The ROG brand has always been associated with
gaming, both through its bold design and the performance of its products. Therefore, at first
contact with the new ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 at CES in Las Vegas, I was a bit perplexed. If the 2023
version was abundant in LEDs, was aggressive and screamed EXTREME GAMING from all its guts,
the new model radicaly changes the design direction, being much more elegant, settled and
restrained. Is this a bad thing? I would say not, on the contrary. If Apple were to make a gaming
laptop... it would probably look a lot like this new G16 2024: a slim aluminum chassis, straight
lines, a generous trackpad, an excelent screen and stellar performance. I even took a moment to
compare it with my own MacBook Pro with M3 Max, and the similarities are there. Sure, the ROG
laptop comes with an RGB keyboard, but otherwise, I find many parallels between the two, whether
we talk about design or build quality. Moreover, this year, the ZEPHYRUS G16 is not just a gaming
laptop anymore. This one came with NVIDIA Studio drivers out of the box, so it is also aimed at
content creators and those who use the laptop for work in general, another indication that ROG wants
to reposition this series. ASUS sent us an Eclipse Gray model for review, an infinite but still nice
gray, but you can also opt for the Platinum White version. In short, we're talking about a laptop
that is under 2 kg, just under 18 mm thick, a 16-inch OLED screen with a refresh rate of up
to 240 Hz, and a list of technical specifications that would make any high-end laptop enthusiast
rejoice. Spoiler alert, we have an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU and an RTX 4090 graphics card, along
with 32 GB of ultra-fast memory. But before we get to the inside, let's stay a bit longer with
the construction of this new G16. In my opinion, the laptop is very close to the comfort limit
for a truly portable device. 2 kg is not much, the dimensions make it compatible with most
bags, backpacks, and... travels, and the fact that this particular model comes with a main 240W
charger and a 100W travel charger, shows that Asus has considered mobility as an important
aspect of this model. The battery is 90Wh, an absolutely necessary capacity when talking
about a laptop with so much horsepower. From my experience, with light tasks and more aggressive
power-saving, the laptop lasts a whole day of work. This is a chapter where we still should
not bring up Apple with their M3 Pro or Max, because... it wouldn't be a fair fight. Apple's
laptop easily lasts twice as long, so there's no comparison here. However, in the x86 ecosystem,
the G16 2024 firmly positions itself within its class limits for autonomy. Another aspect of the
G16's maturity is that now you no longer take the carnival with you when using the laptop in public
- specifically, the lid no longer has that Anime Matrix, that spectacular matrix of LEDs. The new
model only has a diagonal strip of white LEDs, a strip that can, of course, be controlled
from Armoury Crate, along with the keyboard that remained RGB. The screen on the tested
model is an excellent ROG Nebula Display OLED with a resolution of 2560x1600 pixels, G-Sync, a
refresh rate of 240Hz, and 100% DCI-P3 coverage. Asus offers for other models in this series also
a TFT screen, which although does not benefit from the perfect contrast of the OLED panel, retains
largely the same characteristics: it reproduces colors from the DCI-P3 spectrum entirely, has
Pantone certification, the same refresh rate, and maintains compatibility with Dolby Vision. But
we only tested the OLED version, but nothing stops you from opting for the other display variant. If
we turn our attention to the body of the laptop, we notice some important changes compared to the
previous generation. The most important change is in the hinge area: now, the hot air evacuation
is not done exclusively through the bottom of the screen, which personally gives me some peace of
mind, the base of the screen will no longer heat up during extended gaming sessions. Now the
hot air is also expelled through the bottom, through some vents that may be a bit too small,
but we will talk about that immediately. However, probably because of the choice of this exhaust
solution, the following change from the 2023 model occurs: the screen can no longer be opened to 180
degrees. Is this a problem? I don't think so, but this feature could be useful in some situations,
at presentations or in certain viewing positions. Raise your hand who else keeps their laptop fully
open, propped on their knees, when watching movies in bed. The speaker area now occupies a much
larger space on either side of the keyboard. There has been an upgrade in this department
as well: two tweeters and four 2W woofers, each capable of a sound almost 50% more powerful
than the 2023 version of G16. Louder is better, right? The sound quality has also been
improved, the laptop being able to better reproduce low-frequency sounds than the previous
generation, aka bass. In the multimedia chapter, I would also mention the webcam, which is now 1080p,
