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00:00It's not very often we get new graphics cards, new processors and new screen options all at the same time.
00:06But here we are with the ROG Zephyrus G15 and it's one of about a million or so new gaming laptops
00:13ASUS have launched for 2021, but I think this may well be my favorite.
00:18So I've got the all-singing all-dancing top-spec model here with a brand new NVIDIA RTX 3080. That's the 8 gig VRAM version.
00:26There's also a 16 gig version of the card, although not for the G15, along with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS,
00:3332 gigs of RAM, 1 terabyte of fast NVMe storage and a 15-inch Quad HD
00:40165 Hertz screen. But as you would expect for this spec, it's not exactly cheap. It's
00:46£2,600 so probably $27-$2800 or so. But while I can't wait to show you just how fast this is,
00:52I think I'm actually a little bit more excited about the entry-level model which costs
00:57£1,600 and comes with the new RTX 3060 and also a Ryzen 7 5800H.
01:02But I think for most people that'll be the perfect combination.
01:05This flagship really is if you just want the best of the best and crucially if you want to max out this
01:11165 Hertz Quad HD screen. And since the 3080 is the fastest mobile card in the world right now and aside from the unlocked
01:20Ryzen 9 5900HX, this HS is basically AMD's top-end mobile chip as well.
01:27So let's see just how fast this is. And for a bit of context, I want to bring in this guy.
01:32This is the 2020 Razer Blade 15 Advanced with an RTX 2080 Super.
01:38So this is the previous flagship graphics card along with an i7-1087 5H processor.
01:44So not the exact same laptop
01:46I don't have unfortunately the previous G15.
01:48But this should be pretty interesting to see just how much faster the new AMD chips are and also the new
01:533000 series of graphics.
01:54So let's get a couple of benchmarks out of the way first.
01:57And when it comes to the processor in Geekbench 5, the 5900HS in the G15 is a pretty decent
02:0315 to 20 percent boost over the i7, even though they are both 8-core 16-thread chips.
02:08But then let me bring in the Cinebench results and just look at that crazy difference in multi-core performance.
02:15I couldn't quite believe this result myself. So I ran the Cinebench multi-core several times on both.
02:20In fact, I always run all my tests at least three times then usually take an average.
02:24But if we go with the top performing score on this versus this, it was 80% faster in multi-core,
02:30which is pretty mind-blowing and kind of anomalous considering we're not seeing that similar gain in Geekbench multi-core.
02:36The only thing I can put it down to is because with Cinebench, it's a 10-minute test rather than Geekbench,
02:41which is like a minute long.
02:42So we're actually seeing the effects of throttling and I think the G15 has a slightly beefier and more advanced cooling setup than the Razer,
02:50combined with the just general CPU upgrade anyway.
02:53Also, it's worth considering that the Intel chip is 45 watts and the Ryzen is 35 watts,
02:59but built on the smaller 7 nanometer process compared to 14 on the Intel.
03:03So the new AMD chips are more efficient and also between 20 and 80 percent faster.
03:09That's very impressive from AMD, although we're yet to see Intel's 2021 Rocket Lake H-series chips,
03:14although they should be coming out very soon.
03:16Now switching to some graphics tests and the 3080 is 41% faster in OpenGL and 27% faster in CUDA in Geekbench 5 versus the 2080 Super.
03:27In 3DMark, across the Time Spy and Wildlife tests, we're looking at a solid 30% boost on average.
03:33So the question is, are we then going to see a 30% boost in real-world gaming performance?
03:38Well, from what I've tested so far, not quite.
03:41It seems to be closer to about 23%.
03:44The boost is fairly consistent among games I tested, with the exception of Shadow of the Tomb Raider offering just a 10% improvement.
03:52It's a bit of a shame we're still not quite hitting 1080p60 in Cyberpunk, although this is with maxed out settings,
03:58so if you were to switch to balanced DLSS or droplet setting or two, then you'll easily get there.
04:03However, another headline of the G15 is that we have this Quad HD 15-inch screen with a 165Hz refresh.
