The Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 saw a significant refresh for 2024, morphing it into a high-end, multipurpose laptop that leans toward a portable, mature design. While it's not going to offer the absolute most performance from its hardware due to size constraints, it's still going to do a great job of keeping up with professional work and gaming alike. At a time when many people are looking for one laptop to do it all, Asus has filled the demand with this redesigned PC.

Instead of competing directly with dedicated gaming laptops, it's much more in line with the likes of the Dell XPS 16 (2024) or the MacBook Pro 16. It's easy to imagine the Zephryus G16 as a creator or developer laptop, yet it offers Nvidia G-Sync compatibility and 240Hz refresh rate for the display, a MUX switch for the GPU, and a rather hefty cooling solution to keep the hardware running while gaming.

The ROG Zephryus G16 (2024) is one of the best built laptops I've tested, with a high attention to detail evident everywhere you look. It lacks any major blind spots aside from the reduced GPU power and soldered RAM, and it should prove to be a popular choice for hybrid users who don't want to commit too heavily to one side, whether it be gaming or professional work.

About this review: Asus supplied XDA with a review unit of its ROG Zephyrus G16 (GU605) for 2024. It had no input on the contents of this article.

Price, availability, and specs

Asus revealed its updated ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 models at CES 2024, and they're both now available to buy. The best place to shop looks to be the official Asus site, Amazon, or Best Buy.

Best Buy, at the time of writing, has a model with Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, OLED display, and Nvidia RTX 4070 Laptop GPU for about $2,000. At Amazon, there are a handful of configurations available, starting with Core Ultra 9, RTX 4070, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, and OLED display for about $2,400.

Asus has a couple of models available, with prices starting at $2,899. This configuration includes an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU, Nvidia RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, OLED display, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD.

Here's a look at the specs available in the ROG Zephyrus G16 (2024).

Design and features

A sleek redesign offers a more professional look

The ROG Zephyrus G16 was overhauled significantly for 2024, but it's still positioned as the Asus laptop for users who split time between professional and gaming worlds. This is particularly evident in the streamlined design; the new Zephyrus G16 is about 25% thinner than its predecessor, and it's now built into a CNC-machined aluminum body. It looks somewhat like the Razer Blade 16, though it comes in Eclipse Gray and Platinum White color options and has its own share of distinguishing features.

One standout design choice is the "slash" on the lid of the laptop. It's a steel strip broken up into seven LED lighting sections, which can be customized to your liking. It's not RGB, but that only leans into the more professional look of the laptop. It's a nice accent that doesn't take things too far.

The laptop's four hinges are hidden behind a wide cover along the back edge, which itself has a Zephyrus badge and three system status lights. This is also where the laptop's exhaust is hidden away. Measuring just 14.9mm at the front and 17.4mm at the back when closed, the device is more streamlined and sleek than your average gaming laptop. It's clearly built to a very high standard, with a solid chassis that doesn't really flex or creak when pressure is applied.

Opening the lid, you're greeted by a massive touchpad, speaker grilles flanking the RGB keyboard, and a display with slim bezels. The display's hinges are hidden from view here as well, resulting in a very clean look. The edges of the laptop are slightly beveled, which prevents them from digging into your forearms while gaming or typing.

Sound comes booming out of this setup, even with stock tuning in place.

The top-firing speakers contain a 2W tweeter on either side, joined by four total 2W woofers on the bottom of the laptop. Sound comes booming out of this setup, even with stock tuning in place. There's enough volume to drown out fan noise, audio is detailed, and it handles highs and lows equally well. The Dolby Access app provides tuning for Dolby Atmos depending on the task at hand. Whether you're listening to music, talking to colleagues, or playing games, this speaker setup does a fantastic job.

The FHD camera is nearly as impressive as the speakers. While you can certainly get a higher resolution in other laptops — HP has been putting 9MP cameras into its high-end Spectre x360 laptops — the FHD camera does a great job of handling exposure for a clear picture free of any graininess. Is it good enough for streaming? Probably, at least if you're starting out, and it's certainly good enough for video conferencing with colleagues. The camera is joined by an IR sensor for Windows Hello facial recognition; the only thing lacking is a camera shutter.

Due to the hidden-hinge design, the ROG Zephyrus G16 has no ports along the back edge. That means you'll be dealing with cables out the left and right sides of the laptop, which might annoy those who prefer a cleaner cable setup when connected to a docking station or external display. Nevertheless, the right side of the laptop has USB-C 3.2 (Gen 2) and USB-A 3.2 (Gen 2) ports, as well as a UHS-II SD card reader for removable. This is a great addition to a laptop that's intended to be used for professionals at least part of the time.

The left side includes HDMI 2.1, Thunderbolt 4, USB-A 3.2 (Gen 2), 3.5mm audio, and the proprietary charging port to accommodate the 240W power brick. While you can use the HDMI 2.1 port for an external monitor, it's also important to note that the USB-C port supports DisplayPort 1.4, G-Sync, and up to 100W of power delivery. It's not a second Thunderbolt port, but it's the next best thing.

Keyboard and touchpad

Massive pointer and 1.7mm key travel

Asus blew the touchpad up by 37% compared to the previous generation, making the absolute most of the space below the keyboard. It's not haptic, but it's hard to tell the difference. The click is firm, there's no rattling when tapped, and it has a ton of space for gestures. Most gamers are going to add a gamepad or external gaming mouse, but it remains a quality pointer for other work and casual use.

The Zephyrus G16 also has a great keyboard. It has larger keycaps than its predecessor, with perfect spacing between all keys. This makes it comfortable for typing and for gaming, especially when you factor in 1.7mm key travel. You can customize the RGB lighting to your liking, and there are four macro keys (otherwise used for volume, microphone, and app control) that you can set up for extra control in your games.

