ROG Zephyrus G14 (Full Review)

Apple’s M1 laptops have gotten a lot of attention in the past few years, usually reserved for cutting-edge and exciting hardware. But for Windows, some hype should be confined to the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. One of the most powerful systems you can buy is Asus Vivobook 15.

The G14 joined the market in 2020 as a reasonably priced, portable wonder. Unfortunately, since it has become more developed, its price has risen significantly. The value model may not be what it once was.

However, it is still a fantastic computer, especially with this year’s new aspect ratio, including a webcam and only AMD processors. Except for its poor battery life, the laptop comes very close to being the ideal all-arounder.

ROG Zephyrus G14

The high-end laptop ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022), model GA402R, is thin and light. It directly competes with the Razer Blade 14 and replaces the GA401 model from 2021 with AMD Ryzen 5000-series CPUs and NVIDIA RTX GPUs.

This 2022 model has a lot of upgrades, including a 16:10 display, an all-AMD system, a Ryzen 6000 CPU, and Radeon RX 6700S and 6800S GPUs. ASUS has also added a MUX switch, a 720p webcam, and a MicroSD card reader for better performance.

Our ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 has 16GB of memory, an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS CPU, an AMD Radeon RX 6700S GPU, and 1TB of storage. There is only one CPU choice, the AMD Ryzen 6900HS.

If you desire a GPU with more excellent performance, you can upgrade to an AMD Radeon RX 6800S. There is only one 1TB storage option, but there are two memory configurations: 16GB and 32GB. There are two color schemes available: Eclipse Gray or Moonlight White.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Alan Walker is a rather unusual laptop for music production because it was created in partnership with the well-known YouTube DJ. Not only does this mean it has beautiful colors over the standard Zephyrus G14 laptop, but the actual box it comes in can also be used as a controller for mixing or as a synth pad that connects through USB-C with a specific app.

This allows you to start creating immediately, but if you believe this to be a gimmick or already possess your equipment, you’ll still find that this laptop is a significant investment. It has many connections and decent hardware, so it can easily handle any music production software.

Design 

Our Zephyrus G14 (2022) review device measures 12.28 x 8.94 x 0.77 inches, weighs 3.79 pounds, and is decked out in Asus’ dazzling Moonlight White color scheme. If you activate the optional AniMe Matrix mini-LED display on the back of the lid, it becomes more eye-catching (not included on all models, more on that later).

But even if you don’t, the Zephyrus G14 looks elegant, with rounded angles and tapered edges balancing off the sharp diagonal vents strewn around the chassis. When you use it, you’ll see a generously sized keyboard and touchpad underneath a vivid 14-inch display with nice narrow bezels on either side and thicker bezels at the top and bottom.

I appreciate how the laptop’s screen side hinge protrudes out a little bit, lifting the device slightly off the table when you open it. In addition to pushing the keyboard slightly upward at the top, which feels more comfortable in my hands, this appears to boost the airflow underneath the laptop, which is essential for cooling.

Gaming Performances

We benchmarked more than 40 titles to evaluate the Radeon RX 6800S’s gaming performance fully and came to the following conclusions. 1) The G14 benefits from its potent processor and can occasionally surpass Intel-powered notebooks equipped with RTX 3080 GPUs when gaming at lower resolutions, which tend to be CPU-bound rather than GPU-bound.

Due to this, performance ratings are distorted, making the RX 6800S appear to be the fastest GPU on the market. Keep this in mind. 2) Raytracing performance is generally subpar and, in some situations, incapable of keeping up with a GTX 3060, as is typical for AMD GPUs. 3)

We discovered that the AMD GPU is more affected by the VRAM restriction in high resolutions and settings than Nvidia GPUs, such as the RTX 3070 with 8 GB of RAM. Overall, the Radeon RX 6800S outperformed a GeForce RTX 3070 mainly because of its outstanding results in simulated benchmarks.

However, real-world performance will vary more than is typical for Nvidia GPUs and heavily depend on the game engine. That is to say, some games will perform significantly better than anticipated, while others will perform considerably worse.

The Zephyrus G14 has adequate power to run every modern game fluently at native 2560 x 1600 resolution and full features. Only in Crysis Remastered and Cyberpunk 2077 were we able to record frame rates below 40 FPS in 2560 x 1440 and extreme settings.

