ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 review: ultra-thin OLED ultrabook with Intel Core Ultra 9 and NVIDIA RTX 4090

It’s common to see flagship hardware in powerful gaming laptops, but ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 is nothing like a typical gaming laptop. The slim metal body houses the new Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor paired with a 16 GB NVIDIA RTX 4090 graphics accelerator. Of course, the dimensions cause serious compromises with performance, but let’s talk about that in order. In addition, we tested the screen color palette, battery life, heat, noise, checked the working and gaming performance, and are ready to share our impressions in this detailed review.

Technical specifications of ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024

Technical specifications of ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024
Screen	OLED 2560×1600 240 Hz 16″
Processor	Intel Core Ultra 9 185H
RAM	32 GB DDR5 7467 MHz
Drive	2 TB PCI-E 4.0 SAMSUNG
Video card 1	Intel ARC Graphics
Video card 2	NVIDIA RTX 4090 Laptop 16 GB
AI accelerator	Intel AI Boost
Wireless interfaces	Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth 5.3
Video output	HDMI 2.1
USB 3.2 gen2	2 pcs
USB C 3.2 gen2	2 pcs
Thunderbolt interface	Thunderbolt 4
Other connectors	3.5 mm jack, SD-reader
Camera	Full HD 1080p IR
Audio	6×2 W Dolby Atmos
Power supply	240 W + 100 W Type C
Battery	90 W*h
Housing material	Aluminum
Weight	1.95 kg
Dimensions	354x246x17,4
Operating system	Windows 11
Additionally	Case and mouse included

Equipment

The laptop comes in a standard two-box package. The large box contains a smaller box, two power supplies, a cloth case, and a gaming mouse. The small box contains the laptop and paper documentation.

The case is pleasant to the touch and has a lock that does not open all the way around. Inside, the material is similar to suede, and the package contains an ASUS ROG STRIX IMPACT gaming mouse.

Two power supplies are standard ASUS practice. The large PSU has a power of 240 W and a new proprietary connector. The small PSU is 100W and has a USB Type C connector. Of course, its dimensions are much smaller. Two adapters are a good advantage and convenience for active people, but it’s not that simple. As it turns out, the laptop’s power from 100 W is unreasonably low, which is probably a software bug. We’ll talk about it below in the review.

Appearance and interfaces of ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024

It’s hard to call ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 a classic gaming laptop. Its slim design makes it look more like an Apple MacBook Pro and other elegant laptops for work. The device has a metal body that gets slightly dirty without collecting fingerprints.

Light weight and slim design for a large audience are much more important characteristics than theoretical power from an outlet. No wonder that such configurations are in demand among designers, artists, photographers, content creators, etc.

The laptop has a standard set of interfaces that includes 2 USB Type A and 2 USB Type C. All of them are 3.2 speed standards, and one of them is Thunderbolt 4. There is a combined headphone jack, SD card slot, HDMI 2.1 and a proprietary power connector.

The Wi-Fi of the review hero catches well, all the time bumping into the limitations of an inexpensive home router with Wi-Fi 5. The laptop supports Wi-Fi 6E and has a Bluetooth 5.3 module. The signal reception range allows you to use it anywhere in a private house or even in the yard.

Keyboard, touchpad

ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 has a shortened keyboard without a number pad. There are separate keys on top for adjusting the sound and calling a proprietary utility. The arrows are tiny, the rest of the keys are of normal size. After a full-size keyboard, you need to get used to it, although the ergonomics are good. There is a backlight with different colors and intensity.

The touchpad is huge, like in the Apple MacBook. It’s well-made, with a nice click and good sensitivity. The downside is the way Windows 11 gestures behave, and their behavior is terrible because it’s all accompanied by jagged animations with low FPS.

• 100% sRGB;
• 94% NTSC;
• 96% AdobeRGB;
• 96% P3;

The audio is excellent, the acoustics will please even the most demanding users. Six speakers sound not only loud, but also clear, high-quality, and three-dimensional. The camera is of good quality — much better than typical webcams in gaming laptops.

Work productivity

All benchmarks for the processor and video card were run three times, using the battery, a 100W power supply, and a 240W power supply. The owner of such a laptop will rarely be sitting at home with a large power supply, so it is not only recommended, but literally mandatory to check such scenarios. Many gaming laptops are tested only on mains power, which is a kind of advertising because that’s how they show their best side.

