GTX 1080 Gaming Laptop Thin as Macbook Pro – ASUS Zephyrus
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,163 words · ~5 min read
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it's always the same damn tradeoff do
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you want performance or portability in a
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laptop well ASUS thinks they have solved
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both of these problems by creating a laptop that is only 1 and 12 mm thicker
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than a MacBook Pro but houses a freaking
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GTX 1080 graphics card but even if you
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can cram all of that Hardware into a
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form factor like this can a machine this
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thin possibly get the most out of those
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components not quite but it gets close
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enough to watch the video and see how well they
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did cyber power PCS line up of gaming
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desktops feature Intel's 7th generation core i7 processors check them out at the
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link below the Rog zephrus looks and feels
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special and is possibly the most uh 2017
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laptop that we've ever seen almost all
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the boxes are checked it's thin it's
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light especially for a gaming laptop and
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there is plenty of brushed aluminum and RGB lighting there is is a tiny bit of
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flex around the keyboard and screen but
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for something this thin the chassis is impressively rigid so full marks here I
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also feel like this might be some of the best industrial design to come out of
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ASUS so far it strikes a wonderful Middle Ground between premium gamery and
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professional and honestly I don't think you'd feel weird pulling it out of a
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backpack a briefcase or even a trendy messenger bag
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looking a little closelier when you open the zephrus you can see why it's named
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for the Greek god of the West Wind and bringer of light spring this 6 mm Gap at
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the back is the one somewhat flimsy
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feeling thing on this device but it serves a couple of
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purposes inclining the laptop slightly
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for a more comfortable typing experience and helping it move warm wait did I say
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warm sorry I mean hot hot air away from
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the components crammed into this puppy
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is an NVIDIA GTX 1080 an Intel Core
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i77700 HQ a 500 GB NVMe SSD to boot and
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up to 24 gigs of ddr4 RAM although North
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American models will ship with 16 gigs
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IO wise the zephrus strikes a great balance again
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thin enough to be very portable but thick enough that you can fit three
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full-sized USB type A's Thunderbolt 3
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HDMI and a headphone jack ASUS even
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Chucks a USB to Ethernet adapter in the box so you don't have to game over
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Wi-Fi but and I feel like we need to get
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this out of the way pretty early in the review the zephrus doesn't defy the laws
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of physics and when we hit it with a full synthetic load the thermal solution
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got overwhelmed and we did experience
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some thermal throttling a lot of thermal
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throttling with that said in a more realistic load like actual games at room
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temperature both our CPU and GPU put up
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a much stronger showing now as some of you have probably
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figured out by now at 1500 MHz the max Q
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GTX x 1080 in here is probably not going
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to keep Pace with a full-size desktop one or even a full TDP mobile one the
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kind you'd find in bulkier gaming laptops but it's still enough to Crush
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games at the native 1080p resolution and
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120 HZ refresh rate of the IPS g-sync
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display it Trails its 1080 Brethren by
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anywhere from 7 to as much as 20% but it
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should be noted that compared to the bigger heavier Alienware 15 it's 10 to
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15% faster so it's 1080 hasn't been
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downclocked to the point where you might as well have saved a few bucks and gone
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with a 1070 Acoustics were another
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strong point it's very impressive how ASUS was able to keep a laptop this thin
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so quiet it's easily one of the quietest gaming laptops that we've tested with it
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not even being in the same ballpark as the g71 vi went under load but also not
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particularly loud are the speakers which along with the webcam get a solid fine
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out of 10 rating the keyboard though is
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both quiet and comfortable it features full RGB lighting with two zones and the
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throw on the keys is short but they provide enough feedback that I never
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questioned whether I actually pressed the key at a desk with the thankfully
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included wrist rest it feels amazing but
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on your lap the position of the keyboard means that some folks will have a bit
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more difficulty balancing it at first but it's actually surprisingly easy to
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get used to and at any rate you won't have to worry about using it on your lap
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for very long the zephrus doesn't use
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Optimus technology to switch to onboard Graphics at idle so the battery life is
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abominable even while performing money mundane tasks and the numpad trackpad
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combo doesn't get great marks either I could get used to the position
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but the shape just kind of sucks I
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understand why they did it under the normal keyboard area is where you'll
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find all that juicy Hardware with swappable sodm and storage slots which
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is nice but I don't have to like it
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thankfully though ASUS includes a decent gaming mouse in the box so I would
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recommend just using that all in all if
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nothing else the ASUS zephrus feels like something new sure it doesn't offer the
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best performance available but if that's what you're going for get a desktop
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because in as close to an Apples to Apples comparison as we could find the
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value of this little beast is actually pretty compelling if you're willing to
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