Gaming Laptop Analysis

Is the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 good as a gaming laptop? Not for gaming

Processor - A Ryzen 7 4800HS 8-Core 2.9GHz CPU that is housed in this laptop is excellent for modern AAA gaming during 2021. This CPU comes with 8 cores, which is excellent providing it extra resource to chew through game processing when required.

Graphics Card - Today’s AAA 2021 gaming is not met by the graphics solution found in this laptop. The performance provided by the GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile will certainly struggle with some of the more demanding games around. This GPU has 4GB VRAM, which is an OK amount for most modern games, but there are certainly graphics solutions that provide plenty more VRAM than this.

System Memory - This laptop’s 16GB RAM can deal with everything modern games can throw at it and is a good step towards this being an excellent gaming laptop choice.

Screen Size - This laptop screen, which is 14", can deliver viewable modern game releases, but its size, is a little on the small size for a gaming laptop, making it OK for more casual gamers. We normally choose a 17 inch laptop for gamer screen size. This larger sort of panel would help show menus in-game and game text more clearly.

Refresh Rate - Refresh rates can be hard to see, when the laptop reseller doesn't make it clear. Assume 60Hz if this is the case. Ideally for a gaming laptop you want 120Hz. This means the games you run can get up to 120 frames per second, assuming the hardware inside them is powerful enough to deliver that FPS. The refresh rate caps a games deliverable FPS even if the hardware can deliver more FPS than the Hz. As far as refresh rates go, this laptop can be picked up with a 60Hz screen. When looking into modern gaming laptops this would be ok, but you would consider higher panel rates if you want to enjoy top frames per second..

GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile graphics card gaming performance in the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 laptop

The big one in any gaming PC is making sure the graphics card is up to the task of modern gaming. And this is of course the same for choosing the right gaming laptop as well. Therefore we will be considering this laptop’s hardware in relation to its overall price and how well it could run modern demanding or popular games like Far Cry 6, New World and Battlefield 2042. This is done in relation to its native 1080p resolution at Ultra video settings to give us something to compare against other laptops. Lets compare the GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile found in this laptop to today’s top 500 most demanding games. Of those games, this laptops GPU can run 267 at their minimum system requirements and then 0 games when looking at their recommended system specs.

Comparing ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 to today’s best price to performance laptop ranges

We really want to see how the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 will compare across all permutations of the ROG Zephyrus G14 model range. This will give us a good sense of how well it sits in terms of cost to performance within its own lineup, and will better help us decide if this laptop represents good value to us today.

With a P2P rating of 9.6 today the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2. Our value to performance rating score will auto adjust as new hardware capability improves and prices drop. As not all laptops and their prices are of course valued equally we can see that this version of the ROG Zephyrus G14 laptop is in 4th position on the best Price to Performance value rating. Those closer to 1st place are simply better gaming laptop options regarding the gaming performance they deliver for their price.

It's good to see how this ROG Zephyrus G14 laptop compares to models outside of its own model range as well. If we look at the very best P2P laptop, the ASUS TUF A15 R7 4800H GTX 1660 Ti 16GB RAM 512GB M.2, our laptop has 49% worse performance difference when comparing its price to performance rating. That top laptop currently has a listed price of $999. Again only comparing against Price to Performance we can see that the second best model in today’s P2P ranking list is the MSI Bravo 15 R7 4800H RX 5500M 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop, and our laptop is 30% worse when compared against this price to performance rating. The price of the 2nd best laptop is listed as $1049.

How does the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 laptop compare to the best CPU performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

As a point of benchmark lets see how well our laptop looks when directly compared on processing performance against the top CPU focused laptop currently available. For processor focused performance we choose the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R9 4900HS RTX 2060 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 laptop for today’s comparison. This top end CPU laptop comes with a Ryzen 9 4900HS 8-Core 3.0GHz processor in it that performs 6% better if we put it against our review laptop’s Ryzen 7 4800HS 8-Core 2.9GHz processor.

The Ryzen 7 4800HS 8-Core 2.9GHz processor found in this machine can currently run 497 games of the top 500 most demanding games right now. This is basically how many recommended game system requirements our laptop cpu beats in performance today, but we will update this figure as new games come out. This is 500 games when looking at beating minimum system requirements.

Games these days have a range of processor requirements so let's look at a few popular games of today, and check our laptop CPU against the games recommended requirement. First off, Far Cry 6 and our laptop processor gets 0% better performance rating. Next we have New World where our CPU gets 58% better performance and finally another popular title at the moment is Battlefield 2042, which has a performance difference of : 12% better, when put against our laptop’s Ryzen 7 4800HS 8-Core 2.9GHz.

How does the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 laptop compare to the best graphics card performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

Wondering how strong this laptop is in the GPU department, then let's have a look at it compared to one of the current best GPU performing laptops available today and this should show us the relative graphics performance of our review model. Lets grab a graphics focused laptop for comparison then. We have chosen the MSI GT76 Titan i9-10900K RTX 2080 Super 64GB RAM 2.0TB M.2 4K laptop for its graphical performance. This big hitting GPU laptop comes with a GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8GB video card in it that performs 157% better if we bench it against our laptop’s GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile graphics hardware.

