Product Specification

MSI GS76 STEALTH 11UE Tech Specs from Official Website
HERE

Product Unboxing

Package Appearance
The insider package is the general GS series black box with thick form protection

The AC adapter is 20V 11.5A, a total of 230W and manufactured by Delta

The weight of the AC adapter and power cable is around 755g

The pure black internal box

The main body is warped by a double-layered suit which has an anti-static layer and a black fabric layer

Product Analysis

The main look of GS76 STEALTH

The thin-bezel design

The Steelseries Keyboard with per-key backlight

The Dynaudio audio system

The laptop front side – Smooth design without any indicator

The laptop rear side – Semi-symmetrical design with MSI logo and a large opening area

The laptop right side – 1 x battery charging indicator, 1 x Type-C(USB3.2 Gen.2 w/DP), 1 x SDXC Card Reader, 1 x Thunderbolt™ 4, 1 x (8K @60Hz / 4K @ 120Hz) HDMI 2.1

The laptop left side – Power jack, 1 x 2.5Gb LAN, 2 x Type-A(USB3.2 Gen2), 1 x Mic/Headphone combo jack

The laptop weight: 2.33KG, around 3.1KG total with AC adapter and power cable

Screen Calibration
MSI GS76 STEALTH 11UE is using a 17″ FHD Sharp LQ173M1JW05(SHP14EC) IPS-level panel

Calibration result: Average △E≈0.10, Maximum △E≈1.57
After calibration, we have a 108.0% of sRGB, 74.4% of Adobe RGB and 76.5% of DCI P3 coverage

Calibration Curves

Gamut

Tone Response Curves

Software & Hardware Introduction

The new looking MSI Center laptop management software
Monitor section

Features section – User Scneario selection

Features section – General Settings

Support section – Live Update

Support section – System Info

Support section – Backup

Feature sets page

Settings page

My Device page

HWINFO System detail – Intel 11th gen i7-11800H 8-cores 16 threads with Nvidia RTX3060 Mobile Graphics card

HWINFO WIFI & LAN detail
WIFI Card – Killer Wifi6E AX1675x(Intel AX210NGW) with Bluetooth v5.2
LAN Card – Killer E3100G 2.5Gb(Intel i225-V)

HWINFO SSD detail – Kingston OM8PCP3512F-AI1 512G PCIe Gen3

HWINFO Smart battery detail

CPU-Z snapshots

GPU-Z

GPU-Z PWR (70W around)

Run-time Benchmark Test

Unfortunately, we cannot change the power plan to the ‘Ultimate Power Performance’ in Win10. All test are based on the ‘performance mode’ in the settings of MSI Center.

Cinebench R15 Single core & Multi core

Cinebench R20 Single core & Multi core

Cinebench R23 Single core & Multi core

PCMark10 – | 6,065

3DMARK – Time Spy | 6,938

3DMARK – Time Spy Extreme | 3,273

3DMARK – Port Royal | 3,644

3DMARK – Fire Strike | 14,481

3DMARK – Fire Strike Extreme | 8,359

3DMARK – Fire Strike Ultra | 4,500

3DMARK – DirectX Raytracing feature test | 18.35 Average FPS

3DMARK – Mesh Shader feature test | OFF: 62.26 FPS, ON: 242.3 FPS

3DMARK – VRS: Tier 1 | OFF: 414.47 FPS, ON: 602.59 FPS

3DMARK – DLSS 2 v1.3 | OFF: 27.28 FPS, ON: 44.54 FPS

FURMARK FHD ｜ 78 Average FPS

CPU-Z Benchmark | Single-Thread: 566.6, Multi-Threads: 4514.7

BLENDER Benchmarks

7ZIP 128MB Dictionary Size

VRAY Benchmark

X264 Benchmark

TxBENCH

Thermal Tests

We are pressure testing this laptop by using AIDA64 and FURMARK.

With Auto FAN profile and non-OC settings:
Test room temperature: 18℃±2℃
CPU Idle temperature: 43℃±2℃
GPU idle temperature: 42℃±2℃

Under AIDA64 Single FPU pressure test, this Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 2.51GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 90℃±6℃

Under AIDA64 Single CPU pressure test, the Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 3.70GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 88℃±7℃

Under AIDA64 CPU + Memory & FURMARK GPU pressure test, the Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 2.58GHz
The GPU clock is average @ 947.9Mhz
The CPU package temperature is around 94℃±4℃
The GPU temperature is around 74.6℃

Overclock test
Test room temperature: 21℃±2℃
CPU Idle temperature: 37℃±2℃
GPU idle temperature: 36℃±2℃

