Customers are enthusiastic about the ROG Zephyrus G16's OLED display, performance, and impressive build quality. Many also praise the laptop's speakers, battery life, and lightweight design, making it portable and convenient. However, some users note that the laptop can get warm during intensive gaming sessions and that the fan noise can be noticeable. The positive feedback on the display, performance, and portability outweighs the concerns about heat and fan noise for most users.
This summary was generated by AI based on customer reviews.
The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.
Page 1 Showing 1-20 of 189 reviews
Pros mentioned:
Oled display, Performance
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Ultimate choice for gaming and school use
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Posted . Owned for 3 months when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Decent buy. Was really confused between buying a powerful gaming laptop that I can use for school also. After comprehensive research, this laptop was my ultimate choice! Performance wise, it’s not disappointing at all. Laptop does get hot like lava while gaming( I guess investing in a cooling pad would be worth it). The display is spectacular. Sound quality also excellent. It is a beast. It does slow down on me sometimes, but I guess these are machines- so they’re bound to limited tasks. G14 would have been really small for me. This is the perfect size!
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Battery life
Cons mentioned:
Fan noise
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Mighty and Powerful Machine
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I have got the laptop for a solid month now and coming from a MacBook Pro for 10+ years, this is everything I hoped for in a windows laptop. Insanely powerful plugged in, excellent battery life on Eco + Silent Mode using GHelper (7h to 9h), no fan noise and gorgeous display and build quality. Can't recommend it enough. As for gaming, getting 70+FPS on max settings for Alan Wake 2 in one of the most demanding areas (Coffe World) at QHD and Frame Gen says everything you need to know.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
G16 4090 OPEN BOX STEAL!!!
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I bought this G16 4090 for 2k when it originally retailed for 3.2k. I was blown away as I always wanted a g16 or a g14, and this was the perfect opportunity. It is slim, it is lightweight, you do sacrifice some performance and it gets pretty hot for a slim device, but those are good tradeoffs to have. A beautiful OLED screen and speakers that are loud and full. For how little this thing weighs, you will be surprised with the performance. A little over 4lbs makes this a no brainer to make as a portable gaming powerhouse.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Oled display
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Wonderful!! Make my great Christmas
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Really as I expected!! So cool, the Oled monitor really nice, thin and really ‘need to have’ item for gamers!!
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Specific settings needed to get max performance
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Posted . Owned for 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Pricy but an amazing machine. Hard to compare it to competitors by just numbers. Yeah, larger heavier laptops will perform better with the same specs, but you wont notice that in game.
At the moment there seems to be a "glitch"? making the cpu perform better if set in optimus. Highest time spy score was a bit over 17000. Ridiculous numbers for a gaming ultrabook.
For best results, until possible updates fix this strange interaction-
-optimus display mode
-gsync in full screen only
-I use ghelper and disable asus background services (look in "extra" on ghelper, turn them back on if you want to check for updates through myasus) just having those services running seemed to drop cpu time spy score back into mid 11000s
-cpu boost efficient aggressive
-150/250 overclock on gpu (set in armory crate or ghelper)
cpu score in time spy went from 11300-11600 to 12300-12800+
IMO having to have such specific settings to get the best performance is odd... considering they don't seem to have anything to do with each other. but that's the secret sauce for now until it gets addressed.
10/10 though. definitely recommend if you have the funds.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Macbook-like but beware of temperatures
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Posted .
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Monumental upgrade from my old laptop, a Acer Nitro V(10th gen Intel core i5, GTX 1650ti, 8GB RAM). The design is very sleek and much like a MacBook, perfect for both school and gaming since there’s no flashy, distracting RGB lighting. One downside is that the laptop gets very hot, to the point of thermal throttling, so a laptop cooling stand/pad is highly recommended for optimal performance.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Nice Choice
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Posted . Owned for 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
What a great laptop... Thin, Light, but Ppowerful. (Score run in turbo mode, might be higher if you manual, but noise gonna be too loud. )
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Stylish Portable Powerhouse but runs hot
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
My stylish asus rog zephyrus 16 is a portable beast. I use it mainly for gpu intensive programming, media consumption and document processing. It performs flawlessly in these tasks. However only downside i felt is heat management and fan noise even in some moderate tasks. Other than that its fully recommended.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Battery life
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Definitely a professional powerhouse
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Posted . Owned for 2 months when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Excellent laptop, Beautiful design, truly adds a professional design to a real powerhouse laptop. With some minor tweaks I've passed 13 hours of battery and no noticable performance loss. Worth the price for what you get, design matters more than I thought
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
A Perfect Blend of Power, Portability
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Posted .
