The Best Gaming Laptop. Period

    

The Best Gaming Laptop. Period

But that's fine because this thing is absolutely 

sweet on paper at least.The  Zephyrus looks like everything a modern laptop can be.It's crazy fast, relatively lightweight,and it's built with the finest materials available.It even looks really good.I mean, is this finally it? The zero compromises gaming laptop?that left too much performance on the the name of thinness and sex appeal.I mean, that would be a compromise Wouldn't it?Especially if somebody else did it better.What I'd never compromise this message from our sponsor Honey.Honey is the free to use browser extension that helps you find the best promo codes at over 3000 site.Get it today  Zephyrus G 15 G A 503 leaves an excellent first impression,doesn't it?It's got a reinforced magnesium chassis a massive glass top track pad.And instead of , has gone full classy  with this sweet prismatic film behind the 8,279 holes in the lid that just barely catches the light and peaks through.Pure style.\Can I just take a moment to say thank you.Finally, the industrial design of gaming laptop sis getting the same kind of attention as the thermal and the power delivery.IO is overall solid but I do wish the HDMI port was the 2.1 variety and this being an AMD laptop you're getting two USB type C 10 GB per second ports instead of Thunderbolt 3 that's a potentially deal breaking downgrade if you have invested in the Thunderbolt ecosystem. Moving inside, though, we've already shown the  95,900 HS shredding Intel's flagship core  9 and that was in a much smaller design. So unsurprisingly, in this more robust enclosure the performance numbers that puts up are enough to make any more blue machine absolutely cower in fear. Which means that the more relevant comparison to ensure that hasn't compromised on performance

is of course another AMD machine.

Ah, yes, the specter

that loomed before,

There we go, ah much better.

While both of these machines are similarly equipped

on paper.

There are some key differences.

The

 NEO 15 here gets the 45

rather than the 35 watt  98 core.

And it gets the 135 watt version of the  3080 model.

Probably the most beautiful thing

about the = Neo 15 though,

is that after you buy it,

 doesn't seem to give two hoots what you do with it.

So naturally we started by sliding every one of the dials

all the way to the right

for a generous 80 Watts on the CPU and 135 Watts on the GPU.

Of course  has some fun sliders too

but the CPU only goes to 45 Watts boo!

And the GPU tab turns every game you play

into Alta 4 simulator.

Which is a good game.

I just wouldn't buy an entire machine

for the express purpose of playing it.

Truthfully though,

it's not the end of the world in our experience

with both of the machines turned up to their

Dyson performance profiles.

So named for the wonderful noises

that they make.

The G

 1 5 GPU sat above 1400 MHz

with temps in the mid seventies, super reasonable.

That's not bad.

So it's clear then that in the name of thinness

 is giving up somewhere in the neighborhood

of 10 to as much as 30% of the performance

the Silicon could be capable of.

But here's another perspective.

Even operating in it's much quieter default profile

which will cost you about 10 FPS across the board.

It easily beats the best of last gen

even in their loudest possible profiles.

And like, it looks like this doing it.

Surprisingly it was actually the CPU bound games

where the NEO 15 was able to pull ahead the most

with the GPU in those efforts punching well

above the official specs of an 80 watt chip.

Realistically then,

if you're looking to choose between these two laptops,

it comes down to what you plan on doing.

If you wanna get real nerdy

and do some memory overclocking

and you know, you need to do professional video editing

or you can't stand the idea of losing five to 10 FPS,

get the NEO.

By the way we'll have a video going over this laptop

more thoroughly on our short circuit channel.

So make sure you subscribe to that.

For my money though I would choose the Zephyrus

for its easier daily .

And although we haven't been able to test it.

So I can't say this for sure.

I think that the  3070 equipped version

looks like the sweet spot.

Since you could save a couple bucks

likely have similar class performance

and a cooler and overall quieter experience.

Just like how you can be cooler

by purchasing a T-shirt from l t t store.com.

(upbeat music)

Something that anyone looking at an  3070,

or 3080 equip laptop needs to do,

is check the available display options.