With Cooler Boost FAN profile and Full OC settings:

Under AIDA64 Single FPU pressure test, this Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 2.83GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 79℃±17℃

Under AIDA64 Single CPU pressure test, the Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 4.06GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 88℃±7℃

Under AIDA64 CPU + Memory & FURMARK GPU pressure test, the Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 3.45GHz
The GPU clock is average @ 1038.4Mhz
The CPU package temperature is around 90℃±7℃
The GPU temperature is around 60.6℃

3DMARK Time Spy OC | 8,176 +15.1%

3DMARK Time Spy Extreme OC | 3,928 +16.7%

3DMARK Fire Strike OC | DID NOT PASS THE TEST

3DMARK Fire Strike Extreme OC | 9,600 +12.9%

3DMARK Fire Strike Ultra OC | 5,179 +13.1%

3DMARK Port Royal OC | DID NOT PASS THE TEST

3DMARK DirectX Raytracing OC | 21.14 Average FPS +13.2%

3DMARK Mesh Shader OC | 265.94 +8.9%

3DMARK VRS Tier 1 OC | 682.61 FPS +11.7%

3DMARK DLSS 2 v1.3 | DID NOT PASS THE TEST

The thermal snapshots under the MAX pressure test(AIDA64 + FURMARK)
Front – A panel | Left vent temperature is around 70.4℃ | Right vent temperature is around 58.3℃

Front – Top of the C panel | It’s around 56.8℃ in the middle of the vents and 40℃ on the average of the keyboard

Bottom – D panel | It’s around 64℃ crossing the CPU and GPU between the two exhausting fans

Sides – Left vent temperature | It’s around 50.9℃ at the Left vent and the hottest spot is 70℃

Sides – Right vent temperature | It’s around 45.6℃ at the Left vent and the hottest spot is 63.1℃

AC adapter – It’s around 45.4℃ average on the surface and the hottest spot is 49℃

Under Idle mode, the noise level is around 37.7dBA

Under normal fan mode under pressure, the noise level is around 51.4dBA

Under Cooler Boost mode, the noise level is around 61.7dBA

We only got the Engineering Sample this time, so the cooling solution may not be the final solution, but it still holds up well to the latest 11th gen i7-11800H, especially when the fan is running at full speed, and the overclock can actually reach an average of 12% performance increase. After all, this 45W TDP, 8-core, 16-thread CPU is far more powerful than the i7-1185G7. Unfortunately, a few of the 3DMARK tests did not pass because the card was overclocked and needed to be turned off to run properly, so we did not test the gaming performance in detail. Also, the fan is as noisy as ever with Cooler Boost on.

SUMMARY

The design is the same as before but with a few modifications, the sturdiness is guaranteed and at the same time it is as thin and light as possible. And for a 17″ laptop, the weight is close to that of the Razer Blade 15, proving that MSI has compressed the weight to the extreme. And the A-panel with the Dragon Shield design remains and has not been replaced with The MSI text logo is also a testament to the pedigree of its gaming series.

Instead of a 2K resolution screen, the GS76 STEALTH 11UE uses a 240Hz high refresh rate gaming screen with over 100% of the sRGB colour gamut (the official description is ‘close to 100%’) seems modest), with a much-higher 300Hz upgraded version available. The full-size per-key RGB Steelseries keyboard will satisfy most people’s pain points, while the full-size SD card reader is a favourite among office users. 16G of 3200Hz DDR4 and a 1TB NVMe SSD are enough for everyday applications and entertainment, and MSI hasn’t forgotten about those gamers and corporate users who need high-speed and stable Internet. The 2.5Gb LAN port is perfectly suited for these activities. Meanwhile, the Thunderbolt 4 interface, Type-C connector with DP protocol and the deployment of HDMI 2.1 allow the machine to be connected to three monitors with up to 8K resolution for Matrix Display.

Performance-wise, the new standard voltage laptop CPU does bring more performance, even MSI’s proprietary cooling is not able to fully suppress this CPU, but the reduced voltage overclocking through MSI’s own control does have a good effect. As we didn’t take any screenshots of the game scores, the overall frame rate is much better than the previous model STEALTH 15M, especially for very CPU-intensive games, such as GTAV, Total War series, etc.

Thermal dissipation is, as expected, MSI’s best item. But without being able to take it apart, according to MSI’s official figures, the cooling system used on the GS76 is a triple-fan, 6 heat pipes ‘Cooler Boost Trinity+’.

Price-wise, the pre-order price is roughly AU$3,499 and the GE76 Raider 10UE, also powered by the RTX3060 Mobile, is priced at AU$3,099, so users can take a little reference. Of course, we can’t rule out some price adjustments, but everything will be based on the retail version once it is listed.

