ASUS’s Zephyrus G14 gets some awesome upgrades
this year! Like an OLED screen, a new level of battery
life, all while being smaller, lighter and more portable than ever before. But it’s not all good news. Unfortunately there are also some big problems
that you need to know about! The G14 is available in platinum white or
eclipse grey finishes. It’s using a CNC aluminum chassis for the
first time, which feels more solid compared to previous generations. Overall build quality feels excellent, and
the texture just feels more metallic compared to any older G14. So Keyboard flex is minor, and so is lid flex
too, but I found the lid to be more wobbly compared to before. It can flop around for quite a while if you
bump the table or move the screen. Despite the wobble the hinges feel nice and
smooth, even when ripping the lid open fast. The screen doesn’t go all the way back anymore
either, but it’s enough for me at 135 degrees. This new G14 is smaller in every dimension
compared to last year’s version, it just feels more portable. It’s lighter too, at less than one and a
half kilos or 3.3lb, increasing to 2kg or four and a half pounds with the 180 watt charger
included. Last year’s model used a larger 240 watt
charger, so this is another change that just makes the 2024 G14 a more portable package
than ever before. The new design has what ASUS calls slash lighting
on the lid. There are different effects you can set through
software, including audio visualizations, and even system notifications so you can get
updates with the lid closed. I’ve got the highest configuration with
AMD’s Ryzen 9 8945HS processor, Nvidia’s RTX 4070 graphics, and that new 14” OLED
screen with G-Sync, but there are lower specced versions available for less money with the
link below the video. The chiclet keyboard has 1 zone of either
RGB or white backlighting. All keys and secondary functions get lit up,
but the lighting looks a little patchy. The tops of the F keys for instance are harder
to see. Key brightness can be adjusted between 3 levels
with the function and F2 or F3 shortcuts, and you can swap between three basic effects
with the Aura key on F4. The backlighting was harder to see on the
platinum white model. The key caps are 12% larger this year. The keys have 1.7mm of travel and I liked
typing on it, there’s just a subtle clicky feel. The glass touchpad is fairly big, nice and
smooth, and accurate to click with. The only thing I didn’t like is it needs
too much force to trigger a click once you get higher up. Unfortunately there’s still no fingerprint
scanner in the power button. The G14 hasn’t had that since the 2021 model. There are 6 speakers in total, including front
facing and some underneath. They sound really good, better than most other
laptops with plenty of bass, while still sounding clear at higher volume. Speaking of sounds, it plays this one by default
on boot. Luckily you can disable it through either
Armory Crate or the BIOS. The latencymon results were great, much better
than what we were seeing from laptops last year. Ports are improved this year because they’re
closer to the back. ASUS were able to remove the air exhaust vents
on the sides, but we’ll see if this is a problem in the upcoming thermal testing. The left side has the power input at the back,
which uses a custom rectangle connector instead of round now, HDMI 2.1 output, USB 4 Type-C
port, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack. The right side has a UHS-II MicroSD card slot,
and there are USB Type-A and C ports on this side too, but 3.2 Gen 2 for both this time. So only the left Type-C port has USB 4 support,
and it’s also the only Type-C port that can be used to charge the laptop with up to
100 watts. So if you wanted to both charge the laptop
on Type-C and use USB 4 speeds for something else then you’re out of luck. But both Type-C ports have DisplayPort 1.4
support, so you can connect a monitor to either. And with optimus on, the left Type-C port
connects to the integrated graphics, but it connects to the discrete graphics if you turn
optimus off. The right Type-C port on the other hand always
connects to the Nvidia discrete graphics, whether optimus is on or off. HDMI always connects directly to the Nvidia
graphics too, and we confirmed it could run our LG B9 TV at 4K 120Hz 12-Bit with G-Sync. Getting inside requires removing 11 TR6 screws
of 3 different lengths, so keep track as you remove them. For some reason 2 on the back are covered
by these rubber bits, but they’re easy to remove. In last year’s G14, the front right screw
only came out a bit and helped lift the bottom panel up, making opening easier. The 2024 one doesn’t do this anymore, but
the pry tools I use, linked below, were able to open it up easily enough. Inside we’ve got the battery down the front,
Wi-Fi 6E card just above on the right, and single M.2 2280 slot on the left. The speeds from the installed 1TB PCIe Gen
4 SSD were decent, but not amazing. The read speeds from the Micro SD card slot
were great though, basically maxing out my V90 card. Wi-Fi speed was also excellent, one of the
best results I’ve ever measured, and faster compared to last year’s G14 despite the