The thing is at 10 ADP

you're gonna be wasting this GPU's power.

And 4 K is still stupid at the screen sizes

not offering any kind of meaningful benefit.

So I absolutely love

that the industry has begun moving towards 1440 P

for this generation.

And the 1440 P 165 Hz IP S panel on the Zephyrus

is an absolute joy to game on.

It's got adaptive sync to eliminate tearing

and smooth out stutter.

And it strikes an ideal balance of sharpness,

high refresh rate

and rich color with 100% coverage of the D C I P 3 color space.

If I had a complaint,

it would be that it's not particularly bright.

And that if you were a professional

trying to do color accurate work on it,

the average (indistinct) of 3.8 out of the box

is going to require you to get it professionally calibrated

before you can really trust it.

With that said,

it's definitely good enough for gaming right out of the box.

Continuing with things that are great.

The track pad.

For a gaming laptop, it's freaking huge

and the glass top makes using it a breeze.

Also given we were able to get about 10 hours

of office work on battery.

The G 15 is one of the first gaming laptops

that you could whip out at the coffee shop

or the library without losing too much street cred

with the Apple M 1 Mac Book Crowd.

When you have to drag an extension cord out of your bag.

(laughing)

- No. No this is what you want.

- Yeah.

What the heck is that?

- What do you mean?

- What! - This!

- Moving up the keyboard is excellent with a snappy

but soft feel

that allowed me to easily get up to full speed

and A  U S also ad ed this little bit of venting

under the W A S D keys.

They claim that this was to keep your gamer fingers

nice and cool,

but I think they mostly had to do this to avoid the keyboard

getting too hot during long gaming sessions.

For the typing field though, and overall layout.

This is an easy eight plus in my book

but I would like to take a second to nitpick.

First although I respect that A S U S designers

have stuck with white lighting rather than R G B.

I do wish that they had done the light piping

a little bit better

and the function keys, frankly,

don't make a ton of sense.

We've got plane mode, sleep, fan control

and then Aura R G B software

but this is on a laptop without R G B.

And then they didn't include pause and play.

I mean, I don't know about you guys

but I turned my music on and off way more often

than I go onto a plane,

especially in the last year or so.

And being able to change the song quickly

would also be appreciated.

Speaking of things that suck.

To say that the webcam is unexceptional

would be an understatement.

Because it hasn't got one.

And no webcam also means no facial recognition.

When questioned A S U S said they don't bother

including webcams

because game don't need them.

But then this is weird.

They dedicate this huge chunk of the product page

to the fancy try mode microphone.

Not only does the AI noise canceling suck

but who is using the integrated microphone on their laptop

but not using the webcam.

If you're a gamer you got a headset

and if you're not a gamer

then you need a webcam for your British Skype calls.

At least A S U S managed to include

the second best way to unlock a laptop.

Hidden in the power button is a fingerprint reader

that caches your fingerprint when you press it,

then hands it over to windows at the login screen

for a super seamless login experience.

Opening it up.

We get to look at the 90 watt hour battery

and the two subs on either side

that offered decent base even if it's not quite at the same

level as a Mac Book or an X P S 15.

And we also find two M.2 slots

for easy storage up

and a single sodium slot for what I would describe as

somewhat easy RAM 

I use the word somewhat

because one half is soldered directly to the board

while the other half is on a stick.

Above that is the exceptionally complicated looking

cooling system with six heat pipes snaking their way

across the chassis

along with these very slim, but very wide heat sinks.

So, the Zephyrus G 15 G A 503, is really an excellent laptop.

The R T X 3070 model that we lean toward

is gonna set you back at casual 1800 US dollar

which is a lot of money.

But for what you're getting

it really doesn't look too bad.

You just have to hope that A S U S made enough of these

that you can actually buy one.

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If you're looking for another video to watch now,

go check out our video on invidious 3000 series GPU's

for laptops.

There is a shocking amount

that you need to know about these cards

to make an informed choice as a consumer