Our laptop GPU beats 0 games recommended system requirements when looking at today’s top 500 most demanding games. This number changes to 267 games if we compare to the top 500 most demanding games for minimum system requirements.

When compared to the most popular games around today, against their recommended graphics requirements, our laptop graphics card performs as follows - Far Cry 6 our laptop video card is 50% worse and then looking at New World our laptop GPU is 19% worse and finally compared to Battlefield 2042 it has a performance difference : 56% worse.

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 has a 1080p screen resolution, should I get a 4K resolution gaming laptop instead?

This laptop’s panel has a physical 14" screen that delivers 1920x1080 pixels natively. But should you consider moving from this 1080p laptop and searching for a 4K laptop instead, with the intention of getting better visuals for your games or movies? 4K laptops would likely come with a 60 FPS cap on games, set by the laptop screen’s 60Hz refresh rate. So regardless of what the hardware is capable of in the 4K laptop they couldn't push their FPS beyond that screen refresh rate. Now AAA games today when played at Ultra graphics settings and a 4K resolution likely don't have hardware capable of 60 FPS anyway. We can see 60Hz panel refresh rate versions of this laptop are available. The higher the better.

Dropping a game’s resolution down from the laptop’s native 4K resolution to a more sustainable 1080p or maybe 1440p, would certainly deliver extra frames and improve stability. So there is always that option if the experience is unplayable due to low frame rates. But know that this action comes at a price. Dropping from a monitor or laptop panel’s native resolution immediately reduces in-game visual definition across all the game’s graphics. It basically makes the game look blurry. Not an ideal situation if you just bought your new 4K gaming laptop. And if your laptop does have the power to run some of the modern games in 4K Ultra, you are likely to want to enjoy them on a larger than 17inch laptop panel. So at a later point perhaps buy a dedicated monitor for your desk that isnt 60Hz restricted, for those games, thus keeping your laptop for mobility.

The primary use we can think of is for streaming 4K movie and TV content, assuming you have access to these services. If this is your primary use for the laptop, rather than gaming then it certainly might be worth considering this.

As you can probably gather from the information above, its probably not worth the extra cash for a 4K laptop if gaming is your Laptop purpose. 1080p is likely plenty and has enough alternative gaming options for when you want better resolution. It feels like you might not get what you were after if you picked up a shiny new 4K laptop, then was needing to lower game resolution, while getting blurry in-game experience and achieving a max 60FPS when you could push the hardware into better frame rates.

Today’s best 1440p desktop monitor for a laptop is - ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS

Incidentally our research shows the ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS as our best priced 1440p monitor today. This monitor has a 75Hz refresh rate and a price tag at the moment of $311.99. To help you get a bit more insight into the pricing trends of this 1440p monitor, we have price tracked this monitor and saw its lowest price recorded at $229.99, which was taken on 9th Mar 2021.

Today’s best 4K desktop monitor for a laptop is - Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz

Perhaps you could grab something like the Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz 4K gaming monitor we have spotted today. It is our current best priced 4K monitor at $618 with a 144Hz refresh rate. During these past 2 weeks, this 4K monitor’s price has gone up by $618. To give a bit more info about this monitor we saw it cost its lowest of $549.99, which we recorded on 13th Nov 2020.

[Note - check that monitor display connectors are compatible between a monitor and a laptop before purchase]

The primary 4K use would most likely be streaming movie and TV content at that resolution, assuming you have access to these services in 4K. At which point perhaps its enough of a selling point for you to consider a 4K laptop..

Paying extra for 4K gaming in a laptop is not really a good investment of your cash at the moment. We would put our extra cash in to a 1080p with better graphics card or maybe a nice mouse or headset. Because with the 4K laptop you may be sad when having to drop your favourite modern games screen resolution to get an ok frame rate. Or perhaps lowering the graphics setting to increase 4K FPS up to a stable and playable amount, only to hit a 60FPS ceiling due to the 60Hz 4K panel limit.

Today's Best Priced Mouse and Headset for ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 laptop

Of our regular price tracked gaming mice the best value mouse today is the Kayinuo M738 Gaming Mouse 3200DPI wired 6 Buttons. With its a current price of $12.99 it should work well with this ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R7 4800HS GTX 1650 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 laptop. We have seen this mouse lower its price during these past couple of weeks by $32.26, which is part of the reason we are considering it as a good option for this laptop. Another point of interest was that we saw this mouse priced at $11.99, which we tracked on 15th Aug 2020.

We price track a number of good value gaming headset and the one that currently stands out is the Corsair HS45-7.1 Surround, which is currently available for $36.99. Out of interest our lowest price tracked on this headset was on 28th Nov 2019 where we saw it for $34.99.