The ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 is one of the most powerful gaming laptops we have tested to date. It comes with powerhouse specifications, outstanding performance, and boatloads of features. We spent a couple of days with the laptop and we came away impressed and in this review, we will deep-dive into what it can really do!
DESIGN AND DISPLAY
The ROG Zephyrus S17 comes packed in a magnesium-alluminium body with diamond-cut edges. On the lid, you will find the Dot Insight pattern that has been laser-etched to give it an “oomph” factor. The overall build quality feels sturdy and top-notch, something we have come to expect from a brand such as ASUS ROG.
The design itself has been refined altogether – in the 2020 model, we saw the company push the keyboard towards the bottom, with the touchpad set on the side. This time around, the company has brought back the keyboard to its original place towards the top and the touchpad right below it. The keyboard also raises a bit when you open the lid of the laptop.
The laptop weighs around 2.8-kgs and with the power brick and the charging cable, it weighs around 3.8-kgs. The laptop offers a 17-inch WQHD display that comes with a refresh rate of 165Hz and a response time of 3ms. You also get support for NVidia G-SYNC and Advanced Optimus for enhanced performance. In addition, the screen offers an 88% screen-to-body ratio.
The display also features a cinema-grade 100% DCI-P3 color gamut and is also Pantone Validated for accuracy, which is ideal for lifelike in-game visuals and optimum content creation. There is also Dolby Vision support that boosts contrast, further enhancing the viewing experience.
HARDWARE
Under the hood, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 rocks an Intel 11th Gen Core i9-11900H processor, coupled with 32GB of GDDR memory. Graphics is handled by NVidia GeForce RTX 3080. You also get three M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen4x4 Slots and the laptop itself comes with a 2TB SSD installed for all your data storage requirements.
The battery is rated at 90Whr and you get an HD web camera, as well. There are a total of six speakers on this laptop that support the Smart AMP technology, and a triArray Microphone. In terms of connectivity, you get one Type-C with Thunderbolt 4 (DisplayPort 1.4/PD 3.0), one Type-C USB3.2 (Gen2/DisplayPort 1.4/PD 3.0), three Type-A USB3.2 Gen2, one HDMI 2.0b, one 3.5mm headphone and microphone combo jack, one full size SD card reader, and one LAN RJ-45 jack.
KEYBOARD AND COOLING
The keyboard of the Zephyrus S17 raises up by 5-degrees when you open up the lid. This gives the laptop the ability to pull in air to cool the internals and also offers an optimised wrist and hand positioning for a comfortable typing and gaming experience. The keyboard also has RGB backlighting – so you can go crazy with customisation using ASUS’ Armoury Crate.
The power button also doubles up as a fingerprint scanner, which was quite quick and efficient at unlocking the device. On the top left corner of the keyboard, you will find the volume adjust multi-wheel, which is quite intuitive to use. On both the right and left edges of the laptop, you will find air vents to efficiently cool down the device.
ASUS ROG also uses liquid metal compounds from Thermal Grizzly to reduce the CPU temperatures by 10°C on average and by up to 16°C in some scenarios compared to the standard thermal paste. Heat is also dissipated through four exhausts, each of which is lined with ultrathin copper fins as slim as 0.1mm.
According to ASUS ROG, these fins are half the size of typical solutions, allowing for higher density to increase surface area for heat dissipation and lower air resistance to allow for smoother flow, and hence lower fan speeds and less noise. There are up to 250 heatsink fins totaling 133,537mm² of surface area.
PERFORMANCE
To gauge the performance of the S17, we ran a bunch of benchmarks onto it, the first one being Shadow of the Tomb Raider. At its highest settings, using DX 12 and at a resolution of 1920-by-1080 pixels, we were able to clock an average fps of 114 on Manual, 112 on Turbo, 110 on Performance, and 57 on Silent modes.
In CineBench R23, we were able to clock 1584 points in single-core and 13680 on multi-core under the Manual mode. Gaming performance on the Zephyrus S17 was also on point, whether it was Battlefield V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 5, or Watch Dogs.
VERDICT
By putting the great specs, the excellent feature sets, and the outstanding performance, all together, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 sounds like an impressive gaming laptop.
Price: AED 15999 onwards
ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 AED 15999 onwards
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Final Rating
Summary
Under the hood, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 rocks an Intel 11th Gen Core i9-11900H processor, coupled with 32GB of GDDR memory. Graphics is handled by NVidia GeForce RTX 3080. You also get three M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen4x4 Slots and the laptop itself comes with a 2TB SSD installed for all your data storage requirements.