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I’ve been using the 2024 ROG Zephyrus G16 for a few weeks now, and I can confidently say it’s one of the best laptops I’ve ever owned. ASUS has truly nailed the balance between gaming performance and sleek portability
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
If you buy this laptop or similar please read!
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This is the most powerful machine I've ever owned. Period. HOWEVER!!! If you want to take good care of this equipment you MUST adjust the total watts going to the CPU. I found around 25w brings temps way down and doesnt at all affect frame rate in games.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Battery life, Oled display, Ssd
Cons mentioned:
Fan noise
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Powerful & slim laptop for on-the-go gaming.
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
If you understand what you’re purchasing, you’re going to be happy with this laptop’s features. It’s a very powerful laptop with the latest Intel CPU and NVIDIA graphics card. It can handle all types of demanding tasks from video editing to serious gaming. However, it’s designed with portability in mind by being housed in a lightweight, thin, and high-quality chassis. These features do slightly limit the processing power of the computer, but for many, the trade-off is well worth it. What you’re essentially getting here is a MacBook Pro competitor in looks, quality, and performance, but with the added benefit of high-end gaming. It’s perfect for someone who travels a lot and wants the benefit of both worlds: thin and light, and very powerful.
Like I mentioned, I think it is very important to understand the capabilities of this laptop. First, this system comes with an Intel Core Ultra Processor. This is different than a regular Intel Core Processor (sans the Ultra). While a regular 14th generation Intel Core Processor is designed for higher power (measured in TDP), the same generation Intel Core Ultra processor is designed with slightly less power for more efficiency (longer lasting battery), solid performance, and the introduction of new AI processing units; a perfect combination for on-the-go computing.
And like the processor, the GPU within this computer also operates with a slightly lower processing power (measured in TGP). The GPU is part of NVIDIA’s Max-Q design. Max-Q GPUs can run demanding, high-resolution games too. Their design allows a powerful GPU to be placed in thinner computers by providing appropriate heat management. This usually means the computer can operate with less noise from the internal fans.
Hopefully with this understanding of CPU and GPU differences, you can determine if this PC is perfect for your needs or wants. To be clear, this laptop can still game with the best of them. It provides great FPS (frames per second) at high settings, depending on the game. For example, while playing Fortnite, with DLSS on, and high-quality settings applied, I was getting about 180 FPS. When dialing down the settings a little, I was getting well over 250 FPS. These are strong numbers for such a thin and light laptop. Even when I plugged in my 32-inch QHD (2560x1440 pixels) external monitor, the laptop stayed around 120 FPS using high quality settings. This is still very good given all the factors previously mentioned.
I found it also important to understand the CPU and GPU settings and how to use them. If anything, these suggestions are more like tips I’ve learned after spending some time with this laptop. If you want to get the most out of gaming, it’s best to know the difference between the settings in ASUS’s system control software, know as Amory Crate, versus NVIDIA’s separate settings in NVIDIA Control Panel. The beauty of this laptop is that it has a MUX switch. A MUX switch is a setting within the computer that allows you to control which GPU is running the laptop’s display. When you’re doing regular tasks like web browsing, it’s best to use the integrated graphics built into the Intel chip. However, when you’re gaming you definitely want the computer to use the discrete graphics card, the NVIDIA RTX 4090. While the former offers power efficiency, the latter offers full power. This is where things can get confusing. Amory Crate offers the ability to change between four GPU modes: Ultimate, Standard, Eco, and Optimized. You can switch to the Ultimate GPU mode, but you’ll have to restart the computer. Afterwards, all your programs, including games, will run on the more powerful GPU. Being able to switch GPU modes is part of the MUX switch feature.
