Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2021) Review

When the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 first launched last year, we praised it for combining a 14-inch display (then, rare among gaming laptops) with Nvidia GeForce RTX 20-Series power and AMD Ryzen processing at a sweet price. The updated 2021 G14 (starts at $1,549.99) uses the same design, but pumps things up to RTX 30-Series and newer Ryzen 5000 chips. Our $1,999 test unit also includes a 1440p display and 32GB of memory, so the boosted price of our model isn’t as strong of a value as the original G14, but the entry-point configuration (which still features an RTX 3060) is an attractive proposition. Also, the market for 14-inch gaming laptops has expanded: Competing 14-inchers are now popping up from most of the usual suspects (the Razer Blade 14 is our top pick), making the G14 less of a unicorn. But this new model is still a great package. 

The original Zephyrus G14 was one of the first killer 14-inch gaming laptops for its combination of size and performance, and the former is the same here. The exterior design is unchanged, as this is chiefly a component upgrade, so we won’t spend too much time on that aspect here. I should note that we also recently checked out a very different version of this laptop, the G14 Alan Walker Edition (geared toward fans of the European electronic music star), but will concentrate here on this more standard entry for the main review and performance testing.

The fundamentals are still important, though, so let’s run through those. This laptop measures 0.7 by 12.75 by 8.7 inches and weighs 3.5 pounds, easily more portable than the average gaming laptop. The quality materials and stylish white-and-silver look complete an appealing package. This unit also includes the AniMe Matrix lid, which we previously checked out as an optional version of the original G14. The lid is inlaid with a grid of LEDs, which you can customize with effects and images. (Check out our original hands-on with the AniMe Matrix for more detail.)

The original G14’s size was novel when it launched, but 14-inch gaming machines have become more popular since. The Razer Blade 14 and the Acer Predator Triton 300 SE roughly match its thinness and footprint, though the G14 is the lightest of the three. Even if the G14 is no longer alone in its space, it’s still one of the best gaming laptops around that emphasizes portability.

One thing to note, though: Since times have changed since the original G14 launched (see: the pandemic), it’s extra important to know that this laptop has no webcam built in. Frequent remote video callers will want to look elsewhere. (Asus' logic was that hardcore gamers and streamers would want to add their own high-performance webcam and keep the bezels thin.)

For complete thoughts on the rest of the build (including observations on the keyboard, ports, and extras), read the original G14 review.

Next, on to the parts and features of our particular review model. There are a few flavors of the GeForce RTX 30-Series G14, but our tester unit is priced at $1,999. For that, you get an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS processor, 32GB of memory, the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, and a 1TB SSD. The display also features a 2,560-by-1,440-pixel native resolution and a 120Hz peak refresh rate. 

It’s worth noting that we liked the original G14 in part for its great value, but the price of this configuration is much higher. The jump up to the RTX 30-Series is part of this, but the amount of memory also bumped from 16GB to 32GB, and the display resolution to 1440p from 1080p. The new display is crisp and looks great; plus, it’s a resolution that’s good for entertainment and gaming, so long as you have the hardware juice to push it—more on that below.

That’s not to say these upgrades aren’t worth the added cost, but the price has moved the G14 into the high-end tier of gaming laptops rather than the midrange, so the “value” aspect dissolves somewhat for this particular configuration. Not all G14 RTX 30-Series models are as expensive; at this writing, a configuration at Best Buy was priced at $1,549.99 for the same CPU, GPU, and storage as this model, but with 16GB of memory and a full HD (1080p) screen, a recipe closer to that of the original G14 we tested.

To gauge these updated components, we put the new G14 through our suite of benchmark tests and stacked up the results to a group of competitive laptops. You can see their names and specs in the table below…

The main benchmark of UL's PCMark 10 simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage. (See more about how we test laptops.)

Three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Our final productivity test is Puget Systems' PugetBench for Photoshop(Opens in a new window), which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

Simply put, the new G14 is the fastest laptop in this group. It doesn’t lead on PCMark, but across the more demanding multimedia and processor stress tests, it boasts the best results. The margins aren’t huge, but it’s enough to note that this machine will give you quicker editing capabilities than most gaming laptops, and won’t leave you hanging in a pinch. Everyday use is a breeze, it has speedy storage, and the eight cores and 16 threads are ready for anything you throw at them.

