I'm Sorry, Slower is… Better?? - Asus Zephyrus G14 and G16 First Look 

Lol why wouldn‘t they label it as one? What‘s their marketing team doing

At 7:19 Linus talk about running Forza on the AMD machine while using G16 and then at 7:54 he says "turning our attention to the AMD side of things" when switching to G14.

@@bula288 Linus did not make a mistake. The G14 is AMD and the G16 is Intel. At 7:16, he says "while we get our Forza files validated on the AMD machine let's check out [the Intel machine]." He's gaming on the G16 while the game loads on the G14.

@@bula288 I think he said "while we get the files validated on the AMD" so he was playing on the G16 which is intel I believe, while waiting for the G14 which is AMD

@@bula288 Maybe one has an Nvidia GPU and the other doesn't? Idk honestly

Upgradable ram was a big selling point in the past. You could run 40 or 48gb just by buying a ram kit.

@@yensteel Modern high speed ram is running into lane length issues, so while i hate it, having soldered ram actually is justifiable if its very highly clocked

​@@RepChris Sure, if it's a high performance device and you're sticking in 32GB of super high clocked DDR5 in, solder it up!... But most people can't tell if a computer is using DDR4 or 5, let alone whether it's high or low clocked. The vast majority of laptops sold open: Chrome, Office and Adobe... The **vast majority** of laptops don't need soldered RAM.

@@almc8445 I can kinda understand it in super low-end computers. Sockets cost money, and for some people it might be worth a cost reduction. But for mid-range machines it absolutely makes sense. CPU generational gains are quite slow, while theoretical performance limits of RAM aren't that much of an issue (since they aren't pushing speed limits).

​@@wojtek4p4 It's $1.30/SODIMM socket, and $14/module. Solder on memory is $13/chip. This part's just opinion, but I don't think the $2.30/unit difference is the real driver for the decision, it seems more plausible to me that the driver is them wanting people to just buy new devices... (All figures are for DDR5, from Digikey Aus converted from AUD to USD @ 0.67)

lmao, I didn't even realize it was CES time until I read this comment

i forgot about CES too

They do they testing but because they’re the sponsor, they choose which results were published

Neither Gamers Nexus nor LTT seems to have actually gone to Vegas for CES. Not sure if they decided to avoid it due to the massive covid outbreak or if this was preplanned.

@@DoorKnob92 I'd rather some cherry picked LTT numbers than Samsung or any other brands and then sure I'll probably wait until the full GN video with their testing for 100% accuracy but that's my opinion

Shame it only seems to come in Intel flavour, and Meteor Lake is barely as good as Intel initially claimed, as per usual Intel marketing BS.

Same here! Got the 2022 Flow x13 though as I was sick of 17'' chonkers I kept carrying around, figured I could game, model and use it as a tablet when I need to all in a slim package. Then I got a steam deck... the tablet mode wasn't very good (Lots of parallax, buggy writing and just unwieldy as a tablet) I got a tablet as well. Asus crapware and windows gremlins made me sick of it as well, now thats all sorted out. Screen is great, battery life is not the best but serviceable, Usb-C is amazing, need to leave some breathing room for the turbo mode though. I am considering a 14'' laptop thats just a laptop now.

​@@damienlobb85 Amd is even worse. So..........

@@neon_archTBD

100% with you on this one and good luck in your 3D modeling endeavors!

What do you mean ? For both you can go with a 4060 or 4050 (well, I wouldn't recomment 4050) which is (the 4060 that is) very resonable in performance and power needs. And I'm quite sure you can also go down with a more midrange CPU like R7 maybe R5 or on intel side core ultra 5 (maan, this naming scheme is so stupid). With these, the cooling will be very good, it will probably be always very silent and not hot and also not cost a ginormous amount either. Ok, thinking about it, the screen might be overkill for some, especially since it probably adds to the cost too. Maybe there are cheaper options for that too, I wouldn't be surprised.

In an industry of bigger numbers and adding more Xs it's nice to just see a basic pitch about who they made a product for and why it's good for that user

Or in a dark room

My fingerprint on my zephyrus doesnt seems to be very accurate, sometimes its not recognizing my fingerprint for few times in a row, anyone have same problem?

