I’ve tested the ASUS Zephyrus M15 gaming laptop in 20 different games at all setting levels to show you how well it performs. I’ve also compared it against other laptops so that you can see the differences and decide if the M15 is a laptop you should consider buying.
Software settings / drivers
All testing was done with manual mode enabled, which basically maxes out the fan speed and applies the following GPU overclock. I haven’t tested with undervolting as it’s not a default option available through Windows and is locked to software like Intel XTU or Throttlestop, however you can undervolt in the BIOS. I’ll test that out in the upcoming full review.
Gaming benchmarks
We’ll start out by testing the Zephyrus M15 in 20 games, then afterwards I’ll compare it with other laptops and check out screen response time.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge. 
Even the lowest setting preset wasn’t able to deliver 60 FPS in this one, but that’s not required here to play the game fine, I thought it was running well enough with high settings, ultra was a bit choppy as seen in the 1% low. 
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested using the game’s built in benchmark tool, and as another resource heavy game we’re not seeing high frame rates at ultra settings, which is fine. High settings were still able to hit 60 FPS which is great, and we could improve this a little with lower levels. 
Watch Dogs Legion was also tested with the games benchmark. I was getting low VRAM warnings at ultra settings which explains why the frame rate was half the amount seen just one setting level lower, granted it still looks great at very high settings anyway so 60 FPS will be decent. 
This is my first time testing the new Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and I’ve done it using the games provided benchmark tool. The M15 was still able to hit 60 FPS with the highest ultra high setting preset, while just over 100 FPS was possible with low settings. 
Death Stranding wasn’t running all that differently between the different setting levels, the 1% lows in particular were quite close together too, so it’s probably not really going to matter all that much which preset level you go with. 
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode, and the highest ultra setting preset was playing fine at around 80 FPS, while medium was needed to surpass 100 FPS. I’ll use this game to compare the M15 performance against some other laptops shortly. 
Control was tested without any ray tracing as we’ve got GTX graphics here. I thought high settings were still playable as I think this game still plays well without necessarily hitting 60 FPS, granted medium and even low settings look alright to me in this one anyway.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, and the Zephyrus M15 was able to give me a new record for best result from laptop GTX 1660 Ti graphics in this test, we’ll check out how other laptops compare in this title soon. 
Apex Legends was tested in Season 7 with the new Olympus map, so results are unfortunately not directly comparable to any of my previous Apex testing due to the map change. In any case, it was still above 100 FPS with big gains possible at lower setting levels meaning it played well. 
Call of Duty Modern Warfare was tested in campaign mode with either max or min settings for the same reason. It was playing fine at max settings, which was still easily above 60 FPS in my test, though there were less gains using minimum settings compared to Apex before it. 
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, it doesn’t need much to run so above 100 FPS even with the highest epic setting preset isn’t too surprising. High settings may offer a better option for the 144Hz screen, while lower levels could be good if you get it with the 240Hz option. 
CS:GO was tested with the ulletical FPS benchmark, there’s hardly much difference at all between the different presets here, and it’s unfortunate that the M15 doesn’t give us the option of disabling optimus, as that probably would have boosted us above 300 FPS, but I guess high 200s is fine too.
Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane with bots, it’s performing similarly to laptops with higher specs as this one runs fine on basically anything, so let’s continue. 
Overwatch was tested running through the practice range, the 300 FPS frame cap wasn’t being hit at low settings, but regardless even maxed out the 1% low is still above 100 FPS, so it’s going to play well. 
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark using Vulkan, as is typically the case, there’s no real difference between most of the higher setting presets. Even worst case we’re on about 100 FPS for the 1% low, so no issues here. 
Metro Exodus was tested using the built in benchmark, most parts of the game perform a fair bit better than this, so don’t take these results as a good indication of what to expect throughout the entire game, it’s more of a worst case that can be compared against my other data. 
Borderlands 3 was tested using the game’s built in benchmark, this is a resource heavy test too which is why we’re not quite able to hit 60 FPS at max settings, though the high preset was still capable of this, then the frame rate rises significantly comparatively going down another level to medium.
The Witcher 3 was playing fine even with ultra settings, still above 60 for the 1% low, though it was possible to boost average FPS by around 40% simply by stepping down to high settings without too much loss to visual quality in my opinion. 
F1 2020 was tested with the games benchmark tool, and the outcome is similar in that max settings was just below 100 FPS, but that there was also a larger performance boost simply by lowering one setting preset which moves us closer to 120 FPS, while ultra low was at 140. 
Far Cry New Dawn was also tested with the games benchmark, not quite 100 FPS at the lowest setting level, but still reasonable results and above the 60 FPS sweet spot even with ultra settings.
Compared to other laptops
Now let’s take a look at how the Zephyrus M15 compares against other laptops, use these results as a rough guide only, as they were tested at different times with different drivers.
I’ve tested Battlefield 5 in campaign mode at ultra settings, and the M15 is highlighted in red. 
The results here are looking good, the highest average FPS I’ve ever had from a GTX 1660 Ti laptop, though the 1% lows were behind many of the alternatives with the same GPU just below it on the graph, but a decent result regardless.
These are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings in the built-in benchmark. 
The M15 moves up a couple of positions now. This test depends more on CPU power, and as you’ll see in the upcoming full review it’s certainly able to deliver some nice processor performance, so this makes sense. It’s not quite doing as well as the 9th gen Helios 300 just above it, probably due to the default undervolt out of the box that applies, but we could always undervolt the M15 to close the gap.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also tested with the games benchmark tool with the highest setting preset.
The M15 is doing great here, same average FPS as the higher 90 watt RTX 2060 in the TUF A15, even better than the 110 watt 2060 in the RP-15, though it can’t quite catch the 115 watt 2060 in the MSI GL65 one spot above it. Still though, an excellent result from a GTX 1660 Ti based machine, and my new best 1660 Ti result recorded in this game.
Screen response time
Although I’ve run all game benchmarks at 1080p, my M15 actually has a 4K panel, but it’s available with both. The 1080p config is probably a much more common pick for gamers, and it’s available with 144Hz and 240Hz options. 
Although unfortunate that I’ve got the 4K model, I’ve still tested the screen response time, and I got just under 17ms average grey-to-grey response time. 
When compared to others it’s not too terrible, there are definitely worse gaming laptop panels out there, but yeah I would hope the 1080p panel is better than this, but I can’t say without having it to test.
Gaming performance with the Zephyrus M15 is looking great, probably in part due to the GPU overclock applied automatically in turbo and manual modes, but also due to the good CPU performance, which may in part be due to the liquid metal ASUS are using, but again I’ll have more on that in the upcoming review .
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