The ASUS Zephyrus G GA502 gaming laptop combines an AMD CPU with Nvidia graphics inside a thinner
machine, but just how hot does it get, and does this hurt performance? In this detailed
thermal testing we’ll find out how it runs and see what improvements can be made.
I’ve got the GA502DU model, so there’s a Ryzen 7 3750H quad core CPU, Nvidia GTX
1660 Ti Max-Q graphics, 16gb of memory in dual channel, and a 120Hz 1080p screen. You
can find up to date prices linked in the description.
The Zephyrus design is traditionally known for raising the back of the machine up when
the lid is opened to aid with air flow, however that feature is not present in this more budget
friendly design. There are some air vents on the bottom, however interestingly the sections
that are actually above the fans are blocked off, so it may primarily bring in air through
the keyboard and with the vents just above it.
Inside we’ve got a few heatpipes, with a couple shared between the processor and graphics,
and we can see that air is exhausted out the side and back with the left fan, and just
out the back for the opposite fan.
The ASUS Armory Crate software allows you to change between three different modes, silent,
performance and turbo, and I’ve tested all three out here. Basically these modes adjust
maximum fan speed, CPU power limits, and control GPU overclocking, as defined here. You can
easily swap between these modes through software, or by holding the function key and pressing
the pressing F5, the key with the fan icon.
Thermal testing was completed in an ambient room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius, so
expect different results in different environments. No CPU undervolting has been done as this
is not currently possible with AMD mobile CPUs.
At idle both the CPU and GPU were on the warmer side, though realistically not a problem and
the fans were quiet, as you’ll hear later.
The rest of the results are from combined CPU and GPU workloads, and are meant to represent
worst case scenarios as I ran them for extended periods of time.
The gaming results towards the upper half of the graph were tested by playing Watch
Dogs 2, as I find it to use a good combination of processor and graphics. The stress test
results shown on the lower half of the graph are from running the Aida64 CPU stress test
with only the stress CPU option checked, and the Heaven GPU benchmark at max settings at
the same time to fully load the system.
Starting with the stress tests, in silent mode the 1660 Ti max-q was thermal throttling
at 86 degrees Celsius. If we change to performance mode the GPU thermal throttling is removed
as this boosts the fan speed, however the CPU was now hotter as this mode raises its
power limit, I think it was thermal throttling, however hardware info doesn’t currently
report on this for the 3750H CPU so I can’t say for sure. There were no differences in
temperatures with performance or turbo mode, because as you’ll hear later the fan speed
didn’t actually change in this workload. Using a cooling pad did help a little, despite
the vents directly above the fans being blocked off by the bottom panel as we saw earlier.
The gaming results saw a similar trend, with some GPU thermal throttling in silent mode,
with slight improvements to thermals as we continue making changes.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown. In silent mode we’re
seeing lower CPU clock speeds compared to the other tests as this mode caps the CPU
power limit to 8 watts. Although the clock speeds in watch dogs 2 look good here, the
game was actually unplayable, but we’ll check out some FPS benchmarks with different
modes soon. In performance mode there’s a nice boost to CPU clock speed as the power
limit raises to around 21 watts, and the GPU sees an increase too as this boosts fan speed
and removes thermal throttling. Turbo mode saw no change to CPU performance due to suspected
CPU thermal throttling, however the reported GPU clock speed raises due to the overclocking
turbo mode applies. As there was more thermal headroom for the gaming test the performance
and turbo modes are making more noticeable improvements. The cooling pad makes a big
improvement to CPU clock speed while under stress test, as it helps address the CPU thermal
throttling, however it hardly did anything while playing this particular game as temperatures
weren’t too bad without it.
These are the TDP values during these same tests. I’ve used hardware info for the GPU,
shown by the green bars, and we’re not hitting the 60 watt power limit of the 1660 Ti Max-Q
with silent mode enabled due to the GPU thermal throttling covered earlier. Hardware Info
still seems to incorrectly report the TDP for the 3750H CPU, so I’ve used AMD’s
uprof tool instead, however as this didn’t really give an average over time these results
are only approximate values. I don’t have results for the gaming tests because without
a consistent load it was difficult to report an average. The 3750H has a 35 watt TDP, and
as this is only hit once the cooling pad is in use it sort of implies that we were thermal
throttling in this workload without it, though as we saw this seemed to be less of a problem
with an actual game running.