Agreed. I do the same. The fingerprint reader is usually way faster option.

more is better in this case

I find fingerprint is always faster. It's nice to have both but if I can only have one its fingerprint scanner all day.

You don't need to add extra s if the word ends with s.

Did you pay for 100k subscribers? Trying to figure out how a channel with over 100k subs only has an average of 50 views or so on their videos

Framework you can Upgrade or even switch Motherboard and CPU

I know i have a G14 for a year now and was gonna get the framework at the end on this year, and dang is that new one looking sweet.

I have a G15 i bought last year and I was suuuuuper tempted to get a framework but Im glad i didnt (yet). Its such a nice lil laptop. a 3060 and a ryzen 9 6900HS in mine. 1440@165hz make it a Rocket League BEAST.

@@DarthAwar with the price you can mostly buy a new laptop.

Get the 16" Framework w/ the GPU add-on if you're buying for gaming purposes. You can upgrade it later instead of having to buy an entire new laptop every upgrade.

Give us a 3rd Linus!

As long as they aren't overworking themselves...

But you’ve never written any books

Yay, let's overwork them again

@@Lefthandup it's a phrase

A lot of that comes down to how ridiculously light these specific laptops are. I'm pretty sure they are the lightest gaming laptops ever made at their respective size.

They do drop, a lot times

That right there is what we get in tradeoff for the drops lol

Would you rather have more thunderbolt chips? Or more heat pipes? Everything has a cost. If you want everything, there's always a higher end line of laptops that has everything.

​@@hk07666PCIE lanes are in the CPU itself

​@@captainheat2314 the connectors require space.

@@XGD5layer laptops have that space as we are talking USB c size and not ethernet

funny thing is that business laptops with Intel chips have had dual thunderbolt for years now. My mom's LG Gram 14 and my ASUS Zenbook 14 both have 2 thunderbolt 4 ports.

2 videos in one day with a mistake way to change lmg

I mean they do it on movie posters all the time...

yea somethings up there

Not only that, but only one of them is labeled "OLED" - they are both OLED panels.

Good thing I checked B4 putting a comment here!

How quick it is depends on the implementation, fingerprint isn't faster automatically.

My Windows machine is hit and miss with it's finger print reader but honestly I think it would be similar if it had Windows hello functionality. My big thing is how easy it is to fool windows hello. I feel like there's enough video of Linus to make a perfect copy of his head with a 3d printer and some carefully constructed printed images

@@Crispiboi RoG laptops that had fingerprint sensors usually had them cached, so that when you pressed the power button, it'd keep that fingerprint and use it for login. However, I had issues with my G14's fingerprint sensor always being whack in device management until >1 year into owning it when they seemed to finally iron out the driver issues

I had it with the early days of Windows Hello on one of the first Surface Books (gen 1) and it was fairly fast. I guess it got worse.

My old fingerprint reader in my 2014 laptop basically never missed, and I have zero desire to have a camera drivers installed, let alone it be how I access my computer. Always creeped me out. Always will.

TBH the framework will almost certainly be a better laptop long term. But this will be more convenient

@@mitsoko I hear you, but I doubt the build quality of the Framework even comes close to how rigid and nice my G15 feels. I can pick it up by the very corner with my thumb and it does not flex. Certainly I do want to get a Framework eventually but for the money and timing I got a g15 last year. 165 hz 1440, ryzen 9 6900hs and 3060

Sucks for ASUS then that they didn't meet the goals that LMG set for them last year and LMG is dropping them once the prior contracts are executed on (with this being one such prior contract from last year). The team at ASUS did a great job on this, but it's just another case of one hand not knowing what the other is up to, and parts of the company just continually fucking things up for their customers despite the efforts of the engineers to bring their A game

@@TheOriginalFaxon What goals did they set for them/where? I genuinely forgot.

@@Adowrath They didn't say what exactly IIRC. They talked about it on one of the recent WAN shows and basically said that while they feel like their contacts at ASUS did want to / try to push for change in accordance with the goals set by LMG it was effectively stonewalled at an upper level and so LMG dropped them from sponsorship negotiations for now.