fact that it had the same MediaTek Wi-Fi card. My test setup is exactly the same, so I can
only assume they’ve somehow improved antenna placement. Since 2020, the G14 has always had one memory
slot for upgrades, but that’s been removed this year in favor of the smaller design. It’s available with 16 and 32 gig options,
and although 16 gigs is still ok for most games, it’s getting difficult to justify
for a machine you’ll probably want to use for years, so probably worth getting the 32
gig option. On the plus side, soldered memory means faster
LPDDR5X-6400. So the upgradeability score isn’t great
this year. I removed half a point for the change from
Phillips head screws to the less common TR6, and removing the memory slot takes off a full
point. So in this regard, it’s worse compared to
any other G14 laptop so far. The G14 is powered by a 4-Cell 73Wh battery. We can enable battery care mode through the
MyASUS software, which is separate from Armory Crate, and this limits the charge level to
80% to help improve the battery's lifespan. Panel power saver is enabled by default, which
automatically lowers the screen’s refresh rate to 60Hz when you unplug the charger to
save power. This is why the screen flashes black, and
it goes back to 120Hz when you plug back in. Battery life was extremely good, almost lasting
for 11 hours in the YouTube video playback test, and over 2 hours in the gaming test. This puts it well above most other laptops
tested, including last year’s G14 which actually has a slightly larger battery inside. Let’s check out thermals next. The G14 has 3 fans inside now, up from last
year’s 2, but one of those fans is where the memory slot used to be. There are heatpipes shared between the CPU
and GPU with thermal grizzly liquid metal on the CPU and paste on the GPU. There are holes directly above the air intake
fans, and air gets exhausted out of the back. There are not any air exhaust vents on the
sides this year, despite the slimmer design. The rear lift up design is also missing this
year, so it’s harder for fresh air to get in underneath. ASUS’s Armoury Crate software allows us
to change between different performance modes, which from lowest to highest are silent, performance,
turbo and manual. Both turbo and manual modes apply this overclock
to the GPU, but only manual mode lets you customize it. Manual mode also lets you control CPU and
GPU power limits, temperature limits, and gives you some control over the fan curves. Whenever we’ve tested manual mode, all power
and temp sliders were maxed out with fans on 100% speed for best results. The internal temps were fine when just sitting
there idle considering the fans were off. The rest of the results are from combined
CPU and GPU stress tests which aim to represent a worst case full load scenario. The internal temps are all running cool in
this workload, regardless of the performance mode in use. It barely got warmer with the lid closed,
so no problems if you want to dock it. The cooling pad I test with, linked below,
didn’t make a difference though. Only running the fans at full speed was able
to lower temps, but you just don’t need to considering that worst case we’re below
80 degrees Celsius. This is a great result, so removing the air
exhaust vents from the side doesn’t seem to matter. These are the clock speeds during the same
tests. There’s not really a difference between
performance, turbo and manual modes, which explains why the temperatures weren’t that
much different either. Checking the power levels explains why. The processor was limited to just a 12 watt
TDP when the GPU is under load, which is quite low - definitely one of the lowest I’ve
ever seen, which is why the 8 cores of the Ryzen 9 8945HS were averaging 2.5GHz in performance,
turbo and manual modes. Though to be fair, those are decent clocks
for the lower power level, so I’m wondering if the 8945hs is binned well. Clock speeds only went higher in silent mode,
and that’s because the CPU was able to run with more power, but at the expense of less
GPU power. The Nvidia control panel software says that
this is a 90 watt RTX 4070, and that’s what we’re running at in turbo and manual modes. So not what I’d consider to be a full powered
4070. This behavior is confirmed in a game test. Performance, Turbo and Manual modes were all
limited to 12 watts on the CPU so that the GPU can sustain 90 watts, and this mix seems
to be working. The G14 has a high 2880 by 1800 resolution,
so it makes sense to prioritize GPU power for gaming, though considering these frame
rates you’ll definitely want to make use of features like DLSS. For context, last year’s thicker G14 was
able to run between 100 and 125 watts, so the 2024 G14 sacrifices some GPU power for
the thinner design. I don’t think this is too bad though, because
based on my own testing there’s only a slight difference in game FPS between running the
RTX 4070 at 90 and 100 watts, with 100 watts offering just 1.5% more FPS in a 10 game average. The CPU can use more power if the GPU is idle,
like in Cinebench. Up to the mid 70 watt range was seen, but
with Ryzen processors adding more power results in diminishing returns faster when compared
to Intel processors. This explains why the multicore score isn’t