MSI GS76 STEALTH 11UE OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE

We’ve already tested Intel’s latest generation i7-11700K, and the results are as predictable as you can expect. Without further ado, let’s check out the video below! Please ‘like’ and subscribe to my channel, and don’t forget to click the ‘bell’ icon to get the latest video updates.

We received the powerful semi-flagship gaming Laptop from MSI, their GP76 Leopard 10UG. What exactly do the modern configuration and a 140W RTX3070 performance bring to the table? Check out the video below! Please ‘like’ and subscribe to my channel, and don’t forget to click the ‘bell’ icon to get the latest video updates.

We have a raffle at the end of the video, please take part, thank you!

The Z390 chipset has only been slightly tweaked, now including native support for USB 3.1 Gen.2, increasing the bandwidth up to 10Gbps max, and support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi. With the Intel Wireless-AC 9560 NIC and the corresponding front-end design of the motherboard, a Gigabit wireless network can be achieved, although, it might not be possible on the NBN.

The chipset interface is still the LGA1151, the 9th generation Core is still compatible with the existing 300 series chipset, which including the Z370, B360, H310, etc., while the Z390 motherboard can also support the 8th generation Core series.

Intel 9th Generation Core Family CPU Official Specifications:

THE INTEL i7 9700K

The i7-9700K has 8 cores 8 threads, the L3 cache has 12MB (cut from 2MB to 1.5MB per core), the frequency range has been taken from 3.6GHz to 4.9GHz, with the price coming in at roughly 659 AUD, its 60 dollars more expensive than the i7-8700K.

Package appearance

Package Front

Package Back

Package Bottom Side

Opening the box

The CPU chip

The CPU front

The CPU back

Run-time Benchmark Test
CPU-Z

HWiNFO64

Intel XTU

Cinebench

Unfortunately, we found it difficult to get a stable reading with all cores running at 5.1Ghz during the overclocking test, but a single core can be pushed out to 5.5Ghz.

THE INTEL i9 9900K

The flagship model for the 9th generation is the i9-9900K, with 8 cores and 16 threads (the only hyperthreading available in the 9th generation), 16MB for the L3 cache (sharing for all cores), the reference frequency is 3.6GHz, the turbo frequency acceleration is up to 5.0GHz, and the integrated graphic is the UHD 630, memory supports dual-channel DDR4-2666 and TDP consumption is 95W.

Its price has reached 859 AUD, which is also the new price record for mainstream CPUs. Compared with the i7-8700K, that costs 599 AUD, its 30% more.

It is worth noting that the 9th generation Core has fixed some of the Meltdown and Spectre bugs on the consumer processors for the first time, including the Rogue Cache Data Load and the L1 Terminal Fault/L1TF, other bugs still need to be resolved by updating the BIOS.

Interestingly, the i9-9900K also offers a specially designed box, a dodecahedron shape with transparent glass material.

Package appearance

ES Package

Open the package

The CPU chip

The CPU front

The CPU back

Run-time Benchmark Test
CPU-Z

HWiNFO64

PC MARK 10

Cinebench

According to Intel’s official statement, the performance of the 9th generation Core is up to 15% faster compared to the overall performance of the 8th generation, the gaming performance is improved by about 10%, and the video editing performance is improved by up to 34%, compared to older chipsets (such as i7-6700K) you could see increases of up to 40%, 45%, and 97% respectively.

We tried to boost all cores to 5.1Ghz, and fortunately, it’s stable and passed the cinebench test

I9 9900K@4.8GHz, 3D MARK FSE, physics score is 24129 points, the graphics card is 18789 (ASUS ROG STRIX 2080TI O11G)

I9 9900K@4.8GHz, 3D MARK FSU, physics score is 24098 points, the graphics card is 9223 (ASUS ROG STRIX 2080TI O11G)

Overall
After a bunch of tests, the i7 9700K, i9 9900K and i7 8700K have the same single-core frequency performance, the theoretical multi-threading gap of the i9 9900K which has an extra 2 cores 4 threads over the i7 8700K, offers a performance bump of about 33%. In gaming performance, there is basically no difference between the three CPUs. Unfortunately, the potential of overclocking performance is not as good as the i7 8700K and i7 8086K.

If the CPU is being utilised for a small workstation, the reasonable price of the i9 9900K is definitely an excellent choice to replace the i9 7900X. Even with the i7 8700K, the extra 33% of theoretical performance is a big improvement for rendering. However, pure game users do not have to choose the i9 9900K, the i7 9700K is definitely a better choice.

