ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15: At First Glance
In 2020 ASUS delivered several outstanding laptops one of which is the ROG Zephyrus M15. The laptop turned out to be a lot of people’s favorite and it won multiple awards while at it.
According to notebookspec.com, the Zephyrus M15 was awarded the best in several categories such as design, performance, and mobility. Most impressively, ASUS has offered the ROG Zephyrus M15 at a competitive mid-range price.
Speaking of which, at the time we published this article in August 2021, the laptop starts at $1,245. With sufficient insight into how much the Zephyrus M15 costs, let’s see if it’s worth that price.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15: Design, Dimension & Weight
With the Zephyrus M series, ASUS is on the quest to design slim and light gaming laptops without giving up on performance. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is simply designed and artistically crafted.
Once again, ASUS has ditched the attention-seeking RGB-designed lid for a minimalist design instead. ASUS made the laptop from a special aluminum-magnesium alloy that guarantees durability and resilience.
In terms of design pattern and color options, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is available in prism-gray or prism-black. There is also an edition called the brushed-black.
The laptop’s lid is made of a dual pattern design, each pattern occupies a diagonal half of the lid.
For the prism-gray and black designs, the first half of the lid is made of brushed aluminum. While the second half is made of prismatic dots that reflect in different colors when hit by light.
For the brushed-black design, the two diagonal sides are made of brushed metal patterns. The prismatic editions are more subtle than the brushed metal and can be used in an office setting.
Additionally, The brushed black edition has a large ROG logo by the top-right side of the lid. While the Prismatic editions have a small and less noticeable logo by the bottom-left.
Moving on to the interior, when you open the lid, you are graced with the screen and the laptop’s deck. The screen is surrounded by super-slim bezels satisfying the look of a modern-day laptop.
Due to the thinness of its bezels, ASUS has skipped the inclusion of a webcam. Hence, users can use a detachable camera – the major downside is having an extra load to carry around.
ASUS made the laptop’s deck with honeycomb reinforcements that enforce rigidity. Moreover, ASUS also made the palm rest from a soft-touch painting that reduces fingerprints and smudges.
The deck houses a decently sized keyboard with a unique grouping of the functions keys and hotkeys to aid easy identification. The top row of the keyboard houses a power button alongside dedicated keys for volume control, mic control, and launching the Armoury Crate app.
The keys easily register even with quick repeated presses due to the full N-key rollover. The keys have a decent key travel and force of actuation resulting in a comfortable typing experience.
In the brushed black edition of the laptop, the keyboard has a per-key RGB lighting that you can customize individually. You can customize the lightings using a software called the Aura Creator which you can download from the Microsoft Store.
Meanwhile, the prism-gray and black design opt for single-zone RGB lighting. Hence, you cannot customize the lighting effect of each key separately.
Below the keyboard sits a decently sized touchpad with integrated buttons. The touchpad works effectively but I will advise the use of an external mouse for gaming.
When it comes to dimensions and weight, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is an impressively compact and light gaming laptop. The laptop breaks a record as being 25% slimmer than previous Zephyrus models and 45% lighter than the average 15-inch laptop.
The prismatic design editions measure 360 x 252 x 19.9 mm. While the brushed-black edition is about 18.9mm thick due to its design requirement.
Furthermore, the laptop weighs 1,900 g making it lighter than most 15-inch laptops in the market. Specifically, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is lighter than the Acer Predator Triton 500 which weighs about 2,000 g
Despite the slimness of the laptop, there are still enough port selections to choose from. However, there is still a notable omission like the SDcard reader.
On the left side, there is a power connector, USB Type-A port, an Ethernet jack, and an HDMI port connector. There is also a 3.5mm audio jack.
Meanwhile, on the right, there are two USB Type-A ports and a Kensington lock slot. Additionally, there is a USB Type-C port that supports power delivery, Thunderbolt 3, and DisplayPort.
In conclusion, the design aspect of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is one area where it impresses beyond doubt. The laptop is beautiful, resilient, simple, light, and compact.
Therefore, I will rate it a nine in this aspect.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15: Processor (CPU) Performance
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is equipped with powerful 10th Gen processors. The laptop is available in an Intel Core i7-10750H or an Intel Core i7-10875H variant.
