This year’s ASUS Zephyrus M16 performs fairly well in games,
but it wasn’t quite the additional boost I was expecting compared to last year’s M16,
so let’s see how well it performs in 13 different games and compare
it against other laptops including last year’s M16 to find out how it stacks up!
My M16 has Intel’s Core i9-12900H CPU, Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti graphics, 32 gigs of DDR5 memory and
a 16” 165Hz screen, but you can check out other configurations with the links below the video.
I found that the RTX 3070 Ti graphics in the M16 could run up to 120 watts with dynamic boost,
but with the CPU also active, so like in a game for example, it would run at 100 watts assuming
it wasn’t thermal throttling. So it’s about 25 to 30 watts away from being a full powered 3070 Ti,
which is to be expected as the Zephyrus series is meant to be a thinner designed laptop.
The ASUS Armory Crate software allows us to set different performance modes,
and all testing here has been done with manual mode set to max fan speed,
max power limits as well as this default GPU overclock.
Unlike last year, the 2022 version of the M16 has adds a MUX switch. This means we’ve
got the option of disabling optimus to get a further speed boost in games,
so all games have been tested like this for best results.
Alright, so what about the screen though,
given that’s what you’re actually going to be looking at while playing games?
This year’s M16 has a slightly faster screen response time compared to last year’s model.
They’re both using different panels, but this is such a small change I’d consider it to be within
the margin of error range anyway. Nevertheless, this is a great result for a 165Hz panel.
This also helps the M16 have a lower total system latency,
one of the fastest results actually. This is the total amount of time between a mouse click
and gun shot fire appears on the screen in CS:GO, and it was almost 4ms faster compared
to last year’s M16. I’d say it’s mostly the addition of the MUX switch helping there.
Alright let’s get into the game benchmarks. As the M16 has a taller 16:10 screen it’s got more pixels
vertically, and this results in a fairly unusual 2560 by 1600 resolution. Now most of the data I’ve
built up for the purposes of comparing is either at 1080p or 1440p, so we’ll start off by comparing
3 games at these more regular resolutions, as it’s just what I’ve got for the purposes of comparing.
Don’t worry though! Once we find out where the M16 fits in compared to other laptops
we’ll also test it out in 13 games at its native screen resolution, and we’ll also
test out other features like ray tracing, DLSS and FSR, so let’s get into the results!
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested the same on all laptops, and I’ve got this year’s M16 shown by the red
highlight. It’s just a couple of positions ahead of last year’s 11th gen M16 with lower
tier 3070 graphics and lower power limit. Last year’s version doesn’t have a MUX switch either,
but in GPU heavy games like this we’re not expecting that to make much of a difference.
Especially at higher resolutions, which is probably why last year’s
M16 is now even closer to this year’s at less than 1 FPS behind.
There’s basically no practical difference between them that you’d actually notice while playing.
I’ve only tested one other 3070 Ti laptop so far, the legion 5i Pro,
and with a higher GPU power limit it’s around 10% ahead, or about 5 FPS, nothing major.
Control is also a GPU heavy game, even at 1080p. It’s ahead of the RTX 3080 in last year’s G15, but
make sure you’re subscribed for when I get this year’s new 2022 version to test. Again it’s ahead
of last year’s M16 with lower tier specs, but we’re talking less than a 5% boost to average FPS.
Our selection of laptops is different at the higher 1440p resolution as we only test
machines that are actually capable of running it. Again last year’s M16 is even closer here,
we’re talking about 1 FPS lower on average which you can definitely
argue is within the margin of error range. It’s kind of crazy when you
consider that a much smaller and thinner 14” laptop from last year was ahead of it.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark, and it’s about 5 FPS or
6 and a half percent ahead of last year’s M16. Not exactly an amazing improvement a year later,
but at least it’s not worse. The 5i Pro with lower tier i7 processor but
higher power limit 3070 Ti was able to reach a 15% higher average frame rate in this game.