INTEL ARK FOR I7 9700K:
https://ark.intel.com/products/186604/Intel-Core-i7-9700K-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4-90-GHz-

INTEL ARK FOR I9 9900K:
https://ark.intel.com/products/186605/Intel-Core-i9-9900K-Processor-16M-Cache-up-to-5-00-GHz-

The latest Razer Blade 15” still maintains Razers ambitious portable formula and when compared to MSIs GS65 or Gigabytes Aero 15x, its easy to see how this approach can be beneficial. Measuring in with a 5mm ultra-thin bezel and a 16.8mm thin body, it feels more like a Macbook than a gaming laptop.

Product Specification

RΛZΞR BLADE 15″ 2018 Tech Specs from Official Website
https://www2.razer.com/au-en/comparisons/blade-15

Product Unboxing

Package
It’s interesting that Razer has opted for a plain outer box when compared to some of their other products, which have a much flashier exterior box

The exterior has a small label that contains the laptop details

Inside the box, there are terms & conditions printed on the middle layer of the box

A greeting message has been printed on the accessory box. The Razor laptop is below it.

The whole package contains only 2 boxes, Razer has continued to follow their ‘simple’ packaging approach for this laptop

Let’s take a look at the accessory box. It contains the power adapter and a power cable. It’s a bit funny that the power cable has been protected by another simple box

Taking everything out from the box

The power adapter has an output of 19.5V 11.8A total 230W

All the parts have a special Razer design, which tends to be more unrepairable

The power cable is manufactured by I-SHENG(Taiwan), 10A 250V standard

Compared with the Razer Phone, the size of the power adapter is not that big

In traditional ‘Razer Style’, the laptop has a big Razer logo

The other sides of this package sport ‘Razer Green’ highlights

Open the package, we can actually see the laptop with a protective layer

Remove the protector sheet, the laptop body is still being protected by a plastic sheet

After taking out the laptop, there is another small box underneath the laptop

Inside this small package, we can find the typical ‘Razer Greeting Card’, user manual, Razer Chroma Sticker, and a laptop fingerprint fiber cleaning cloth. There is a small Razer logo on the cloth

A/D Panel

The A panel is fully black with a classic Razer light-up logo in the middle, the unibody is full aluminum

The bottom side, this time Razer opted for 2 hollow-carved designed vents

B/C Panel

The screen bezel is only 5mm wide, it’s nearly invisible

The screen refresh rate is 144Hz, IPS matte panel, C panel is extremely similar to the dark version MacBook Pro 15 inch, especially the large-sized design of the touchpad. Speakers are located at both left and right side, Keyboard has no numeric keypad per-key RGB backlight and nice touch feeling

The built-in microphone and webcam are located in the middle of the top bezel. If you are doing online streaming or like to do an HQ video chat, a Razer Kiyo is a definitely better choice

There is an unusual tiny little intel 8-gen chip sticker located at the right side of the corner

I/O Analysis

The front view of the laptop, there is no I/O port locate on this side

The rear view of the laptop, there is a full-width cooling vent located here

The left side I/O of this laptop includes the power jack, 2x USB 3.1 Type-A ports and a standard 3.5mm combo audio port

The right side I/O of this laptop contains the Kensington lock port, a mini DP v1.4 port, a HDMI 2.0b port, a USB 3.1 Type-A port and a USB 3.1 Type-C with Thunderbolt™ 3 port

Screen Analysis

This laptop uses a 15.6 inch, 16:9 144Hz Full-HD IPS Matt screen, manufactured by LG.

Subpixel geometry

Screen Calibration
We are using the Datacolor Spider 4 Elite for doing screen calibration, the screen temperature is under 6500K

Before & after calibration

The Gamut test result, this panel comes in with 97% of sRGB, 73% of AdobeRGB and 67% of NTSC

The Tone Response test result

The Brightness & Contrast tests result

The OSD Settings result

The Screen Uniformity tests result
Colour Uniformity for Brightness 50% & 100%

Luminance Uniformity for Brightness 50% & 100%

Colour Accuracy test result, Average ΔE≈1.35

Hardware & Software Brief Introduction

BIOS details, powered by AMI, Main view – 1

BIOS details, Main view – 2, contains CPU details, MEM details and MTB chipset

BIOS details, Advanced CPU details

BIOS details, Advanced SSD details

BIOS details, Chipset details

BIOS details, Boot setup menu

UEFI booting screen with a bright looking Razer logo

WIN10 is pre-installed. After booting up, we try to enable the ultimate power plan



Activation for new power plan fails because the win10 is not the latest version

Razer has their customised desktop wallpaper

Razer Synapse settings
We have to say; the Razer Synapse software is not easy to use and not that user-friendly. The user must sign-up to a Razer account, connect to internet and sign-in to use the software or load device drivers. After these steps, they will be able to change the performance and appearance.

