Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 – untraditionally traditional notebook

Display tests

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Basic specifications

Details

The black package of the notebook bears the same sign as its back side, a diagonal line from the upper left corner to the lower right one. We received a test sample, which is not intended for sale, so the packaging is not complete either. However, you can expect to find documentation and some small items in the package, as usual.

The package of our test piece contained only a power adapter and the laptop.

ROG Zephyrus M15 is a medium option in the Zephyrus line. Higher is the S15/S17 and of course the Duo 15, lower, on the other hand, the G14/15 with Renoir which we have already tried out. Although it is not the highest model, the M15 also offers very solid equipment. The test piece has a 6-core i7-10750H, but you can also reach for an 8-core i7-10875H. The top of the range of graphics cards is the renewed RTX 2070 Super Max-Q in 90 W with a 1360 MHz boost, lower models will also offer the RTX 2060 and GTX 1660 Ti. Like the Duo 15, there is 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSD with the possibility of expansion by a second SSD. It is a very solid equipment for playing, mainly thanks to the 2070 Super. You won’t find the RTX 2080 in the M15, nor the Core i9. These are reserved for higher models.

The first look at the M15 after unpacking reveals that despite being Zephyrus, it is a surprisingly inconspicuous notebook in a matte black version which does not significantly portray gaming. This is a big change from its predecessors. One could say that it looks dull, but this can be an advantage if you are looking for a “stealth” gaming laptop that you will be able to take to business meetings. However, you will experience the biggest surprise when you hold the M15 in your hands. It is extremely light. I have already praised the Duo 15 for its compact dimensions and weight of 2.5 kg, but the M15 without the secondary display and complicated architecture weighs just over 2 kg. That’s really great value for such a packed laptop. Despite its low weight, the notebook is very firm. The manufacturer achieved these two conflicting properties by using a magnesium alloy chassis.

The back of the test piece in Prism Black offers an unconventional multichromatic effect, which offers an interesting play of colors under refraction of light. But you can also reach for the pure black version of Brushed Black, which is without this effect, but 1 mm thinner. The build quality is nothing to complain about, the laptop is rock solid. Since the Active Aerodynamic System is completely missing here, there are no other hinges, as is usual with Zephyrus, the chassis has no unstable part or weakness.

The big surprise is port selection identical with the top Zephyrus Duo 15. It is a big upgrade for the M15 and it makes it a great candidate for multimedia use. Personally, I am most pleased with the presence of Thunderbolt 3, which was generally lacking in the last Zephyrus generation, and I criticized it a lot. I am glad that the manufacturer has learned their lesson and has already shared this universal port with the novelties. I have been using TB3 since 2015 and I would not want a laptop that does not have one. But back to the M15.

On the right side is the already mentioned Thunderbolt 3 which supports DisplayPort 1.4 and charging via Power Delivery 3.0. It is accompanied by a pair of 5-gigabit 3.2 Gen 1 USB-A ports. The left side has two audio connectors, one 10-gigabit 3.2 Gen 2 USB-A, an RJ45 connector for Gigabit Ethernet and HDMI 2.0b with 4K support at 60 Hz. Here is also a power connector. Really great selection that is often not even offered in flagships. There is perhaps only an SD card reader missing, which is not a habit in gaming laptops at all though.

Unlike the Zephyrus Duo 15, the back is completely blank and you will not find any ports here.

But the three indicators are common, that can be seen when the laptop is both closed and open.

I praise the notch for easier opening of the display lid, even with one hand. I missed this on the Zephyrus G14 and it was tricky to open the laptop with one hand.

The view from above again shows us the unconventional build quality of the display lid as well as the extensive ventilation of the lower part. To remove the bottom cover, quite a few screws need to be removed, but they are all cross-headed, so it’s relatively easy. Interesting is that the bottom right screw is fixed in the cover and when unscrewing it, the cover will also lift, thus avoiding the complicated prying that is common.

After removing the bottom cover, you get to the components. You can see a typical red motherboard and a simple but logical arrangement of components.

