Performance still matters

How does it performs?

At the end of the day, performance still matters. Let’s find out how the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 stacks against some 15-inch gaming notebooks that we have tested to date. For comparisons’ sake, I’ve also decided to include the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581 into the mix for some of the benchmarks, as it’s almost identical in shape and form.

Test notebooks compared

	ROG Zephyrus Duo 15	ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo UX581	Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED XB	Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED XA	Acer Predator Triton 500	Aftershock Forge 15 Pro
Launch SRP	From S$6998	From S$4998	From S$4199	From S$3799	From S$3198	From S$2080
Processor and Chipset	Intel Core i9-10980HK	Intel Core i9-9980HK	Intel Core i7-10875H (2.3GHz, 16MB L3 cache)	Intel Core i7-9750H (2.6GHz, 12MB L3 cache)	Intel Core i7-9750H (2.6GHz, 12MB L3 cache)	Intel Core i7-9750H (2.6GHz, 12MB L3 cache)
Operating System	Windows 10 Home	Windows 10	Windows 10	Windows 10	Windows 10	Windows 10
System Memory	32GB DDR4-3200 dual-channel	32GB 2,666MHz DDR4	16GB DDR4-2933 dual-channel RAM	16GB DDR4-2666 dual-channel RAM	16GB DDR4-2666 dual-channel RAM	16GB DDR4-2666 dual-channel RAM
Video & Display	15.6-inch 1920 x 1080 300Hz IPS-type, Pantone Validated G-SYNC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super with Max-Q	15.6-inch OLED 3,840 x 2,160 pixels 14-inch IPS 3,840 x 1,100 pixels ScreenPad Plus NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q 15.6-inch 3,840 x 2,160-pixel AMOLED display	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q 15.6-inch 3,840 x 2,160-pixel AMOLED display	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel 144Hz IPS display	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel 144Hz AHVA display
Storage	2 x 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD with RAID 0 support	1TB PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD	Intel 760p 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD	Intel 760p 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD	512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD	512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
Connectivity	Intel Wi-Fi 6 with Gig+ performance (802.11ax) Bluetooth 5.0	Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax/ac/b/g/n/a Bluetooth 5.0	Killer Ethernet E2600 Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 Wireless Network Adapter Bluetooth 5.0	Killer Ethernet E2600 Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 Wireless Network Adapter Bluetooth 5.0	Killer E3000 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet Controller Killer Wireless-AC 1550i Wireless Network Adapter Bluetooth 5.0	Intel Wireless-AC 9560 Bluetooth 5.0
Audio	2 x 4W speakers with Smart AMP technology ESS, High-res certified Array Microphone	Built-in stereo speakers tuned by Harmon Kardon Built-in microphone array	Built-in stereo speakers	Built-in stereo speakers	Built-in stereo speakers	Built-in stereo speakers
I/O Ports	1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C with DisplayPort 1.4, Thunderbolt 3 and Power Delivery 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A 1 x HDMI 2.0b 1 x 3.5mm Microphone-in jack 1 x 3.5mm Microphone-in/Headphone-out jack 1 x RJ45	1 x USB-C Thunderbolt 3 2 x USB-A USB 3.1 1 x HDMI 2.0	3x USB 3.1 (Gen1) Type-A 1x Thunderbolt 3 1x HDMI 2.0 1x DP 1.4 & USB3.1 (USB Type-C) 1x 3.5mm Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack 1x UHS-II SD Card Reader 1x DC-in Jack 1x RJ-45	3x USB 3.1 (Gen1) Type-A 1x Thunderbolt 3 1x HDMI 2.0 1x DP 1.4 & USB3.1 (USB Type-C) 1x 3.5mm Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack 1x UHS-II SD Card Reader 1x DC-in Jack 1x RJ-45	3x USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A 1x Thunderbolt 3 1x HDMI 2.0 1x Mini DisplayPort 1.4	1x USB 2.0 port 1x USB 3.0 (USB 3.1 Gen 1) port 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 port (Type A) 1x DisplayPort 1.3 over USB 3.1 Gen 2 (Type-C) 1x Mini Display 1.2 port 1x HDMI 2.0 output port (with HDCP) 1x 2-in-1 Audio Jack (Headphone / Microphone) 1x Microphone jack 1x RJ-45 LAN port
Battery Type	90Wh	71wH	94.24Wh	94.24Wh	84Wh	47Wh
Dimensions	360mm x 268mm x 20mm	359 x 246 x 23mm	356 x 250 x 20mm	356 x 250 x 20mm	358.5 x 255 x 17.9mm	361 x 258 x 27.9mm
Weight	2.4kg	2.5kg	2kg	2kg	2kg	2.2 kg
Optical Drive	—	None	None	None	None	None

Application Performance

Unlike PCMark 10, which is a synthetic benchmark tool and the results are great as a reference point of a computer’s performance, SYSmark 2018 is an application-based benchmark that reflects “real world” usage patterns of business users in the areas of Productivity, Creativity and Responsiveness. This means using popular Microsoft and even Adobe applications rather than less obscure options used in PCMark 10. The only gaming notebook that I’ve run SYSmark on is the previously reviewed Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED XB, but I’ll be including this benchmark in our future notebook reviews from hereon.

Suffice to say, the Zephyrus Duo 15’s performance is unsurprisingly good given its top-of-the-line specifications. We can see that it pretty much edged out all the notebooks in both PCMark 10’s Extended and SYSmark 2018 benchmark rounds. What’s not immediately noticeable is that the 10th-Gen Intel Core i9-10980HK mobile processor is an unlocked and overclockable processor (unlike the locked 10th-Gen i7-10875H mobile processor on the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED XB), and unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to explore this aspect and see how far we can push it to make it in time for this review. Nonetheless, I will revisit this in a separate article because I am intrigued, amused even, by how the supposedly lesser i7-10875H performs so close to the higher-end i9-10980HK in SYSmark (more on that in my closing statement). Let’s just move on for now.

Gaming Performance

It’s a gaming notebook! Of course we needed to run gaming benchmarks and as we can see from the results below, the Zephyrus Duo 15 pretty much ate up whatever games we threw at it with ease even with the secondary display turned on. But some context needs to be explained here. You see, the gaming notebook is powered by the latest GeForce RTX 2080 Super with Max-Q mobile GPU along with the fastest mobile processor available from Intel, and our test unit’s display only supports up to Full-HD resolution. That is a lot of excess power to play games at 1080p, and if specs-friendly games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or League of Legends are the only games you play all the time then the Zephyrus Duo 15 is obviously an overkill.

Conversely, I can imagine YouTubers or Streamers who play and create content out of resource-hungry games like Red Dead Redemption 2 Online and Call of Duty: Warzone will get more performance mileage out of the notebook.