Today, we’re diving into the MSI Crosshair A16 HX, a laptop that MSI positions as a high-caliber mid-range gaming machine.

With its impressive specifications, including the Ryzen 9 7945 HX Processor and the GeForce RTX 5070, we’ll explore its capabilities, performance benchmarks, and overall value for gamers and power users alike. Let’s see if this Crosshair A16 HX hits the mark as your next gaming companion.

Unveiling the Power: Specifications That Impress

The MSI Crosshair A16 HX truly boasts some wild specifications for what’s classified as a high-caliber mid- range laptop. At its heart lies the formidable AMD Ryzen 9 7945 HX Processor. This CPU is a beast, featuring 16 cores and 32 threads, capable of reaching a maximum clock speed of 5.4GHz, with a default TDP of 55W. Even today, this processor remains one of the most powerful mid-range CPUs, surprisingly competitive with newer chips like the AMD Ryzen™ 9 8940HX and even the Ryzen 9 9955HX. While not primarily focused on AI, its Zen4 architecture provides exceptional overclocking capabilities and sheer brute computing power.

Complementing the powerful CPU is an absolute powerhouse of a GPU: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 with 8GB of VRAM. Our viewers are likely already familiar with the 50 series’ AI capabilities, but for those who aren’t, NVIDIA has designed these generations of cards to be more dependent on AI rendering. This makes us particularly eager to see its benchmarking results with technologies like DLSS and Frame Generation. NVIDIA

has also recently introduced a new game and graphics-related feature that could significantly enhance the gaming experience.

Other notable specifications include 2x 8GB sticks of DDR5 SODIMM RAM, clocked at a speedy 5600MHz. This RAM is easily replaceable and upgradeable, allowing users to expand up to a massive 96GB if needed. For storage, the laptop comes with a starting amount of 1TB, utilizing Gen4 speeds. Crucially, it also features an additional Gen5 compatible slot, ensuring the laptop is fully ready for any reasonable upgrades the user might throw at it.

Software Enhancements: MSI AI Robot and User Experience

On the software side of things, the MSI Crosshair A16 HX incorporates classic MSI features, with the MSI AI Robot taking the user experience to another level. This innovative feature allows users to simply speak to their laptop and let AI handle the rest. The AI Robot intelligently understands your needs, whether you’re

gearing up for AAA gaming with optimised performance or seeking quieter fan operation for a more subdued experience. The AI assistant translates your natural language commands into smart system adjustments, making the laptop incredibly intuitive and responsive to your preferences. This level of AI integration streamlines the user experience, allowing for seamless transitions between different usage scenarios without manual tweaking of settings. It’s a testament to MSI’s commitment to leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance productivity and gaming performance.

Performance Benchmarks: Pushing the Limits

To truly understand the capabilities of the MSI Crosshair A16 HX, we put it through a series of rigorous benchmarks. The combination of the Ryzen 9 7945 HX and the RTX 5070 promises exceptional performance, especially in gaming and demanding applications.

Gaming Performance

We also tested the laptop with several popular games to provide real-world performance insights:

These gaming benchmarks highlight the laptop’s ability to deliver a premium gaming experience, making it a strong contender for serious gamers.

Display and Design: Immersive Visuals and Robust Build

The visual experience on the MSI Crosshair A16 HX is nothing short of immersive. While the specific panel details weren’t explicitly mentioned in the script, the overall gaming performance suggests a high-refresh- rate display capable of rendering vibrant colors and sharp details, crucial for both gaming and content consumption.

In terms of design, the Crosshair A16 HX maintains a robust and functional aesthetic. It’s built to withstand the rigors of intense gaming sessions and daily use. The keyboard likely features a comfortable layout with responsive keys, essential for competitive gaming and efficient typing.

Cooling System and Battery Life: Sustained Performance

For a high-performance gaming laptop, an effective cooling system is paramount to maintain optimal performance during extended gaming sessions and heavy workloads. The MSI Crosshair series is known for its robust Cooler Boost 5 thermal designs, often featuring 5 heat pipes and 2 fans to dissipate heat efficiently via 4 exhausts.

Battery life is another critical aspect for a portable gaming machine. Although gaming laptops typically prioritise performance over battery longevity, advancements in power efficiency for both CPUs and GPUs, coupled with MSI’s optimisation, likely provide a respectable 4-cell 90Wh battery for general productivity tasks and light usage on the go.

Summary and Conclusion: A Formidable Gaming Machine

The MSI Crosshair A16 HX Ryzen 9 GeForce RTX 5070 stands out as a truly formidable mid-range gaming laptop. Its combination of a powerful AMD Ryzen 9 7945 HX processor, a capable NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 GPU, and ample upgradeability makes it a compelling choice for gamers and power users seeking high performance without breaking the bank. The inclusion of MSI AI Robot further enhances the user experience, offering intelligent system adjustments based on natural language commands.

