Which laptop should I buy?

Looking for an upgrade. Stumbled upon HIDevolution lurking in this forum and spoke with Donald today who was very helpful. My primary drivers are performance, thin and light, then battery. I play alot of FPS and RPG's. I have a desktop as a primary so this is my lounge computer. Was originally looking at the G65 with 1070 max-q but am now convinced that the full 1070 is better on the Zephyrus M.

Anyone with experience with these machines can give me a recommendation?

 

Zephyrus M is worth buying. If you're thinking to buy it, then just go for it.

I would like to mention 2 things (only 2 as every other thing is just great) that people think are not good about the laptop and they change their mind to buy it. First is the battery life. Its battery is short but you have an option to switch to integrated graphics when your not playing or doing any GPU intensive work to reduce battery consumption so its really an issue but people need a reason (if you're always plugged in, that's even better). Second, lack of RJ45 although you can always use thunderbolt 3 to RJ45 connector if you want but sometimes people don't want to do that.

Other than that, everything is just great. So, if you're buying a laptop now, Zephyrus M is good choice and just go for that.

P.S. - I'm not really sure when, but if you plan to wait a little, Asus is releasing Zephyrus S which is even more better in terms of overall performance and aesthetics than Zephyrus M.

 

I would also definitely get all of the cooling upgrades if you're going with HID on it. It's still a thin and light it'll take whatever help it can get.

 

Thank you both for the feedback. The battery life has me worried.

Anyone with the G65 have any feedback on performance issues?


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It throttles. The GM501 seems to be the best off thin and light after HID's cooling work. Pretty much all the other thin and lights on the market have thermal throttle, power throttle, or vrm throttle.

The battery life unfortunately isn't great indeed. Only Aero laptops have huge batteries and they have throttle and firmware issues.

 

As I already mentioned, you always have freedom to choose between integrated and dedicated GPU in Zephyrus. Means you can manual switch from dedicated Nvidia GPU to integrated Intel GPU to reduce battery consumption. Doing that can get you around 5 hours of battery backup and when it comes to gaming or other GPU intensive processes, switch to Nvidia and plug your laptop to get the best performance out of it.

GS65 is good but do not perform as good as Zephyrus. Battery backup is around 5-6 hours for normal work. 2 major issues that you will encounter in GS65 is heating and accessibility. GS65 don't have a great thermal design but it can be solved as already mention in the above post. Though, you can't do anything about accessibility. Upgrading GS65 is a headache.

 

Love my zephyrus m. What a gaming beast. And I must say, I am running on stock cooling and have basically the same temps after undervolting -125mv, as users are reporting after getting LM upgrades from HID, and similar undervolting. The stock cooling capacity in this thing is astounding considering its size and the hardware. At this point I don't think LM is worth it on this device when the temps are still in the high 70's/80's under normal load. Have fun making your decision!!

 

Based on the feedback I think I will pull the trigger on the Zephyrus M. Appreciate all the help.


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Placed my order through HIDevolution just now, thanks again.

Any software tweaks recommended by this group?

Order details:



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Well since you're an HIDevolution Gaming Team Member now (Congrats BTW), then I can help you tweak it once you get it.

Here are the Phoenix Tweaks:

1- Uninstallation of all the Windows Store Garbage Apps like 3D Paint, Print 3D, Alarms & Clock, Feedback Hub, Maps, Groove Music, News, Weather, etc.
2- Removing all Windows 10 Privacy Invasion stuff like Telemetry, sending your keystrokes to Microsoft, automatically installing suggested apps in the background, allowing Microsoft to conduct experiments on your laptop, disabling automatic driver updates through Windows updates, disabling Windows 10 ads, disabling Cortana, Cloud Search etc.
3- Removal of nVIDIA and Intel Telemetry
4- Adjusting a lot of options in PC Settings like disabling Windows Tablet Mode (you have a laptop not a tablet), disabling suggestions appearing in the start menu, disabling automatically connecting to Paid WiFi Hotspots, disabling Game DVR which reduced performance in games, and a lot more.
5- Replacing Cortana with a much better search tool that finds results instantly called Everything which finds any file you want as soon as you start typing even a few letters of its name and it doesn't even rely on the Windows Indexing Service to do this!
6- Restoring the classic Windows Photo Viewer
7- Restoring the Classic Windows 7 Start Menu
8- Removal of the new and useless 3D Objects Folder that appears when you open "Computer"
9- Completely disabling Windows Defender from its roots (including all scheduled tasks and startup files) for those who want to install their own AV. ESET NOD32 Antivirus is highly recommended if you want the utmost security with the least system performance impact.
10- Updating all drivers to the latest versions in case they weren't up to date.
11- Disabling the performance hit that is caused by the Meltdown and Spectre patches recently released by Microsoft (optional, only if you don't mind having this security vulnerability and would rather have your CPU's full performance back)
12- Overprovisioning your SSD anywhere between 10-20% depending on how much space you can spare to ensure optimal and consistent performance at all times.
13- Blocking the Google Chrome Software Reporter Tool (which causes a high system load when it is scanning files)
14- Preventing Microsoft Edge from running on startup in the background
15- Updating all drivers
16- Creating a system restoration image using Macrium Reflect



Once you get it, when you first turn it on and get the initial Windows 10 Setup Wizard, it will prompt you to connect to a Wireless Network, click on SKIP on the bottom right otherwise you will be forced to login with a Microsoft account which I strongly advice against.


Also, when it prompts you to enter a password, leave the blank for now as during our tweaking session, we will need to reboot a lot and that will just slow us down.


First thing I want you to do to save us time is to right click on your start menu button, then choose SYSTEM, from there,, hit Rename This PC and choose a name for your computer. (ie. I name mine TITAN). The name should be in capital letter. Some of the tweaks are tied to the PC name and thus, you want to name it properly from the get go rather than keeping the default random name which Windows assigns it (DESKTOP-999-BLABLABLA)


Next, go to PC Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and perform all the Windows updates. After rebooting, check for updates again just to make sure there aren’t any more updates


The moment you are in Windows, go ahead and do all the Windows updates which will take a long time, then download and install TeamViewer then run it, it will give you an ID/Password which you could pass on to me via a PM so I can connect to you.


You won't be able to PM me unless I PM you first so what you want to do is, when you get it, just tag me by using the @ sign then type my username right after it with no spaces and I will PM you then