Razer Synapse Lighting Profile

Razer Synapse RGB lighting setup

Razer Synapse Laptop Performance setup

Razer Synapse Laptop Performance setup – Gaming Mode

The maximum speed of these cooling fans is 5000rpm

Razer Synapse Screen Refresh Rate Setting

Audio Chipset – Realtek ALC298

SSD – 512GB SAMSUNG OEM PM981 MZVLB512HAJQ-00000

WIFI Card – Intel Wireless-AC 9260 with Bluetooth v5

Power Management

Razer OS Recovery Mode. Razer has customized the recovery mode and makes it really easy to use

Run-time Benchmark Test

CPU-Z snapshot, INTEL i7 8750H, and CPU-Z benchmark

Intel XTU

Intel XTU Advance Tuning, we actually found that the PL1 has been set to 60W and PL2 at 80W

After the 1st benchmark, the CPU hits the wall and throttles down and up several times

Due to this problem, we have to switch the cooling setting to MAX, then test again

Even when we turned the cooling to max performance, The CPU still throttles down

Cinebench R15 Result

AIDA64 Memory & Cache benchmark

GPU-Z snapshot – we found the Nvidia driver was outdated

For more accrued benchmark result, we updated the Nvidia driver to the latest version

AIDA64 GPGPU Benchmark

FURMARK Stress test

FURMARK Stress test with 8X MSAA

SSD Details – Samsung Magician

SSD Benchmark – Samsung Magician R/W : 2,078/1,849 MB/S | 230,712/196,533 IOPS

SSD Benchmark – AS SSD R/W : 822/1,847 MB/S

SSD Benchmark – Blackmagicdesign Disk Speed Test R/W : 1,070/1,821 MB/S

3DMark Time Spy : 5,447

3DMark Sky Diver : 34,762

3DMark Fire Strike : 14,522

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme : 7,347

3DMark Fire Strike Ultra : 3,781

Unigine Heaven : 2,130 | Avg FPS : 84.6

Unigine Vally : 3,663 | Avg FPS : 87.6

Unigine Superposition : 10,106 | Avg FPS : 75.59

Unigine Superposition High : 7,200 | Avg FPS : 53.85

Unigine Superposition Extreme : 2,844 | Avg FPS : 21.28

Thermal and Noise Tests

Test room temperature : 20℃±2℃
CPU Idle temperature : 45℃±2℃
GPU idle temperature : 46℃
AIDA64 Extreme full load stress test CPU&FPU: 87℃
Furmark full load stress test GPU: 71℃

The surface temperature during full load:

The Noise level under balance mode : around 34 dB

The Noise level under Max Cooling mode : around 55-65 dB

Disassembling analysis

There are 10 screws mounting on the back D panel, it’s quite easy to disassemble the back plate

The back panel looking

The Innovative Vapor Chamber Cooling System. There are total of 3 important cables crossing over to the Ram

The Northbridge chip has been cooled by the edge of the Vapor Chamber cooling pad with thermal paste

Battery, manufactured by BYD, 80Wh

After we removed the eDP and other cables, we are able to remove the Ram
Ram : M471A1K43CB1 – CTD from Samsung, 8G DDR4, 1Rx8 2666

SSD ONLY : PM981 from Samsung OEM, 512G, MZVLB512HAJQ-00000

WIFI & Bluetooth card : 9560NGW from Intel, 2.4G/5G, 300Mbps+1730Mbps, 160MHz channels, Bluetooth v5

The Chipset Heatsink. It’s not a traditional thick copper one-piece heatsink, to be honest, we are surprised that this design brings good cooling performances

North Bridge chip

CPU & GPU

Cooling Fans are manufactured by FCN, a Thermal Solution Specialist company. Model No : DFS501105PLOT 5V 0.5A

SUMMARY

Ultra Fast. Ultra Small. Ultra Powerful. According to Razer, the 2018 Blade 15 has lots of benefits that users have come to expect. Exquisite Design, with 16.8mm ultra-thin body and 5mm thin bezel and fancy RGB Chroma integration. Modern crafted shape and texture give this laptop an element of luxury, just like a piece of art. Lightweight and quiet, for gamers who want to bring this beast into everyday life. An 80Wh battery is still powerful, and the charger is actually well weight. If under the integrated graphics card mode, the laptop can last around 5 hours. 144Hz FHD screen also brings smooth gaming and movie performance, plus the active cooling system and the aluminum body ensures that it will never overhead (a problem that plagued earlier models of the Razer Blade). This time, Razer has impressed us with the new cooling system and nice appearance features blended into this new Razer Blade 2018. We highly recommended this laptop to everyone who wants to blend high-performance computing, with great looks.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE: 92.5/100

