[00:01] share. This year's Zephyrus G14 it finally lives up to the hype of being this super premium extremely portable high performance laptop that we always hoped it would be. Now, since I've only a time, I'm not
[00:14] going to make you watch this whole video to find out what's going on here. right now. On the surface, this year's changes they may not seem like much. You got a switch from an AMD processor to an Intel one.
[00:27] the laptop and an extra 10 watts of power fed to its GPU. But boy, do these changes make a huge difference. This year's G14 it performs better in games, it feels significantly cooler to the touch, and it has longer
[00:42] solved two of the other issues that I had with this laptop. It now has a much brighter display and a full-sized SD card reader. My only real nit here is with its keyboard and trackpad. While good, they should be better at this
[00:56] price point. As this laptop it is really expensive. But if you can afford it, it is awesome. But before you buy one, please check our website do have a price tracker that will check this laptop right across retailers. It
[01:11] will even tell you if its current price is the best price it's been on sale for. Now, if you can't afford this laptop, obviously do not go into debt or use one schemes. Instead, just check out the alternative laptops that I've listed
[01:25] below this video. And with [snorts] that said, let's start the show with the new Intel CPU as I think that makes the biggest difference. When looking at variety of common performance tasks, you
[01:37] difference. That's when comparing last year's G14 with AMD and this one, they perform around the same. Same goes for Cinebench which tests laptops when under a max CPU load. In fact, in single core it actually appears there is a slight
[01:51] edge to the older AMD model. But this is not the full picture. Let's look at power draw. This Intel Series 3 processor drew around 15 watts less to perform around the same as that AMD CPU. Less power means less heat you feel,
[02:06] less fan noise, and longer battery life. When you factor that in, plus those additional vents on the bottom of the laptop, you get amazing results. Inside the laptop, the CPU would average only 79° C during a 10-minute Cinebench
[02:20] 79° C during a 10-minute Cinebench torture test. Way cooler than the 87° C Heat you actually feel on the keyboard deck, it maxes out at only 36° C. This is during intensive CPU workloads,
[02:33] This is during intensive CPU workloads, and it is a whopping 7° cooler than last year's model. And if you think the fans are working harder to achieve this, they're not. There is no additional fan noise. But, the fans are loud, I'll give
[02:46] laptops like I've been doing here, we test each of them on their highest stock performance mode, in this case turbo. But, don't let that 59 decibels just freak you out. You see, you can run the laptop on its performance mode for
[02:59] significantly less fan noise. Lowering the fan speed though, it does result in slightly less CPU performance and a warmer feeling keyboard deck. But, seriously, compare this to last year's model. In the performance mode from last
[03:11] year, it was 5° hotter on the keyboard deck and its fans were 8 decibels louder. So, this year's model is much improved. Now, ASUS does give you the ability to manually set fan speeds and control CPU power limits. We've got some
[03:25] examples of this on our table. I do want to make one overarching comment here. You kind of always face with this trade-off. If you want strong CPU performance without obnoxious fan noise, the laptop gets a bit warm to the touch.
[03:38] All of this by the way, it was on a worst-case scenario for CPU-only tasks. normal person doing web browsing, say using office applications, or even programming, it only gets a little warm to the touch. I didn't find it that
[03:51] disturbing. That is on its performance in silent modes. On the silent mode, it's not completely silent. It is quiet, but it is not silent. So, if you are someone who's very fussy about fan noise, and you plan to use this laptop
[04:04] in a quiet room, move along. This Zephyrus G14, it is not for you. All right. As this is a gaming laptop, let's now take a look at what happens when you start using that GPU. In Time Spy, you can see that this
[04:16] year's G14 is just much better than last year's, and it's now only slightly behind the significantly larger Strix G16. And that big laptop has a full 140 W 5070 Ti. Now, there are a couple of key factors that really propelled this
[04:31] year's G14 to just perform so much better. Firstly, during gaming, manufacturers, they feed less power to the CPU to allow more power to be fed to the GPU. In turbo mode, ASUS gives the CPU the
[04:43] same 30 W that it gave it last year. But, this new Intel Panther Lake CPU is just much more power efficient. And it performs around 60% better at that same power level. On the GPU side, this year's model feeds
[04:57] the 5070 Ti up to 10 W more, 130 versus 120. This, plus the additional cooling from all those vents down below the laptop, it means the exact same GPU now performs 9% better. When you combine the extra CPU
[05:11] performance and GPU performance, you get 17% increase in total performance, all while feeling significantly cooler to the touch. Big win here. If you care about ray tracing, this year's model is slightly faster than
[05:25] last year's, and again, slightly behind the full wattage 5070 Ti in that much larger Strix G16. Still no Mad Light. That is a benchmark that runs natively on all platforms, so it allows us to compare to the MacBooks.
