Review Summary
Expert Rating
For the longest time, Intel has been considered the choice of processor for creators, thanks to its enhanced compatibility with Adobe’s creative suite. That’s not to put any shade on AMD, which has been offering excellent Ryzen processors with usually more cores and better horsepower compared to Intel’s options. However, now with creators adopting other applications, coupled with AMD’s newest processors that are powerful as well as efficient, Team Red is finally on the rise.
In that context, ASUS announced its updated ROG Zephyrus G16 GA605, a laptop that can cater to gamers as well as creators. It comes with the all-new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor alongside a Studio-edition NVIDIA RTX 4060 GPU. All of this is packed inside a portable form factor. But how does it perform compared to its Intel counterpart, and is the AMD version a better value for money? Let’s find out as we take a closer look at the device in this ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 GA605WV review.
Table of Contents
Design and Display
Weighing at just 1.85kgs is the Zephyrus G16, which boasts a unique style statement. It’s smart, sleek, and powerful. The aluminium shell is minimalistic, but at the same time, screams premium. In fact, I dare say it’s one of the most stunning gaming laptops on the market, with a unique aesthetic.The Eclipse Gray colourway looks quite refined, though you can also opt for the Platinum White option if that’s more your vibe. In either case, there’s a Slash Lighting LED array on the rear side, which adds a bit of flair to the device. There’s just a white light underneath, though you can customise its animations, or switch it to a notification mode which comes in handy when the lid is closed.
Lifting the lid open is easy with a single hand, though the panel does wobble quite a lot. Thankfully, there’s only minimal flex to be seen around the lid as well as the keyboard area. It’s a compact keyboard, coupled with the speaker grill on either side and a large touchpad below it.
As for the display, the G16 comes with a 16-inch ROG Nebula Display with a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. That’s an aspect ratio of 16:10, making the panel excellent for productivity tasks, including content creation. Aiding that is the fact that this is an OLED panel, with excellent colour accuracy of 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage for creative use cases.
Further, the panel is also DisplayHDR 500 VESA Certified, and there’s Dolby Vision to satisfy fans of watching movies. In fact, while testing this, I was watching the latest episodes of The Penguin, and the dark scenes look absolutely stunning on this panel.
ASUS hasn’t forgotten about gamers either, with the panel offering a whopping 240Hz refresh rate with a 3ms response time. There’s support for NVIDIA G-Sync as well, and the games look quite smooth on this display.
Ports, Audio and I/O
In terms of connectivity, you might assume that the laptop comes with few ports thanks to its slim design. Thankfully, that’s not the case. On the left side, the Zephyrus G16 features an ASUS Slim Power Jack, a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port, a Type-C USB 4 port with support for DisplayPort and Power Delivery, a USB3.2 Gen2 Type-A port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.Then, over to the right side, there’s a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port with support for DisplayPort and Power Delivery as well, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, and a full-sized SD card reader. As a content creator, there’s no other port that you’d need.
There’s also a total of 4 speakers, coupled with tweeters on either side, to ensure excellent audio feedback. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as my MacBook Pro 14-inch, but boy is it close. Even at the highest volume, there’s no creaking, and the sound is quite well-balanced. Whether you’re watching a movie, or editing a video, the speakers will aid you well, and won’t leave you scrambling for a pair of headphones.
The G16 also comes with a 1080p webcam at the top, hiding inside the slim bezel. The overall quality is decent, aiding most work calls with ease. The webcam also has IR sensors next to it, thanks to which the laptop does support Windows Hello face unlock. It worked about 8 out of 10 times for me, which is good enough, I’d say.
Keyboard and Trackpad
The G16 might have a 16-inch panel, but the chassis is quite compact, and with the speaker grille on either side, there’s only room for a standard keyboard, and no numpad. Even the arrow keys are shrunk down to fit in a symmetrical design, and while there is RGB lighting underneath, it’s only a single zone.While that may sound concerning, the actual keyboard experience is really good. There’s 1.7mm key travel, and the large keycaps with the clear legends work very well. It’s not a clicky keyboard, but instead more on the silent side of things. As a result, when you’re working on editing a video, you won’t have to be concerned by the sound of the keyboard clicks.