However, NVIDIA separately introduced a better way to utilize the MUX switch. Instead of manually changing it in Armory Crate, you can choose a setting in NVIDIA’s Control Panel that will automatically switch between GPUs without the need to restart the computer. This feature is known as Advanced Optimus. And just like everything with computers, don’t get Advanced Optimus confused with Optimus. As you can see in one of my pics, you’ll want to go into NVIDIA’s Control Panel, select Manage Display Mode, and choose the Automatic Select option. This will take care of the switching of GPUs for you. It will recognize when a resource intensive game is starting, and the computer will make the switch automatically to the discrete GPU (see Fortnite pic as an example). With this feature enabled in NVIDIA’s Control Panel, there isn’t a need to do the switching within Amory Crate. It’s best to leave the GPU mode in Amory Crate to Standard. The only time you would want to use Amory Crate’s Ultimate Mode is if you don’t ever want to utilize the internal GPU. This will effectively shut off the internal GPU and everything will run on the discrete GPU. However, this will consume a lot more power and unnecessarily add to your electricity bill, albeit a small amount. So essentially, you have two methods to accomplish the same goal. And since this laptop has the new Advanced Optimus feature, there isn’t a need to choose anything other than the Automatically Select option within NVIDIA’s Control Panel.
Other tips to be noted. For better gaming performance, within Amory Crate, run the CPU mode in the Turbo setting with the power supply plugged in. This will cause the fans to run louder, but if you have a headset on while gaming, you will not notice it. If the fan noise is a concern, you can choose the Performance setting. The fans will not be as loud, but you’ll lose a little computing power. And finally, when you’re doing everyday tasks, use the Silent mode for hardly any noise at all (see pic).
Another important tip, if you connect an external monitor via USB, be sure to use the USB-C port on the right side of the computer (the side with the SD card reader). Through testing, I found that this port is connected directly to the discrete GPU. If you use the USB-C port on the left side, it only connects to the internal GPU. And when you’re gaming, you’ll want to be utilizing the power of the discrete RTX 4090 GPU, especially if your external monitor supports G-SYNC. If you’re using an HDMI cable, there’s no issue here, the HDMI plug is connected to the discrete GPU. In my case, I needed to use the USB-C port because I was using a specific 8K USB-C to display port cable when connecting my external monitor. As for the laptop’s screen, the internal display automatically switches to the discrete GPU when gaming begins (if the Advanced Optimus option is seleted) (see pic). This allows the laptop to utilize the 240 Hz refresh rate as well as the G-SYNC features built into the OLED display: a first of a kind feature. This is the first time G-SYNC has been coupled with an OLED display on a laptop. Another nice feature of this computer.
The OLED display itself is beautiful. Like I mentioned earlier, this computer rivals a MacBook Pro. The colors on this display are accurate and the contrast is amazing. Blacks are truly black. My eyes needed to get used to the fine granular detail between different shades of white. Something I never noticed with an LCD display before. And when gaming, the ability to see better in darker scenes is a nice plus too.
I would recommend this laptop to someone that doesn’t want to carry a larger and heavier gaming laptop around. This can work for a student that carries their laptop from place to place, but also wants strong gaming performance. Or this laptop can work for a professional that wants a powerful computer to handle their workload, but also needs something for travel. If you are looking for the most powerful laptop out there, you’ll probably want to look at thicker laptops that allow for powerful fans and heavy cooling. However, if this model and design suits your needs, you will get a lot out of this Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and NVIDIA RTX 4090 graphics card. This is the best CPU and GPU available today. In addition, the 32 GB of RAM will future proof this system for a few years. Unfortunately, the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard and is not upgradeable, but this is another tradeoff that is necessary for a thin, light, and easy to carry laptop. Overall, if you’re willing to sacrifice a little on performance for the benefit of portability, this laptop is a good choice.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Oled display
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Great laptop!!
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
It exceeded my expectations and has the power to do both gaming and work assignments. The best feature has to be the amazing oled screen!
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Awesome machine!!
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Posted . Owned for 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Throughly impressed straight out of the box. The sleek look was something im not used to in a gaming laptop. This slim machine packs more hardware than my older gaming laptop. It was a very nice upgrade and this laptop has more than enough power and memory to run all of my games in my current gaming library. The storage was another reason I purchased this machine. I had to have all of my games on an external hard drive with my previous laptop so its nice not to worry about carrying around extra storage.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Asus Zephyrus
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This is a smooth running machine! It’s very lightweight and is powerful. So far I’ve really enjoyed gaming on it. It has handled everything well so far. It does get warm but that is expected when I’m gaming on it.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Build quality, Oled display, Performance
Cons mentioned:
Heat
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Very nice gaming laptop for more than just gamers!