EPIC REWARD: EPIC RECOMMENDED, EDITOR’S CHOICE & DESIGN AWARD

RAZER BLADE 15″ 2018 OFFICIAL WEBSITE: https://www2.razer.com/au-en/gaming-systems/razer-blade/

During the Last year, the emergence of the MAX-Q platform graphic card has accelerated the trend of the thin-n-light design for gamer laptops. The ASUS ‘Zephyrus’ GX501, which is the work of art, appeared at that time. However, with the 8th gen CPU, the latest generation of the thin-n-light ROG GM501GS has last the name and characteristics of ‘Zephyrus’. Then the question is coming, can it surprise us again?

Product Specification

ASUS ROG GM501GS Tech Specs from Official Website

Product Analysis
The outside box looking – ROG Style red & black & belief

Inside the package, includes an ROG-designed backpack, a laptop box, and an accessory box.

The accessory box

Inside the accessory box, we found the power brick and a mouse gift package

The power brick also contains the ROG ‘EYE’ logo
This AC Adapter is 19.5V,11.8A which is a 230W monster and around 590g weight

The mouse gift box looking, ‘NOT FOR SALE’.

This mouse is actually the ROG Strix Impact. The ‘NOT FOR SALE’ sign also printed under the mouse

The main laptop box, the box design is the same as the laptop

Open the package, the laptop is on the top, after the package cover flipping, the laptop has been raised up to your hand, very nice design

After we taking out of the laptop, there is a gift package underneath it

Inside this gift package, we can find a classic ROG sticker, menus, and a special envelope

We have carefully opened this envelope, a high quality customised designed ROG Backpack Carabiner Snap shows up

A/D Panel
The A panel adopts the special drawing process which separated the A panel into two different metal drawing order and has a unique hairline style, the ROG logo in the upper right corner also has the red lighting-up design. The size of this laptop is around 38cm width and 26cm length

The front side of the laptop, only 1.75cm-1.99cm thin and around 2.5kg weight

the rear side of the laptop, a ‘Zephyrus’ logo has printed at the middle of the bezel

The left side of the laptop, includes power jack, HDMI 2.0 output, three of USB3.1 Gen2 ports and a 3.5mm mixed sound port

The right side of the laptop, includes a USB3.1 Gen2 port, a USB 3.1 Type-c port with Thunderbolt 3 and the Kensington lock port

The corners of the laptop have the chamfering process

The Ubiquitous ‘ROG’ slogan

The laptop body design has coloured with a brand-recognition plasma orange, which makes the overall visual sense much slimmer. The mirror-mounted waistline has improved the design level for the exterior, there is no I/O ports located in the front for the easy-to-open design, at the end of the laptop, we can find two venting slots. ASUS also introduces the new dust-proof heat-dissipating channel at the rear vent channel to prevent the overheating caused by the dust accumulation. The cutting-edge ACTIVE AERODYNAMIC SYSTEM (AAS) invented by ASUS has opened the lid reveals an underside vent that leads to a 9mm-high air chamber, allows the laptop to run cool and quiet without sacrificing performance.

The heat-dissipation design of the D panel has the same process as the previous Zephyrus. It’s not difficult to disassemble but necessary to be careful. The whole cooling system of this laptop has improved a little bit. In addition to the height adjustment has increased the heat dissipation range by 20%, the 4 sets of cooling vents plus the other air intake vents located above the C panel increase the air flow by 32%. At the same time, the original two of 5V cooling fans have changed to two of 12V hi-performance turbofans. The heat sink fins have reduced the thickness from 0.2mm to 0.1mm. Together with the dust-proof design that we mentioned above, the new AAS cooling technology is designed to reduce the temperature by 20% according to the official data.

Screen panel, this laptop has equipped with a 15.6 inch IPS panel, supports 100% sRGB wide colour gamut, and 3ms high-speed response time and 144Hz refresh rate. The resolution also has a full-HD 1920 x 1080 resolution with NVIDIA™ G-SYNC® technology. Although the display panel is not a narrow bezel design, the upper HD camera and the dual array microphones also have the classic design. The ambient light sensor is located on both side. At the bottom of the screen, the mirror-designed ROG logo has a magnificent reflect view. The status indicators are located at the top of C panel

The significant difference from the previous Zephyrus is the standard-size keyboard has returned back. It is mainly to solve the problem of the comfort for users that require a long-term use. The keyboard has a complete E-sports configuration with an extra-sized space key, a separated space for FN keys, arrow keys, and the numeric keypad.
The keyboard has the isolation design, with a 0.2mm curved surface keycap and a 1.7mm keystroke setup. In addition, the WASD keys have been redesigned and highlighted. All keys support the N-KEY Rollover. The tapping feel is a bit hard but the feedback is quite good. This keyboard also has a 4-zone RGB backlight and support ASUS AURA SYNC, the settings inside the ASUS gaming center we will talk about later.