[05:38] You can see here that this year's G14 with a 5070 Ti, it annihilates the similarly sized MacBook Pro 14. That's the one with the upper end M5 Pro chip with a 20 core GPU. Even the MacBook Pro 14 with the M5 Max
[05:52] chip is beat out by this G14, at least here in gaming. In the newly released Forza Horizon 6, this G14 it gives you a very smooth experience. You got 83 frames per second on average with 63 frames per second for the 1% lows. And
[06:06] keep in mind, this is at the game's max settings using the screen's native resolution. No upscaling or frame gen here. Turning on upscaling dialing obviously give you more frames. Now, don't worry about the G14 appearing last
[06:20] year in our graph. Forza Horizon 6, it's a really new test for us. So, we are laptops here that are much larger with more powerful GPUs, 5080s and 5090s. To compare within its peer group, here's the older Forza Horizon 5. Now, you can
[06:36] see that the G14 it falls exactly where it's been falling before, well above the Blade 14 with its 5070, above the older G14, but below the Strix G16. Next up is another intensive title, Marvel Rivals. We believe this game likes strong CP
[06:51] performance, and as I showed you at the wattage that ASUS are feeding this laptop during gaming, this Panther Lake CP does really well. So, you can see the G14 performs substantially better than last year's model, particularly in 1%
[07:04] lows. In fact, the older model with a 5070 Ti it barely beat out the Blade 14 with its 5070. Finally, Cyberpunk 2077. In this benchmark, this new little Zephyrus G14
[07:18] it beat out the much larger Strix G16. Guys, let's call a spade a spade. If you want the best gaming performance that you can get in a 14-inch laptop, this is
[07:30] it. Now, let's talk about heating fan noise while gaming. Well, this year's G14 it did feel warm to the touch, but not insanely hot like last year's. You can see in our graphs, this year's G14 was 7° C cooler on the keyboard deck
[07:44] while gaming, which is a massive difference. By the way, all our gaming tests that I've shown you thus far, they were run on each of the laptops highest stock performance modes. In the case of the G14, turbo, like I said earlier.
[07:56] Now, in the turbo mode, the fan noise is very loud. And since we love you guys, of its performance modes, or at least Seth did. Switching down to the mode called performance, it does have much less fan
[08:09] gaming performance. Again, like we showed you for CPU tasks, the keyboard deck, it does get a little warmer in that performance mode. There is this third-party app called G-Helper, which used to better optimize the G14 for
[08:22] performance and thermals. Well, we tested it, and as you can see, it didn't really help here. So, in the future, I think I'm going to drop this test as it's really caught up to whatever benefits that app used to give you. All
[08:35] many of you guys are going to be interested in this laptop. Well, the MacBook Pro 14 with the M5 Max chip, it does steal the crown now from the G14, but not by much. We actually use Premiere Pro here, so I edited one of
[08:50] our 4K videos on this laptop, and it was great. To demonstrate this, I measured minute of playback. Zero dropped frames at half resolution, which is probably the max you'd want to play back on a small 14-in screen like this one.
[09:04] though, and playing back at full 4K resolution, it dropped nine frames. That's over the course of the minute. And that equals 0.5% of frames when you consider our videos are filmed at 30 frames per second, which is very
[09:17] minimal, and keep in mind, I tested this laptop on its performance mode, and not its highest end turbo. That's because when I edit, I like less fan noise. As performance mode, the G14, it did get a
[09:29] little warm, but the MacBook Pro 14s, they get warm, too. When I tested exporting a video, this laptop was again right in the middle between the two MacBook Pros. Behind the M5 Max one and ahead of the M5 Pro one.