changing too much between the different performance modes. Although game performance isn’t great in
silent mode, as we just saw, CPU only performance is still good. Now let’s not forget that the 8945HS is
essentially just a renamed 7940HS from last year. They’re both Zen 4 chips with the same core
count, same thread count, same clock speeds, and same amount of cache. The only difference is the 8945hs has a better
npu for AI work. In turbo and manual modes I actually found
last year’s G14 with 7940HS to perform better, both in single and multi core performance,
but that’s because the 2023 version was able to send more power to the processor. This results in the 8945HS coming in a little
behind the other Zen 4 laptops that I’ve tested, so don’t be fooled by the name looking
like a higher number - it’s meaningless in terms of performance differences. Now to be fair, the new 2024 version of the
G14 is also smaller than those other Ryzen laptops too. ASUS have prioritized a smaller laptop this
year, but the expense is less performance, granted not too much. It just depends if that’s a tradeoff you’re
willing to make. CPU Performance lowers if we unplug the charger
and instead run off of battery power. It’s ahead compared to last year’s G14
now, but it’s difficult to say how much of this is due to generational laptop differences,
battery chemistry, or just straight up silicon lottery luck. Regardless, this is a decent result compared
to the same selection of laptops. Most laptops I test are in the low 30 degrees
Celsius range on the keyboard at idle, and the G14 was in-line with this and felt cool. It’s warmer in the middle with a stress
test running. The middle of the keyboard only felt warm,
not hot. The back was hotter, but you don’t need
to touch there. The higher performance mode was fairly similar,
but the fans are louder now to compensate for the extra power. Turbo mode was a little warmer in the center
of the keyboard, but it’s still only a bit warm. The left and right sides are quite cool as
air goes through the keyboard. Actually just for some context, here’s last
year’s G14 in the same workload in turbo mode. The center of the keyboard is around 10 degrees
Celsius warmer, so the 2024 model is a nice improvement in this regard. It’s possible to get the 2024 model even
cooler in manual mode with the fans maxed out, but this makes it much louder too, let’s
have a listen. The fans were off most of the time at idle. They briefly turned on from time to time,
which is why I’ve got two results, but they were still quiet. The fans get louder in the higher performance
modes, as expected, and although the cooling pad didn’t really lower the temperatures
it was able to reduce the fan noise by around 4 decibels. It’s fairly loud in manual mode with the
fans maxed out, but as we saw earlier, there’s no real benefit to doing this as the internals
aren’t hot enough to justify the extra volume. And considering that the internal temps were
cool, I’ve got to assume that the main reason they’re limiting the processor to just 12
watts with the GPU also active is to keep the exterior cool. Because last year’s G14 could feel pretty
hot when under load. The fans on this one did sound a bit higher
pitched as well, which might be annoying, but it didn’t really annoy me because I
always wear headphones. Alright, we really need to talk about the
screen, because this is the first time ASUS have given an OLED panel to the G14. The colors look excellent, as expected from
an OLED panel. It’s not super bright or anything, but above
400 nits in SDR mode isn’t bad, and this puts it in-line with other OLED panels that
I’ve tested recently. You’ve really got to go for Mini-LED if
you want much brighter. Backlight bleed doesn’t exist, because black
on an OLED turns off the pixels. It’s a glossy display, but we noticed less
obvious reflection compared to previous OLED laptops. Screen response time is another area where
OLED really shines. On average we’re looking at less than a
millisecond for transitions to occur, which is super fast when compared against non-OLED
gaming laptops. This makes it faster when compared to last
year’s G14, but honestly 4ms is such a great result anyway that I doubt most people will
notice the difference. The total system latency is the amount of
time between a mouse click and when a gunshot fire appears on the screen in Counter-Strike
2. The fast OLED screen contributes to it getting
such a fast result here, but that said other laptops without OLED are quite close. The G14 has a MUX switch, so you can turn
optimus on and off through ASUS’s Armory Crate software, but that needs a reboot. You don’t have to do that though, as it
has advanced optimus, so you can use the Nvidia control panel to enable or disable optimus
without rebooting. The G14 also has G-Sync, which is a new feature
available in 2024 OLED panels. Gaming laptops with OLED before this year
were not able to support G-Sync. Like other ASUS laptops with OLED screens,
the software has some OLED care options to help reduce the chance of burn in over time. There’s a 1080p camera above the screen. It has IR for Windows Hello face unlock, and
mic quality is way better compared to last year. Here’s how the camera and microphones look
