After everything they’ve announced recently, most of it at CES 2023, the next generation of hardware is already starting to circulate and even hit the market. That’s why ASUS is already readying the various 2023 releases of its gaming laptop lineup, devices featuring the latest hardware including RTX 40-series GPUs and 13th Gen Intel processors. So I tested one of the most anticipated 2023 models, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 and I would like to dispel any doubts by saying that it is a very, very interesting laptop.
However, what makes this laptop so impressive isn’t just more powerful hardware, which is certainly what drives it, although it’s amazing and more on that later. No, it’s actually the screen, which is possibly the best I’ve seen on a laptop. This QHD Mini LED display reaches 1100 nits of peak brightness, with 100% DCI-P3 coverage in 1024 dimming zones and HDR 1000 certification using the ASUS Nebula HDR engine, making for an extremely bright and crisp display. Also, what’s really impressive is that this display also runs at up to 240fps, with a 3ms response time.
I used to point out in the past that these kinds of specs often balanced each other out, as hardware prioritized visuals over frame rate and performance, or vice versa. However, now the aforementioned awesome new hardware has come into play. The GeForce RTX 4090, 13th Gen Intel i9-13900H processor and 16GB of DDR5 RAM combine to create a system that achieves high refresh rates while running games with maximized graphics.
Before we talk about numbers, let’s clarify a few points. Since the Zephyrus M16 is QHD, games run at 1440p and not 4K. Del mismo modo, he utilizado la nueva y lustrosa técnica de renderizado DLSS 3 con la esperanza de obtention un salto de rendimiento donde sea posible, y por lo que he visto, sí que añade algo de rendimiento extra sin necessidad de hacer overclock o sobrecargar más the system.
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Ultra quality frame rates without DLSS 3
- Destiny 2: 120 fps media
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: 130 fps media with Ray-Tracing / 75 fps media with Ray-Tracing
- Deathloop: 110 fps media
- Days Gone: 95 fps media
- Apex Legends: 105 fps media
- God of War: 85 fps media
For comparison, Apex Legends, at the lowest possible quality, often stuck to the screen’s 240 fps limit. Also, as a second comparison, my home desktop (with an RTX 3090, 11th Gen i9-11900KF, and 64GB of DDR4 RAM) typically averages 120fps when playing Destiny 2 on high graphics , but it does not reach the Ultra mode with which I was testing the Zephyrus M16. In short, after so many years of saying that laptops could never compete with desktops in terms of performance, the RTX 40 has arrived to break all our patterns. So, in a moment.
And for those wondering how far DLSS 3 can go, that’s the average of
refresh rate when in use.
- Deathloop: 135 fps media
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: 83 fps media
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You see that this laptop is no mean feat. It’s very powerful and capable, more than I’ve seen in a gaming laptop, in addition to its unrivaled display. But what are the disadvantages? There are a few, but none are significant enough to negatively affect my opinion. However, we must take them into account.
Squeezing all the latest-gen hardware and pushing it to its limits is expensive in many ways. On the one hand we have the battery life, which drains so quickly that it seems almost impossible to use this laptop without having it connected to the charger. This doesn’t just happen when you’re gaming, as the powerful hardware seems to constantly wreak havoc and will drain your entire battery even when running minimally.
However, assuming you game a lot and have the charger always plugged in and don’t have to worry about battery life, it’s worth noting that the Zephyrus M16 isn’t exactly a quiet machine. . I’ve used much noisier laptops, but I wouldn’t describe this as understated or subtle. While it’s also true that fans have always been a common enemy of noise-sensitive gamers, you’re probably used to them by now. But what you might not know is a laptop that gets too hot to bear, which the Zephyrus M16 can become. ASUS has equipped this laptop with a bunch of cooling systems to solve this problem, including a liquid metal thermal compound and a triple threat combination of fans to maximize airflow. All this on top of a full-width heatsink. But that doesn’t seem to be enough to solve the problem and I wonder what the Zephyrus M16 would look like without this drawback.
You might think that with all those cooling systems added to the latest hardware, the Zephyrus M16 might be a pretty big laptop, but it’s not. It’s not particularly small either, but you could say it has tight dimensions and its chassis design doesn’t feel so gamer. No, in fact, this laptop is sleek and sophisticated, using an AniMe moving animation matrix (which can be customized using the pre-installed Armory Crate program) on its cover. This way it creates one of the most original light shows I’ve ever seen, and by someone who tends to keep RGB to a minimum. Equipped with all this technology, the Zephyrus M16 weighs around 2.4 kg.
But even with its drawbacks, I can safely say that this is one of the best gaming laptops I’ve ever tested. The screen is amazingly crisp and bright, the internal hardware is so powerful that I’m now starting to consider swapping my desktop for a laptop, and what’s more, this laptop has such a sleek, clean, and sophisticated finish that It’s hard not to gape open. The best comparison I can make for you to understand what the Zephyrus M16 looks like is with a Ferrari. It’s true that it’s not ideal for traveling or going to work (for that you have the Notebooks, or continuing the analogy, the Volkswagens), but if you want to play the latest games at maximum power (or go from 0 to 100 in 2.5 seconds), then the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 is your laptop. There is no doubt.