You do get a pair of microphones just beneath the screen. The ample overhead means users can game and recharge the battery at the normal rate simultaneously. Even so, port positioning is still a mixed bag because the ports are very close up front instead of towards the rear. The Asus Zephyrus G GA502GU has been finely tuned to balance gaming performance with appearance perhaps better than any other gaming laptop before it at this price range. In conclusion, this AMD/Nvidia based platform can still run most games and doesn’t get extremely noisy, but the inner components do reach high temperatures, with the CPU averaging 86-88 degrees C in the tested titles, and the GPU averaging 78-82 degrees C. Now, in order to draw final conclusions on this notebook’s gaming abilities, we will compare our results with some of the same-class models with GTX 1660Ti graphics we’ve tested earlier. While some users may not be bothered by it at all, we find it hard to ignore when listening to music, watching video, or playing games. Color space is limited to just 60 percent of sRGB to suggest a budget panel. Users who must have these features can instead consider the costlier MSI GS65 or Lenovo Legion Y740. It's compact and light and fast enough for daily chores and some gaming, lasts longer than the competition on a charge and is arguably the nicer looking and the nicer made option in its price-segment. Running DX12 titles on Turing will generally see a larger boost in performance when compared to running DX11 on a Pascal card. Running Fire Strike and Time Spy on Turbo Mode returns Graphics scores of 13355 and 5068 points, respectively, compared to 12621 and 4867 points when on mains. frequency)Highs 2 - 16 kHz(+) | balanced highs - only 3.7% away from median(±) | linearity of highs is average (9.3% delta to prev. Main Spec. This is where the Zephyrus G GA502DU falls behind the M and S variants. Many... 2020 Holiday Deals on ultrabooks and portable laptops, The search for the best wireless keyboard: Logitech K400 Plus vs. K830 vs. MX Keys, Fanless and silent laptops, Chromebooks and ultrabooks in 2020 – a detailed list, Asus ZenBook 13 UX325JA vs ZenBook 14 UX425JA compared, Copyright © 2011-2019 Ultrabookreview.com. As far as practicality goes, this Zephyrus G is still one of the sturdier units in its class, as well as one of the most compact and lightest, at just over 4.5 lbs, so it can be an excellent option for those interested in lugging their laptop to school or work every day. With 15 screws to remove, however, the process definitely takes a bit of patience. I haven't touched the Alpha 15, so can't comment on it. Meanwhile, the integrated mouse keys are shallow in travel with soft and quiet feedback. No lo compres, Walmart has the sexy Asus ROG Zephyrus G with Ryzen 7 CPU and GeForce GTX 1660 Ti on sale right now for $900 USD. Getting to the components is fairly easy, as the laptop opens from underneath and the bottom panel is held in place by a handful of Phillips screws, all clearly visible. We haven’t noticed any electronic noise on our sample, yet that’s not a guarantee you won’t encounter any on yours. 1,49,990) to us, I was excited to see what Asus had accomplished with this Zephyrus laptop. 8 GB to 16 GB of single-channel DDR4 RAM at 1200 MHz is soldered onto the motherboard depending on the SKU. These modes are annoyingly independent of the Windows power profiles. Flagship looks with mid-range gaming performance at a budget price point. While we will get our hands on them eventually, why not spice the things up with the already available model - the Zephyrus GA502DU. And here’s how these compare in terms of speeds and temperatures in Witcher 3, all on the Tweaked profiles. We’ll get to talk about both the CPU’s and GPU’s performance in a bit. The hinges are otherwise well made, sturdy enough to keep the screen as set-up, but also smooth enough to allow to lift-up the screen and adjust it with a single hand. Even so, there’s no doubt you’re going to sacrifice on the screen quality and performance compared to other laptops in the same price-segment, and you’d be lacking features that you might want, like an RGB keyboard, fast wireless or an SD card-reader, among others. There are no extras in the box other than the AC adapter and Quick Start guide which is understandable for a relatively inexpensive gaming laptop. Follow this link for updated prices and configurations at the time you’re reading the article. Budget gaming laptops are notorious for their dull looks, cheap plastics, and thicker profiles. That aside, though, this still gets a pretty good layout and it’s a quick and friendly typer. mid-2019 lineup of Asus ROG Zephyrus gaming ultraportables in several previous articles, many other 15-inch laptops in the $1000-$1400 price range, there are definitely better options for you out there, Follow this link for updated prices and configurations at the time you’re reading the article, Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro 14″ and 16″ – AMD Ryzen 5000, Nvidia graphics and 16:10 90/120 Hz screens, AMD Ryzen 7 4800U/4700U laptops – specs, benchmarks and complete list of devices, Best Chromebooks of 2020 – comparisons, reviews and buying guide, 15.6 inch, 