You kinda need to have it soldered for those speeds. It sucks, but that seems to be the best way ATM to get those ridiculous MT/s. Hopefully that'll change soon

sodimm DDR5 rn is still only topped out at 4800MT/s only, unless it's some enthusiast overclockable specific models. LP modules aren't interchangeable, but that's the only way for high speed performance

the propitiatory connector is far more egregious. no amount of marketing talk is gonna convince me this is better for the customer than a standard barrel connector.

This entire video is Linus explaining how a massive downgrade is actually for our own good.

@@Hendlton I mean it's a sponsored video, not a review. He's not recommending it, just showcasing it because ASUS paid him.

Also came here to mention this

ECC team hired by LTT is trash 😂

they keep messing up somehow

@@teeblackgold97 turns out everyone saying they could do a better job couldnt

they're true though

They also connect using CNVI, which AMD boards cannot have.

I hate that. I don't even know if it's an open standard or not, but, even if it were, just introducing a new one to gatekeep WiFi improvement iterations is still a real asshole move. And I'm saying that as a dedicated Intel WiFi user because nobody else even comes close for the combination of performance + comparability.

there's also newer Intel B200, with pending WiFi 7 certification. but it only works with m.2 E key. I don't know whether G14 2024 uses m.2 A key or E key for WiFi card though.

Currently running a 2018 ZenBook. From gaming to business ASUS is really good at keeping their machines stable and durable by design. Not to mention they don't copy other manufactors, everything is truly designed in-house. The new Omen looks like a 2020 spin-off.

Three if you include ShortCircuit's Showcase...

@@nojacko omg yes! Gonna watch that next :)

Between 6400mhz soldered ram and 4800mhz unsoldered ram, I prefer the 6400mhz. The ram being unsoldered is pointless if there isn't an upgrade path.

Some of the previous models are still set up that way. I have a G14 that had 8 soldered and 8 not, that could be upgraded to 16.

Makes sense for an iGpu with shared ram, when using a dgpu with dedicated memory, the gain is minimal. I however can see 4800Mhz ram be a dealbreaker for most people tho, since higher means better without checking.@@Hathos9

@@Hathos9they could’ve done atleast 5600mhz like Razer did. Then that difference would’ve been minimal for choosing soldered over upgradeable.

Agree. I rather they make it thicker but lighter. Maybe like carbon fiber, super light, but can be thick for great cooling and power

It does, 4mm difference is a 25% improvement over the last one, and 200g is 15% improvement. It adds up

200g lighter is now in the zenbook territory so I say yes, it does make a difference

I'd never even notice a 200g difference on a device that weighs much more than 1kg and 4mm of thickness isn't really a big deal imo if you really want better battery life and thermals unless you're a weirdo that's embarrassed about having a thicker device....@@uruacufutsal1

@@uruacufutsal1 Yeah, those are impressive-sounding percentages, but that doesn't explain **why** it's better. Also, at certain point percentages become useless. If your daily sales are usually $1, going up to $3 is technically 300% but not actually impressive.

I looked it up, Linus is right, the g14 and g16 titles need to switch with each other, also they did not write that the g14 is OLED (which it is) implying that its not OLED

@@marildogjolena1012 on that timestamp, their size didn't even fit their name, thats how i know.

I’m the same moved to dell xps 15 and switched to Samsung z flip phone a year ago I only use usb c now

But you don't need USB-C for charging.

@@Daunlouded but you do. I'll be caught dead carrying another manufacturer specific brick that weights a tonne and has only single use. I use my tiny 120W Anker charger with 3 outputs for everything - my laptop, cameras, drone, peripherals, even my shaver and toothbrush charge from that. WIth the same 3 cables. It's so much more convenient

Was thinking more or less the same, except my XPS 17 has 4 Thunderbolt ports. Recently I got the 200W Anker charger, to use it while traveling for all devices. It is such a simpler life to just use one type of cable and changer(s). It's also great to be able to charge on both sides, cannot get that with a proprietary port.