The tested configuration offers the second highest possible equipment of the Zephyrus M15 and thus the Intel Core i7-10750H processor with 6 cores and a clock speed of up to 5.0 GHz for 1 core or 4.3 GHz for all core turbo. 32 GB of RAM at 2933 MHz seems good, where 16 GB is on the motherboard and 16 GB in SO-DIMM format. The other 16 GB can be exchanged for 32 GB and thus expand the capacity to a total of 48 GB which is confirmed by the specifications on the manufacturer’s website. There is also a pair of slots for PCIe NVMe M.2 SSDs, one of which is occupied by 1 TB SSD. You can use the second slot to expand the internal storage.

The most important component of a gaming laptop is, of course, the graphics card. The M15 therefore received the RTX 2070 Super in the Max-Q version with 90 W and 1360 MHz in Boost. It will be interesting to compare with other RTX 2070s which we have tested previously. The higher configuration will offer an 8-core Core i7-10875H, which will have higher clock speed, but a higher cooling load can also be expected. In terms of graphics cards, there are only weaker configurations with the RTX 2060 and GTX 1660 Ti to choose from.

Although we do not find the typical AAS cooling here as in most Zephyruses, it cannot be denied that the manufacturer certainly did not forget about cooling in the M15. The cooling system is symmetrical with air intake at the sides and exhaust at the rear. There are also several heatpipes that dissipate heat from the processor and graphics card die, as well as VRM or memory. Like the Zephyrus Duo 15, the M15 boasts of the use of Thermal Grizzly liquid metal, which lowers temperatures and thus increases performance by up to 10 percent which is legit. Remember our test and TIM replacement (an ordinary paste for a liquid metal) in a high-performance laptop. The application is, of course, automated here with precise dosing, so that the right amount of liquid metal is used and thus does not spill out of the contact surfaces of the cooler and die over time.

When you open the display, you can see the hinge of the display move, but the rest of the notebook remains unchanged. This is the biggest difference compared to the original Zephyrus or the new Duo 15. They have two more joints/hinges and either the body lifts from the pad or the secondary display expands.

One of the other typical hallmarks of Zephyrus is the keyboard packed at the bottom edge of the notebook, as the upper part of the base is used for cooling. The M15 is again different in this, as it offers the classic keyboard and touchpad layout that we are used to in laptops. From a practical point of view, of course, it’s better, especially if you often use a laptop on your lap. The keyboard in the bottom half is not very suitable for this use. The layout of the keys is practically identical to the Duo 15, but a column has been added on the right edge and a row above the function keys. There is also a difference in the backlight, which is even here and exactly as you would expect. Duo 15 suffered from uneven backlighting, especially of larger buttons.

The touchpad offers relatively common dimensions and a smooth glass surface. It integrates the right and left mouse buttons and also offers gestures. Thanks to its larger dimensions, it is manipulated better than the compact version on the Duo 15.

The notebook does not have a front camera, similar to the Zephyrus G14 and Duo 15. This can be a problem for home office nowadays. Also if you would like to stream games and be seen on video. Unlike the Duo 15, the camera is not even included in the package and you will have to buy it if you have a use for it. Logically, we will not find face recognition here either, but the absence of the fingerprint reader, that was in G14, is not pleasing.

Compact dimensions often mean a small battery, but the M15 has a 76 Wh battery, which is not a bad value at all. The notebook comes with a 230 W charger, which is connected to the left side via a circular connector. Charging takes two hours, after an hour you are at 79%, which is exactly the same as the charging speed of the Duo 15. Like the top model, the M15 also offers charging via the Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port. However, even here it is true that it is a maximum of 65 W and therefore you cannot count on full power. Unlike the Duo 15, the USB-C charger is not included in the package.

Like the Duo 15, we also got the M15 with a 4K display, which usually means poorer battery life. The difference is that the M15 does not have G-Sync which was not missing in the top model. Clearly, the M15 offers Nvidia Optimus, i.e. switching between dGPU and iGPU which means saving the battery. The Duo 15 surprised with a relatively good battery life of more than three hours, especially considering that it has two displays and a more powerful processor. However, the M15 with more modest equipment, but also a smaller battery, achieved an excellent result for a gaming laptop in our demanding YouTube test. On a single charge, the laptop lasted for almost 5 hours which means placing in the Top 3 among gaming laptops. Really good result, especially for a 4K configuration. With lower brightness and office work, it should be realistic to reach 6–7 hours which is really respectable for a gaming laptop. Of course, the G14 with Renoir is at the forefront in this area, but the M15 is also high above average.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Testing methodology

We tested the notebook in a home environment, not a laboratory. Nevertheless, the effort was made for the most accurate results. These are therefore the average of the measured values from repeated tests.