Working performance of ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024
Benchmark / Mode of operation	BATTERY	Power supply 100 W	Power supply 240 W
Speedometer 2.1	373	361	341
Google Octane 2.0	91221	88357	92357
WebXPRT 4	275	254	275
Blender Benchmark RTX 4090	3772	2642	5389
Blender Benchmark Core Ultra 9	208	202	238
Cinebench 2024 Single	104	105	106
Cinebench 2024 Multi	828	828	982
Cinebench 2024 GPU	11913	11913	16299
CPU-Z Single	759	744	753
CPU-Z Multi	7851	7821	9196
Geekbench Single	2312	2291	2373
Geekbench Multi	12939	12070	13898
Geekbench Open CL RTX	137734	127937	154657
Geekbench Vulkan RTX	116359	117379	159322
Geekbench Open CL ARC	18567	22015	21816
Geekbench Vulkan ARC	21336	25639	25798
Corona Benchmark 1.3 (sec)	99	95	85
Stable Diffusion 512×512 x8 images (sec)	70	68	51

Before we move on to the analysis of the tests themselves, let’s mention the problematic battery life. The power, as we find out, does not drop too much, although the smoothness of the interface suffers noticeably.

The basic minimization of Windows 11 windows using touchpad gestures slows down. It’s strange to see this on a laptop with Intel Core Ultra 9 + RTX 4090. Switching to Intel ARC has improved the situation somewhat, but the animations are still choppy and unpleasant. This is not what the owner of such a premium product expects.

The advantages include low-power losses when running on battery power. Most benchmarks showed a difference of 10-15% between the battery and a 240W PSU, but there are serious problems with a small Type C power adapter. To be more precise, the problem is not in the unit itself, but in the software, which inexplicably limits the laptop’s power. The trend «PSU 240 W > battery > PSU 100 W» remains for almost all tests, including gaming, as described below.

The laptop is fast in the browser. It’s just a good computer that doesn’t think about processing poorly optimized sites. We tested the ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 in Speedometer 2.1, WebXPRT 4, and Google Octane 2.0 — the results are like a modern gaming laptop.

The laptop performs best when working with graphics programs. In addition to discrete RTX 4090 graphics, we checked how the integrated Intel Arc Graphics will perform. The iGPU is strong enough not to turn on the dGPU in most everyday scenarios, and the bonus is energy savings. 25,000 points in Vulkan Geekbench is the level of the desktop GTX 1050 Ti.

The problem with the ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 is the video card’s severe TDP limitations due to its physical size. Even compared to the failed model ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 2024The power is slightly lower. The manufacturer has done an impressive job of overclocking, but it’s not enough and the 90W TDP makes itself felt. Here is a comparison of three RTX 4090s with different configurations and limits:

In Blender and Cinebench 2024, the results are quite expected — the video card is ten times faster than the processor when processing graphics. It is in such tasks that ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 shows its strengths, leaving the best solutions from Apple with the M3 Max far behind.

The Task Manager displays a graph for the Intel AI Boost neural accelerator, but it is not yet clear which programs will use it. We tested two local neural networks with this laptop, namely Gigapixel AI (a program for increasing image resolution) and Stable Diffusion (an image generator).

The images fly out in a conveyor belt — eight images can be generated in a minute, and the Gigapixel upscaling takes 5-10 seconds for photos of 20>200 megapixels. In both cases, the NVIDIA RTX 4090 discrete graphics card was actively used, but there was no load on Intel AI Boost.

We were especially impressed with the RAM frequency, which is almost 7500 MHz. It was not possible to test this incredible RAM in AIDA 64 because the test hung at the first stage. From the very beginning, the AIDA program complained that the laptop seemed to be too new and there might be compatibility issues.

The manufacturer claims the following memory characteristics (from the official press deck):

• Memory Read (MB/s) 84972
• Memory Write (MB/s) 74518
• Memory Copy (MB/s) 92574
• Memory Latency (ns) 135

The built-in Samsung drive delivers good results. The speed almost does not decrease as the space fills up. It’s also nice that the size is 2 TB, which means that all the games and programs for testing fit without any problems and there was one more terabyte left free. This made testing the hero of the review easier, and the owner will have a simpler life without limiting him in terms of ROM. Another drive slot is free.

Gaming performance of ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024

We tested the hero of the review in games with different system requirements. The priority was given to the settings using DLSS Balanced because in this mode, image defects are literally invisible on a 16-inch display, and FPS increases significantly. It is not recommended to switch to DLSS Performance.

Symbols:

• Ultra/Extreme – maximum graphics settings;
• High – high graphics settings;
• Comp – eSports graphics settings;
• DB – DLSS Balanced;
• FG – Frame Generation;

We should also note the crude ASUS GPU TWEAK III software, which incorrectly displays the workload of the new processor. Obviously, the utility does not yet know about the existence of the Intel Core Ultra 9 series.

In almost all games, we observed a trend where the power from the small power supply was worse than from the battery. This is a strange behavior that is not justified by anything.

Alan Wake 2 looks great, and with frame generation, we also get a smooth picture (with not critical input delays). Another problem is the small power supply, which makes the FPS too low in any scenario.