The 5i Pro with same tier GPU had a similar 14% higher average FPS at the higher 1440p resolution,
and although it’s behind a number of other last gen 3070 laptops, above 70 FPS in this game at
high settings without DLSS is still going to play fine - we’ll take a look at DLSS results next.
Alright, now that we’ve got a good idea of where this year’s M16 fits in compared to other
gaming laptops let’s find out how it actually performs at its native 2560 by 1600 resolution.
So the resolution that you’d actually be likely to play games on if you had this laptop.
Let’s start out with God of War. With DLSS set to quality mode we’re
still running above 60 FPS even at this higher than standard 1440p resolution,
while the original setting preset was above 100 FPS while still looking pretty nice.
Forza Horizon 5 was tested with the game’s benchmark. Max settings was also above 60 FPS here
despite this game not having DLSS or FSR support, while high settings was above 100 FPS, though
very low was the only setting preset pushing out more FPS than the screen’s 165Hz refresh rate.
Dying Light 2 was another game tested with DLSS on quality mode. Even with DLSS though
the ray tracing preset was still below 50 FPS, so you’d probably want to lower the resolution
if you’re after RT here. Without RT though high settings was able to surpass 60 FPS.
Fortnite was also tested with DLSS on quality mode, but no ray tracing here as I think that just
makes less sense in a competitive eSports style game. 100 FPS was still possible at max settings,
while medium gets us an average frame rate above the screen’s refresh rate.
I’ve always found Call of Duty Warzone to run well even at higher resolutions like this,
and this wasn’t an exception on the M16 either.
Microsoft Flight Simulator on the other hand was far lower at higher settings,
though I’d argue that this one doesn’t need a super high frame rate to play
compared to competitive games like Fortnite. Just below 60 FPS on the high-end preset isn’t
a bad result considering this fairly high screen resolution.
Far Cry 6 was tested with the game’s benchmark using FSR on quality mode.
It’s close to 100 FPS even with the highest ultra setting preset with HD textures on,
and compared to a number of other games the performance increases at lower setting presets
weren’t that large, so might as well just run it with higher settings and enjoy the eye candy.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was close to 60 FPS at max settings,
which honestly I think is going to be fine speaking as someone that played
through the entire game with a lower frame rate than this. At the same time
max settings are almost never worth it, so I’d probably stick to high or very high.
Watch Dogs Legion was above 60 FPS on very high settings, unfortunately we didn’t test this one
with DLSS enabled as we’re still getting a hang of including this in supported games
at resolutions above 1080p, so expect a little extra boost with that enabled.
Rainbow Six Siege was achieving 1% lows that were higher than the screen’s refresh rate at
max settings, so no problems at all here as even most of the dips in performance would look smooth.
Control was tested earlier in the comparison section, but now we’ve got ray tracing enabled
in the green bars. Combined with DLSS on, ray tracing was playable at above 60 FPS
even with max settings, but turning RT off definitely gives a big boost.
Cyberpunk 2077 was also tested earlier, but now with the RT presets here we can see that we’re
not getting excellent results at this higher resolution even with DLSS on quality mode.
Unlike Control, you do at least have the option to lower the DLSS mode to
boost frame rates higher, but at the expense of a less clear image.
Red Dead Redemption 2 wasn’t quite reaching 60 FPS with DLSS on at ultra settings,
but we could boost average FPS by 37% simply by lowering one setting level to high,
otherwise we’ve also got the option of instead using lower DLSS settings to boost FPS.
I found it interesting that this year’s M16 wasn’t a whole lot faster compared
to last year’s M16. I guess most of the games that I compare are more
GPU heavy and the Ti version of the 3070 doesn’t really seem to be helping out,
at least at this power limit. Likewise although we’ve got a new Intel 12th gen CPU it doesn’t
really seem to be giving it any further boost in gaming compared to the 11th gen model.
Now outside of gaming is of course a completely different story,
so make sure you’re subscribed for my upcoming full review of the Zephyrus M16. But for now you
can check out how last year’s M16 performed in a similar selection of games. Maybe it’s
not worth spending extra money to get the new 2022 model, so I’ll see you in that one next!