I take a USB-C charger when I am traveling and when I am gaming at home, I charge to their own brick. 100W of charging just is not enough for gaming. For non-gaming laptops, sure, USB-C is enough. I love that I can charge with USB-C though, and I hope these laptops have power delivery... I have G15 2022 version and it's amazing.

Framework 16 has it. Starts shipping in a couple of weeks.

The biggest issue is the size of the port and the physical fragility of it honestly. Electricity does not discriminate and tiny flimsy pins aren't conductive of high wattage transfer. The heat dump laptops can give off always should have been a sign that it makes no sense to not have a USBC+ port that can slow charge and accept the higher end charge rates

Per-key rgb is your biggest fault? That's just cute. Such a stupid thing to focus on. Isn't your ram usage just Windows paging and indexing files like it always does? It's normal in Windows.

@@PhyrexJ for real. That's such a weird problem. If per-key RGB is the only missing thing, that must mean that the laptop is basically perfect in every other way.

My problem 2023 g14 is the lack of good usb C charging without fucking up your battery and maybe a touch screen would be cool

@@Killermonktr my 2022 has that issue as well, it really is a bummer. Im a big fan of carrying battery packs for traveling and while i can still use them i do have to be more aware and unplug when i hit 90 percent or so. That and the crappy wifi card were my only gripes though. Im guessing if that was something they could have fixed via updates then they would have already lol

03:19 was an exciting minute!

@@stalincat2457 oof, that is terrifying to look at

I completely agree that repairability is a very important category. I appreciated that he made sure to point out twice that the ram is soldered to the board. Whether or not that is worth the hit to repairability is up for debate, but that definitely tells us what we need to know about its lack of repairability, without saying something they wouldn't approve in a sponsored video.

​@@user-ih3se7nj6rThe issue with repairability is that it depends a lot on what the manufacturers will make available after release, which is questionable at best during this time. Not to mention, it is not guaranteed that internal design will not change. As for the soldered ram, there is a bit of a necessary evil here, since soldered lpddr5 ram can reach faster speeds than sodimms. I would rather have it not on the board, but not everyone agrees with me. Some people just want the highest numbers on their spec sheet...

I asked at ces and they said price is not increasing. You'll have to confirm once launched, but hopefully that's right!

@@isaacr7416 that’s good news! Thanks

Burn in is an overblown issue. Maybe if you're playing the same game with the same HUD elements for several hours per day you might see burn in after 3-4 years.

@@rightwingsafetysquad9872 a lot of people only play a couple of games...

if you're gaming enough to worry about burn in just get a desktop my guy that takes hours per day of sitting on a game with stationary hud in the same place

@@Adierit Fair point but I'm a comp sci student with some ML work and I'm running from class to class for half the day. I kinda wanted this more professional laptop thing to be an all in one package especially considering the less "gamer" aesthetics and the better battery life (which is possible even with the Intel CPUs now). Right now my laptop is about 5-6 years old and has a 1050 and I plan on using this new one for at least 3 years.

@@rightwingsafetysquad9872 You might be right, I probably have to look into it but I have issues with an OLED TV from 2021 and its already showing some burn in. I'm sure there's some new tech, so thanks for the tip.

this laptop will get hotter than the surface of the sun

Why would you need to touch it elsewhere?

I always wonder why not move the CPU/GPU to the display and use the back as a heat sink/cooler and have more room for a larger battery under the keyboard.

Did you clean your vents and Repaste with ptm7950 it helps a lot

@@AlexDatcoldness theres only 8GB of it as well so you’ll be bottlenecked as soon as you load up windows

yeah loved the test

It is distortion, not table rattle

Yeah its really refreshing they forgot the print screen key again

@@jaketyler2702 The number of people who use that key is a single digit percentage. That’s not “they forgot” that’s “There’s little to no benefit to including this physical key since its only common function can be mapped to another key combo”

