The ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo is an interesting laptop, it’s got two screens rather than
your usual one. Although this isn’t exactly advertised as a gaming laptop, as it’s got
such good specs it’s definitely capable of playing games, and to be fair, I could
see a lot of people using something like this to play a game while having other content
on the second screen, so let’s find out how well it performs and compare it against
some other laptops to see the differences.
Just quickly before we jump into the benchmark results I’ll cover off the specs in my unit.
I’ve got the highest specced option, so there’s an Intel i9-9980HK CPU, Nvidia RTX
2060 graphics, and 32gb of memory running in dual channel. The ZenBook Pro Duo is also
available with different specs, so expect different results with different configurations.
You can find examples and updated prices linked in the description.
There’s a button directly above the touchpad that allows you to swap between auto and turbo
mode. I’ve tested all games in turbo mode which should give better performance.
We’ll only be covering gaming performance in this video, so if you’re new to the channel,
you'll definitely want to get subscribed for the upcoming full review, this is where I’ll
be testing out the dual screens in depth. Let’s start out by going through all 20
games at all setting levels, then afterwards we’ll see how the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo compares
with some other laptops and see if having something running on the second screen affects
game performance.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode, and I’ve got the results with RTX on shown
by the green bars, and RTX off shown by the purple bars. With RTX off it was still quite
playable at ultra settings, no problems there. With RTX on it was fine at medium settings,
however as usual, in my opinion it both looks and performs better with RTX off and ultra
settings.
Battlefield 1 was also tested in campaign mode, and like always it’s running well
and performing better than the newer Battlefield 5 just shown, over 100 FPS averages at max
settings, though as usual with this game I found the 1% low results a little inconsistent.
Apex Legends was tested with either all settings at maximum, or all settings on the lowest
possible values, as it doesn’t have predefined setting presets. A recent Nvidia driver update
boosted performance of this game, so the results may be hard to compare against my previous
numbers. In any case it was running just fine at max settings.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, normally at lower
settings most laptops with a modern i7 CPU with minimal throttling will reach above 110
FPS, but we’ll see how this game compares against some other laptops soon.
Far Cry New Dawn was tested with the built in benchmark, and the results here were quite
poor considering the specs. This tends to be a CPU heavy game, and the frame rates were
10 to 20 FPS lower than lowered specced machines I’ve recently tested, the Nitro 5 with 1660
Ti in this instance.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the built in benchmark, and the results were ahead of the
newer Far Cry New Dawn just covered, and again we’ll see how this one compares to some
other laptops later.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and even maxed out at epic settings we’re
still able to average above 100 FPS while even the 1% low is above the refresh rate
of the display, so it should play just fine on this machine without any problems, as you’d
expect with this level of hardware.
Overwatch is another well optimized game and was tested in the practice range, once more
the performance was quite good as this game runs well enough on basically any modern machine
with basic gaming chops. Although it was again performing behind other lower specced machines
I’ve recently covered, there are still absolutely no issues playing at max settings.
CS:GO was tested using the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and as is pretty much always the case high
FPS from this test, however despite this, once more the frame rates were lower compared
against lower specced machines. For instance even the thermally throttled Nitro 5 with
i7 and 1660 Ti scored 22% higher FPS at max settings.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark. Even with maximum ultra settings
we’re still above 100 FPS, however like other games mentioned the results are still
a little behind some other lower specced machines.
Metro Exodus was tested using the built in benchmark, most parts of the game perform
a fair bit better than this, so don’t take these results as a good indication of what
to expect throughout the entire game, it’s more of a worst case but does let you perform
the same test to compare against.
The Division 2 was also tested with the built in benchmark. This test was just a little
behind 60 FPS even with ultra settings, with up to 100 hit with low settings, and this
is after a recent Nvidia update allegedly improved performance for this title.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and despite the average FPS looking quite
good, the 1% lows were around 20 FPS lower compared to other lower specced machines tested
due to some CPU throttling issues which I’ll detail in the upcoming full review.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark, and as a test that
typically smashes the CPU we’re seeing some pretty poor results here. Just for comparison,
at low settings where we’re more CPU bound the 1% low from the Nitro 5 with i7 CPU is
ahead of even the average we’re getting here on the Pro Duo.
Dota 2 was tested playing in the middle lane with an average amount of action going on,
and was another game where the average frame rates were still good but the 1% lows were
notably down, however when it comes down to it, we’ve only got a 60Hz screen and these
results are realistically still plenty for this game.
