Review Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS Tested

[Admin]

With an AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS CPU, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a portable powerhouse and one of the best AMD-based laptops we’ve ever seen.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS Tested : Read more

 

[refillable]

Wow, this is incredible. The battery life and the performance are absolutely mind blowing. Sustained Cinebench score of 3500+, that 9980HK-crushing handbrake performance, and ultrabook-like battery life. Intel mobile execs must be gnashing their teeth.

 

[jeremyj_83]

"The Zephyrus G14 lost to the Dell XPS 15 with an i9-9980HK (28,882) and GTX 1650, but that’s in a configuration that costs $2,650 and also has 32GB of RAM. "
Ummmm you might want to redo that because the "On Geekbench 4.3, it earned a score of 30,181." Last I checked Geekbench uses higher scores are better and 30,181 > 28,882

 

[Dragonking_1]

"The Zephyrus outpeormed on Grand Theft Auto V’s benchmark (very high, 1920 x 1080) at 115 fps, losing by two frames to the Dell but easily beating the Predator with 87 fps. "

Here, this is again in conflict with the graph. The Dell (66 fps) is no where close to the Zephyrus at 115 fps.

And btw, the battery life on this machine speaks heaps about the efficiency of this CPU - I had trouble believing the battery life results for a minute there.

 

[jeremyj_83]

"It has comparable performance to the 45W, 6-core, 12 thread Intel CPUs in a similar price point. "
Based on the benchmarks the 4900HS has comparable performance to the 45W 8c/12t i9-9900HK at a much lower price and superior performance to the 45W 6c/12t i7-9750H at a similar price.

 

[Kiril1512]

Wow this laptop is incredible an the new AMD CPU is also promising... Let's see what will other brands offer in terms of configurations and price (MSI, Lenovo, HP...).

 

[Keithian]

Helpful review, but there is a section that is about Gaming, Graphics and VR, yet there is zero mention of VR in that section, or anywhere else I saw in the article. How could they have omitted that? lol. It would be nice if they edited the article with that information, as there are people like me who would never buy the laptop unless it was properly suited for VR. Fortunately I saw another review, the only one so far, that mentioned VR and said it got a 9.8 out of 11 on the SteamVR Test, above the category average of 9.2, so it sounds like this would be a good VR machine as well.

 

[vinay2070]

Not related to the CPU, but webcam should be a basic thing on a laptop. I cant believe they didnt include it. I will probably wait for other players to pitch in.

 

[AlistairAB]

Not related to the CPU, but webcam should be a basic thing on a laptop. I cant believe they didnt include it. I will probably wait for other players to pitch in.

meh I use a stand with my phone for video chats, always

 

[gg83]

I'm excited for the ultraportable space. Intel, AMD, and Arm. Prices should be good if the world doesn't fall apart first

 

[watzupken]

This just blew whatever Intel base laptop out of the water from a performance, battery life and price perspective. In other words, Intel is simply outclassed here. The arrival of the 10xxx series it not going to help them from a performance and battery life perspective where they are simply limited by their 14nm chips. Tiger Lake U is unlikely to save them in this market segment because the 10nm Intel chips are still limited to the 15/25W in the retail space, and likely will only be released later this year.

To be honest, this really made me quite excited about getting a Renoir based laptop. Have not felt so excited getting a laptop for sometime.

 

[saunupe1911]

So when we expect laptops to have HDMI 2.1? I can't see myself buying a laptop until then.

 

[Lil’bertz]

I find it funny that the cons is having no Thunderbolt 3. what do you expect? its a AMD CPU. you can't expect TB3 in a AMD laptop/device. lmao

 

[jeremyj_83]

I find it funny that the cons is having no Thunderbolt 3. what do you expect? its a AMD CPU. you can't expect TB3 in a AMD laptop/device. lmao

Intel made TB3 available royalty free last year. https://newsroom.intel.com/news/int...olt-3-everywhere-releases-protocol/#gs.1qyc5a

 

[closs.sebastien]

laptop without webcam.. in 2020????
and super thick...

 

[majaczos22]

Intel made TB3 available royalty free last year. https://newsroom.intel.com/news/int...olt-3-everywhere-releases-protocol/#gs.1qyc5a

It's not about royalties, Intel still wants control and access to the source code of the device and I don't see AMD giving it to their competitor.

 

[svan71]

" AMD Ryzen 4900HS offers strong performance"thats a bit of an understatement after cleaning intels clock.

 

[jeremyj_83]

It's not about royalties, Intel still wants control and access to the source code of the device and I don't see AMD giving it to their competitor.

Intel has certified an AMD motherboard to have TB3 though.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-motherboard-asrock-first-thunderbolt-certification-intel

 

[Chris Fetters]

Intel made TB3 available royalty free last year. https://newsroom.intel.com/news/int...olt-3-everywhere-releases-protocol/#gs.1qyc5a

The certification process is still deliberately ridiculously expensive, long, and onerous for non-Intel based products though, which is why only like 4 AM4 boards have official support. Until it becomes truly free & open with USB 4, don't expect it to be common in AMD machines.

 

[GoldSolitude]

It's kind of staggering how nobody mentions how the display is ridiculously high latency, like near 40ms.. is this not an issue for gamers? Did you not notice this in using the computer or have ASUS put in a low latency screen now and I got my sources wrong?

 

[rileyscott123]

Just got my g15 and I've been playing with it for a couple of days. I have to say it tends to get SUPER HOT. I don't know what happened with the cooling solution until I stumbled upon this on youtube

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqXFtrIKdLg


I'm returning this coz the thermal performance could not be more ridiculously poor-designed. Also round of applause for their customer service in the video, cOz I hErAd tHEy ArE JuSt DeVinE smh

 

[twotwotwo]

Just got my g15 ... it tends to get SUPER HOT. I don't know what happened with the cooling solution until I stumbled upon this on youtube

Wild. FWIW, the G14 reviewed here (vs. your soon-to-be-ex-G15) does not have the bottom vents blocked; I feel the air flowing in. Parts of the keyboard get hot under load like you can see in the review here, but I use an external keyboard and mouse then.

I don't know a ton about how the G14 compares to other laptops thermally, but der8auer cracks a G14 open and messes with it and UltrabookReview talks about it after using one for a month.

 

[Arbie]

Too bad you didn't test the 4900HS integrated graphics, at least for information and comparison, while you had the machine.

 

[twotwotwo]

Too bad you didn't test the 4900HS integrated graphics, at least for information and comparison, while you had the machine.

Broadly this gen's GPUs have been about 30% better than the 3xxx series. AnandTech had some iGPU tests in their review and a search turns up this video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rz0zfony0A

 

[Arbie]

Broadly this gen's GPUs have been about 30% better than the 3xxx series. AnandTech had some iGPU tests in their review and a search turns up this video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rz0zfony0A

Thanks for the info. And yes, we can search elsewhere. But each reviewer brings a different viewpoint, different games, different knowledge. This could have added to the slim field so far.