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Asus Zephyrus G15 vs M16 QHD Gaming Laptop Comparison

Here is the Asus Zephyrus G15 vs M16 comparison overview and this is a smackdown between the Asus Rog Zephyrus M16 Vs Asus Rog Zephyrus G15 with the AMD Ryzen inside. This one was a bit hit several months ago

When it came out and the newer Zephyrus m16 which has intel’s 11th gen tiger lake CPU inside so a big difference there we got blue vs red

If you’re into the team AMD or team intel I’m into whatever works the best for you we’re going to look at it now.

So, let’s first talk about what’s the same because there is a lot of that use the same casing and in fact, even the interior motherboard layout is much the same heat sink heat pipe assembly.

Asus Zephyrus G15 vs M16

Asus Zephyrus G15 vs M16 laptop thermal design comparison

The same two M.2 SSD slots single ram slot because some of the rams are soldered on board with each of these

Same keyboard same trackpad though the feel is ever so slightly different because the m16 has a rubbery interior coating and the trackpad has that to match it as well

So same ports one difference though and this has to do with the platform difference when it comes to ports while the g15 has two USB C ports

The m16 because it’s running on intel and intel has thunderbolt as the intellectual property gets complicated that’s the way it has one USB C and one thunderbolt 4 port.

So, for those who are aficionados of thunderbolt well you’re going to be learning towards team intel also another difference with the new intel platform is PCIe 4.0 which means potentially faster SSDs given the fact that the SSD is so fast in these and both of them in the United States are shipping with PCI 3 SSD’s

Asus Zephyrus G15 vs M16 laptop ssd read write speed benchmark
Asus Zephyrus G15 vs M16 laptop geekbench 5 benchmark score

I don’t think that’s going to matter for most folk unless you’re into a professional commercial video production that sort of thing.

Lots of small reads and writes but it does allow for a faster interface to the GPU that said on the m16 I’m not seeing this as a 3060 it scored any higher than 3060 that is running on a PCI X8 bus.

So geeky stuff right there right then not so geeky difference here is while both of these are available with a wide gamut of full p3 QHD displays of basically 2560 by 1440

On the g15 you get a little extra height you get a 16 by 10 aspect ratio so 2560 by 1600. It’s 0.6 inches bigger and it does feel noticeably bigger

It’s funny you think 0.6 inches isn’t that much but the roominess that height that you gain there is kind of nice

So that’s a compelling thing and you can’t get that with the g15 while the displays are similar in terms of colour gamut contrast.

Asus Rog Zephyrus M16 Vs Asus Rog Zephyrus G15 QHD Gaming Laptop Comparison: Ryzen vs Intel Tiger Lake

Asus Rog Zephyrus M16 QHD Display Metrics:

550 Nits
100% SRGB
88% Adobe RGB
100 DCI-P3
2.3 Gamma
6600K
0.45 Black Level
1230:1 Contrast
165 Hz

Asus Rog Zephyrus M15 QHD Display Metrics:

367 Nits
100% SRGB
90% Adobe RGB
100% DCI-P3
2.2 Gamma
6700K
0.32 Black Level
1130:1 Contrast
CMN152A Panel
Asus Zephyrus G15 vs M16 laptop rear air vents
Asus Zephyrus G15 vs M16 laptop right side ports and air vents
Asus Zephyrus G15 vs M16 laptop left side ports

There is a difference in brightness with the g15 being around 350 nits which is pretty good

But the m16 is 550 nits so if you’re one of those people who has to use your laptop outdoors in really bright light then you might find that pretty compelling or you just really like bright displays.

G15 is available in your choice of eclipse grey or white. The m16 is available only in black they both have the mylar under the 4000 little dots on the lid.

it’s subtle in person by the way I’ve had dot littered Zephyrus machines for up to a year and now they don’t particularly hold on to dust and dirt.

So, there you have it the big differences are going to be intel versus AMD QHD plus a little bit taller display 16 by 10 versus QHD 16×9

And that PCIe 4.0 like I said a little bit less important both of these have single-zone RGB backlit keyboards which means you can pick any colour that you want

But only one colour at a given time for the entire keyboard these are not meant to be super blingy they do make things like the ASUS Strix and scar series

If you want RGB going every which way the m16 is targeted a little bit more at creators it only goes up to an RTX 3070.

So, you can get RTX 3050 TI and RTX 3060 which is what we have whereas the G15 is a little more gaming-oriented.

So, gamers you are going to be more interested in the g15 not just because of the GPU, I’ll tell you why but you can get this with a 3060, 3070 or a 3080 even for more GPU performance is this because the intel typically is more thermally challenged.

Then they are a little afraid of putting a 3080 in there may be so this is intel’s 11 gen tiger lake 45-watt CPU solution inside of our m16 and it’s a 10-nanometer processor vs 7 nanometers on AMD and the smaller the nanometer process generally the more efficiency in the CPU a little bit less heat little battery life.

So, intel is getting there this is better than what they were stuck on for years which is 14 nanometers but still, the fan noise is more noticeable by 8 dB or so more which is significantly a lot just 8 decibels more and they have pretty much the same cooling solution inside the source as they tweaked it a little bit sounds like the fans have a little bit more volume.

Going now on the m16 so noise and heat-wise I can see why no 3080 here even with our 3060. Now our g15 has a 3070 our m16 has a 3060 you might say this is unfair and in one way It is

but not in terms of pricing because both of these rights are now listed for 1849.

