Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!

Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!
9 min read
17 December 2020

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.Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked! 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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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.Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked! 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.Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked! Death Stranding wasn’t running all that  differently between the different setting levels,   and still playing well even with  the very high setting preset. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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.Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked! 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.Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!  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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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.Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked! 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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!  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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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.Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked! 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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked! 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. Ryzen 9 4900HS In Gaming? ASUS Zephyrus G15 Benchmarked!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.

In case you have found a mistake in the text, please send a message to the author by selecting the mistake and pressing Ctrl-Enter.
JT 523
Joined: 4 years ago
Comments (0)

    No comments yet

You must be logged in to comment.

Sign In