Screen Analysis
The screen that this laptop choose is a B156HAN07.1 manufactured by AUO. It’s a 15.6 inch, resolution 1920 x 1080 (FHD), 144Hz 40pin eDP ultra-thin IPS non-touchable Panel with G-SYNC®

We still using the Spyder4 Elite professional colourimeter to evaluate this panel. All tests are based on 120nit/6500K colour temperature

After the professional check, the result shows this panel has around 73% AdobeRGB, 97% of sRGB and 68% of NTSC

The tone response test result, not quite far from the judge curved line

The bright and contrast test result

The screen uniformity test result, for brightness

The colour accuracy test result, the average △E≈1.82

The comparison of before and after calibration

Flash rate test
We still using the favourite UFO test on this screen
link: https://www.testufo.com/framerates
the setting is : 3 UFO, black background and 3840 px/s

PERFORMANCE TESTING
The fancy ASUS ROG Customised BIOS

ROG Gaming Center

ROG AURA CORE Keyboard lightning setup, as we mentioned before, the RGB light for keyboard can be setup at here by 4 sections, but not per-keys

FAN SPEED SETTINGS, can be switched by Fn keys, the Overboost mode is the active maniac spin mode for the best cooling performance

The Discrete Graphics switch, under this mode, the user doesn’t need to plugin the AC adapter to activite the GTX graphic card, G-SYNC® will switched on automatically and generate the maxmium power for gaming. Unfortunatelly, user under this mode cannot upgrade the graphic card driver either by nVIDIA Experience or manually install, the setup program will showing the driver ‘uncompatable’ error message and refuse to continue the installation progress, user have to switch back to ‘OPTIMUS mode’ to upgrade the nVIDIA driver and then switch back to ‘Discrete Graphics mode’. we are not sure if it is a bug for this software or not

CPU-Z snapshot, INTEL i7 8750H and CPU-Z bench mark

INTEL XTU snapshot

According to XTU, the PL1 and PL2 are 45W and 90W, same as MSI GS65

Cinebench R15 result, openGL results 126fps, CPU multicore 1105cb, single core 169cb

However, the real problem is, if the user has switched the the graphic mode to ‘Discrete’, the CPU TDP has been strictly limited to 45W only, if user doesn’t know how to use Intel XTU to adjust the max power limitation, the REAL performance for this laptop has been limited by ASUS permantantly, after we trying to enlarge the PL1 to 70W, the Cinebench multicore result has been refreshed to 1200cb, power consumption is around 71W and the maximum CPU core temperature is around 87℃. Then, we are going to test the AIDA64 FPU stress test.

After we changed back PL1 to the normal 45W, the average temperature for all cores are around 63℃, but we already hit the temperature wall, which means under normal TDP but using balancing fan mode, CPU will running under throttling mode.
The normal CPU temperature with the normal frequency with all default settings

After the overboost mode enabled, this i7-8750H still cannot TB to 4.1G, but throttling down to 3.3GHz, the average power use is around 58W, average core temperature is around 70℃

Memory benchmark result, this memory is a single 16GB 2666 DDR4 directly from SKhynix

CPU-Z snapshot

The AIDA64 GPGPU BENCHMARK

The SSD is Samsung SM961, Parts no: MZVKW512HMJP
It’s actually the OEM product of the Samsung 960 Pro, the product page is here:
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/ssd/client-ssd/MZVKW512HMJP/
This SSD running under PCIe 3.0 x4, Seq. Read is 3.2GB/S and write is 1.8GB/S. According to the test, this SSD is very well

The SSHD is 1TB Fireduca, according to CrystalDiskMark, the seq. Read is around 159MB/s and write is 131MB/s

Run-time Benchmark Test
3DMark Time Spy : 5590

3DMark Time Spy Extreme : 2595

3DMark Sky Diver : 35036

3DMark Fire Strike : 14119

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme : 7601

3DMark Fire Strike Ultra : 4060

Thermal and Noise Tests
Test room temperature : 18℃±2℃
CPU Idle temperature : 42℃±2℃
GPU idle temperature : 48℃
AIDA64 Extreme full load stress test CPU&FPU: 84℃
Furmark full load stress test GPU: 76℃