The 6 Core Intel Core i7-10750H processor has a 12 MB cache memory. In addition, it has a base frequency of 2.60 GHz and a boost frequency of 5.0 GHz.
Meanwhile, the 8 Core Intel Core i7-10875H processor has a 16 MB cache memory. It has a base frequency of 2.30 GHz and a boost frequency of 5.10 GHz.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 model I tested shipped with the Core i7-10750H processor. The processor is powerful, slicing through powerful applications without missing a beat.
As an evaluation of the laptop’s processor performance alongside its competitors, I’ll include results from the Cinebench R20 multi-core test. Cinebench R20 is a CPU evaluation benchmark for next-generation CPUs to test their performance under heavy CPU load.
Based on the test result, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 scored 2,955 points. Its performance sits at a top position in the performance chart.
Specifically, ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 surpassed the likes of Acer Predator Triton 500 and MSI GS66 10SGS. In the test, the Acer Predator Triton 500 and MSI GS66 10SGS scored 2,932 and 2,928 points respectively.
Finally, the processor performance of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 surpasses that of competing laptops running the same processor. Moreover, the 2,955 points recorded by the laptop is above the 2,848 points category average.
Therefore, I’ll rate it an eight in this aspect.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15: Memory (RAM) Performance
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is equipped with two slots – a DDR4-2933 MHz SO-DIMM slot and a DDR4-3200 MHz SO-DIMM. The first slot is occupied by unremovable RAM with a maximum capacity of 16 GB.
The removable slot can take up to 32 GB of RAM. This implies that the maximum RAM capacity supported by the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is 48 GB.
The model I tested shipped with 8 GB of unremovable RAM and 8 GB of removable RAM making the total RAM capacity of 16 GB. With 16 GB of RAM at its disposal, my test unit chewed through complex tasks smoothly with so much ease.
To determine how the laptop fares under multiple activities, I had about 20 chrome tabs running concurrently. Each of these tabs was running a different task such as streaming on Youtube and Twitch, browsing through my mailboxes and surfing multiple websites.
Without much concern about the multiple processes running, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 sliced through them all without a noticeable lag.
I also performed a PCMark 10 benchmark. PCMark 10 is an industry-standard benchmark for Windows 10 PCs, it is used for measuring a system’s performance.
In the test outcome, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 scored 5,208 points. By analysis, the result recorded by the laptop is not only below the category average score of 5,584 points but also below the competitor’s score.
For instance, the Acer Predator Triton 500 scored 5,484 points while the MSI GS66 10SGS scored 6,154 points.
Finally, I’ll rate the RAM performance of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 a six. This rating is due to its below-average performance in the benchmark test.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15: Storage Options & Performance
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is equipped with two M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD slots. The total maximum storage capacity supported by the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is 1 TB.
ASUS equipped my test model with two 512 GB SSDs making a total of 1 TB. To determine the transfer speed of the SSD, I performed a file transfer test.
The test involved duplicating 4.97GB of files. Consequently, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 completed the duplication in 8.1 seconds which translates to a speed of 629 MBps.
The SSD performance of my test model in the transfer test is below the category average transfer speed of 675 MBps. Moreover, the laptop also performed below the competitors.
Speaking of which the Gigabyte Aero 15 copied the same file in 7 seconds at a rate of 727 MBps.
As a basis for benchmarking the storage option, I used the CrystalDiskMark benchmark test. The CrystalDiskMark is software used for evaluating the storage speed of storage disks such as SSDs and HDDs.
During the test, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 recorded a sequential read speed of 2,440 MBps. Also, it recorded a sequential write speed of 1,698 MBps.
In conclusion, the storage performance of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is also below that of its competitors in the file transfer test. Hence I’ll rate it a seven.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15: Graphics Card Performance
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 utilizes a number of dedicated graphics cards. The base configuration comes with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660Ti GPU with 6 GB GDDR6 memory.
The GTX 1660 Ti has a base frequency of 1500 MHz and a boost frequency of 1770 MHz.
Secondly, there is another configuration with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPU which has a dedicated VRAM of 6 GB as well. The RTX 2060 GPU has a base frequency of 1365 MHz and a boost frequency of 1680 MHz.
Next, there is a configuration with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU with a dedicated VRAM of 8 GB. Also, the RTX 2070 Max-Q has a base frequency of 885 MHz and a boost frequency of 1185 MHz.