This is an issue for all thinner Laptops of the past 5-8 years or so, they all have grossly inadequate fans and heatsinks and, given encouragement from Intel and others, basically run at 100c steady state under load. It's nothing like the past with cooling that could maintain 60-70c at max power, the only Laptops coming close are the higher-end thick models that are sadly kind of niche now. It sucks, and I hate it, but the OEMs no longer care about cooling and model revisions like this are because the previous generation had to have such low power limits that it performed terribly for the higher-end hardware. Since the RTX 2000 gen, there's been little performance difference between a xx70 and xx90 mobile GPU because most models can't handle the extra power and heat.

thats strange. that draws similar power to the 6700s version that i have and while it does get hot when cranked i can go into armory crate and turn turbo boost off and the graphics tdp down some and the thermals are really decent with a reasonable fan curve. Maybe it needs to be repasted? or was it always like that? Maybe the 1050 is just a hotter chip idk lol, i had one in my xps15 and that thing was a friggin oven lol.

New look is a downgrade in my opinion. Surprised you want another one considering my experience with the 2020 g14

My 2020 g14 1650ti still works until now and for my use case really has no major problems only some inconvenience, i even used my laptops more than my pc.

@@Mikazuki13 minor inconvenience like running out of battery in 2 hours? How about getting a fried computer if you plug in the charger and a powered USBC cable

The important difference that i know of is the speed. Having the RAM closely integrated and with shorter traces, closer to the CPU, makes them able to have higher speeds like at 6200+ MTs. But I don't know exactly how much that can improve for gaming. Otherwise I would also prefer being able to upgrade it.

Honestly for me I don't understand why it has to be an either or. You could have the default 8 soldered on for speed and have a free slot available to expand. You would sacrifice speed and you'd have to adjust the timings of the ram soldered to the board but if you just need a boat load of ram for rendering or something then give the people their damn expandability pls ✨

The max rated speed of Sodimm is around 4800Mts vs soldered is up to 7800Mts at the moment. for gaming it can be useful but for more creative tasks I prefer the slower but more upgradeable Sodimm

The difference is if the soldered ram ever fails, you need to give the company more money

Actually scratch that. You could have a ram cache on the machine using the slower ram from the expansion. You could allocate specific processes to run on the faster soldered ram and then everything else could be dumped in the slower ram

Is it not possible to just format it to get rid of all the bloatware? I was kind of considering buying one of these, but now I'm not so sure.

@@Hendlton It should be, unless they have some specific drivers that require installing such bloatware, otherwise you can't use the functionality, or reconfigure it. It's usually rgb stuff that does it I think, I've seen it. On the other hand if someone is so concerned about bloatware it would stop them from buying it - why even use windows? /hj

it's possible even without the format, but you'll need to boot into a non-windows OS off of something like a USB stick and then remove the directories from there. Once you've done that, you'll also need to delete the services in windows to make sure they don't get reinstalled as well as deleting the premade recovery drive and creating one of your own or else you'll have to repeat this process if you ever have to recover/reinstall windows again.@@Hendlton

Look up g-helper, helps get rid of asus bloatware

idk about that one. i really liked the AniMe Matrix thing they had going

No upgradeable ram tho, thats s no go for me

Most of the g14 and 15 that i see on ebay daily are configured with a 3060 and a few ones with 3070, or an amd 6700S, and the recent ones that I have been seeing are the ones with 512gb ssd and 4060, and just a few ones with 4070 so I think they got a point

I wanted to buy a G14 with a 4080 but backtracked when i think about how stupid it is to have that kind of fire power on a 14inch.

They're fast DDR5 (>6400) so it's not like they can use a sodimm one either way

​@@eugeniozendejas8443 I sold my g14 because it was underpowered and picked up an Alienware and other than the speakers I am beyond impressed with the improvement in performance at a price lower than the Asus.

@@mohdnajib715 just get an external monitor? if you’re in a dorm or something its one of the best options

But the G14 2023 anyways doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner

@@jivewigWait did they remove it on the last model? I’m still using my 2020 G14 that does have a fingerprint scanner and that seems like a really dumb thing to have gotten rid of.

@@jivewig oh, wtf really? That's disappointing I was hoping it had both. Weird they said so much about how good that fancy sensor is only to remove it from the laptop the literal next year. Welp guess I will have to use something like howdy on linux.