The tests include synthetic benchmarks to compare the performance of both the processor and the graphics card. We also measure storage speed, battery life, charging speed and in-game performance. The goal is to test laptops and desktops in various scenarios and get a comprehensive overview of their performance and operating characteristics.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Gamut, brightness and deviation

We measured image properties of the display using the Datacolor Spyder5Elite probe. It looks like the M15 got the same panel as the Duo 15, at least in the tested configuration. It is a 15.6″ IPS display with a resolution of 4K in an aspect ratio of 16:9 (3840 × 2160 px) and 60 Hz. It can also boast of 100% coverage of AdobeRGB and Pantone Validation. This panel is the highest in the offer and focuses mainly on graphic artists, designers, etc. Unlike the Duo 15, we will not find G-Sync here. A 240 Hz 3 ms Full HD panel will be more suitable for gamers.

The display pleases with thin frames on three sides, although the lower chin is also relatively large here. 4K resolution is extremely sharp at 15 inches, even impractical for normal use. However, designers and graphic artists will certainly appreciate the fineness of the image. High resolution will also be a big tax on fps if you want to play in native resolution.

Although the 4K display is not entirely suitable for gamers, it cannot be denied that it is really great. 100% AdobeRGB coverage has been confirmed and more than 100% sRGB is a matter of course. Thanks to the probe, we also know about 94% DCI-P3 and 99% NTSC. Gamma level is 2.3 with a small deviation and the maximum brightness attacks the limit of 400 nits. The uniformity of the display, whether of colors or backlight, is also very good with only small deviations in the right part of the tested piece. We measured great values in color deviation or accuracy. Delta-E has an average value of 0.97 and a maximum of only 2.13. These are really great parameters, because Delta-E under 2 is rated as an ideal value for design work. The measured values are almost the same as on the Duo 15, which only confirms that it is most likely the same display.

The ROG Game Visual application is used to control the display, where you can switch between several modes or adjust the color parameters accordingly.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Rendering, Geekbench

The tested configuration of the Zephyrus M15 is equipped with a 6-core i7-10750H. It is actually a successor to the i7-9750H which offers mainly higher clock speed in Turbo Boost from 4.5 GHz to 5 GHz. Also, faster 2933 MHz memories are now supported, as opposed to 2666 MHz at the predecessor, increasing the bandwidth from 41.8 to 45.8 GB/s. The All-core Turbo is at 4.3 GHz. You can also get the i7-10875H in the M15 which has 8 cores, a Turbo 5.1 GHz and an all-core 4.3 GHz. It offers support for 3200 MHz memory though, just as the Zephyrus Duo 15 did. However, the new i7-10750H will have a hard time compared to the AMD Renoir we tested in the Zephyrus G14. Let’s see what the differences are in practice.

Let’s start traditionally with the Cinebench R15 for a first sight at raw performance of the processor. Compare 10750H to 9750H and we see a 7% increase in performance over Scar III. Compared to Renoir, the new i7 in single core is 3% faster, but the i9 from Duo 15 is another 7% better. In Multicore, the differences between the 9th and 10th generation have been reduced to only 3%. Renoir is already better here thanks to more cores/threads by solid 23%. The M15 is already losing 37% on Duo 15 with i9.

The newer R20 shows a small 2% lead of Renoir over the new i7. The M15 is 9% faster than last year’s Scar III, but loses 6% on Duo 15. In multicore, the M15 gained a 12% lead over the Scar III, but again loses 19 and 28% on the G14 and Duo 15, both with 8-core processors, which is expected.

