I’ve tested the Ryzen based ASUS Zephyrus G15 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 G15 is a laptop you should consider buying. All testing was done with manual mode enabled, which basically maxes out the fan speed and applies the following GPU overclock to the 2060 Max-Q. We’ll start out by testing the Zephyrus G15 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, however the 1% lows were fairly low at ultra. Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested using the game’s built in benchmark tool, and as another resource heavy game frame rates are lower at higher settings here too, with medium needed to get to 60 FPS. Watch Dogs Legion was also tested with the games benchmark. I was getting low VRAM warnings at ultra settings which is why the frame rate was a fair bit lower than the other levels, very high was quite usable though, I don’t think this needs a super high frame rate to play. Speaking of not needing a super high frame rate, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was only reaching 60 FPS at the low setting preset, though medium settings weren’t too far off, but again while nice a solid 60 isn’t really required to have a good time. Death Stranding wasn’t running all that differently between the different setting levels, and still playing well even with the very high setting preset. Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode, again still playing ok with max settings, around 70 FPS with ultra, while the low preset was able to push this past 100. I’ll compare the G15 with some other laptops in this game soon. Control was tested without ray tracing in the purple bars, with ray tracing in the green bars which is much worse comparatively, which shouldn’t be a surprise with a 65 watt 2060, then with ray tracing plus DLSS in the red bars, which was still very playable while looking good. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, still able to pass 60 FPS at the highest setting preset, while lowest could push this above 100 FPS. This is another game I’ll use to compare with other laptops soon. Apex Legends was tested in the latest Season 7 but with my usual map spot, all settings maxed out was close to 100 FPS and playing well, though minimum would make a bit better use of the 240Hz screen, though realistically 144Hz would probably have still been fine. Call of Duty Modern Warfare was tested in campaign mode with either max or min settings as well due to a lack of built in presets. Max was still above 60 FPS, but not quite as much of a boost going down to minimum settings in this one. Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, no problems running with the highest epic setting preset as this game doesn’t need much to run, even low settings was making good use of the 240Hz panel. CS:GO was tested with the ulletical FPS benchmark, not too much change between the different setting presets, and still above 200 FPS maxed out, while low settings just pushes the frame rate above the screens refresh rate. Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane with bots, again great frame rates, and not too different when compared to other lower specced and cheaper machines. Overwatch was tested running through the practice range, medium and below settings scored average FPS above the screens refresh rate, but either way there are still zero issues playing at max settings. 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, still 144 FPS even at ultra. 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 even at 60 FPS with the high preset, however going down just one level further to medium reaches 60 even for the 1% low. The Witcher 3 was playable with ultra settings, though high settings still looks great while offering 1% low performance that’s above even the average FPS that I was seeing with ultra settings. F1 2020 was tested with the games benchmark tool. Like the last couple of games, lowering just one setting preset can make a fairly big difference, with high settings surpassing 100 FPS. 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.
Now let’s take a look at how the Zephyrus G15 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 G15 is highlighted in red. It’s not doing as well as I thought, coming in around 6 FPS behind the smaller G14 with the same CPU and GPU. It’s being beaten by any non Max-Q 1660 Ti because those run with a higher 80 watt power limit, so it doesn’t matter much that we’ve got RTX 2060 graphics here as the power limit is more important in games, at least outside of ray tracing, granted I wouldn’t have high hopes in ray tracing from a 1st gen 65 watt option anyway.
These are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings in the built in benchmark. The G15 moved up one level here as this game depends more on the processor, and the 4900HS can offer some nice performance, but that said it’s still a little behind the G14 with same key specs, and also beaten by those higher wattage 1660 Ti laptops above it.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also tested with the games benchmark tool with the highest setting preset. The G15 is still able to pass 60 FPS, but now it’s 10 FPS below the G14 which was hitting a 16% higher average frame rate. This is likely down to thermal throttling, as the G15 ran hotter than the G14 despite being larger, but I’ll go into more depth on thermals in the upcoming full review.
My G15 is equipped with a 15.6” 1080p 240Hz panel, and the ASUS Armoury Crate software gives us the option to enable or disable panel overdrive, which affects screen response time. With overdrive disabled we’re looking at a little over 7ms for average grey-to-grey response time. Usually with overdrive enabled there are nice improvements to response time, but that wasn’t the case here. The average was now 6.5ms, so around point six milliseconds quicker with it enabled, granted I wasn’t seeing any obvious overshoot or undershoot which is usually a side effect of overdrive. The response time looks decent when compared to others, and it would be great for a 144Hz panel, but for 240Hz we’re after 4.16ms for transitions to occur within the refresh window, so a little behind, granted at the same time I’ve never measured any 240Hz laptop panel under 5ms.
The main issue I have is that the screen is generally overkill for the specs, as we saw the 2060 Max-Q isn’t exactly a power house, you’ll only really take advantage of it in esports titles, though I guess to be fair that’s generally the case with 240Hz regardless of other specs. Gaming performance was ok, but yeah interesting that the smaller Zephyrus G14 with the same specs was generally ahead. The G14 is currently on sale for less than the G15 too, so the G15 doesn’t appear to be offering too much, outside of better screen, but I’ll cover this in depth in the upcoming full review when we consider everything about this gaming laptop.
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