Noise Emissions

The performance profile that is chosen has a significant impact on noise emissions. We discovered that Turbo mode might emit up to 51 dB(A) when running 3D apps. Without headphones, this level of noise is distressingly loud.

The figures below show the performance mode, which proved to be a good compromise between performance and noise emissions. The Witcher 3’s operating noise level of 43 dB(A) is lower than what all of the G14’s rivals managed to attain (between 44 and 53 dB(A)). The same applies to its 45 dB peak (A).

The G14’s idle performance was likewise commendable. Unlike many other laptops, the G14 never cranked up its fans unnecessarily high. While the fans were never entirely silent, we found its noise emissions tolerable and inconspicuous. This was true even when low-load tasks like using office programs, watching videos, or browsing the internet were carried out.

Temperature

Neither the high nor low temperatures were unusually extreme. While under load, we discovered that the back of the laptop heated up significantly more than the front when case temperatures decreased to around 30 °C when idle. A maximum of 55 °C are too high for gaming with the device resting on your lap.

The projected power and cooling competition between the CPU and GPU took place. The RX 6800S reached over 80 °C while the Ryzen 9 6900HS reached over 90 °C after 60 minutes of our stress test, which ran Furmark and Prime95 simultaneously. These temperatures are both high but not yet essential. Please note that these results were obtained in Performance mode and that Turbo and Silent modes will produce different results.

Battery’s Life

A feature known as the MXU switch, which is part of the Armoury Crate software, enables users to switch between load-based graphics switching and dGPU alone (which we had activated for our 3D and gaming benchmarks only).

For a notebook with this level of high-end hardware, the combination of an energy-efficient GPU, a generally low power consumption, and a sizable 76 Wh battery results in a very long battery life of 18 hours when idle (minimum brightness in Silent mode), and 9.5 hours when browsing the web on Wi-Fi (brightness normalized to 150 nits).

The 14-inch, brilliant display and long battery life of the G14 make it the ideal travel companion. While the GPU performance drops by around 40% in power mode, the CPU performance is only slightly affected (tested with 3D Mark 11).

Editors Rating

4.5 Out Of 5 Stars

Product Testing

For gaming, we tried the $2,500 model, which has an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS processor and AMD Radeon RX 6800S graphics card. With this, your performance will be correct in the middle of what you’d get from an RTX 3070 and an RTX 3080 graphics card from Nvidia.

That represents a significant improvement over earlier G14 versions, which were limited to an RTX 3060 GPU. The result is frame rates of roughly 60 fps and above at Ultra settings on this 1440p 120-Hz monitor.

You must choose low or medium settings for FPS games like Apex Legends if you want to get the full 120 frames per second on this laptop. The glass trackpad has developed in size this year and continues to be appropriately responsive, and the keyboard is the nicest I’ve tested on any 14-inch laptop.

A camera (at last!) and a squarer 16:10 aspect ratio are additional improvements. It’s simple to feel at home using this productivity tool, thanks to the improved display and keyboard combination.

Product Comparison

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022)’s 14-inch WQXGA (2,560 x 1,600 pixels) display looks good in person, and the 16:10 aspect ratio feels spacious when you have several open windows on the desktop. The display is well-suited for producing the most incredible visuals in games and movies because of its 120Hz refresh rate, 3ms response time, and compatibility with Dolby Vision HDR.

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio is an excellent example of how far the company has advanced in laptop design. This high-end smartphone features a gorgeous touch screen and lots of power inside. Additionally, it has a good battery life, which is advantageous if you edit or record while on the go. Since it’s a Microsoft product, Windows 11, in particular, is featured prominently.

Any music creation software you want to use will work without a hitch, and given the size of this laptop, the built-in speakers are excellent. Although it might need a few more ports, this attractive laptop is perfect for making music.

Conclusion

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is suitable for use in a classroom. It’s a small, portable laptop with plenty of processing power to tackle heavy tasks, making it ideal for students majoring in graphic design or 3D animation.

The display is bright and sharp, the keyboard feels more comfortable to type on for an extended period, and the touchpad is spacious and snappy. Even while the battery provides slightly more than 10 hours of average productivity, the hefty power adapter may still be necessary if you conduct any CPU- or GPU-intensive work.

Frequently Asked Questions