Early Verdict
Equipping the Asus ROG Zephyrus with a GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU remedies all of the previous issues we had with the GTX 1080 Max-Q edition of this laptop. This is the best Max-Q laptop we've tested, pound-for-pound.
Pros
- +
Sleek aesthetics and solid build quality
- +
Great performance and thermal dissipation
- +
Improved battery life
- +
Accurate display
Cons
- -
Under-saturated display
- -
Expensive for a GTX 1070 laptop
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Introduction & Product Tour
Shortly after Nvidia announced its new Max-Q technology, Asus sent us the ROG Zephyrus featuring the GTX 1080 with Max-Q Design. There were many things we liked about it: it had a sleek and sexy design with just the right amount of gamer accents. It had enough performance to handle almost all modern games at FHD resolution. It also featured one of the best laptop displays we've tested thus far.
Unfortunately, Max-Q's potential comes with a handful of trade-offs. The reduced power consumption doesn't play do it any favors at higher resolutions compared to other GTX 1080-based laptops. The Zephyrus' slim form factor also introduced thermal cooling and battery life challenges.
Today, we're taking another look at the Zephyrus, this time with the GTX 1070 Max-Q.
Specifications
Product Tour
Aesthetics and packaging are identical to the GTX 1080 version, which you can read about here. We'll jump straight into the benchmarks.
This Asus ROG Zephyrus features a 7th-generation Intel Core i7-7700HQ, Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 1070 with Max-Q design, 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory, and a 512GB M.2 SSD. It has a 15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) anti-glare IPS display with a fast 120Hz refresh rate, which is complemented by G-Sync technology. Given its size, the Zephyrus doesn't feature a 1TB HDD, which is standard in most high-end gaming laptops.
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