Recenzja Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2024): aktualizacja do platformy AMD

Asus overhauled its ROG Zephyrus gaming laptops in 2024, giving them sleek, aluminum bodies and superb OLED screens. The Intel version of the ROG Zephyrus G16 looked like a possible MacBook Pro killer erstwhile it launched in February; it is thin, light, and powerful, but the Core Ultra 9 185H processor hampers battery life. Now that Asus has reissued the G16 with the latest flagship CPU from AMD, it has yet become an all-rounder with adequate battery life to tote to the office.

This version of the Zephyrus G16 has the same Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU that powers Asus’ Zenbook S 16 to large effect. The better integrated graphics and improvements in efficiency and natural horsepower over Intel’s mobile Meteor Lake processors make the AMD model the clear winner. If only it weren’t so dang expensive.

Our $2,300 review unit, with an Nvidia RTX 4070 mobile GPU, is 1 of four G16 variants with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU. There’s another 4070 model in white, with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of retention for $2,300, while the least costly version is $1,900 with an RTX 4060, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. More GPU power is only available on Intel models, with an RTX 4080 option at $2,700 and an RTX 4090 for $3,300. RAM is soldered to the motherboard, so it’s crucial to consider before purchasing.

Apart from the processor, and the jump to Wi-Fi 7 from Wi-Fi 6e, the AMD version of the G16 is nearly identical to the Intel version. Both usage the same 0.59-inch-thick unibody aluminum chassis, ports, and 200-watt charging brick; the only visible difference is the Copilot key on the AMD model in place of the right-hand Ctrl key. The AMD version is besides an ounce lighter at a scant 3.99 pounds.

I have a solid basis for comparing the 2 G16s here. In search of a portable work device I could besides game on, I ditched my desktop and bought the Intel version of the G16, with an RTX 4070 and 16GB of RAM, in August. Since then, I’ve utilized it not only to work at home and in coffee shops but besides to play all the games I’d usually play on my tower.

Whichever processor and graphics card is inside, utilizing the G16 is simply a rock-solid experience. There’s very small chassis flex but for the plate in the dead center of the keyboard, the lid lifts easy with a single finger, and screen wobble is minimal. But the 2560 x 1600, 240Hz OLED ROG Nebula Display steals the show. Thanks to the excellent motion clarity, colour accuracy, and contrast, it’s just about the best screen you can find on a gaming laptop. The smaller Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 uses a 2880 x 1800 OLED panel, but it’s only 120Hz.

Asus mill calibrates the screen in each G16 and claims an average Delta E of under 1, a highest brightness of 500 nits, and 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space. These are bold claims, but they mostly hold up. I measured 100 percent coverage of the sRGB colour space, 97.2 percent of Adobe RGB, and 99.9 of DCI-P3. Although maximum brightness in SDR only reached 397 nits, that’s plenty bright adequate to usage outdoors in the shade. HDR is even brighter, reaching 644 nits in a 10 percent window. The average Delta E, the difference between an expected value and what was measured, came in at only 0.17. This is an astoundingly accurate display and good adequate for color-sensitive work.

Apart from the floating volume controls and dedicated Armoury Crate button above the F row, the minimalist plan and keyboard layout are a change from the 2023 model and now look much more like those of Asus’ own Zenbook line. While the keys aren’t mechanical, the 1.5mm key travel is adequate to stave off fatigue during long typing sessions. The spacebar is simply a bit stiff and can skip if tapped at the furthest edges, but it doesn’t happen frequently adequate to become a problem.

The Zephyrus G16’s appearance has taken a turn for the demure, but Asus couldn’t defy keeping any gamer flair. Gone is the addressable matrix of LEDs previously splashed across the back of ROG Zephyrus laptops, replaced with a diagonal strip of lighting that runs across the lid. Different Slash Lighting patterns are programmable in Armoury Crate, but the only colour available is white.

The effect is underwhelming, and that extends to the keyboard. Despite the $2,000 price tag, all versions of the G16 are equipped with single-zone RGB backlighting, meaning that all keys will always be backlit with the same colour and brightness. Competitors like the HP Omen Transcend 16 and Razer Blade 16 both offer per-key lighting. The exclusion here, combined with the Slash bar, feels like Asus is trying to toe the line between slim studio laptop and full gaming aesthetic, but the consequence feels improbable to delight either crowd.