The surface temperature during full load:

the Noise level under silence mode

The Noise level under balance mode

The Noise level under overboost mode

Disassembling analysis
The back cover is not easy to disassembe. We have to take the flip board on the back cover first

The screws are in different lengths

After remove the D panel, the back of the laptop has shown up.
The whole laptop has two turbine fans with dust-proof design, 3 large heat pipes are covering the CPU and GPU. two of memory slots, one of M.2 PCI-E ssd slots which support both M.2 SATA and NVMe type SSD, and one of 2.5 inch SATA slot, which is better than MSI and GIGABYTE

SSD : SM961 from Samsung, 512G

Memory : HMA82GS6CJR8N from SKhynix, 16G DDR4, 2666

HDD : FireCuda from Seagate, 2.5 inch 1TB SSHD

WIFI & Bluetooth card : 9560NGW from Intel, 2.4G/5G, 300Mbps+1730Mbps, 160MHz channels, Bluetooth v5

iTE RGB Controller chip : IT8291E120A. Actually, we cannot find this chip on iTE official website, but under IT82 series for laptop, the samilar IT8296 is the RGB LED lighting control with Keyboard and LED strip, so we will consider this 8291E is the latest controller for RGB either

North Bridge chip

Realtek ALC3288 sound chip, provides a DTS surrond HQ sound

ON NCP81205 Power IC chip

MX25L12873F Serial NOR Flash from MACRONIX

55Wh Li-Polymer battery
Provides around 5.2h normal use or 2.5h hardcore gaming

SUMMARY
This generation of ZEPHYRUS M is increasingly reliable in high performance and thin-n-light design. In fact, it’s not a day or two in the history of the industry actually wish to achieve the thin-n-light design for the high performanced gaming laptop, but it’s extremely difficult to guarantee both of the performance and cooling feature at the same time. From the test of this ASUS ZEPHYRUS M, we certainly can not say that is has fully met our ideal expected, but at least it has reached the best balance in terms of shape, design, performance and heat dissipation for long term periods of full-load operation. And also, the product positioning of this ZEPHYRUS M is originally intended to take into consideration in both work and entertainment. From the perspective of this improved design, it does achieve the goal of ASUS. However, it’s hard to find a ideal laptop product in the entire market, the improvement of body weight and thickness, the possibility to introduce a slim bezzel screen design, the control the balance of battery life and performance and to further enhance the cooling system are all goals that ASUS needs to continue the development and make the change in the future.

ASUS ZEPHYRUS M GM501GS OFFICIAL WEBSITE: https://www.asus.com/au/Laptops/ROG-Zephyrus-M-GM501/

The test bench is under Intel Z370 platform, ASUS motherboard, a dual-channel 32GB Corsair DDR4

The software we are using is INTEL EXTREME TUNING UTILITY.
Here is the snapshot for the details for this 8086K:

The Cinebench result for this CPU is:

The idle CPU temperature under WC is around 30°C

Under 4.3GHz default frequency, we are trying to stress the FPU via AIDA64 and monitoring the temperature. It’s around 73°C

After the CPU has totally cool down, we are start to adjust the Core Ratio and Cache to 50x, then applied and run a benchmark. After a quick OC by simple ‘drag-and-approve’, the bench score has rises from 2367 to 2733, which is around 14% better improvement. Plus, it’s passed the stress test.

So, as we are so exciting in the further testing, the target frequency has been rises to 5.1GHz without a voltage adjustments. 5.1GHz is Passed!

Then, we directly drag the ratio to 52, the voltage is boosted to 1.424V, but the average temperature has been keep around 70°C, which is a positive-ranged feedback, it may go further.

There is no doubt that this CPU has passed the 5.2GHz

Then we re-run the Cinebench again, the result is totally different. It’s around 15% more on OpenGL test, 16% more on CPU Multi core, and 25.3% boost on CPU single Core, which is a huge improvement for gaming actually.

As a result, the Intel 8086K has impressed us! according to the OC result, it could be easy to boost to 5GHz without any trouble when Turbo boost has been enabled, and if you put this CPU under a LC cooler, it could go further then you expected. Unfortunately, we don’t want to void the warranty, so we haven’t try to delid it or doing any further OC work, but we still believe the 8086K has a huge potential for the extreme OC as well.

In addition, we are switched the CPU from 8700K to 8086K for Helios T1K and Helios T1KT. No Price Change! As this CPU is the limited edition, please hurry up to make the purchase!