and sound, and this is what it sounds like while typing on the keyboard, and as you can
see there is a little bit of screen wobble when doing this. Now let’s find out how well the new G14
performs in games. We’ve tested with these settings for best
results. Cyberpunk 2077 was tested with our own custom
test run, and I’ve got the G14 shown by the red highlight. At 1080p it’s one of the lowest results
from an RTX 4070 laptop, basically matching MSI’s similarly sized Stealth 14 from last
year. Razer’s Blade 14 with the same GPU was 12%
ahead though. I confirmed that the CPU was still limited
to 12 watts with this game running, just like the stress tests earlier, but it doesn’t
seem to be limiting 1080p performance as much as I thought. There’s a much smaller difference between
those 14 inch laptops at the higher 1440p resolution, but the G14 is still one of the
lower 4070 results and not too different compared to cheaper 4060 laptops. Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the
game’s benchmark. Again at 1080p it’s closer to the bottom
of the 4070 laptops tested, but the difference isn’t that big, and to be fair the G14 is
smaller compared to many of those. It’s not doing so well at 1440p, actually
getting beaten by RTX 4060 laptops now. Look, the difference is only minor and honestly
within the margin of error range, but it just goes to show that it might not be worth spending
more money for the 4070 in this year’s G14. That said, it does still offer an increase
compared to last year’s G14 with 4060. It’s a similar deal in Control at 1080p,
the G14 is one of the lower RTX 4070 results and not too different when compared to RTX
4060 laptops, like last year’s cheaper G14. And then it’s the same deal at the higher
1440p resolution as well. Here are the 3DMark results for those that
find them useful, now for some content creator tests. Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve were similar
to the games, one of the lower 4070 results and close to the RTX 4060 laptops. Adobe Photoshop was a bit better, but this
test depends more on single core performance than the GPU. 4070s in Blender are only a little ahead of
the 4060, regardless of laptop size. The BIOS looks nice, but there’s almost
no customization available, just the basics and no tuning of any kind. Come on, what are you doing asus? It’s especially bare when compared to other
brands like MSI, Dell or Lenovo. Linux support was tested with an Ubuntu 23.10
live CD. By default the keyboard, touchpad, camera,
and Wi-Fi all worked. Speakers kind of worked, but were super quiet,
like I was hearing an internal speaker, but I couldn’t change it in the sound settings. Keyboard shortcuts to adjust screen brightness
and volume worked, but keyboard brightness and effect controls did not work. Pricing and availability will change over
time, so check the link below the video for updates and current sales. And if the G14 does have a good sale, we’ll
be sure to add it to our gaminglaptop.deals website. We update that everyday to include all of
the latest sales, so make sure that you check it out regularly to save money on your next
gaming laptop. At the time of recording, the configuration
I’ve tested goes for $2200 USD on ASUS’s website, but it was on Best Buy a few days
ago for $2000, not sure why they removed it. Again, availability will change over time,
so you’ll have to refer to the link below the video. For some context, last year’s G14 with 4070
but half the RAM goes for $150-350 less without a sale. So you’re definitely paying a premium for
this newer model which arguably is a step backwards in some regards. The 2024 G14 with lower tier RTX 4060 and
16 gigs of RAM apparently goes for $1600 USD, but last year’s version is $550 less on
sale at the moment, which is why we’ve got it on the gaminglaptop.deals website. Without the sale though, it’s the same price
as the newer 2024 model. Ultimately, I don’t have a problem with
ASUS offering this version of the G14 as an option. If you’re someone that likes OLED and wants
a more portable, smaller and lighter version at a higher cost, then here’s a new option
for you. But on the other hand, if you prefer more
upgrade options, slightly better performance but a slightly bigger laptop that’s still
quite portable as it’s 14 inches, then last year’s G14 isn’t going anywhere and will
still be available for less money. For most people, I don’t think that it’s
worth spending more money on this newer G14. Unless it has a great sale or has something
that you really want to spend the extra money on. But if you do go for this new model, as much
as your wallet’s going to hate it, you probably want to go for the 32 gig RAM option. I’ve actually been told that some regions
might not even have the 16 gig option for sale, which might be for the best, as it will
keep this laptop running longer and help reduce E-waste. If you’re after something with way more
upgradeability that’s far less likely to be E-waste any time soon then check out this
video next where I’ve tested Framework’s Laptop 16. Yeah, it’s a bigger 16 inch gaming laptop,
but I mean you can take out the GPU and swap it, as well as way more cool things - I’ll
see you in that video next!