Despite the identical looks, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU pulls ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H in all single synthetic benchmark. In most cases, it’s a tiny improvement in both single and multicore tasks, but AMD takes a whopping 20 percent single-core and 10 percent multicore lead in Geekbench 6.

That lead unfortunately doesn’t scale uniformly to gaming. It’s actual that, at 1080p, where CPU differences are most obvious, the AMD version of the G16 puts up a commanding performance over Intel’s chip. Results are better across the board, with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 improving 14 percent in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 13 percent in Cyberpunk 2077, and 12 percent in Returnal.

Make no mistake, both the AMD and Intel versions of the G16 are capable gaming machines, and moving up to 1440p or the native 2560 x 1600 resolution erases any difference between the two. The bottleneck here is the GPU. While the RTX 4070 is inactive a capable mobile graphics card nearly 2 years after release, it can’t rather hit 60 frames per second in all game at maxed-out settings. little demanding titles like Elden Ring will inactive run at 60fps on Ultra all day, but this midrange card shows its age in newer games.

Tweaking settings or enabling an upscaler like Nvidia’s DLSS in games that support it is simply a perfectly viable solution, and even the most demanding titles like Alan Wake 2 are playable on the 4070 versions of the G16, with compromises. moving around Coffee planet as Saga midway through the game, neither the AMD or Intel version could crack 60fps at 1440p or native resolution, and enabling DLSS at the Quality setting only delivered about 50 frames per second. The game becomes much more playable erstwhile settings are dropped to average or frame generation is turned on.

Ray-tracing enthusiasts and those with 4K external monitors should consider the 4080 and 4090 models. Asus limits the RTX 4080 and 4090 to 115 watts of power draw to keep temps down, meaning a thicker laptop like the Razer Blade 16 with a 4090 in it will score about 10 percent higher in Time Spy than a G16 with a 4090, owing to its beefier cooling solution and higher power allowance of 175 watts. This is simply a negligible difference for most people, but diehards looking to wring out all ounce of performance will want to look elsewhere.

AMD consistently dominates Intel in the integrated graphics department, and that hasn’t changed with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. The AMD Radeon 890M is the most powerful integrated GPU on the marketplace and can deliver solid 1080p gaming performance even on battery power — it’s no wonder that Ayaneo and another manufacturers are utilizing the chip in their newest gaming handhelds.

Playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p on battery power utilizing integrated graphics is simply a amazingly large experience. The benchmark returned 40 frames per second with everything set to its maximum, and dropping the settings to advanced and enabling Intel’s XeSS upscaling netted 47fps. The APU — as AMD calls its CPUs with integrated graphics — pulls 42 watts with this setup, meaning about an hr and a half of runtime despite the G16’s large 90Wh battery. With a customized power profile that limits the APU to 25 watts full (more granular control is available with open-source Armoury Crate alternatives like G-Helper), the results were about the same but stretched the battery life to 2 hours.

Even heavier titles like Cyberpunk 2077 are playable on integrated graphics. With the 25-watt cap in place, I recorded 47fps in the benchmark with everything set to average and AMD’s FSR upscaler set to Balanced and the same 1.5-hour runtime as Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The Arc Graphics on the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H will play 2D and lighter indie games just fine, but it can’t crack 30fps in the above games at the same settings.

This makes the integrated GPU a compelling option if you’re distant from wall power. moving Cyberpunk 2077 on the RTX 4070 with advanced settings at 1080p got a frame rate of 60fps and a scant 45 minutes of playtime. Locking the game to a 30fps cap and average settings at 1080p results in 1 hour, 20 minutes of battery life. Gaming on integrated graphics might be the solution for those who want to leave the bulky 200W charger at home and travel with a USB-C wall wart (up to 100 watts) instead.

Battery life outside of gaming is the main reason to consider the AMD version of the G16. The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H model offers about six to 7 hours of real-world use, which is fine for most people but won’t make it through an full workday. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is simply more efficient, lasting about 9 hours in real-world use. That extra 3 hours pushes the G16 out of the realm of typical gaming laptops and closer to productivity machines like the Zenbook S 16 or the Dell XPS 16.