04:10It's fast as well, with a 3ms response time, it supports adaptive sync and it's surprisingly colour accurate as well,
04:17covering 100% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut and it's Pantone calibrated,
04:22which is handy if you're thinking about using this as an editing workstation as well.
04:26So I think this is a really good balance between that extra sharpness due to the higher pixel density
04:31while still having a smoother high refresh rate.
04:33Because previously if you wanted a sharper screen and maybe one that was also a bit more colour accurate,
04:37then you'd have to go for a 4K panel like we have on the Razer, which as you guys know just destroys your framerate and also your battery life.
04:44But the jump up to 1440p does still impact performance, but what's really interesting is if we bring back the Razer laptop,
04:51this time I've also set it to 1440p down from its 4K native res,
04:56and it shows the G15 gives us a bigger 28% average boost at QHD compared to 23% at Full HD.
05:02But we're not quite seeing that same 40, 50, even up to 100% improvement we saw on desktop
05:08coming from the RTX 2000s to the 3000s, which was pretty insane actually,
05:13that's why everyone and their dog is trying to buy one and still struggling.
05:16With these new generation of laptops, we seem to be looking at around a 25% boost on average,
05:21depending on the game of course, coming from the 2080 Super.
05:24But bear in mind, that's only a year old, and actually that was sort of 7-8% faster than the 2080 already,
05:30so I think if you're going to come from an RTX 2080 laptop from say 18 months ago or 2 years ago,
05:36you're probably going to get a 35% boost on this and actually even better performance if you've got a higher resolution screen,
05:42whether it's QHD or even 4K.
05:45A quick side note though, and I think Nvidia have made things possibly a bit more confusing
05:50because they've dropped the Max-Q and also the less obscene Max-P model names of laptop GPUs.
05:56Now, in the GeForce Experience, this just says RTX 3080 Laptop GPU,
06:02which makes sense, it's not as fully powered as the desktop version,
06:05but with Max-Q in the past, you kind of knew that was going to go in thin and light laptops,
06:09but now they're just calling them all laptop variants.
06:12I think for some people, if you just go into a store and you buy a gaming laptop,
06:16unless you look at the specs and the specific TDPs of the graphics card,
06:20which I'm not sure how many people will be doing,
06:22you're not really going to know straight away at least whether this 3080 would be faster than this 3080 in a similarly sized laptop.
06:29But at least between these two, they are both 80-watt TGP parts,
06:33so I guess you could say this is equivalent to what you would have called a Max-Q variant.
06:38But let's get back to the G15, and as impressive as the performance is,
06:42it's not really meant for pro esports gamers.
06:45For that, you'd probably want one of their Scar or Strix laptops with a 300 or 360Hz refresh option,
06:51but for people like, say, well, me, who's not a pro gamer but I'd call myself an enthusiast,
06:56I think this combination of resolution and refresh rate is perfect for me.
07:00There are also Full HD 144 and 165Hz options for the G15,
07:05which I think would be a better bet if you're going to go with a 3060 or 3070 graphics card,
07:09although I'd actually avoid the basic 144Hz option
07:12as the response time is much higher at about 25ms and the colour accuracy is pretty poor.
07:17Now just a quick word on temperatures,
07:19and I measured a peak of 51°C by the fans at the top of the chassis,
07:23which is quite toasty, but importantly the keyboard and the trackpad never got uncomfortably warm.
07:28There's also 4 different fan speeds, depending on how loud you're happy for it to get.
07:32For me, I mostly keep it in turbo mode for the best performance,
07:36which is quite noisy, but with headphones it's not that big of a deal,
07:39and it does give you a few extra frames in games.
07:42But whichever spec you go for, whether it's the £1,700 3060 option of this
07:48or the crazy top spec £2,600 3080 I've got in here,
07:53you get this same chassis, which I must say I'm a big fan of.
07:57It weighs just 1.9kg, so actually a little bit less than, say, the Dell XPS 15.