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This is a beast of a computer. It’s packed with top-tier specs yet doesn’t look like a spaceship with RGB everywhere, so you can use it in the boardroom or your basement and it won’t look out of place. This is my first Asus PC and so far, I’m impressed. The build quality is outstanding. The case itself feels premium, which is always a good first impression. I’m glad to see gaming PCs are finally moving away from plastic, and Asus did it right with this machine. Fan vents downward at the back vents...fine, but make sure you pay attention to the surface you have the computer on.
On both sides are pretty standard, consisting of a power, HDMI, USB-C//Thunderbolt, USB-A, headphone jack on the left, SD reader, USB-A, USB-C//Thunderbolt on the right. You can charge using USB-PD, so if you forget your power supply, you can charge it with a high-power USB-C charger. There are no ports on the rear except for lots of vents (more on that later). It’s a sleek design and the diagonal LED on the lid is fine…you can turn it off or have it do patterns, etc. I don’t ever see it, so I don’t care, but if you want to customize the pattern, you can. These lid lights are pure white and not RGB. I consider that a good thing.
You can lift the lid with a single finger without the base popping a wheelie. This adds no actual functionality, but it’s a nice testament to the engineers at Asus. The keyboard, while crisp and quiet, is above average, but it’s no Thinkpad keyboard. The trackpad is large, glass and accurate, if not a little too big. I am getting too many accidental presses and mouse motion due to the trackpad size...there isn't really anywhere to rest your wrists since the trackpad takes up so much space. Hopefully Asus' palm-rejection software can be improved in the future.
The display is as jaw-dropping, as you'd expect. It's very bright and is essentially a flawless OLED panel. The resolution is perfect for the size. I have no complaints about the screen whatsoever. It’s not a touch-screen, but that’s a good thing on a gaming laptop.
The speakers were a pleasant surprise; they are seriously 90% as good as the MacBook Pro 16" speakers, which are amazingly full from highs to lows. I've owned a few other gaming laptops in the past and all of them had the typical tinny sounding speakers that nobody likes. These are legit and I'd feel confident saying they will likely impress you too.
It has the latest Intel Core Ultra 9 processor along with Nvidia RTX 4090. Needless to say, the gaming performance is impressive. Every game I’ve tried looks and runs smooth. Remember the rear vents I mentioned earlier? Well, in order to eliminate hot air blowing out of the sides and back of the computer, the fans blow back and down out of the rear vents. It does a nice job of hiding the blasting hot air when gaming, but you have to be careful about what surface you have it sitting on. I have a plastic desk mat and I didn’t realize the hot air was blowing directly on the desk surface, so much so that the heat warped my plastic mat! I can see it being actually painful to use on your lap, so you may want to get a desk laptop cooler or pad so it raises up, lowering the temperature of the heat that’s blasting your desk.
Overall, I’m very happy with it. Gaming is solid, the audio is impressive, and the OLED screen is amazing. If I were to give it a score out of 10, I’d comfortably put it at an 8/10. The rear downward blowing vents are kind of a bummer since I think the more logical way to expel heat is straight out the back and rear sides. I do see why they designed it like that, however, as the physical profile/footprint of this computer is really nice looking. It’s definitely an expensive laptop, but if you want the best, it’s worth the price, IMO.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Power and necessary for world domination
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Posted . Owned for 2 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Way way way more power than what's needed. If you wanna make moves, design doomsday viruses and nuke Narnia this is Your laptop.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
G16
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Posted .
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Asus G16 has been great using it for school and gaming.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Oled display, Ssd
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Asus GU605M: Amazing Hardware!!
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
For computer enthusiasts, most will recognize that top end hardware will naturally come with a significant cost. Naturally, the absolute best computer will always disregard price in favor of cutting-edge performance. Without budget restrictions, the performance should be impressive. Thus, as a part of the ROG line of products, the recently released Asus Zephyrus GU605M aims to provide top end performance, while preserving a compact package. Furthermore, the GU605M features an Intel Ultra 9 185H processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 4090 GPU, 32GB of DDR5-7467 MHz, and a 2 TB PCIe 4.0 M2 SSD. Thus, with top end hardware, I was excited to see how the new GU605 performs in real world scenarios.