Watch Dogs 2 is a game that loves smashing CPU resources, so you’d think the 8 cores
we have would be a great match for it. While it was still playable at ultra settings, the
frame rates were noticeably lower at higher settings, but hey it does still run ok.
Ghost Recon Wildlands is another resource heavy game and was tested with the built in
benchmark, so once more the results are down compared to lower specced machines, though
60 FPS averages were still hit at very high settings.
The Witcher 3 didn’t see too much performance loss as this game seems to be more GPU heavy,
and I found it would still play well enough even with ultra settings, so no issues here.
DOOM was tested using Vulkan, and is a game that usually produces very high frame rates.
There did seem to be something wrong here though, the 1% low results were about half
the amount I’d expect from this game on similar hardware. Despite this, the 1% low
results were still technically above the refresh rate of the display and it did still play
smoothly.
Strange Brigade was another game that was tested with Vulkan but was tested with the
built in benchmark, and for once the results are actually a little better here, well at
least in terms of average FPS, probably due to a recent Nvidia driver update where they
announced an increase in this title.
Let’s also take a look at how this config of the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo compares with
other laptops, use these results as a rough guide only as they were tested at different
times with different drivers.
In Battlefield 5 I’ve got the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo highlighted in red near similarly
specced machines. In this case it’s performing similarly to most of the other 2060 laptops
covered, with the exception being the Triton 500 just ahead of it, however that does undervolt
the CPU by default and also boost up the wattage of the 2060, giving it an advantage. This
game does seem to favour more cores, which I think is why the 1% low is higher than the
other stock i7s.
These are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings in the built in benchmark and
is more of a CPU demanding test. In this test we’re seeing the lowest results from a 2060
based laptop, and this seems to be due to the CPU throttling that was taking place,
and this is mirrored by the 1% low performance that’s placing behind the last gen i7-8750H.
These are the results from Shadow of the Tomb raider with the built in benchmark at highest
settings. Again the results were on the lower side out of the 2060 machines tested, matching
the throttled Dell G5 with lower tier CPU in this test.
Next let’s take a look and see how much of a performance loss we can expect by using
the second screen with some different workloads. For all of the previously tested games I just
left the secondary screen empty. I’ll be comparing these results with two more workloads,
watching a YouTube video in Chrome and using OBS to stream the game on the second screen.
Battlefield 5 was tested with ultra settings. The bottom bar is just the results we saw
before with nothing on the second screen, then with a YouTube video playing on the second
screen there was no real difference. While streaming there was a performance hit as expected,
as the encoding process does use system resources, however the game still performed well enough
considering this is max settings and it was very nice to be able to watch OBS while playing
full screen.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark using highest settings.
Again there were no differences in the game FPS between nothing on the bottom screen and
just watching a YouTube video, so although the Intel GPU is doing more work to display
this image it’s not negatively affecting the game, while again streaming lowered the
performance as expected.
Far Cry 5 was also tested using the built in benchmark with ultra settings. This time
there was actually a difference in performance by having a simple YouTube video playing on
the second screen. I triple checked this and the results were consistent, so it just goes
to show that performance will vary by game as well based on what you’ve got on the
bottom screen.
Overall the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo is performing well enough, it’s a little lower than what
you’d typically expect from these specs due to some throttling, however it’s still
more than capable of running any modern game with higher setting levels no problem. To
be fair, again this isn’t advertised as a gaming laptop, I just thought it would be
interesting to see what it’s capable of as many people are interested in a machine
where they can play games on one screen and have something else on the second screen.
When it comes down to it, it is still able to play all of these games without issue,
just don’t expect the absolute best performance compared to other options with similar specs.
If you’re not interested in the second screen then it would make more sense to look elsewhere,
that really is the key feature here. If you are interested in seeing what the second screen
can do, then look out for the upcoming full review video, as I’ll have a lot more testing
of it covered there.
This is only my second time testing the i9-9980HK CPU, so far I haven’t found it to make too
much of a difference in games, however we’ll see how it helps in more creator focussed
workloads in the upcoming full review.
Let me know what you thought of the gaming performance from the new ASUS ZenBook Pro
Duo laptop down in the comments, and if you’re new to the channel you’ll definitely want
to get subscribed for the full review to see everything this machine has to offer.