compared to 720p as it was on the previous model, and retains compatibility with Windows Hello, so
it also has an infrared sensor. The microphone, or rather the microphones of the G16 2024, offer
excellent flexibility: you can select between a cardioid recording mode, which isolates the
user from noises from the sides and back, a stereo mode, which captures a wider sound, and
the omnidirectional mode, which does exactly what the name says. If we add here also the advanced
noise canceling, we have in front of us a laptop capable of good quality teleconferencing in noisy
environments. The keyboard is very similar to the previous model in layout, but there are visible
changes to the keys. They are larger, less rounded at the edges, and the 1.7 mm travel makes the
typing experience very good. I'm not at all fond of the half-size directional keys, just as I'm
not fond of the small Enter key, but nothing is perfect, right? However, the trackpad is quite
close to perfection, with a gigantic surface, 15cmx10cm, adequate palm rejection, and a
very satisfying click. We don't have a NumPad integrated, as with other Asus models, although
the space would have allowed for its presence. As much space as there is in the keyboard area,
I think they could have put a physical NumPad, but then it wouldn't look like a Mac... Oh,
I wanted to say "but then there wouldn't have been room for these cool speakers". I end the
design section with the "wired" connectivity, and here we have an excellent selection of
ports. On the left we have the charging port, a Thunderbolt 4 port with DisplayPort 2.1 connected
directly to the integrated GPU and 100W charging, a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A, an HDMI 2.1 and a combo
audio jack. On the right, we have a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C with DisplayPort connected to the NVIDIA
GPU and capable of G-Sync and charging at 100W, then we have another USB 3.2 Gen2 Type A and
finally an SD card slot. Not bad. And with that said, let's now move on to the part that excites
nerds: the technical specifications. In a laptop with a total thickness of less than 18mm, Asus
has managed to cram impressive processing power, definitely superior to the previous generation
of G16. Thus, we have an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, the latest craze in Intel mobile processors. With
6 performance cores and 10 efficiency cores, out of which two are even lower-power, no less than 22
threads, and a maximum boost frequency of 5.1 GHz, the processor is extremely efficient relative
to the performance it offers, at least for the x86 architecture. The processor has a power
limit of 85W (PL1), respectively 110W (PL2), powers that can also be manually configured from
Armoury Crate. This Core Ultra 9 is assisted by 32 GB of ultra-fast memory GDDR5X, with a
frequency of 7467 MHz. We will soon see where this processor stands in comparison with Apple's
M3, with the previous model in the same series, the G16 2023 with 13900H, and also with a desktop
Core i5 13500 CPU, but until then I'll also mention that the laptop also has configurations
with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and 16GB RAM, if you want to keep a trace of decency. Note
well, the memory is soldered onto the motherboard, so forget about upgrading, at least the memory.
And now ladies and gents, the results are in! We tested the processor in Cinebench R23, and
the results are as follows! With 20,297 points in multicore, the G16 2024 has a power equivalent
to a desktop i5 processor, in a package under 2cm thick and less than 2kg. I'd say that's good. The
performances are superior to Apple's M3 Pro and also surpass the 13900H, at least in Multi-Core,
it is equivalent to my personal Mac M3 Max with 14 cores and just under the top M3 Max with 16
cores, which scores around 24.000 points in R23. As for the video part, we have a "boring"
RTX 4090 Mobile with 16GB VRAM... I'm joking, of course, there's nothing boring about this
GPU. With a power of up to 130W in boost, the implementation in G16 2024 is not the most
performant, there are also variants out there with 175W, but we are still talking about a 4090 here,
which translates anyway into serious performance. The laptop also contains a MUX switch, which
completely eliminates the integrated GPU in the processor in intense graphic usage scenarios, but
also benefits from Advanced Optimus technology, which juggles the two graphic accelerators as
needed. Simply put, this translates into improved efficiency and longer battery life. We tested
the graphics subsystem both in synthetic tests and in Cyberpunk 2077, on the principle that if
it works in Cyberpunk, not many titles can bring it to its knees. Here are the results. We placed
this laptop side by side with our test platform with Ryzen 9 7950X and RTX 4070, so you can get
a clearer idea about the performances. The video card is a tad better than a desktop RTX 4070 - a
GPU that consumes 200W. In Cyberpunk 2077, we used the native resolution and four configurations from