For the physical aspects, the aluminum based GU605 is exquisite to look at and hold. The body is smooth to the touch and has impeccable craftsmanship. The GU605 clocks in around 4lbs in weight, which is quite shocking considering the hardware it houses. On the left side of the unit, the GU605 features a proprietary reversable connection for the included 240W AC adapter. In addition, the unit features an HDMI 2.1b, a Thunderbolt 4 port, two USB 3.2 Gen ports, a USB 3.2 Type-C port, and lastly a full speed UHS-II SD card reader. Another interesting aspect of the GU605 is the charging and hardware activity LEDs have been moved to the front. On the top of the display is the new slash design with customizable patterns; however, the LED is limited to only white. Moving on, the GU605 features an amazing OLED display that is capable of 240 Hz and has a response time of 0.2ms. The glossy finish looks exquisite with the all-aluminum body. Overall, I think most will be pleased the various connectivity options presented here.
Before moving on to my performance benchmarks, I would like to mention that as with any piece of electronic equipment, you are going to have to configure a few settings on your own. In addition, my results listed here may be different from your own, though I tried to preserve as close to a stock experience as I could. As for my changes, I prevented the display and hard drive from clicking off and disabled all the startup executables except the Asus ones. All my tests were done plugged up with its AC adapter. In addition, the turbo profile found in the included Armoury Crate software was used; best performance was also selected in the Windows control panel. I also went ahead and let Window finish all of its updates before I began. Lastly, for monitoring I used a combination of CPU-Z 2.09, GPU-Z 2.57, HW Monitor 1.52, HW Info 7.68, CrystalMark 8.0.4c and Fraps 3.59.
Starting of my benchmarks, I decided to focus on CPU performance and wanted to see how it compared to my other laptops. Using CPU 2.09, I noted the performances below:
Ultra 9 185H - Single: 786.6/ Multi: 9,139.9 (16 Cores / 22 Threads)
I7-12700H - Single: 731.0/ Multi: 7,844.7 (14 Cores / 20 Threads)
I7-1360P - Single: 761.7/ Multi: 6,227.7 (12 Cores / 16 Threads)
For my second CPU test, I went ahead and ran Cinebench R23 and compared it once again to my previous computers:
Ultra 9 185H - Single: 1,826/ Multi: 19,717 (16 Cores / 22 Threads)
I7-12700H - Single: 1,761/ Multi: 15,901 (14 Cores / 20 Threads)
I7-1360P - Single: 1,875 / Multi: 11,102 (12 Cores / 16 Threads)
Switching to my game test, I decided to test Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016). I ran the game using the very high preset and disabled the film grain and DLSS. The render was set to DX11 and anti-aliasing was set to SSAA 2x. The display was set to the maximum resolution of 2560x1600 and the refresh rate was set to 240Hz. V-Sync was disabled. As soon as the game begin, the 4090 kicked in high gear holding a resounding 75-80 fps. Once the mountain gave way, I dipped right around 60 fps. If you move your character around, naturally the FPS increases dramatically anywhere from the low 70s-130s. Once you get inside the cave, the fps holds more consistently around 80-90 fps. If you increase the SSAA to 4x, the FPS tanks quite a bit; in some instances, dropping into the low 40s. Considering how intense this portion is on the GPU, I was quite impressed. As for the GPU/CPU, both hovered around 80C and continued to fluctuated accordingly. On GPU-Z, average board power consumption was around 73 watts for the whole game duration. For the whole system, HW Info, reported around 130 watts. Lastly, I ran the in-game benchmark for you to compare with your system (see attached screenshot).