Lastly, there is a configuration with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Max-Q with an 8 GB dedicated VRAM. The RTX 2070 Super Max-Q has a base frequency of 930 MHz and a boost frequency of 1080 MHz.
The test model I’m reviewing shipped with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q which is a more efficient GPU for thin gaming laptops than the full-fledged RTX 2070. To determine the graphics performance of the laptop I used the 3DMark Fire Strike graphics benchmark at 1080p resolution.
3DMark Fire Strike benchmark is a DirectX 11 benchmark for evaluating modern PCs. Its 3D rendering is more detailed than the other graphical benchmarks which makes it an ideal choice.
During the test, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 scored 17321 points. Once again, its performance falls below the category average score of 17,489 points as well as the competitor’s performance.
On the competitor’s end, the Razer Blade 15 with the same RTX 2070 Max Q GPU scored 20,831 points. Also, the Gigabyte Aero 15 with the same GPU scored 32,121 points.
In terms of the actual gaming performance of the laptop, I played Doom Eternal at all the presets possible including 4K resolution.
Consequently, at low settings, the game recorded 205.6 fps while at medium settings it recorded 140.4 fps. Also, at high settings the game recorded 12.8 fps while at ultra settings the game played at 125.6 fps.
Furthermore, at maximum quality settings and QHD resolution, the game played at 95.2 fps. While at 4K resolution the game played at 53.2 fps.
Finally, the gaming performance of the laptop is impressive, recording high frame rates for modern titles even at max settings. However, its graphics performance is below the category average and the competitors in the benchmark test.
Hence, I’ll rate the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 a seven in this aspect.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15: Battery life & Performance
With its 4-cell 76WHr Li-ion battery, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 once again meets expectations. ASUS has claimed 5 hours of battery life for the 76 WHr battery.
I put the battery to a video playback test where I played an FHD video repeatedly until the battery drains. The performance was acceptable for a gaming laptop.
Consequently, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 lasted 8 hours 36 minutes which is a remarkable feat for a gaming laptop.
In comparison to its competitors, the Acer Predator Triton 500 lasted 8 hours 15 minutes. Meanwhile, the Gigabyte Aero 15 lasted two minutes longer than the Zephyrus M15 at 8 hours 38 minutes.
Finally, the battery life of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is impressive – it lasted longer than the advertised 5 hours in my video playback test. Therefore, I’ll rate it an eight in this aspect.
Frequently Asked Questions
Once again in the Zephyrus series, ASUS has decided to skip the inclusion of an in-built camera. This implies that there is no facial recognition capability on the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15. However, unboxing the laptop reveals a detachable camera that can be used for video conferencing. The only downside to this detachable camera is that it is one extra thing to carry around which most people don’t want.
The upgradability of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 is limited to RAM only. The RAM capacity can be upgraded to a maximum of 48 GB.
No, like its lack of a webcam, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 also lacks a fingerprint reader. This means that users cannot use a secured fingerprint login on this laptop. However, users can use an external fingerprint scanner for biometric verification.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 holds a record as being 25% slimmer than previous laptops from the Zephyrus lineup. The brushed-black editions of the laptop are 18.9 mm thick while the prism-black and prism-gray editions are 19.9 mm thick.
Yes, the brushed-black editions of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 have a per-key RGB-lit keyboard while the prism-black and prism-gray editions have a zonal RGB-lit keyboard.
Conclusion
The 2020 refresh of the Zephyrus M series – ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 has done a lot better than the previous edition of the series. It has a beautiful, slim, and lightweight chassis.
Additionally, it comes with a better screen option, an improved battery life, and Thunderbolt 3 support. On top of that, it is available in different chassis designs to choose from and you get all these at a mid-range price.
However, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 has its shortcomings such as the lack of a webcam and SDcard reader. Despite its shortcomings, ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 delivers a respectable performance.
I hope you found this ASUS ROG Zephyrus M15 review helpful. If you found the review helpful, kindly click Yes to “Was this page Helpful?” below.
You could also share your thoughts with the “Leave a Comment” form found at the end of this page.
Finally, for more laptop reviews, visit our Laptop Reviews page. You may also find our Laptop Specs page very helpful.