These are the TDP values I was seeing reported by uprof while under a CPU only workload,
so it looks like performance mode has a 28 watt limit, though this was not being hit
under combined CPU and GPU loads, as we just saw before, due to thermal limitations. These
are the average clock speeds under these same workloads, as the power limit increases so
does the clock speed and performance. More power and performance typically equals more
heat, however we saw the highest temperature in silent mode, simply because the fan speed
was so much quieter when compared to performance or turbo modes.
To demonstrate how this translates into performance I’ve got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks,
with Intel’s last gen i5-8300H quad core CPU in red just for comparison, though keep
in mind the i5 does have a higher 45 watt TDP limit. I’ve compared these two in a
separate video if you’re interested in more comparisons.
So how do these different performance modes actually affect games? I’ve tested a few
games with silent, performance and turbo modes to find out.
Battlefield 5 was tested in Campaign mode at ultra settings. With silent mode enabled
it was still quite usable, the 1% low wasn’t too different to the other results, and it
was only around 15 FPS lower compared to turbo mode with much louder fans.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark at highest settings.
Again there wasn’t much difference to frame rate between performance and turbo mode, however
silent was a fair bit lower this time.
Far Cry 5 was tested with the built in benchmark at ultra settings. In this test there was
a much larger drop with the silent profile in use, and like I mentioned before I couldn’t
play watch dogs 2 in silent mode, so it seems to vary by game, basically I wouldn’t rely
on silent mode for quieter gaming. I did test these games at max settings though, they’ll
likely be more playable with lower settings.
If you want to see more gaming benchmarks on this machine, check the card in the top
right where I’ve tested 20 games at all setting levels.
As for the external temperatures where you’ll actually be putting your hands, at idle it
was a bit warmer than the standard 30 degrees I usually see, though only in the center towards
the back. With the stress tests running in silent mode it’s in the mid 50s in the center,
getting up to 60s right up the back where it was hot to the touch, granted you won’t
be touching here in most cases anyway. It was a bit cooler in performance mode as this
also raises fan speed, and we can see the cooler spots on the left and right where the
fans bring in air through the keyboard. There wasn’t too much difference in turbo mode,
still getting to 60 right at the back, but again for the areas you’ll actually be touching
it’s not too bad.
Here’s what the fans sound like during these different tests.
At idle in silent mode the fan was only just audible. With silent mode and the stress tests
running it’s much quieter compared to most other laptops I’ve tested, and as we saw
some games were playable in this mode, but you could always customize fan speed to find
a sweet spot that’s playable without being too loud. In performance or turbo mode the
fan speed was the same, and pretty average when compared to most other gaming laptops
that I’ve tested. I forgot to test fan speed while gaming, and although it will vary by
game, I did notice that while in performance mode the fan speed did drop back a couple
of decibels when not being smashed with a stress test.
Overall the ASUS GA502 gaming laptop doesn’t appear to run that hot, at least purely in
terms of internal temperatures. Granted it does thermal throttle on the graphics if you
run it in silent mode, but as we heard the fans were significantly quieter in that mode
so that’s going to be expected.
This is only the second AMD laptop with Nvidia graphics that I’ve tested. In general I’ve
found AMD CPUs to run cooler compared to Intel based laptops that easily run anywhere from
90 to 100 degrees Celsius under the same load, however this is because the Intel CPUs have
a higher 45 watt TDP, and as we saw this results in increased performance too.
It appeared that there was thermal throttling on the CPU under worst case stress test, however
when actually playing a game it seemed alright, but this will depend on the specific game
and workload. I say appeared, because I don’t actually know any software that correctly
reports thermal throttling on AMD mobile CPUs, I’m just basing this on the results I saw,
89 degrees as a maximum average doesn’t seem too high though.
Using a cooling pad helped address this and improve performance in terms of clock speed,
though it may have been more effective if the bottom air intakes weren’t blocked off,
it’s hard to say for sure without damaging the bottom panel to remove the plastic.
It may be possible to further improve temperatures by swapping the thermal paste, however as
this is a review unit that I have to send back I’m not able to change the paste, otherwise
the next reviewer will unknowingly report different results due to what I’ve done.
Raising fan speed and using a cooling pad are much easier for most people to do than
changing paste anyway, and as we’ve seen these tweaks did help improve performance
and temperatures with the GA502.
Let me know what you thought about the thermals from the ASUS Zephyrus G GA502 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 machine has to offer.