The Cinebench and POV-Ray practical tests will not be advantageous for the M15 compared to the 8-core competition. In Blender, it has an 8% lead over the Scar III, but the G14 is 15% faster and the Duo 15 even 37% faster. In POV-Ray, there is again an 8% difference between the old and the new i7, and it loses 32-38% on 8-cores.

Geekbench in 3 versions again gives a little hint at the differences between the individual processors in laptops. We’re comparing the Zephyrus M15 to the Scar III and G14. The new i7 is 4% faster in single-core tests in all versions. AMD in the G14 is 11% slower but then 5 and 1% faster. Multicore compared to the old i7 in Scar III is again in favor of the M14, but the differences are only 2/4/2%. As you probably already know, multicore is the strength of Renoir and the G14 is therefore 41/7/17% faster than i7 in the M15. Again, however, it should be noted that we are comparing 6 and 8-core processors which means obvious differences in multicore performance.

In Compute, we’re comparing performance of the 2070 in the Scar III and the newer 2070 Super Max-Q in the Zephyrus M15. We can also focus on the differences between the 2070 Super and 2080 Super in the M15 and Duo 15.

Geekbench 4 shows weird results and Scar with older graphics card, although not in the Max-Q version, is 11% faster than the M15. The difference between the M15 and the Duo 15 is only 1% in favor of the top model. On the contrary, the newer Geekbench 5 already shows the expected results and thus a 2% lead of the new Super version against Scar III and a loss of 16% against the 2080 Super in Duo 15.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

3D/PC Mark and Unigine Heaven/Superposition

A combined PCMark 10 test shows a surprising victory of the Scar III of 11% over the new Zephyrus and also a 6% lead of G14 with AMD. Apparently, the CPU performance and the difference between the mobile and Max-Q versions of graphics cards play a role here.

However, game-oriented 3D Mark Firestrike and Time Spy are already showing a 4 and 7% lead of the new RTX Super over the last year’s Scar III. On the contrary, Sky diver is 53% slower, which is a very strange result. Compared to the Duo 15, the top model leads by 11/12/29%.

Tests focused on RTX and DLSS functions show an increase of 13/29/26% for the new Zephyrus with RTX Super graphics compared to Scar III with classic RTX, which is a very solid result.

Unigine Heaven game tests again show higher performance of the new Super model RTX 2070 in M15, where in Full HD the Zephyrus is 12% faster than Scar and 9% faster in 2K.

The last graphic tests of Unigine Superposition are already fully in the hands of the new Zephyrus with a 14 and 13% lead in Full HD and 4K over last year’s Scar III. Interestingly, on Duo 15 the M15 loses 10 and 11%.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Gaming tests – dedicated graphics card

In Game Tests, we will be mainly interested in the increase in performance of the Super version of the RTX 2070 Max-Q compared to the older, non-Super version in Scar III, but also the more powerful 2080 Super Max-Q in Duo 15.

In GTA, the Zephyrus M15 has significantly higher fps than the Scar III by up to 39%, which translates into real 30 – 35 fps on average. This is definitely not a negligible difference. It loses 12% or 10 – 15 fps on Duo 15.

We see a surprising result in Far Cry. The M15 beats the superior Duo 15, even if by only 4 fps, but still. It also offers a 9% higher minimum fps. Compared to the Scar III, it is 12% faster.

Odyssey now shows the expected result, a 6% lead over the Scar III but a 6% loss on the Duo 15.

Surprisingly, the SOTTR does not suit the M15 which achieved worse results than the Scar III by 26%. The M15 is thus at the level of the G14.

In Metro, the novelty is 17% stronger than Scar III and loses 8% to Duo 15.

When RTX was turned on, the difference in Metro was reduced to 11% compared to Scar III, but the lead of Duo 15 increased to 9%.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Encryption, encoding

In encryption, the Zephyrus M15 is surprisingly faster than Duo 15 by 9% and in decryption by 10%. Compared to Scar III, the M15 is 61 and 58% faster.