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).

We also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. In GFXBench, the more frames per second (fps), the better.

Plus, we run three real-world game tests via the in-game benchmarks of F1 2021, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These represent simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games, respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (Valhalla at Medium and Ultra quality, Siege at Low and Ultra quality), while F1 2021 is run twice at maximum settings, first with Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing setting turned off, and then again with it on. All tests are run at 1080p resolution, though we’ll do additional runs at a laptop’s native resolution for anecdotal results if it’s a 1440p or 4K screen.

Unlike the processor, the G14’s GPU is not at the front of the pack, but that’s to be expected. Between another RTX 3060 in a bigger laptop and the Blade 14’s RTX 3070, this was never the most potent GPU on paper. That said, performance on the synthetic tests is in a decent spot, plenty capable for 3D tasks and gaming. I will say that in isolation, the price tag is a bit high for this level of raw GPU power, but a lot of the cost goes toward the other components and features. If you’re more concerned with fps-per-dollar, this configuration isn’t the best deal.

As for the real-world game tests, the story is similar, but it gives a very clear picture of the type of performance you can expect for gaming. On a very demanding AAA title like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, medium-quality settings are more realistic for 60fps, but the game still looks great at those settings, and that’s nice for a laptop this size. The G14 can also make good use of its high-refresh (120Hz) screen, as shown on Rainbow Six Siege, and the F1 results show how much of a boost DLSS can provide a system on the border of 60fps.

Of course, this is all at 1080p, as opposed to the laptop’s native 1440p resolution. We ran all of these same tests at 1440p, as well, and as you’d expect, the frame rates dropped noticeably. On Medium and Ultra quality, Valhalla went down to 52fps and 36fps, while on Low and Ultra, Siege went down to 156fps and 114fps. Finally, F1 2021 dropped to 43fps with TAA on, and 60fps with DLSS on. That’s quite a dip on average, and in titles like Valhalla, could make the difference between maintaining 60fps and seeing some choppy gameplay. In games like Siege, that starts to eat into the high frame rate advantage you should be getting from your display. You can always run less-demanding games at native resolution, and give the frame rate a boost on more-demanding titles by dialing down to 1080p.

As mentioned, the price is a little high for that level of power, but you can also see that it’s very similar to the Blade 14’s performance despite the (on-paper) superior GPU and higher price. On the other hand, the Alienware is much less expensive, but a better performer in part thanks to the larger chassis size allowing for freer thermals. All in all, the G14 comes in where it should given the price: not the best value purely for gaming frame rates, but fairly priced as an overall package and still a good gaming laptop.

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

We also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its brightness in nits (candelas per square meter) at the screen's 50% and peak settings.

The battery life is great on this system, especially for a gaming laptop. Its portable size is a perfect partner for the 10-hour runtime, allowing you to take it on the road without worrying about finding the next outlet soon.

On the display-quality side, color coverage is solid. Even if this isn't a laptop designed for media professionals, this and the processing speed could do them proud, if necessary. The screen also gets plenty bright at maximum for a gaming laptop, coming in at 325 nits.

As far as the design and build are concerned, we love this laptop just as much as we did the first time around. It’s portable, well made, and fully featured, even if the value aspect is lessened by our particular configuration. The upside of that is better performance, though, thanks to the RTX 3060 and 32GB of memory. And the 1440p display is a pleasure to watch and play on. 

This 14-inch machine may be less of a rarity in the market now, but it’s still a fine pick in its own right. At the price of this config, we give the edge to Razer's Blade 14 for an even nicer build, a bit more power, and a very similar feature set. The 2021 Zephyrus G14 comes in a close second, and if you go for one of the midrange configurations with an RTX 3060 instead, you’re getting a great value.

No longer alone in its class, the 2021 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 remains an attractive, compact 14-inch gaming machine, now equipped with faster GeForce RTX 30-Series and AMD Ryzen 9 components.