You may find retailers who are gouging and charging you more because there are shortages of gaming laptops but that is the list price

So, you’re looking at what you can get for 1849.99 which makes this a fair comparison I would love to have the 3070 to test on the m16

Because it would make better use of the QHD display when playing games whereas the 3060 has some trouble maintaining 60 frames per second on the most demanding AAA titles at QHD plus resolution

So, the fan noise issue that I talk about the m16 does it’s not a grading sound but it does verge un annoying and if you live with anybody else, you’re going to be like turn your vacuum cleaner off kind of thing and that is a ding obviously against the m16

And that’s running both of them in turbo mode and then trying custom fan profiles as well turbo mode is your go-to mode usually for gaming and heavy content production kind of activities with the Zephyrus or any ASUS gaming laptop line model in terms of surface temperatures

The G15 is a little hotter and the CPU temperatures are a little hotter running in turbo mode but not extremely hot 80 centigrade, 85 centigrade for the CPU when doing something like cyberpunk which is very demanding versus the intel is very chill

I’ll keep it at 75 to 80 centigrade so the surface temperature is correspondingly a little bit cooler both of these are pretty thin and metal-clad so you’re going to feel the heat on them

Both of them blow heat out the sides they have side vents and out the rear that’s part of the ASUS ergo lift design where it lifts the laptop to get a little air flowing underneath but also vents out the back.

So, I know some of you were thinking the 16 by 10 aspect ratio and the m16 would be suffering more from the heat that blows up

Because it goes all the way down there’s no big bottom bezel like the g15 has well. I tested with my heat gun while playing games and I can tell you that surprisingly the bottom of the actual LCD on the m16 gets as hot sometimes as 50 degrees centigrade, which is the same as the g15.

So, you know hotter it does rise and we’re not talking a whole lot of space really before temperatures would reduce and dissipate.

So, it certainly isn’t any better than the g15 in terms of blowing heat against the screen for those who are concerned about that, now ASUS says they designed it for its high-temperature tolerant displays

I can’t tell you this I don’t know some of the models that have used this design from ASUS are still running okay and people are not claiming they have display failures that’s about as much as I can tell you going with the fact that the chassis is the same on these the speakers are the same on these

You have a six-speaker audio system which is quite good I have not had speaker crackling or problems with either of these retail units

So, there’s them trackpads are fine on these the m16 has a little bit of bezel creek if you squeeze it near the top not that I typically squeeze my bezels

But the whole design of these is they are thin and light. So, you can flex the lids on either of them just as much but both of them have pretty good displays

I have a little bit more IPS glow on the m16, but, instead, both of them are quite good and have some of the nicest displays you’ll ever see on a gaming laptop.

All right how about actual performance gaming and non-gaming I mean that’s the point of laptops like these isn’t it again 3060 versus 3070.

But then this is what your 1850 US dollars buys you so we’ll call it fair something with a 3070 is going to do better and yes it does intel has stepped up their game with tiger lake and the 10-nanometer process and they are reaching a competitive level with the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 CPU that we have in our G15.

So close enough there in performance for both of these, some will win one test versus the other.

So, I would call it a draw on terms in terms of CPU speed now if it’s something like blender or whatever again you’ll see similar performance sometimes one I’ll pull ahead of the other typically

I find AMD does a little better on blender some people think that intel does better in Revit that’s partly because the config out of the box so to speak with Revit favours intel and you have to do a little more tweaking with your software setup for that reason.

But both are very performant but GPU wise if you really want to game on it, you can game at this QHD resolution on the G15 and have your enjoyable 60 plus frames and even the most demanding games all day all night. It’s great it’s lovely.

Now with the m16 you gotta drop down to 1080p plus resolution may be to achieve the same thing or you know if you’re playing a competitive first-person shooter like cs go or something where high frame rates are given

They are both going to be fine if apex or league of legends is your thing though this will be a little overkill for league of legends this kind of selection of machines then it matters less but for those who want demanding games

For those of you who are doing things like blender renders, I’d still go for the faster GPU if you could do some other things like photoshop honestly there are diminishing returns as you go up into higher and higher levels of GPUs.

Lastly, there’s battery life and the charger itself surprisingly so even though our m16 comes with a 3060, not a 3070. It has a 240-watt charger versus the Ryzen 9 that we have 5900 HX with a 3070 that has a more compact and lighter 200-watt adaptor.

So, intel is obviously using more watts and yes, they do you can look while you’re playing games or anything like that and intel still does use more power than the several many ounces of portability difference between those chargers though in terms of battery life

You have the same 90-watt hour battery in both and for a 15-inch laptop that’s a big battery that’s wonderful stuff and the Ryzen machine just runs about two hours longer on a charge to two and a half hours

Same brightness same set of tasks for benchmarking this is a light productivity task streaming video that sort of stuff.

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So, in the end, what it comes down to is other than you’re a real intel or AMD fanboy or fangirl or you know you want the 3080 GPU that you can only get in a G15 right now what it comes down to is to me a laptop is supposed to be portable.

So, I think battery life is pretty important especially the 15-inch size, if these were 17-inch desktop replacements battery life’s kind of like to me whatever probably

I’m just moving that from room to room and not taking it everywhere but if you’re talking about thin lights, particularly like these are battery life is important and the Verizon just really wins on that and it’s a little bit lighter carry

Because of the smaller charger on board as well. Yet you’re getting more performance out of it so those things make me lean towards still the G15 that said for those of you who have a particular need for intel maybe AVX 512 extensions or something like that and not the most common need still yet

If you want a thunderbolt dock for sure you got to have that you like the idea of PCIe 4.0, because you’re going to buy one of those new expensive fast SSDs

Well, that’s what intel does bring to the table too and you do get that taller display which is a treat I have to say.