As for the touchpad, it’s easily one of the best touchpads on a Windows laptop, similar to the likes of the Dell XPS and the Razer Blade. The massive glass surface is smooth to the touch, and there’s nice tactile feedback to each press too.
Performance and Battery Life
The Zephyrus G16 GA605WV unit that I tested was configured with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor coupled with 16GB LPDDR5X-7500MHz RAM. There’s the AMD XDNA NPU up to 50TOPS for AI-related tasks as well, including on-device renders like Stable Diffusion. For GPU prowess, there’s the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU with a TGP of 100W with Dynamic Boost. As for storage, the laptop comes with a 1TB NVMe Gen4 SSD, with excellent read/write speeds.Digging inside, the laptop comes with a total of three fans, and plenty of heatpipes. Despite the small form factor, ASUS has added an extra M.2 2280 slot if you wish to add more storage down the line. The RAM is soldered on though, and cannot be upgraded.
Now, moving to the actual numbers, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor performs exceptionally well, with excellent scores across the board. The laptop managed to score 23,241 and 1,183 in Cinebench R23 and R24 multi-core tests respectively. The RTX 4060 GPU also doesn’t disappoint, scoring 5,032 and 6,220 in 3DMark’s Time Spy Extreme and Fire Strike Ultra benchmarks respectively.
For comparison, the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H variant of the Zephyrus G16 that we tested earlier is slightly behind the Ryzen’s performance in Cinebench R23 and R24, despite costing more. Then again, the Intel variant does redeem its value in Geekbench’s multi-core performance. Nonetheless, the comparison shows that AMD’s chipset can keep up with the best that Intel has to offer.
Moving on to gaming, while you can easily enjoy AAA gaming on this panel on Ultra settings at 1600p, I’d suggest doing some fine tweaking to enjoy a stable 60 FPS. The OLED panel makes the Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 pop out really well, while a cinematic masterpiece like Red Dead Redemption 2 also looks stunning. As for eSports gaming, the 240Hz refresh rate is well suited for titles like Valorant and Apex Legends, both of which run extremely well on the G16.
Of course, since this is a laptop targeted towards creators, you’d be interested in that. I tested out both DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro, and both software ran flawlessly on the laptop, despite having resource-heavy timelines. It goes without saying but Photoshop also works very well.
What makes things better is that when you’re away from a power source, the AMD Radeon 890M GPU comes into play. While it’s not as powerful as the RTX 4060, it definitely gets the job done, and you can do most of your editing while being on the move too. The Radeon GPU is quite power efficient too, so you get excellent battery life as well.
Speaking of which, the laptop’s 90WHr battery managed to last a little under 10 hours in PCMark 10’s video loop battery test. That’s quite good, especially for content creators, who can use the laptop to edit things on the go. As for charging, there’s a compact 200W charger that ASUS provides, though you can also juice it from USB PD up to 100W.
Verdict
Comparing the Zephyrus G16 to similarly specced laptops would be an injustice since the G16 is designed for a different purpose. It’s not too thick and heavy but instead promotes portability. The laptop comes with plenty of power and has selective hardware perfect for most creators. While gamers definitely have other better options on the market, that also cost a lot cheaper, the G16 is a solid recommendation for content creators looking for a Windows alternative to the MacBook Pro.As for AMD vs Intel, the AMD variant is better if you want a creator’s laptop with good graphical prowess. There’s also the RTX 4070 variant, which again costs cheaper compared to the Intel option. That said, if you’re into 3D modeling, or need the top-of-the-line GPU, the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 variants are reserved for Intel’s SKUs only.
Editor’s Rating: 8 / 10
Pros:
- Portable design
- Stunning OLED display
- Good performance
- Long battery life
Cons:
- Display is prone to burn-in
- Not as powerful as heavier laptops