Gaming Performance

Evidently, though, y'all're all interested in gaming results, so allow'due south get right to it.

When looking at average figures across all the games I tested, in that location are some interesting things to note, particularly when comparing the Zephyrus with its GTX 1080 Max-Q to a GTX 1070 laptop with the same Core i7-7700HQ CPU inside. Here, the Zephyrus was typically around 10 percent faster, with the highest gains of 18 per centum seen in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and the everyman in Watch Dogs 2, which was only about 6 percent faster.

However this is only factoring in boilerplate frame rates. When looking at i% lows, the GTX 1080 Max-Q takes a stronger atomic number 82 of 15 per centum on average, although in some titles there was no departure in minimum functioning. Other games like Rise of the Tomb Raider transform from unplayable to playable at maximum detail settings due to this improvement.

Our GTX 1080 laptop examination system, the MSI GT73VR, does have a faster Core i7-6820HK processor inside, just comparisons between this laptop and the Zephyrus practise paint an interesting picture. Hither, the GT73VR is ten percent faster on average despite having the aforementioned physical GPU inside. Some of this is down to the faster CPU, which tin present a bottleneck at 1080p, just some of the nearly GPU demanding titles run into gains around that 10 percent mark.

The end outcome is that the GTX 1080 Max-Q sits nearly exactly between the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 in terms of gaming operation: 10% faster than the GTX 1070, only the GTX 1080 takes its ain 10% pb.

While this functioning delta is certainly going to disappoint some that want the best operation out of their GTX 1080 laptop, in that location are a few things to consider. I've already talked a lot nigh the size, and that'due south something to still keep in listen, as the MSI GT73VR I was comparison the Zephyrus to is at least twice the size. Then in that location's also the fact you can 'overclock' the GTX 1080 in Max-Q laptops to bypass the Max-Q ability/thermal/racket restrictions, thereby unleashing the full power of the GTX 1080 chip inside, provided at that place's enough thermal headroom.

Unfortunately I didn't have fourth dimension to mess around with overclocking the Zephyrus, but I practice believe there is plenty of headroom hither. Under the load of AIDA64's stability test hitting the CPU and GPU, the CPU topped out at around 88°C, while the GPU hitting 77°C. Now I wouldn't go overclocking the CPU here, and it's not even possible anyway, but overclocking the GPU should be no trouble at all with these sorts of temperature figures.

The other thing to keep in listen is racket. I aspect of the Max-Q design is a noise target of under forty dBA for the cooler, and the Zephyrus easily hits this even nether an AIDA64 stress examination, every bit it'due south one of the quietest gaming laptops I've reviewed. Now it'due south not silent, just about gaming laptops with this sort of hardware are outrageously loud when under total load; even slower machines like the Razer Blade are deafening in comparing to this system. You lot won't need headphones with the Zephyrus: external speakers and even the laptop's in-built speakers can drown out near of the laptop's fan noise while gaming.