Overall Rating

Based on our review, here’s an overall rating for the MSI Crosshair A16 HX:

MSI Crosshair A16 HX Overall Rating

Overall Score: 91/100

Final Thoughts

The MSI Crosshair A16 HX is a testament to MSI’s ability to pack high-end performance into a mid-range package. Its raw computing power, excellent graphics capabilities, and smart AI features make it a versatile machine for both intense gaming and demanding productivity tasks. If you’re in the market for a gaming laptop that offers a fantastic balance of power, features, and future-proofing, the Crosshair A16 HX should definitely be on your radar.

Product Review Video

Please check the video below or subscribe our official Youtube channel for further video updates:

Learn more about the MSI Crosshair A16 HX

Today, we’re taking a deep dive into the latest business laptop from MSI – the MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM. Positioned by MSI as a “workhorse” for business and home users, we’ll be conducting a comprehensive review covering its build quality, specifications, performance benchmarks, and other aspects to see if it can be the ideal companion for your daily work and life.

Unboxing Experience: Simple and Efficient

The unboxing experience of the MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM is very straightforward. Upon opening the box and lifting the first cardboard layer, you are greeted with the laptop itself. The package also includes a 90W charging adapter with a region-specific plug. The entire unboxing process reflects MSI’s meticulous attention to user experience, aiming to provide a convenient plug-and-play setup.

Exquisite Craftsmanship and Superior Display: Crafting a Professional Experience

The MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM boasts excellent build quality with sleek lines and almost no plastic finishes. The laptop itself feels rigid and durable, likely constructed from a lightweight aluminum alloy. MSI has clearly designed this laptop with the needs of modern professionals in mind, ensuring it seamlessly integrates into both office and home environments. While it lacks flashy RGB lighting, the keyboard features a clean white LED backlight, ensuring keys are clearly visible in any lighting condition.

The screen is another major highlight of this laptop. It features a 2.8K resolution OLED panel with a high refresh rate of 120Hz. This display is undoubtedly one of the most cost-effective aspects of this laptop, standing out in its price range with its exceptional visual performance and high-spec configuration. For users who demand a high-quality visual experience, this is undoubtedly a huge draw.

Additionally, the laptop is equipped with two 2W speakers on the sides. While not exceptionally powerful, they provide sufficient audio quality for daily use. The large touchpad also ensures smooth cursor navigation, allowing for easy control even without an external mouse. Of course, if you are a mouse user, you can easily connect an external mouse.

Performance and AI Features: The Next-Generation Productivity Tool

As an AI+ laptop, the MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM naturally boasts impressive performance. We conducted Geekbench AI tests, and the results show its excellent performance in AI computing:

Geekbench AI Test Results

These data indicate that the MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM has powerful capabilities in handling AI-related tasks, providing a smooth and efficient experience whether performing complex machine learning operations or running AI-driven applications. This makes it an ideal choice for content creators, data scientists, and other professionals who require AI acceleration.

MSI has also equipped this laptop with AI Zone, allowing users to manage AI functions and monitor hardware performance through an intuitive interface. This enables users to easily adjust AI engine settings according to their needs, achieving optimal work efficiency.

Cooling and Battery Life: A Durable and Stable Work Companion

Under long periods of high-load operation, the cooling performance of a laptop is crucial. The MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM has also been optimized for cooling, ensuring the device remains stable when handling demanding tasks. Although the video script does not contain detailed cooling test data, based on the overall design and positioning, MSI should have given this aspect ample consideration.

Summary and Rating

Overall, the MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM is an excellent laptop designed for business and home users. It excels in design, display, AI performance, and user experience, making it a worthwhile productivity tool.

Here is the overall rating for the MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM:

MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM Overall Rating

Overall Score: 90/100

Conclusion

The MSI Venture A14 AI+ A3HM, with its powerful AI performance, excellent display, and robust design, is undoubtedly a strong contender in the market. Whether for daily office work, content creation, or AI development, it delivers stable and reliable performance. If you are looking for an efficient laptop that can meet a variety of needs, this laptop is definitely worth your attention.

Product Review Video

Please check the video below or subscribe our official Youtube channel for further video updates:

Learn more about the Venture A14 AI+

We managed to get our hands on yet another one of MSIs gaming laptop models which is the Stealth A16 AI+, we’ve heard really good things about this years model and enquired about reviewing one for a while to see how MSIs budget range gaming laptops have been going for performance and specs lately, so today we’ll be running this laptop through our tests and benchmarks to see what sort of performance results we’ll get.

