ASUS ROG Zephyrus M (GM501) review: A slim powerhouse

A new, more traditional Zephyrus

ASUS is growing its Zephyrus family of notebooks. The original Zephyrus (GX501) was an impressive specimen of a notebook with a slim and light design, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q, and a novel cooling solution. However, it was also prohibitively expensive at S$4,898, which put it out of reach of many customers. 

The ROG Zephyrus M (GM501) and ROG Zephyrus S are the latest additions to the family, boasting similarly svelte designs but more affordable specifications. 

I'll be looking at the Zephyrus M today, a 15.6-inch notebook that retains aspects of the original Zephyrus' design while returning to a more conventional look. For starters, the keyboard and trackpad have returned to their traditional positions, but the bottom of the notebook still drops open when the lid is raised for additional ventilation. 

Here's an overview of its specifications:

• 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel 144Hz G-Sync IPS display
• Intel Core i7-8750H (2.2GHz, 9MB L3 cache)
• 16GB single-channel DDR4-2666 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
• 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD + 1TB 5,400RPM FireCuda SSHD
• 55Wh battery
• 384 x 262 x 17.5-19.9mm
• 2.45kg

The laptop will cost you S$3,898 – not cheap, but still a thousand dollars less than the first Zephyrus. Here's a closer look at what the Zephyrus M brings to the table. 

Plenty of small refinements

If you had a checklist while shopping for a gaming laptop, there's a good chance the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M (GM501) would check most of the boxes. It has nearly everything you could want, including a powerful GPU, a 144Hz IPS panel, and support for NVIDIA G-Sync.

That's a winning combination for a butter-smooth gaming experience, and the Zephyrus M delivers. The display is also capable of a 3ms response time, a step up from the ROG Zephyrus GX501. 

The Zephyrus M looks pretty good as well, boasting a brushed metal finish on its lid. The attention to detail is to be admired here, and you'll notice that the lid is bifurcated by a diagonal line and the "grain" of the hairline finish actually runs in different directions. This gives the laptop a more sophisticated look, and I appreciate what ASUS has done here. 

The notebook also features chamfered edges with copper-colored accents, another small detail that goes quite well with the laptop's overall aesthetic. 

The chassis generally feels solid and well put together, but there's obvious flex when pressure is applied to the air intake vents above the keyboard. That may be a concession you have to make for having additional air vents, and the notebook truly has a lot of these. For instance, there are a total of four vents located on the left, right, and back of the laptop for expelling heat (the GX501 has just three).

ASUS has dubbed the thermal design of the laptop the Active Aerodynamic System (AAS), and its designed to allow more cold air to flow through when the laptop is open by creating a gap at the bottom, just like on the original Zephyrus. This opens up an addition 9mm gap for air intake (2mm wider than the original Zephyrus), and the Zephyrus notebooks are so far the only laptops to do this. 

Two blower fans and five thick heat pipes cool the processor, discrete graphics, and chipset power components independently. In addition, ASUS says the fans run on 12V instead of the usual 5V, which enables them to spin at higher speeds for increased air flow. The fans also feature a dense, 71-blade design, which combined with thinner blades, help boost air flow as well. 

Each blower fan pumps air through dual radiators and exhaust vents that flank the rear corners of the notebook. The radiator fins are super thin and measure just 0.1mm thick, and ASUS says this helps it to maximize the surface area available for heat dissipation while also reducing air resistance.

Furthermore, the fins on the sides are angled backward to direct warm air away from your mousing hand. The exhaust outlets are also tilted upward slightly to separate the stream of hot air coming out of the notebook from the cool air entering it.

If you’re worried about dust entering the notebook through the vent, ASUS says it has an anti-dust system in place that actively expels particles and dirt through tunnels to prevent build-up in the thermal fins.

But while the cooling system may boast plenty of refinements, its biggest weakness is how noisy it can get. The fans are pretty audible once you fire up any game, even in Balanced mode, and you may want to use the laptop with headphones on to drown the noise out. 