Working with videos shows small differences between the new and old i7 and so the M15 has 5 and 3% shorter times than the Scar III. However, the G14 is 30/28% faster than the M15 thanks to a stronger processor.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Memory and storage tests

Thanks to a higher RAM frequency, the M15 has slightly higher speeds than the Scar III, specifically by 4/12/11%. Duo 15 is even better, it is 11/10/12% higher than M15. In terms of latency, M15 lags behind Scar and Duo by 7 and 15%.

SSD speed is average, we’ve had faster here. It looks like the 1 TB SSD is the same as in G14, as the results are almost identical. I also assume that in Duo these SSDs are also the same, but thanks to RAID 0 the speed is doubled.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Heating and battery life

The maximum CPU temperature is somewhere in the middle of measured values, but it is one of the higher ones. The GPU has been heating up more than in other models and 83 degrees Celsius is the third highest measured value. Again, however, these are maximum values, which are mostly the result of a rapid increase in performance and then fall slightly. We will look at a more detailed analysis when comparing the modes and extended tests of Blender.

Battery life is above average for a gaming laptop, which can be seen compared to the Duo 15 and Scar III, that have 50% worse battery life. Although the M15 does not reach the G14, it has even 27% longer battery life. Either way, 5 hours in our demanding YT test is a very good result.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Blender – comparison of CPU and GPU

We are introducing a new type of test in which we want to show you the differences between CPU and GPU rendering and at the same time take a closer look at thermal management, clock speed and power draw in practice and not just the maximum or average values as in the previous pages.

We’re comparing the course of the BMW test in the latest version of Blender, where in addition to the classic CPU and GPU render using CUDA, we also have the opportunity to use new Nvidia OptiX, which uses new hardware resources for RTX graphics cards. While CUDA works with shaders, OptiX also uses RT cores and tensor cores for acceleration. Such a more complex involvement of computing units brings higher performance and efficiency is at a better level. At the same time, the application support is already quite decent and comprehensive. For an overview of the editors supported by the Optix API, see the Nvidia website. Nvidia is serious about this interface and has been developing “studio” drivers in addition to game controllers for some time now which are better and faster optimized for changes in supported applications.

In the first graph, you look at the progress of CPU clock speed during rendering. The classic CPU mode starts somewhere around 4300 MHz and decreases towards 3700 MHz which is expected considering temperatures and power draw. With CUDA, you can see a faster drop in clock speed to the same 3700 MHz but then a return to 4.3 GHz. In OptiX mode, clock fluctuations are minimal and still around 4300 MHz.

Power draw in CPU Package shows that the CPU and CUDA modes also make full use of the processor, and the maximum power draw reaches up to 100 W. With the CPU, we see a decrease to 80 W, which was reflected in the clock speed, as we saw above. In the OptiX mode, the power draw is not so high, it moves around 60 – 70 W.

Processor temperatures copy the power draw graph, and in the first part, the CPU and CUDA modes rise rapidly to about 95 degrees. After a decrease in clock speed and power draw in the CPU mode, the temperature will also drop by approx. 15 degrees to 80 °C. OptiX again shows a significantly better result with temperatures around 70 to a maximum of 80 degrees Celsius.

The load on the graphics in CPU mode is practically minimal, on the contrary, in both CUDA and OptiX you can see full load.

The load is also matched by clock speed, where it is interesting that with OptiX it holds firmly at 1900 MHz, while in Cuda you can see changes in clock speed up to 1.7 GHz. CPU mode is of course at a minimum as it is not used.

Power draw of graphics card copies graphs of load and clock speed, but with one difference. CUDA draws more power, around 90 W, while OptiX takes “only” 80 W and the CPU virtually takes nothing.

Finally, a look at GPU temperatures. With the CPU, the effect of influencing the second component by uniform cooling is again present. A large part of the chip works in CUDA and therefore the temperature rises to 75 degrees. In contrast, with OptiX, the curve stops just above 60 °C and the temperature curve itself is less steep. This is logical, as a smaller part of the chip is used, which does not create such a load.

The rendering times when using OptiX and CUDA are the same as the values measured on the Zephyrus Duo 15. However, the CPU takes longer time, as it has only 6 cores. This increases the differences between GPU accelerated renders from the CPU mode, which is an order of magnitude slower. Compared to OptiX up to 6.8× and compared to CUDA 4.7× slower.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Performance modes

The notebook offers an option in ROG Armoury Crate to choose from Silent, Performance and Turbo power modes.