08:02It's a hair under 20mm thick, and I think given the performance we get of this
08:06and also how they've crammed in pretty much every port under the sun,
08:10including HDMI, a full-size ethernet, USB-A 3.2, Type-C USB 3.2s,
08:16which also include DisplayPort 1.4, although of course no Thunderbolt support
08:20because it is an AMD machine, but you've got pretty much everything you need,
08:24although this does still charge via the DC connector, but it is faster charging than before,
08:28and it does also support Type-C power delivery,
08:31although I wouldn't really recommend that if you're gaming,
08:33but it does mean you can get away with a smaller power brick if you want,
08:36although actually the power brick for this G15 is actually pretty small already.
08:40The overall footprint of the G15 is actually 5% smaller than last year,
08:44and we're also now getting an 85% screen-to-body ratio up from 81,
08:48thanks to the slightly thinner bezels, although sadly we don't get a webcam on here,
08:52although you can always buy a better quality external one anyway.
08:55I'm also a really big fan of this moonlight white colour.
08:59The white chassis contrasts nicely with the black bezels,
09:02which means they're not too distracting when gaming.
09:04It also comes in Eclipse Grey, but I think the white's a little bit more snazzy looking,
09:08and we have this dot matrix design on the back,
09:11with, let me count, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12...
09:168,279 holes.
09:20We also have this shimmery rainbow colour effect.
09:23All G15s get this, although we don't have the option
09:26to get fancy matrix LED lights on the G14s.
09:30The G15 also has Asus' ErgoLift design,
09:33so opening it up also lifts the keyboard up, which then helps with cooling,
09:37but it can go all the way back to 180 degrees.
09:40Not that you'd necessarily want to play like this,
09:42but it does mean you can have basically any viewing angle you want.
09:45We're also getting a massive trackpad, a well-spaced backlit keyboard,
09:49although it's just white, there's no fancy custom RGB lighting here.
09:53We've got these fantastic-sounding Dolby Atmos-tuned speakers,
09:56which flank the sides, and also we're getting a Windows Hello fingerprint reader
09:59built into the power button.
10:01I think it's a great-looking laptop, although the plastic chassis does,
10:04well, feel a little bit plasticky.
10:06I've also noticed it creaks a little bit, depending on how you hold it
10:09and if you pick it up, and also while the 180 hinge is nice
10:12to give you options for viewing angles,
10:14I've noticed we do get quite a bit of screen wobble, which isn't ideal,
10:18but I'm nitpicking a little bit, none of those are really big deals.
10:21But let's have a look under the hood, and inside we've got this dual fan setup.
10:25We're also getting a bigger battery this time, it's 90Wh,
10:28up from 76 on last year's model,
10:30plus we're getting the faster charging and the smaller power brick.
10:33And as you can see, both the RAM and the SSD are upgradable,
10:36which is a nice bonus, although your warranty won't cover the replaced parts.
10:40Now, speaking of the battery, in my one-hour YouTube test
10:43where we had the laptop in battery-saver mode with 50% brightness,
10:46it used just 7% of the battery in one hour.
10:49So with light, non-gaming use, you can expect around 7 hours of use,
10:53which is very impressive.
10:55And so that is the ROG Zephyrus G15.
10:58What do you guys think? Would you be tempted to buy one of these?
11:01I think the combination of the new hardware, the new screens,
11:04the bigger and longer-lasting battery life, and the slightly refreshed design
11:08mean overall it's one of the best gaming laptops I've ever used,
11:12and the performance from that 3080 paired with that 5900HS is just incredible.
11:17But for £2,600, this is going to be way out of the price range for most people,
11:21so as I mentioned at the beginning,
11:23I'm kind of more excited about how the RTX 3060 model will perform,
11:28which costs about £1,600 or so,
11:31which I think for a lot of people is, well, still a lot of money,
11:34but a bit more affordable.
11:36Thank you so much for watching, guys.
11:37If you want to see more from me, then hit that subscribe button
11:39and give me a thumbs up if you enjoyed the video,
11:41and I'll catch you next time right here on the Tech Jam.
11:47[♪ OUTRO MUSIC ♪ ♪