[09:42] between the MacBook Pros narrows, but it's a similar story. In Blender for 3D rendering, again same thing. The G14 is between the two MacBooks and very close to the performance of that larger Strix G16. I can't believe that I'm this far
[09:57] about battery life yet. Well, it is amazing. For everyday tasks like longest-lasting 14-in high-performance laptop. It lasts significantly longer
[10:09] longer than the MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro chip and much longer than the one with the M5 Max chip. Folks, this is what we expected to see with Panther Lake gaming laptops, but unfortunately, so far a lot of the ones that we've
[10:23] where So, they weren't able to put their dedicated GPUs to sleep. Well, it's great to see a Panther Lake gaming laptop actually living up to Now, if you're wondering what performance is like when you unplug the
[10:37] laptop, there is a slight drop in the max CPU performance. We don't actually test GPU performance while unplugged as Nvidia GPUs, they're significantly throttled when you do that. It's not something we recommend as using the GPU
[10:49] when unplugged, it will just drain your battery fast and degrade it. All right, let's now take a look around the rest of the G14. Speaking personally, I think the platinum white color looks awesome. But the eclipse gray, it looks kind of
[11:01] meh, at least in my eyes. If you do go for the darker one, some good news avoiding fingerprints. Not entirely, but it does a decent job. If the reason you've held off on buying a G14 to date was because there wasn't
[11:14] enough light zones in that flashlight on the front, well, I have good news for from seven. The laptop as a whole, it feels super premium and well-built. Razer and MacBook levels of quality here. There's
[11:27] anything like that. Actually, one area where the G14 beats the MacBook's chassis is its front edge. You see, the MacBooks they have this sharp front edge and it can cut into your wrist. That's if you don't have
[11:40] just annoys the crap out of me, by the way, when I'm using a MacBook on a The G14 has this diagonal cut along the front, so this doesn't happen. And that's important because the Zephyrus it can be a thicker laptop. You see, the
[11:54] models with the more powerful GPUs, the RTX 5070 Ti and 5080, they're actually 2 That's when compared to the 5060 and 5070 ones. Obviously, that is to house a beefier cooling solution. Compared to a MacBook Pro 14, our 5070
[12:09] Ti G14, it is thicker at the rear, but it does taper down at the front to be around a millimeter higher. Weight-wise, it isn't super light, but it's not heavy, either. Right around the MacBook Pro 14 and a little lighter than
[12:21] the Blade 14. That's for the laptop by itself. Once you include its charger, it is heavier. Our RTX 5070 Ti model, it came with a beefy 240 W charger that uses ASUS's proprietary connection. But, of course, you can charge it via USB-C.
[12:36] standard, so I didn't have any mispresses or anything annoying like around the keys, blinding you like it does on some of Lenovo's keyboards. That being said, Lenovo's keyboards, they are noticeably more satisfying to type on.
[12:51] On the G14, I just felt like my fingers were hitting the bottom, which is odd, given it has 1.7 mm of key travel. I believe what's probably going on is the actuation point is just too low. There is also only a single zone of RGB,
[13:05] not per key, which is really weird given they focus so much on increasing the the trackpad, it felt smooth and accurate, but there is too much a mechanical diving board design, it actually doesn't depress at the top at
[13:19] all, only at the bottom. Look, it's usable, but in 2026 for a keyboard should be better and the trackpad should be a haptic one. The 14-in screen has all the benefits of last year's: high resolution, fast
[13:32] refresh rate, OLED, great colors, G-Sync, Advanced Optimus, but this year's panel gets significantly brighter. This makes it a more versatile a better job of combating pesky reflections. Also, this screen's
[13:46] anti-glare coating, it is pretty decent. It's more effective than the Blade 14's. flickering is used to control fatigue while using this laptop, but it is there.
[13:59] There is a minor screen door effect there, too. If you stare closely at colored pixels peeking through. On ports, just like last year's, there's plenty of them and a wide variety. The HDMI 2.1 port goes directly to the
[14:13] dedicated GPU, as does the USB-C 10 gigabit port on the right side. Thunderbolt port for a DisplayPort connection, it goes via the iGPU. I love this setup. Firstly, you can plug in and charge the laptop from either
[14:28] side, which is very convenient. Secondly, I know gamers love their external monitor being driven directly by their dedicated GPU, but I don't. everyday tasks, I don't want the dedicated GPU constantly warming up my
[14:42] laptop because it's in use. So, I love that I have the option to use the iGPU for my external monitor. That way, the dedicated GPU will only be engaged when Finally, when it comes to ports, this new G14 now has a full-size SD card
[14:58] reader. Previously, it had a micro one. Very helpful for photographers and video editors. The speakers are pretty good, they get loud, but the sound lacks bass. muddy compared to the clarity of the MacBook Pro 14 speakers. Take a listen.