One thing to note is that the Zephyrus M does not feature any Max-Q optimizations for efficiency. Instead, ASUS has implemented switchable graphics modes that lets you choose between power-saving (Optimus) or Discrete graphics (G-Sync) mode. The Optimus power-saving mode turns off G-Sync and lets the system automatically choose between integrated or discrete graphics via NVIDIA Optimus, while Discrete mode forces the system to only use the GeForce GTX 1070 and enables G-Sync. 

The 1080p IPS display has good viewing angles and vibrant colors, but it could do with a brightness boost, as with most other gaming laptops. Unfortunately, the bezels are quite thick and look quite dated at a time when many gaming laptops are loping them off.

However, the keyboard does feel better than on the first Zephyrus, with a longer 1.7mm travel distance. There's no per-key RGB backlighting however, and you're limited to just four independent zones. The Windows Precision Touchpad is a welcome addition however, and it feels accurate and responsive.

The speakers are sufficiently loud and actually reasonably clear, although there's a slight distortion at higher volumes.

To round things off, the notebook offers a good selection of high-speed USB ports, taking its cue from the ROG Zephyrus. In total, you’ll find one Thunderbolt 3 and four USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type-A ports, one HDMI 2.0 output, and a 3.5mm headphone and microphone combo jack. Unfortunately, there's no SD card reader or a dedicated Ethernet jack.

Test setup

Here’s a full list of the notebooks we’re looking at:

• ASUS ROG Zephyrus M
• ASUS ROG Strix Scar II 
• Razer Blade
• MSI GS65 Stealth Thin

The ASUS ROG Strix Scar II was chosen as a comparison because of the nearly identical hardware specifications, including the Intel Core i7-8750H processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070. On the other hand, the Razer Blade and MSI GS65 Stealth Thin are equipped with a GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q, so I'll be looking at how much faster the Zephyrus M is compared to the Max-Q notebooks. 

In addition, I ran all the gaming benchmarks in Discrete graphics mode since that seems to net you a significant performance boost. The non-gaming benchmarks and battery life test were run in Optimus mode. 

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We ran the notebooks through the following benchmarks:

• PCMark 10
• 3DMark
• VRMark
• Ashes of the Singularity
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Tom Clancy’s The Division

Benchmarks

PCMark 10 Extended

PCMark 10 Extended assesses the performance of systems in a variety of workloads, including basic computing tasks, productivity applications, digital content creation, and gaming. Compared to PCMark 8, it also adds in new test metrics, such as app startup times, which quantifies how long it takes to launch a variety of real-world apps, and a rendering and visualization workload to simulate professional graphics and engineering applications. In addition, existing workloads have been updated to reflect modern usage.

The ROG Zephyrus M performed in line with the other Max-Q notebooks, but it ended up trailing the ROG Strix Scar II by roughly 12 per cent. However, that could be because of the Optimus graphics mode and the fact that there's a gaming component in PCMark 10 Extended. I'm not sure if it's due to less than optimal use of the correct graphics solution, but games didn't perform well on Optimus mode, and this could have been the case here. 

3DMark

3DMark is a more relevant assessment of gaming performance, and it puts the system through a range of graphics and computational performance tests at different resolutions, starting at 1080p and going all the way up to 4K.

Since it isn't hampered by any Max-Q optimizations, the ROG Zephyrus M was roughly 8 per cent quicker than the Razer Blade. 

VRMark

Futuremark’s VRMark benchmark is designed to assess a PC’s ability to handle high-performance headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. If a PC passes the Orange Room test, it is ready for the latter two systems. The benchmark also has a target frame rate of 109FPS, and I've included the average FPS each notebook managed to provide a clearer measure of their respective performance. 

The ROG Zephyrus M did surprisingly well here, outdoing even the ROG Strix Scar II by 21 per cent. 

Ashes of the Singularity

Ashes of the Singularity is a demanding real-time strategy game that puts thousands of units on screen, and it’s capable of pushing even the most powerful GPUs. However, it can be CPU-limiting at lower settings.

