the asus zephyrus duo 15 has a design
focused around improving thermals
so let's see just how hot it gets with
this high-end hardware inside
i've got the highest specs available so
we should be looking at a worst case in
terms of temperatures here air comes in
through the large vents underneath
as well as through the vents which are
placed behind the bottom screen
the lower screen opens up when you open
the lid of the machine
and this unique feature is key for
pulling in more cool air the bottom
feeds seem to raise the back up a little
higher compared to most others i've
tested which should also help with
airflow
air is then exhausted from the vents on
the left and right sides and from the
vents on the back
there are a couple of fans inside with
heat pipes shared between the cpu and
gpu and asus are using liquid metal on
the cpu in this model the armory crate
software lets you select between
different performance modes
which from lowest to highest are silent
performance and turbo modes
however there is also manual mode which
is required if you want to set the fans
to maximum speed and it also applies a
gpu
overclock too anytime i've tested in
manual mode i'm using full fan speed but
this is also where you would customize
the fans
by default there was no undervolting
applied the opposite in fact
i actually found a positive value
applied as i've got an unlocked k
processor here
i can undervolt however i'm not sure if
this is the case with the i7 model
although the rtx 2080 super is max-q
it's using nvidia's new dynamic boost
which means the power limit can boost
higher depending on if there is power
available
thermals were tested with a 21 degree
celsius ambient room temperature idle
results down the bottom were okay
worst case stress tests were done with
the ada64 cpu stress test with cpu only
checked and the heaven benchmark at max
settings at the same
time while gaming was tested with
watchdogs too as i find it to use a good
combination of processor and graphics
overall the temperatures were quite
impressive even under these heavy loads
i was only seeing thermal throttling on
the cpu at 95 degrees if i manually
boost the power limit in intel
xtu so this is not default behavior in
the default modes
turbo mode runs a bit warmer than the
lower silent and performance modes
while manual mode calls a bit further as
manual lets you set
fan speed higher and i tested manual
with max fans
these are the average clock speeds while
running the same tests
the gpu and the green bars saw a bit of
a boost in manual mode due to the
overclock but it's not that big of a
change
prior to making any manual changes in
turbo or manual modes the cpu was able
to average 3.7 gigahertz across all
eight cores
this is an okay result but with some
simple tweaks we're able to boost this
right up to 4.4 gigahertz
which is a much more impressive result
in these heavy combined cpu plus gpu
workloads
most of the gains seem to be due to the
processor power limit being capped to 45
watts in the highest
turbo or manual modes this would be part
of why the temperatures were looking
good
however we do at least have the option
of manually increasing the limit
right up until thermals become the next
limitation for the gpu
in performance mode it seemed to have an
80 watt cap and although higher modes
appear to limit it to 90 watts we were
actually starting to see it boost a bit
higher in this game
this is still a cpu intensive game
though in more gpu heavy tasks the gpu
could run more consistently closer to
100 watts
so it just depends on the game slash
workload when we look at how an actual
game performs with these different
options
there's not that much gain by applying
all the tweaks silent mode was still
giving a decent frame rate
so you can get away with playing on a
quite a system if you don't want loud
fan noise
if you want to see more gaming
benchmarks from the duo 15 check the
card in the top right or link in the
description where i've tested 21 games
at all setting levels
in a cpu only stress test with the gpu
now idle
we're able to reach much higher power
levels on the processor if you recall
with the gpu active the cpu would not
pass 45 watts prior to manual user
intervention
now in a cpu only load this 45 watt
limit is only seen at silent
with turbo doubling it to 90 which is
great to see as many other laptops just
arbitrarily cap it lower regardless of
workload being run
this results in fair performance for an
eight core processor at stock in turbo
mode
and manual mode with the fans going
faster doesn't really change this
as both were hitting the 90 watt pl1
limitation though with some simple
tweaks it's possible to get extra
performance
of course if we make these changes we
reach the 95 degree thermal limit i've
used cinebench to show you how these
different modes perform
single core performance was unaffected
regardless of the mode in use
and the multi-core score was decent when
we compare it against others
it's the best 10 980 hk result i've
recorded so far
though it is still getting beaten by the
far cheaper rp15 with ryzen 7 4800h
as for the external temperatures where
you'll actually be putting your hands
at idle in silent mode the keyboard was
around the usual 30 degrees i typically
see
with the stress tests going it warms up
to around the mid-40s and felt warm but
not hot performance mode was similar
turbo mode was also pretty similar then
manual mode with the fans at maximum was
a touch cooler the screen above the
keyboard didn't seem to heat up as
there's a large gap between it and the
rest of the machine
plus there are air intakes behind it
let's have a listen to fan noise next
at idle the fans were only just audible
with the stress tests going in silent
mode it's still on the quieter side
performance mode was still quieter than
most other gaming laptops
turbo mode was closer to average while
max speed was starting to get loud
you'd probably want headphones i think
this is good though it's far better to
have some user control over the fan
speed and pick the mode that you want to
use
instead of being stuck one way or the
other and as we saw
gaming while running quieter at the
expense of some performance is possible
should your preference be towards system
volume rather than performance
in silent mode with the quieter fans
though the bottom of the machine did
actually feel quite hot to the touch
towards the back
so you definitely want to keep it on a
desk and not in your lap in that
scenario
overall the temperatures at stock look
good with the zephyrus duo 15. however
this seems to mostly be due to the 45
watt cap on the processor when a
combined cpu and gpu workload is running
you do have the option of manually
raising this if you want more
performance
but for gpu heavy games the 45 watt
limit doesn't seem too bad as outlined
in my earlier video where i tested 21
different games
it's always going to be a trade-off
between thermals and performance
and the fact you're given the option to
make that choice is a positive
the unique design seems to do well in
helping cooling pulling air in below the
second screen
results in there being a large space for
airflow plus the liquid metal on the cpu
should be assisting too
under vaulting is possible in the
unlocked hk model i've got
and if you want to use a cooling pad
then that can further help improve
thermals too
just don't expect a performance gain
unless you boost the power levels
as thermals aren't really a limitation
until you mod it let me know what you
thought about the thermals from the asus
sephoras duo 15 gaming laptop down in
the comments
and if you're new to the channel you'll
definitely want to get subscribed for
the upcoming full review to see
everything this dual screen machine is
capable of