[15:13] >> Woo! >> [music]
[15:30] Zephyrus G14 for 2026. Now, it isn't a strong suit of this laptop. It's a 1080 webcam and this is as good as it's going to get. I'm using our excellent studio lights here. Given the price of this laptop, I would expect more.
[15:43] Now, on the positives, there is Windows Hello facial recognition to get you logged in fast, but there is no physical privacy shutter, nor is there a And one more thing, I am doing this in silent mode. Occasionally, the webcam
[15:57] would flicker. Also, there is a tiny bit of fan noise. Now, if you turn off our dimmer house lights, here's what I look like, a complete potato. Inside the laptop, we do see two large fans and a very robust set of heat pipes. The
[16:11] configuration seems ever so slightly different to last year's. On that note, I believe the lower tier models with the 5070 and 5060 GPUs, they'll continue to use the three-fan cooling solution that they did, but their two main fans, they
[16:23] aren't as thick. Back on our unit, the SSD, Wi-Fi, and battery, they are replaceable. The memory isn't. Moving on to Linux, we tested both Ubuntu 26 and Fedora 44. By the way, big thanks to Linux backers on Patreon and YouTube
[16:37] members who have generously supported us to do this Linux testing. Now, in Ubuntu, we were able to boot, but only once we disabled the dedicated GPU and run in iGPU only mode. If the Nvidia GPU is active in any way, you'll get a black
[16:50] screen. Now, once we did boot, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, webcam, speakers, keyboard they all worked, but we weren't able to unfortunately. In Fedora, sadly, we just got a black screen. It wouldn't even
[17:04] boot, not even in iGPU only mode. Lastly, the Zephyrus comes pre-infected with McAfee antivirus. It constantly pops up just trying to scare you into buying a subscription. Some of these pop-ups are really hard to close without
[17:18] subscription. Windows comes with an antivirus, guys. You don't need this McAfee. They're basically doing the exact same thing that the scammers do, who they claim that they're protecting you against.
[17:31] Please spend a bit of time just learning about common online scams. I've linked some really good channels down below. And obviously, delete McAfee. All right, I think my voice is going so let's wrap. Previously, the G14 was the most
[17:44] powerful 14-in gaming laptop. It was the only one that you could buy with Nvidia's highest-end GPUs, the 5070 Ti and the 5080. But unfortunately, placing those higher-end GPUs in the tiny metal G14, it just didn't work out that well.
[17:58] They were underfed power and the G14 got uncomfortably warm to the touch, even in light use. So, we just didn't recommend buying one, at least not for most gamers. Well, this year's G14 is so much better,
[18:10] it isn't even funny. Much better gaming performance, significantly less heat you feel, and much longer battery life. It's not a perfect laptop, as I've shown you today in this video, but it is really, really good. If you are choosing between
[18:24] the models, the 5070 Ti that I've linked below, that's the config to get. It's the one where this laptop just really shines. Above it, the 5080 version, money for not that much extra performance. You see, a 5080 is capable
[18:39] of running at 175 watts, but in this laptop, it can only feed it 130. >> When it comes to the thinner model with the 5060 and the 5070s, I'd look around You've got Razer's Blade 14, which I really like, and Asus's own TUF A14,
[18:54] one. I'll link our reviews of those laptops down below this video so you can weigh them up and determine, do you really want the Zephyrus or one of them? Finally, if you are looking at this laptop as a creator laptop, well, the
[19:09] MacBook Pro 14, mean, a better option. The only reason to buy the Zephyrus over it is obviously if you want to do some solid gaming in your downtime or you want that Nvidia GPU for AI development. Anyway, regardless of which laptop you
[19:21] buy, make sure you check out the price tracker over at bestlaptop.deals. You want to know that you're buying from the retailer offering the best price and the right time. You see, these sales, they constantly fluctuate. And good
[19:37] in India. Anyway, that's all I got for you today. We've got a lot more reviews coming, so get subscribed, click that notification bell. Until next time, I will catch you later.