All the tests were done in Turbo, but it’s worth looking at what differences the individual modes offer. You will definitely not expect some results. Again, we compare the same parameters, but this time in 3DMark in the Fire Strike benchmark.

The clock speed of the processor immediately shows an interesting development. Silent is around 3.5 GHz with drops to 2.4 GHz. Performance is significantly better. It reaches almost 4.4 GHz and drops to about 3.6 GHz. Turbo is somewhere in between with the same maximum as Performance but at slightly lower clock speed when dropping to about 3.2 GHz.

Power draw more or less corresponds to this, so Performance and Turbo range from 15-40 W and Silent only draws about 10 W.

Silent has lower temperatures due to lower clock speed, but the difference is not very large, maximum about 10 degrees. Performance has the highest temperatures, not Turbo, as it might seem. The reason is similar power draw but quieter operation of fans with Performance than with Turbo.

How’s the graphics card? No differences in the load as with Blender, so it always works at full speed.

With clock speed, the difference between the modes is again visible. Surprisingly, Silent and Performance have very similar GPU clock speed with a stable value around 1400 MHz which would fit the specification. In Turbo, the clock speed is even higher, above 1600 MHz.

Consumption corresponds to clock speed and therefore in Turbo mode is the highest, about 100 – 120W. More or less identical to the setting to Performance or Silent, i.e. around 80 W.

We do not see any surprises when heating up, all three modes are very close to each other with only minimal differences in degrees Celsius.

Zephyrus Duo 15 offered up to 15% differences between modes. The M15 has 11% between Silent and Performance and 7% between Performance and Turbo. The differences are thus less visible, but still well measurable. Smaller fluctuations have already been seen in the flow charts, so the real results of the 3DMark score are not a big surprise. However, it is still interesting to see almost 20% difference between Silent and Turbo.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

ROG Armoury Crate

The already known ROG Armoury Crate application is used to control the settings.

Here you can switch between performance modes, monitor the status of the processor and graphics card, activate quick functions or create profiles.

There are backlight settings, display, performance monitoring and game library control.

You will also find recommended applications, game sales or the opportunity to get games for free.

The application also serves to update drivers and there is also the option to connect the app on via a smartphone.

You definitely know the ROG Zephyrus gaming line by Asus well, as we only recently brought you a test of the top-notch model Duo 15. The Zephyrus line started with one product, but today several models bear this tag. One of them is the M15 which, however, has little in common with the original Zephyrus. On the outside, it looks like a regular laptop without gimmicks in the form of a secondary display or the AAS.

Conclusion

Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 GU502LW did not convince me at first glance that it deserves the name Zephyrus which is intended for the very top of the Asus ROG portfolio. But I couldn’t be more wrong. The manufacturer has managed to squeeze high performance and even great battery life into a compact and, above all, incredibly light body. In addition, the tested piece has the same display as the top Duo 15 and costs less than half, which I call a great deal.

Of course, the Duo 15 offers extra features such as a secondary display, AAS cooling and the like. Nevertheless, the cooling on the M15 is handled very well and the performance is more than adequate. The difference against Duo 15 is only about 10%, but sometimes M15 was even better. The port selection is identical to the top model and the standard layout of the keyboard and touchpad on the M15 will be more suitable for most people than the classic layout of the Zephyrus at the bottom. There was not much room left for criticism. Like other new Zephyrus models, the camera is missing and we won’t find a fingerprint reader either which is really a shame. Besides that, I don’t have much to criticize, it’s really a capable piece.

You can buy the laptop from our partner czc.cz for 56 990 CZK/2180 EUR

English translation and edit by Lukáš Terényi

• Contents
• Specs and details
• Testing methodology
• Display tests
• Rendering and Geekbench
• 3D/PC Mark and Unigine Heaven/Superposition
• Gaming tests – dedicated graphics card
• Encryption, encoding
• Memory and storage tests
• Heating and battery life
• Blender – CPU, CUDA and Optix test
• Performance modes
• Utility application
• Conclusion