1920 x 1080 px resolution, IPS, 120 Hz, matte, Panda LM156LF-GL panel, Radeon RX Vega 10 and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660Ti 6GB 60W (GeForce 431.36), 16 GB DDR4 2666 MHz (8 GB soldered, 1x DIMMs – up to 24 GB), 512 GB SSD (M.2 80 mm PCIe x2 – Intel 660p SSDPEKNW512G8) + 1 extra M.2 80 mm slot, Realtek 8821CE AC 1×1 WiFi with Bluetooth 5.0, Realtek RTL8168/8111 Gigabit LAN, 3x USB-A 3.2, 1x USB-C gen 2 with DP, HDMI 2.0b, LAN, headphone/mic, Kensington Lock, 360 mm or 14.17” (w) x  252 mm or 9.92” (d) x 20.4 mm or .79” (h), 2.08 kg (4.58 lb), .56 kg (1.23 lbs) power brick and cables, EU version, white backlit keyboard with per-key control, 2x bottom stereo speakers, FHD external webcam, a fine allrounder, handles daily use and games well, no card-reader, no biometrics, no USB-C charging, not a great screen - rather dim and washed out colors, just a 60W implementation of the 1660Ti chip, runs hot with games, both internally and externally. Our test unit ships with the base 8 GB of single-channel RAM and so all our benchmarks below reflect this setup. What´s New. The display backlight flickers at 21280 Hz (Likely utilizing PWM) Flickering detected at a brightness setting of 34 % and below. When I'm not managing day-to-day activities and US review articles on Notebookcheck, you can catch me following the eSports scene and the latest gaming news. ASUS ROG Zephyrus GA502DU: CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3750H Processor 2.3GHz (6M cache, up to 4.0GHz): Operating System: Windows 10: Memory: 8GB DDR4: Storage: 512GB NVMe … We can notice no coil whine on our test unit. The Zephyrus G chassis is closely related to the Zephyrus S GX502. Asus pairs this configuration with a 180 Wh power brick. The Zephyrus series is Asus' flagship family of ultra-thin gaming laptops followed by the mid-range Strix/Hero series and the entry-level budget TUF series. Down below I’ve added the Acer Nitro 5 17, the Asus Zephyrus M GU502 and the MSI GL63, all based on a Core i7/1660Ti 80 W platform, as well as the Asus TUF Gaming FX705 built on an R7 3750/1660Ti 80W hardware. As far as the GPU comes, the GA502 gets a snipped version of the 1660Ti chip, with a TDP of 60 W and reduced speeds and performance when compared to the standard 80W 1660Ti variant available in the Zephyrus M GU502 and many other 15-inch laptops in the $1000-$1400 price range. The GA502GU can outperform these alternatives with its more capable GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q GPU all while sporting a thinner, more power efficient, and more luxurious design for nearly the same price. Owners can register their purchases to make the most of the manufacturer warranty. However, does this unique combination of AMD and Nvidia actually man… There’s no internal webcam on the Zephyrus G GA502, instead, Asus bundles an external FHD webcam instead (in some regions, not everywhere), which offers better image quality. Asus ROG Zephyrus G (GA502DU) reviews, pros and cons, Amazon price history. The Zephyrus lineup itself has since expanded into additional subcategories including the super-slim Zephyrus S series, mid-range Zephyrus M series, and the more affordable Zephyrus G series. We’ll get to gaming down below, but first, you should know that this handles everyday chores smoothly, while running coolly and quietly. Back to the 120 Hz panel, in all fairness, you’re not going to notice the drop from 144 to 120 Hz, but competitive gamers will notice the reduced response time, while regular users will notice the middling max brightness when using the laptop outdoors or in other bright environments, as well as the limited gamut coverage. Asus … It’s also worth adding that Asus offers the Zephyrus G GA502 with an FHD 60 Hz screen in some regions, on the base-level configurations, which is even dimmer, as you can see from this article. Pricier higher-end gaming laptops equipped with the hexa-core Core i7-8750H or i7-9750H will offer 40 to 50 percent faster CPU performance than our affordable Ryzen. The quad-core AMD Ryzen 7 3750H CPU is designed to be an alternative to the quad-core Coffee Lake Intel 8th gen Core i7-8300H and 9th gen Core i7-9300H. All of them are however based on the AMD Ryzen R7 3750H + Nvidia GTX 1660Ti 60W hardware, just as our unit. Base rigidity is very good with only minimal creaking and warping when attempting to bend its edges or depress the center of the keyboard. When running Prime95 to stress the CPU, we can observe clock rates boost to 4.0 GHz before dropping by just 100 MHz to a generally stable 3.9 GHz. When compared to the Asus ROG GX531GM with the last generation GTX 1060, the new Turing card is about 18 to 34 percent faster. Once you do, you’ll find this to be a quick typer, but fairly unforgiving. Our test unit is configured with the former and so all our measurements below reflect only the 1080p60 panel. With that out of the way, let’s look at some gaming results. Actual fan noise, however, depends highly on the preset Asus' power profiles. We experienced no software or hardware issues during our time with the test unit. It's one step down from the enthusiast RTX 2060 and it therefore lacks the AI acceleration and dedicated ray-tracing