A more efficient processor means little heat, which was (and is) the G16’s Achilles’ heel. Having lived with, gamed on, and typed more articles than I can number on the Intel version, I can confidently say that this is simply a spicy laptop — so much so that the underside gets uncomfortably hot erstwhile gaming on the 4070, even utilizing the Silent power profile (which restricts power to the CPU and GPU and cuts fan sound accordingly), and the area right above the keyboard on the Intel version reaches a scorching 123 degrees Fahrenheit.

The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 thermal throttles at 95 degrees Celsius like its Intel-based cousin erstwhile under load, but no point on the chassis registered over 120 degrees during testing. moving around the titular city in Baldur’s Gate 3 utilizing the Turbo power profile no longer results in a burned lap. Cooler temps might let the CPU boost higher, but it would inactive be constrained by the comparatively modest 200-watt overall power limit.

I’ve been singing the G16’s praises for most of this review, but the sacrifices Asus undertook to make a gaming laptop this portable are glaring, even if they might not affect day-to-day use. Repairability and upgradability are next to nil. retention is easy to upgrade, and there’s a second 2280 M.2 slot, but the RAM is soldered to the motherboard in all versions. (Which is unfortunately the norm in laptops this thin. Look to thicker competitors with socketed DDR5 RAM, like the Alienware m16 R2, if you want the option to upgrade later.) If the 16GB offered by the base configuration isn’t enough, you’ll gotta pony up an extra $300 at minimum for a model with 32GB and can’t go higher from there.

Software has never been Asus’ strong suit, and Armoury Crate continues to be Armoury Crate: laggy but serviceable adequate for most people. Manually disabling the dedicated graphics in Armoury Crate is the best way to optimize battery life, but often, it requires closing all programs utilizing the 4070, trying again, then closing and reopening Armoury Crate to actually make the change. I’ve besides noticed that the G16 sometimes fails to wake decently if set to hibernate while plugged in and then reawoken on battery.

Speaking of the battery, the only way to enable Battery Care mode, which caps the battery at 80 percent charge to prolong its life, is through the MyAsus app, an entirely separate control panel you gotta registry for to use. Being prompted to sign up and make an account as part of the Windows 11 setup feels extra intrusive.

Asus succeeds in delivering a large device for gamers who don’t want their laptops to live on their desk, as well as content creators. The color-accurate, advanced refresh rate screen looks fantastic displaying any kind of content, the speakers are just about the best you can find on a Windows laptop, and the port selection, especially the full-sized SD card reader, is good adequate for photographers and video editors, though the deficiency of an ethernet jack is conspicuous.

The price remains the biggest sticking point for either model of the G16. I’ve seen the Intel version on sale for as low as $1,400, which undercuts little expensive, chunkier competitors with akin specs like the Alienware m16 R2 or the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i and even Asus’ own ProArt line aimed squarely at artists. A 16-inch ProArt P16 configured with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU, RTX 4070, 32GB of RAM, and 2TB of retention but a 4K, 60Hz screen and somewhat thicker chassis costs $2,300, while the comparably equipped G16 has late been on sale for $1,999.

Not that $2,000 for a laptop with an RTX 4070 inside is an objectively good deal erstwhile 4080-equipped devices fall below that mark on sale. The Intel version of the G16 provides the best value, especially erstwhile it drops below $1,500. Best Buy frequently lists open-box models for as low as $1,100, even cheaper than the smaller G14 with an RTX 4060. Whether the extra 3 hours of battery life is worth up to $900 more is subjective and depends on how frequently you travel, though most people will be better served by saving that money and throwing a USB-C charger in their bag to keep the G16 topped off.

Of course, this might be a moot point. It’s rumored that Nvidia will debut its latest 5000-series RTX graphics cards at CES 2025, and manufacturers including Asus will launch revamped laptops shortly after, although concrete details haven’t been confirmed yet. If the RTX 5070 isn’t a crucial improvement over the current generation and Asus launches a fresh version of the G16, keep an eye out for deep discounts on the 2024 models. Both versions of the G16 are objectively good all-around laptops, but at price parity, the AMD model wins out.