming experience.
03:41Almost every single first-person shooter is going to play really well on this system.
03:46Open-world games tend to be a bit more demanding, but even those play pretty well.
03:50You won't be able to hit 120 frames per second on every open-world game at max graphics,
03:54but if you reduce it to high, the screen can show off that sweet refresh rate again.
03:59Video editing is also awesome on this laptop.
04:01A lot of laptops with high-end CPUs and high-end GPUs can be loud in Premiere,
04:06because that's just the way video editing is.
04:08It's CPU-intensive, it's GPU-intensive, but with a Max-Q laptop, it's quiet, but you still get kick-ass performance.
04:14The other thing is that the Zephyrus is low-key enough to use in a library or a coffee shop,
04:18and if you want to go out there and you want to play some games, no one would bat an eye.
04:21These laptops are so quiet and unassuming.
04:24The Max-Q approach to laptop design obviously isn't for everyone.
04:27Some people don't care about how thin their laptops are, some people don't care about how loud their fans are.
04:31They just want pure performance, and for those people, the full-fat GTX 1080 laptops,
04:36a little bit thick, but those will deliver great performance, better performance than this.
04:39But if you're looking for thin and light and powerful and quiet, Nvidia Max-Q delivers.
04:45This thing is seriously laptop dream material.