Moving on, I wanted to benchmark the various storage aspects of the new GU605, first starting with the internal drive. According to HW Info, the GU605 includes a 2 TB SK Hynix PC801 SSD (Model: HFS002TEJ9X101N). Using CrystalMark 8.0.4c, the results are as follows:
Sequential Read Q8T1: 7,098.69 MB/s / Sequential Write Q8T1: 6,461.79 MB/s
Sequential Read 4K Q1T1: 67.17 MB/s / Sequential Write 4K Q1T: 147.98 MB/s
In addition, I wanted to test this drive with my Crucial X10 Pro using the Thunderbolt 4 port to see how it would handle an intensive transfer. I sent a 34 GB music folder that houses 6,041 files and 1,276 folders. Once I sent the transfer to the Hynix drive, the transfer exploded up to around 700-800 MB/s. As expected, the transfer was so fast that it barely had time to stretch it legs, but eventually it cracked past the 1.08 GB/s towards the last 10-15 seconds. It was finished in less than a minute. The X10 results are as follows:
Sequential Read Q8T1: 2,038.33 MB/s / Sequential Write Q8T1: 1,803.66 MB/s
Sequential Read 4K Q1T1: 27.98 MB/s / Sequential Write 4K Q1T: 80.42 MB/s
Lastly, I was extremely excited that the GU605 comes with a UHS-II SD card reader. I grabbed my Sony Tough G UHS-II 32 GB SD card and sent a mixture of RAW and JPG images to the Hynix drive. The total transfer consisted of 851 files and was 14 GB in size. The transfer was more consistent than expected, as it hovered anywhere from 165-187 MB/s. It spent most of its time around 175 MB/s and finished in a little over a minute. Lastly, I took CrystalMark and capture the SD card results below:
Sequential Read Q8T1: 278.45 MB/s / Sequential Write Q8T1: 186.94 MB/s
Sequential Read 4K Q1T1: 9.82 MB/s / Sequential Write 4K Q1T: 3.39 MB/s
Next, I would like to highlight is the speakers. As somewhat of an audio enthusiast, I was completely shocked at how loud these speakers get. With four speakers and two tweeters, it certainly packs a punch. In a word, this thing destroys my Yoga 9i which has an amazing soundbar for its size. Listening to my FLAC collection, I was quite surprised at the level bass it was able to reproduce, yet still remaining clear. These are the loudest speaker I have personally heard on a laptop.
Lastly, I would like to share a few of my observations I noticed while testing the new GU605. Overall, the performance is extremely good as expected with a top end model. However, one thing that I was a bit concerned with was the thermal levels as naturally top end hardware will generate lots of heat. Due to its slim profile, the GU605M idles extremely warm, especially when connected to the AC adapter. Once the Ultra 9 takes off, you are looking idle temperatures anywhere from the 60-70C range while it adjusts its frequencies. Furthermore, even after a cold and boot and on the windows preset within the Armoury Crate software, the CPU hits 60C frequently; occasionally it spikes well into the 70s-80s. Naturally, on battery it is a bit better as it cannot boost as much but, nonetheless, I advise you to pay attention to the temperatures. The good news is that you can manually adjust the PL1 and PL2 states within the Armoury Crate software by selecting manual mode accordingly (PL1 is 80w and PL2 is 100w by default for AC power). In addition, you can also disable some of the P-Cores/E-Cores to curve the excessive heat further. While the software itself feels a bit clunky, it was nevertheless nice to able to control these hardware aspects to customize your hardware.
The second thing that I wanted to mention is that I wish the OS installation was less bloated. With just the software alone that was included, the GU605M boots at almost 20% of its 32 GB filled. There are tons of ASUS executables that can be disabled, but as you would expect they are all intertwined with the Armoury Crate software. With a model of this caliber, I wish they would have opted for 64 GB of RAM and that the software was only limited to a few startup executables. Granted, since this model is only targeting enthusiasts, chances are high that most will know how to customization/format the Windows installation. Connectively, I also wish this came with a professional copy of the OS as opposed to the home edition, but nonetheless that can be easily fixed.
In conclusion, the GU605M performs exactly as a top model should. Out of the box, it is extremely fast and posts some impressive CPU and GPU scores. The top-notch display and excellent speakers are also a huge plus. Personally, I was extremely impressed with the storage scores, especially the UHS-II SD card reader. The audio was also well implemented; the speakers are loud and clear. However, despite the top end hardware, the GU605 is not without some mild concerns, most notably its excessive idle heat and bloated install. Overall, if you are looking for a top model, the GU605M will certainly check every performance metric box you are hoping to fulfill; just be aware of the concerns that I have listed above.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Performance
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Recommended
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
The PC works very well, it is fast and the performance is excellent