Apex Legends with e-sports graphics settings allows you to fight at 180-220 FPS. It is comfortable to play, especially on a 240 Hz screen.

Battlefield 2042 you’ll be able to play at 110-130 FPS with a 240W PSU, and it’s quite difficult to shoot enemies at 40 FPS in standalone mode.

Cyberpunk 2077 came as a surprise, as the game did not allow enabling NVIDIA proprietary technologies. The DLSS + FG sliders were not available. 30 minutes of dancing with the NVIDIA Control Panel settings, changing the power mode, rebooting, and updating drivers didn’t help, so we tested with ultra graphics without ray tracing and FSR Quality.

Diablo IV is a well-optimized game, but it consumes an incredible amount of video memory. Almost 14 GB out of 16 available were used. The frame generator in this game does not work correctly, reducing performance.

Forza Horizon 5 you can play with ray tracing with EXTREME graphics. The frame rate is high – up to 150 FPS without reducing graphical parameters.

Starfield supports frame generation, but activating this option crashed the game. We tested without FG with maximum graphics. With a 100W power supply, the FPS drops by half.

Battery life, cooling, power consumption, noise

The manufacturer promises up to 16 hours of operation in economy mode for ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024, up to 12 hours of web surfing and up to 14 hours of 1080p video playback. In fact, it lasted no more than 8-10 hours with ultra-efficient mode, minimal display backlighting, a dark theme, and almost zero CPU load.

In the stress test, the laptop consumed between 140 and 175 watts. The power fluctuated as the system tried to adjust the TDP of the processor. It is not surprising that ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 quickly starts to drop frequencies. The device does not charge very quickly — both PSUs consume about 100 W at the beginning of the process, and then the adapter’s power drops to 25-30 W.

You can watch 4K videos on YouTube for three hours with maximum display brightness and minimum sound level. In theory, it is possible to double this result with low backlighting and low video quality (1080p on YouTube is getting worse every day). In demanding games, the battery melts before your eyes — you can play no more than an hour. However, this is a standard result for gaming laptops.

Equally important is the fact that performance depends on the battery charge level. With 60+% battery with DLSS Performance and the frame generator, you can get 70-80 FPS in Alan Wake 2, but as soon as the battery percentage drops, the frame rate drops by 30%.

Another nuisance was the skipping of frames on YouTube when using the economy mode. It’s enough to turn it off and the video runs perfectly smoothly, without 10-20% of missed frames. In offline mode, Intel Arc Graphics performs better than RTX 4090 when it comes to hardware acceleration of video in the browser.

Laptop noise is minimal — 35 dB half a meter from the keyboard under moderate load and 45 dB in stress tests above the keyboard itself. The fans are quiet, not noisy, and we didn’t notice any whistling throttles. When charging and watching videos, the coolers are in operation almost all the time. Some office tasks are also accompanied by a slight rustling of the cooling system. They hardly ever work completely passively.

The compact size and quiet operation entail serious compromises in the form of TDP limitations. Running two stress tests simultaneously, we get serious drops in processor power. Furmark loads up the video card and the CPU starts to suffer from power hunger, showing almost twice as bad results in CPU-Z.

The temperature indicators are low. Moreover, they are incredibly low for this form factor. According to the GPU-Z sensors, the video card did not even reach 80 °C. We could not find a place on the case with 50 °C. The keyboard is warm, but it’s comfortable to work with.

Due to the strong TDP limitations, the components do not overheat and always keep their temperatures low. Only maximum performance suffers from this. No one has ever managed to cheat the laws of physics, so it’s quite normal to see such results for a thin laptop with top performance.

ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 price and competitors

Cost ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 2024 with RTX 4090 and Intel Core Ultra 9 is 175,000 UAH. A slightly more affordable version with NVIDIA RTX 4070 in the form of ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G16 GU605MI-QR064W costs 125,000 UAH. In addition to a simpler graphics card, the model has a smaller built-in storage capacity (1 TB instead of 2 TB).

Let’s take a look at several similar offers from other manufacturers. We took into account only models with similar dimensions and weighing no more than 2 kg.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 2023 GA402XY offers similar characteristics with even smaller dimensions. The 14-inch baby is equipped with an identical graphics card, although it is powered by AMD Ryzen. The price is 150,000 UAH.

Apple MacBook Pro 16 2023 M3 — the best laptop in its category with a few compromises. The version with 36 GB of RAM and 30 graphics cores will cost 173,000 UAH.

HP ZBook Studio G10 weighs only 1.73 kg, although the rest of the characteristics are more modest than the hero of the review. The version with 64 GB of RAM will cost 160,000 UAH.

Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 6 — a powerful and high-quality laptop for all the money in the world. The video card is also limited in terms of TDP, as the device weighs 1.8 kg. The unofficial price is 215,000 UAH.