Unfortunately, the ROG Zephyrus M had a less impressive showing here. It trailed the Max-Q notebooks at High settings, even though it did catch up and surpass them at Ultra settings.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Mankind Divided is one of the most demanding titles to run today, but the ROG Zephyrus M is more than capable of delivering a playable experience.

The ROG Zephyrus M won by a small margin here, inching ahead of the ROG Strix Scar II. In addition, it was around 5 per cent quicker than the Razer Blade. 

Tom Clancy's The Division

The Division isn’t as demanding to run as Ashes of the Singularity or Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, but its Snowdrop engine can still stress cards with the use of dynamic lighting and the like.

On average, the ROG Zephyrus M outperformed the Razer Blade by around 8 per cent. 

Temperature, battery life and portability

Temperature

I measured the external temperatures of the four quadrants of the notebook after 40 loops of 3DMark's Fire Strike Extreme stress test. This amount of time is more than enough to get an idea of your average maximum running temperature for this workload.

ASUS talked up the cooling system on the laptop, and the CPU and GPU does actually run slightly cooler than the similarly configured ROG Strix Scar II. The palm rests also remain quite cool under load, which is good news for long gaming sessions. 

Battery life and power consumption

I used the built-in battery life benchmark in PCMark 8 Home to assess the battery life on the laptops. 

Unfortunately, battery life is definitely not the ROG Zephyrus M's strong suit. ASUS may have bumped up the battery capacity compared to the original Zephyrus, but it's still not quite enough. This isn't a laptop that will survive for a productive amount of time away from a power socket. 

Portability

The portability index is an objective measure of how portable a notebook is, taking into account factors like size, weight, and battery life.

The ROG Zephyrus M didn't fare too well here either, largely owing to its poor battery life, heavy weight, and more unwieldy dimensions. If you're talking about portability, there's really no beating the Max-Q laptops. 

One cool powerhouse

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M (GM501) goes head to head with the recent crop of slim and light notebooks we've reviewed recently, which includes things like the Razer Blade, Gigabyte Aero 15X, and MSI GS65 Stealth Thin 8RF. 

The main difference is that the Zephyrus M doesn't come with Max-Q optimizations for power efficiency, and the GeForce GTX 1070 it is outfitted with is technically more powerful than the Max-Q version found in the other notebooks. That's both good and bad. You'll get slightly better performance in games, but the notebook won't last as long away from a power outlet and it also isn't as light as the Max-Q laptops. 

At 2.45kg, it is considerably heavier than something the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin, which tips the scales at a mere 1.88kg. You'll feel this notebook in your backpack, no doubt about that.

However, while it is actually pretty thin at 19.9mm thick, the fat bezels framing the screen mean that this is a 15.6-inch laptop that feels like one. If you were hoping for something closer in size to a 14-inch notebook, the Zephyrus M is not that laptop. It's roughly 2cm longer and wider than its rivals with slimmer bezels, which means it isn't as easy to tote around. 

The Zephyrus M may be faster than an equivalent Max-Q notebook, but I don't think it's fast enough to make up for its lack in mobility. It doesn't seem to have made up its mind as to what it wants to be. It's slim, but it's also quite large and heavy, so it's not really pushing its advantage in this area either. Furthermore, the 55Wh battery doesn't seem enough for the laptop, and battery life is pretty poor. 

At S$3,898, it's positioned to go up directly against the Max-Q notebooks in terms of price as well. However, I'd much rather get something more compact and portable. Many of the Max-Q offerings also have considerably better life, so they're overall more well-rounded options. ASUS seems to be charging a premium for its slim design and nifty cooling system, but short of performance and design, it doesn't really seem significantly better than the S$3,398 ROG Strix Scar II. 

I should stress that the ROG Zephyrus M isn't a bad laptop. After all, it does boast a sleek design, excellent gaming performance, and a capable cooling system. The only problem is that the better battery life and smaller footprints of the Max-Q laptops offer more valuable quality of life improvements than a few extra frames. 

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