And once again, the smaller ROG Zephyrus G14 proves its impressiveness, with a drive speed that’s over three times speeder than what we saw on the M15 sibling. That shows clearly in our chart, where the M15 is half as fast as the Dell and XPG laptops. According to Device Manager, Asus used an Intel 660p SSD here, which is far from the speediest of drives. The Zephyrus M15 15 took 14 seconds to copy 4.97GB of files, a rate of 363.5 MBps. (There is also a larger Zephyrus G15 with a Ryzen 7 4800HS, but we haven’t had the opportunity to test it.) Perhaps Asus should do more to market that slightly smaller model toward creatives. The pack is close, save for the impressive AMD Ryzen 4000-powered ROG Zephyrus G14, with its score of 7,895 on the same test. In Geekbench 5, the Zephyrus M15 actually scored lowest in this competing group (6,081), just behind the Dell XPS 15 (56,174) and not far off the XPG Xenia 15 (6,301). And the six-core, 12-thread Core i7-10750H is certainly no slouch on that front, paired with 16 GB of RAM and a 512GB NVMe SSD. Gaming is of course the Zephyrus M15’s primary purpose, but Asus markets the laptop to creatives as well.
Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 (GU502) Productivity Performance First, let’s look at how the Zephyrus M15 handles productivity. We’ll explore this more (including some surprisingly warm external surface temps) in the heat section below. In short, Asus has done a good job of keeping fan noise under control, but cooling is a bit of an issue here. There’s also definitely a lot of heat coming out of the vents on both sides, but I didn’t notice much in the way of fan noise pitching up or down, which is a lot more noticeable and annoying. The Core i7-10750H hit an average clock speed of 3.7 GHz at an average temperature of 85.1 degrees Celsius (185.2 degrees Fahrenheit).Īs for acoustics, there’s a near constant audible whooshing sound when gaming, and it sounds like the laptop is moving a lot of air through the system - which is of course a good thing.
During that time, the machine’s GTX 1660 Ti ran at an average clock speed of 1617 GHz and at an average temperature of 83.6 degrees Celsius (182.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Like the higher-end Aus ROG Zephyrus Duo before it, was remarkably consistent, barely wavering between a low of 41.7 fps on two runs and a one-time high of 42 fps.
We also ran the ROG Zephyrus M15 through our gaming stress test, which runs the Metro Exodus 1080p Ultra benchmark on a loop 15 times in order to simulate 30 minutes of gaming. In Red Dead Redemption 2 (1080p, medium), the M15 scored a decisive win with its score of 42 fps versus 35 on the G14, although the Xenia wasn’t far off, delivering 39 fps on the same test. But again, only a handful of frames separated these three laptops, with the XPS 15 again falling further behind thanks to its lesser GTX 1650 GPU. On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (highest, 1920 x 1080), the Zephyrus M15 ran at 51 fps, edging out everything else here, although only the XPS 15 trailed significantly.įar Cry: New Dawn’s benchmark (1920 x 1080 ultra) saw the Zephyrus M15 fall between its G14 sibling and the XPG laptop.
But the runaway winner in this notoriously CPU-favoring title is Asus’ own Zephyrus G14, which was $1,499 as tested, with an AMD 4900HS CPU and an Nvidia GTX 2060. The XPG Xenia ($1,399, Core i7-9750H and GTX 1660 Ti) did just slightly better. On the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (1920 x 1080 very high), the Zephyrus M15’s score of 61 frames per second (fps) is enough to push it ahead of the much pricier Dell XPS 15 ($2,349 in our review config with the same CPU as this Asus, but a GTX 1650 Ti). Whether you opt for the “prism black” or “prism gray” chassis (hey Asus, isn’t a prism supposed to be about color?), the Zephyrus M15 is a fairly thin (0.7 inches), boxy slab of a laptop with just enough smart style to keep it from looking drab. Maybe it’s just the way companies tend to over-market the flashy high-end (and high-priced) gaming rigs (like Asus’ own ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 GX550 or Alienware’s Area-51m), but the Zephyrus M15 feels refreshing in its competent simplicity. It runs cooler (this model with a Core i7-10750H gets downright toasty during gaming sessions) and performs mostly better, for about $150 more. And if you like this design and also plan to do some serious work with your laptop, the slightly smaller AMD Ryzen 4000-powered Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is arguably better. But those who do their creative work remotely should note the absence of a webcam. Asus also markets the Zephyrus M15 to gamers who want to do some creating on the side, and a wide-gamut 4K panel is an option for those types.