@@-Burb they removed it since 2022. Idk why Linus didn’t know that.

@@zerotwo_.002 when he pointed at the triangle button calling it a fingerprint sensor, I ran to check if I had been missing out on it, but no, my 2022 model doesn’t have one, and so doesn’t the 2023 version.

@@TheHalfBorg yes, you can also look it up as Switched Capacitor Charger. Basically it uses mosfets to charge up capacitors in series and then switch them to be discharged as connected in parallel. Over 90% eff, its used in phones for the fastest battery charge state because it generates less power, i think that was the reason we have USB PD PPS mode, whatever voltage and current you send. The divider cuts the voltage in half and doubles the current, and with the PPS charging mode, the fine voltage control and heat generation is moved to the power brick.

That's the most stupidest qualm I've ever heard.. you could also say that it's still "zephyr"us bc of the extra fan inside.

Its already liftted up by the tall rubber feet. The hinge-feet are awful if you want to use a laptop stand

The new G14 seems really uncompelling. I drive 2022 G14 and this new chassis is a step backwards. The kickstand is an amazing product design and they just ditched it, shaved off 4mm and called it progress. Shaving 4mm off the chassis is a giant's leap backwards. 4mm of extra thermal management - now that's a sales argument. Not once have I felt like my G14 is too heavy or too thick.

personally don't like those feet makes the laptop a bit weirder to open and it all changes if I tilt the screen. Also putting it on your lap must be weird.

@@user-vj7ec1rb4j yeah the feet sound great on paper but practically, not so much

As someone who also owns a legion 5, these are very different products. The Zephyrus laptops are much lighter and more portable, so if you want to carry them around, use them for work as well as play ect, that's much more achievable

@@Drakshl I've been hands on several of the G14s at work as I do computer repair. Don't think I've managed to do a proper drag race against a 5800H/5900HS one yet because every one of them had a board failure. The slightly thicker chassis of the Legion still affords it better cooling potential, so it likely wins anyway. Having 32GB DR DDR4-3200 probably helps a little. My Legion does beat even AIO liquid cooled 10700K desktops in multicore perf though, let alone most Intel mobile systems up to 11th Gen. They aren't wildly different except for the footprint and IO. Oh and the price, the G14 was overpriced. I don't get the supposed "more portable" as if the Legion is in desktop replacement class. It's not. I carry my 15" Legion to work every day, which includes at least a half mile worth of walking with it. It's lighter than the Dell Precision I used to carry. Heck I come across a lot relatively small people that carry around real behemoths, like 17" Alienwares. Petite little ladies. You put them all in a bag and throw it on your back. The G14 is lighter sure but less functional for the work part, because you give up so much IO and didn't have a webcam. Still has a bulky charger that is most likely overkill, but you're going to need it when gaming. The website says 180w, but I feel like every one someone brought in had the 240w. I don't game a lot on my Legion, but it has a 165hz Display and RTX 3060. It's fine when I do game but I've got a Desktop with a 34" ultra wide and VR, which is where I prefer to do it any way. The only thing I don't like about my Legion is that has a 300W power adapter, for basically no reason. It maxes out at 170w from the wall if pushed with full synthetic workloads on the CPU & GPU simultaneously. Being an unrealistic draw in daily use, 180w would've been enough. That's useless extra weight, where as the bulk in the laptop promotes function and longevity. Might have been a trend where many OEMs just started shipping the extra large adapter with the AMD systems. As I was pretty sure it was supposed to come with a 240w. The trackpad is kinda crap too. Always have a mouse on me anyway, and ports to spare.

Fr, it has that old Linus vibe, which I used to get when I was a little younger and crazy about tech and things I can't afford.

I agree, That's the one thing HP, Dell and Lenovo have gotten right is they use a standard voltage and plug so my old 2007 laptop power brick still works on a new laptop as a spare. Protip, Dell's will run off HP power bricks but won't charge the battery, but HP won't run off Dell's power brick

My current work laptop can use USB-C for charging, but of course only up to 90 W. Then they have a power brick with a proprietary plug to ensure I get enough power if needed (think it is rated for 170W)