the integrated benchmark: Ultra without RT, Ultra RayTracing without DLSS and Ultra Raytracing with
DLSS, with and without Frame Generation. We played around with the settings in Armoury Crate, running
the tests in both Performance and Turbo presets, to see how much that matters. Here are the
results. Two conclusions can be drawn from here: first - it is clear that the presets
in Armoury Crate are not just for show, the massive difference from Performance to Turbo
can really be felt. The second: if you don't want to have a... cinematic experience, so to speak, at
a rate of 24 frames per second in Cyberpunk 2077, either deactivate Ray Tracing or activate
DLSS, and possibly Frame Generation. Given the performance in Cyberpunk, you will have an
excellent experience in most current AAA titles. In e-Sports games, the frame rate will be very
high - 250-300 FPS on High in CS2. In our tests, the temperatures remained within decent limits,
92 degrees Celsius for the processor and 82-83 for the GPU, and although the keyboard area heated up
noticeably, it did not become uncomfortable. For the version of the ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 that we
tested, Asus uses a vapor chamber cooling system, an expensive but very capable solution. In
combination with the liquid metal thermal interface for the CPU, the cooling manages to keep
the laptop at reasonable temperatures during use. But... and here comes the big BUT. Because you
can't have it all, the only chapter, in fact, where this laptop suffers, is related to noise.
In Turbo mode, which provides maximum performance, the laptop becomes a very expensive hairdryer
in demanding games. The noise is not annoying in tone, but its volume becomes irritating after less
than an hour of play. Selecting the Performance mode attenuates the problem, but if you want
to play intensively on the ZEPHYRUS G16 2024, I strongly recommend using headphones. For those
who use this laptop for work, Performance mode is a better choice, especially since the difference
in performance will not be as visible as in games. Ah, and there's one more notable downside,
which I will never cease to mention, namely the bloatware on the laptop. A good part of the
functions in Armoury Crate and MyASUS are useful, but at least for heaven's sake, ditch McAfee, the
antivirus that is more intrusive than a virus. Also, on the software side, an optimization of the
switching system between the video cards would be useful because when launching a 3D utility or a
game, you get about three or four notifications from the Optimus system, the brightness changes
about just as many times and even if it doesn't impede the laptop's functioning, it is annoying.
Otherwise, concluding, we have here a sensational laptop. With an elegant build, a flawless OLED
screen, with performances all the more remarkable as they are packaged in such a light and thin
chassis, the ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 clearly distances itself from last year's model and reorients
towards a more mature audience. If you work for example in an architectural office, but in
your free time you pull in a gaming session, the G16 2024 can be a very good choice: it doesn't
look like a gaming laptop, but it has enough power for any task. On the other hand, you kind of have
to work in an architectural office to afford it, because the version we tested, with 4090, 32 GB
RAM, and 2TB SSD, is listed in the ASUS store at $3500. Now, there are not many more powerful
16-inch models on the market, and even though a MacBook with an M3 Max, like my 14-core one,
offers at the same price a comparable performance in productivity work and a substantially longer
battery life, the G16 has the advantage of a significantly more powerful graphic subsystem,
which, together with the operating system, allows for an excellent gaming experience. But
this is the top dog; prices for the ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 start at around $2500, money for which you
get the same aluminum chassis and even the same CPU. The difference is that at the entry-level
model you will less RAM, beware, non-upgradable, a GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop video card, and 1TB
of storage. The battery capacity is the same, the audio system is the same, so you get a good
part of the constructive quality and processing power of the model we tested, at half the price
of the top of the range. Which I say is still a good deal. And as all good things come to an end,
as I hope this laptop and this video have been, tell us below in the comments section: how do you
like the new ROG Zephyrus G16? Are you excited by this more subdued and mature look of the new
model, or do you think that with this tempering of the design, it has lost some of its charm? But
what about the fact that ROG has now thought of it more as an all-around good laptop, both for
productivity and gaming, what do you think, is it an inspired move or not exactly? That's it for
today, subscribe to Techniqualities, of course, only if you think we deserve it and you want to
reward our work, thank you and good luck!