Take a seat, grab some popcorn – lets dive in!

They finally gave us the chance to review their Raider A18 HX laptop which is packed to the absolute brim with high caliber specs that’ll make any creator or gamer froth at, so today we’ll be reviewing every ounce of this laptop to see what it’s capable of like, so sit back, relax and enjoy the video.

Take a seat, grab some popcorn – lets dive in!

The MSI Titan Series Laptops have always been renowned in the industry as the absolute top of the line and completely speced out device on the computing market each year. This model I currently have with me today made me go through a whole heap of exciting emotions after finding out what specs it comes with for this year’s edition. we’ll be taking a quick look at everything from benchmarking, temperature readouts, and other aspects of the laptops to see how it performs overall.

Take a seat, grab some popcorn – lets dive in!

find out more at:
https://au.msi.com/Laptop/Titan-18-HX-AI-A2XWX

MSIs Raider lineup of laptops have been killing it in the laptop game ever since they debut in 2018, starting with their GE63 and GE73 along with several updates throughout the years – but recently MSI has released their brand new Raider 18 HX AI edition laptops that carry the latest and greatest of gaming related computer components. So today we’ll be running through what this laptop offers for specs and test how capable it is for our creators and gamer heads out there

Take a seat, grab some popcorn – lets dive in!

find out more at:
https://au.msi.com/Laptop/Raider-18-HX-AI-A2XWX

The MSI Creator Z16 Hiroshi Fujiwara Limited Edition is the first collaboration that MSI has done with a fashion designer, but coming in at $4,000 AUD, can this machine perform as well as its price-tag, or will it be relegated to people with deep pockets who are just after the design? please 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!

Compared with the previous generation GL65, this GL65 10SEK has only one slight change on its appearance which is the two strips on the top cover. This mold might have used GP series as it can be clearly seen on the resemblance regarding the I/O interface (ports) and the heat dissipation design.

So let’s dig into the details.

Product Specification

GL65 Leopard 10SEK Tech Specs from Official Website
https://au.msi.com/Laptop/GL65-Leopard-10SX/Specification

Product Unboxing

Package Appearance
MSI’s Typical blackbox packaging

The notebook is protected by the thick and shock-proof foam. The main body is warped by a double-layered suit which has an anti-static layer and a black fabric layer

The power cable and AC adapter

The AC adapter is from DELTA, model: ADP-230EB T, 19.5V 11.8A which is total of 230W

Product Analysis

The GL65 Leopard from the top

The GL65 Leopard from the bottom

The chamfered corners are slightly rounded and without sharp edges

The heat-dissipating part at the back of the laptop mimics the design of supercars, and all the sharp corners act to prevent scratches

The design of the Dragon Shield will glow up when turning on the machine

The full-sized keyboard comes from Steelseries

The per-key RGB brightness of the keyboard is pretty well distributed

The new 10th gen Intel logo and RTX logo from Nvidia

The GL65 Leopard nameplate sticker

The touchpad is separated by the touch area and buttons, which avoids accidental touch and improves the feel

The 720p camera on the top of the B cover is next to the built-in directional noise reduction microphone

The C panel buttons from left to right are the Cooler Boost button, Dragon Center button and power button

The laptop front side – The 3 indicators from left to right are WIFI, battery and HDD status

The laptop rear side – The back vents of the GL series molds are not symmetrical in design, but the appearance is avant-garded fashionable

The laptop right side – I/O are the 2 x USB3.2 Type-A Gen1, SD(XC/HC) card readers, power jack

The laptop left side – I/O are the Kensington lock port, RJ45 Ethernet port, 1 x HDMI(4K @ 30Hz) ), 1 x Mini-DisplayPort, 1 x Type-C (USB3.2 Gen2), 1 x USB3.2 Type-A Gen1, headphone and microphone port

The laptop overall weight: 2.3KG
The laptop opening angle is around 120 degree

The latest 10th Gen CPU brings more powerful performance.
The RTX graphics card with Ray-Tracing technology will experience a better light and shadow effects when playing AAA games.
The 144Hz gaming screen can make your game smoother and smoother.
The two-sided speakers support Hi-Res, please enjoy the lossless music with a premium sound quality.
The new version of the Dragon Center controlling program allows you to monitor every performance on your laptop.
The revolutionary cooling system –‘Cooler Boost 5’ is the best dedicated thermal solution from MSI and will establish a high-performances system running environment to provide a stable and immersed user experience.

More detailed tests and benchmarks will be presented after our comprehensive tests, Stay tuned!

GL65 Leopard 10SEK OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE

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/