capabilities of the RTX series. On that note, the Zephyrus G GA502 is a competent multi-purpose laptop. frequency)Highs 2 - 16 kHz(+) | balanced highs - only 2% away from median(+) | highs are linear (4.5% delta to prev. At worst, these limitations detract only little from the core 1080p gaming experience and RAM is fortunately easy to expand if desired. Our review unit was offered by Asus for the purpose of this review and is a final unit, identical to the ones available in retail, however, those might get different amounts of memory and storage. *Load Tweaked Silent – playing Far Cry 5 for 30 minutes, fans at 3700+ rpm, 36-38 dB. Here’s what we got on our unit, with our Spyder4 sensor: The panel can use some calibration out of the box, and you can do it yourselves or use our profile over here to address the White Point and gray-levels imbalances. frequency)Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz(±) | linearity of overall sound is average (16.4% difference to median)Compared to same class» 42% of all tested devices in this class were better, 13% similar, 45% worse» The best had a delta of 6%, average was 17%, worst was 37%Compared to all devices tested» 22% of all tested devices were better, 6% similar, 72% worse» The best had a delta of 3%, average was 21%, worst was 65%, (+) | speakers can play relatively loud (83.6 dB)Bass 100 - 315 Hz(±) | reduced bass - on average 11.3% lower than median(±) | linearity of bass is average (14.2% delta to prev. In truth, however, fan noise between Balanced and Turbo modes are nearly identical when gaming. While we will get our hands on them eventually, why not spice the things up with the already available model - the Zephyrus GA502DU. However, if portability is not at the top of your list, there are better options in this budget, and will explain why in the article down below, where I’ve gathered my impressions of the ROG Zephyrus G GA502DU, with the strong points and the quirks. Switching to Balanced doesn’t have any impact on the fans’ behavior, unlike on the Zephyrus M and S models, and while on Silent they’re barely audible at 36-38 dB, gaming on Silent is not really an option, as it leads to decreased performance and even higher inner and outer shell temperatures. The Asus ROG Zephyrus G GA502 is already available in stores around the world in the GA502DU variant reviewed here, with the Ryzen 7 3750H processor, Nvidia GTX 1660Ti 60 W GPU, 8 GB of RAM, a 512 GB SSD and the 120Hz screen, with an MSRP of $1099 in the US, 1100 GBP in the UK and around 1300 EUR in Europe. July 20, 2019 at 6:49 am. GPU performance will be reduced when running on batteries. I am confused between this laptop and MSI Alpha 15 (with the same processor and RX 5500M). However, while gaming on the Silent profile is possible, it’s at reduced performance, as both the CPU and GPU clock to lower frequencies (1.4 GHz – CPU, 1.25 GHz GPU in Witcher 3), and with increased interior and exterior temperatures, so it’s not something we’d recommend. ASUS ROG Zephyrus G (GA502DU-AL005T) in-depth review Everybody is talking about ASUS and their new ROG Zephyrus G14 and G15 that accommodate the latest AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS processor. However, while I complained about it on the Zephyrus M, it’s not a bad option at this lower price-point, although you will find faster drives with some of the other full-size alternatives. We didn’t run into any drop or sluggishness, but if you need fast transfer speeds or a large coverage, this is not going to be the laptop for you. My only complaint is with the screen’s limited back angle, of about 120-130 degrees, which limits usability on the lap or in other cramped spaces. Fans draw fresh air from the WASD keys to keep this area cool for gamers in a similar manner to the Razer Blade 15. The chassis gets fairly hot with games as well, not just the components inside, with several parts reaching temperatures in the mid-50s, and the WASD keys averaging a barely comfortable 40+ C. The fans spin fairly loudly as well, at 48-49 dB at head-level, although not as loud as on the Zephyrus M and most of the other laptops out there. At 250 nits, though, this panel is good enough for indoor use, but the 51% AdobeRGB coverage is barely OK for daily use in this day and age and definitely not optimal for those interested in performing any sort of color-calibrated work. ASUS - ROG Zephyrus G 15.6" Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 7 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q - 512GB SSD - Metalic Hairline Black Model: GA502DU-BR7N6 SKU: 6335912 User rating, 4.2 out of 5 stars with 997 reviews. Note: The manufacturer may use components from different suppliers including display panels, drives or memory sticks with similar specifications. Real-world performance is slightly slower than expected. There are no methods of undervolting or tweaking this CPU, at least none that I know of, so we had to settle with what we could get with out-of-the-box settings. Thus, we recommend setting the system to Balanced mode or lower with the integrated GPU active for quieter fans and longer battery life if simply browsing or streaming video. 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