Display

G-Sync, HDR, OLED ... what more could you ask?

Asus went all-out with the 16-inch OLED display in the Zephyrus G16, and it's well-suited for gaming and for specialized work. On the gaming side, it's equipped with Nvidia G-Sync, a 240Hz refresh rate, and 0.2ms response time, giving the performance hardware plenty of room to push framerates. Asus worked with both Samsung (the display maker) and Nvidia to bring G-Sync to the OLED panel, which is extremely rare in laptops.

Asus went all-out with the 16-inch OLED display in the Zephyrus G16, making it well-suited for gaming and for specialized work.

On the professional side, VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification, Dolby Vision support, Pantone color validation, and strong color reproduction allow it to tackle things like photo and video editing, creative design work, and beyond. I had some fun editing photos on the laptop with Lightroom, and every game seemed like it wanted to pop right out of the screen.

The picture quality is outstanding, with perfect contrast and respectable color reproduction. Testing with a SpyderX Pro colorimeter, I got back 100% sRGB, 94% AdobeRGB, and 99% DCI-P3 color, as well up to 401 nits brightness without HDR enabled. There is some glare due to the glass covering, but it seems like Asus went with an anti-reflective coating to prevent it from being too distracting.

Performance and battery

Nvidia RTX 4090 is capped due to thermal constraints

The ROG Zephyrus G16 (2024) that I'm reviewing is equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU, Nvidia RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, 32GB of LPDDR5x-7467MHz RAM (soldered), and a 2TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. On the CPU side, you get the usual improvements to AI performance thanks to the chip's built-in Neural Processing Unit (NPU), and on the GPU side you get strong ray tracing support, DLSS 3.5 compatibility, and a MUX switch with Nvidia Advanced Optimus support to go along with the G-Sync display.

It's overall an impressive setup, kept cool by three fans, vapor chamber (which looks to only be available on the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 models), thick heat pipes, and large air intake and exhaust. The fans even have dust screens to help keep your system from clogging up.

It's overall an impressive setup, kept cool by three fans, vapor chamber, thick heat pipes, and large air intake and exhaust.

Asus has a number of power profiles available in its Armoury Crate software. You can set it to rely on the Windows power profile, and there are otherwise Silent, Performance, and Turbo modes. There's also a Manual mode where you can tweak performance to your liking, which isn't something you see in a lot of gaming laptops.

For these benchmark and real-world gaming tests, I used the Asus Performance mode coupled with the Best Performance setting in Windows 11. Turbo mode is available if you'd like to really crank things up, but keeping the laptop near the middle of what Armoury Crate can offer keeps fan noise at about 52 dBA while still offering respectable power.

Asus has limited the RTX 4090 Laptop GPU inside the Zephyrus G16 to 115W maximum power when in Turbo mode, dropping to 90W in Performance mode. You can see the difference in performance compared to the 175W RTX 4090 in the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 that we also reviewed.

I ran an extended stress test to see how the system handles heat and cooling. The CPU peaked at 91 degrees Celsius, leveling out at 89 degrees Celsius for the rest of the test. The GPU stayed level at about 64 degrees Celsius. And thanks to intelligent balancing of power between the CPU and GPU, the system prevents itself from throttling even under 100% load. The outside of the system gets hot, most noticeable on the keyboard; I would recommend keeping the laptop on a desk when running demanding games or software.

Checking out real-world gaming performance, I ran a bunch of demanding games at their highest settings to see how the system fares. There's plenty of room to tweak in-game settings to boost frame rates, but the capped TGP on the RTX 4090 Laptop GPU is again evident. Cranking the power profile up to Turbo would push these numbers higher, but again you're dealing with quite a bit of extra fan noise. If you want the best GPU performance possible, you'll probably, as mentioned, want to check out something like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16. And if I was buying this laptop for myself, I would likely save some money and go with an RTX 4070 or RTX 4080 Laptop GPU.

The 90Wh battery is approaching the largest legally allowed on commercial flights, but in the end it's still working against gaming hardware. I got about an hour of runtime in PCMark 10's Gaming Rundown test, and you'll want to keep your AC adapter nearby if you're gaming or working with other demanding apps. Knocking the refresh rate down to 60Hz and turning down performance to a more balanced profile, I got about four hours of runtime from the system.

Should you buy the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2024)?

You should buy the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2024) if:

• You want a sleek 16-inch laptop for work and for gaming.
• You want an OLED display with quality color and contrast.
• You want a comfortable keyboard and massive touchpad for easier productivity.

You should NOT buy the Asus ROG Zephryus G16 (2024) if:

• You want to maximize GPU performance.
• You want a laptop with upgradeable RAM.
• You can't justify spending $2,000+ on a laptop.

The Asus ROG Zephryus G16 (2024) is a sleek and powerful laptop that can be used as easily for gaming as it can for more professional purposes. It's hard to tell that it's a gaming laptop from the outside, and Asus did a real fine job with the redesign. The speaker setup is impressive, the FHD camera offers a clear picture, and the keyboard and touchpad make the most of the available space.

The Asus ROG Zephryus G16 (2024) is a sleek and powerful laptop that can be used as easily for gaming as it can for more professional purposes.

The 16-inch OLED display is packed with features, including G-Sync support, a speedy 240Hz refresh rate, and quality HDR support with Dolby Vision included. The awesome color and contrast will make your games look as good as possible, and the accurate color reproduction means you can use the laptop for design and creative work as well.

Because the laptop is so thin, you're not going to get the most performance out of the hardware inside. The RTX 4090 Laptop GPU in my review unit can't perform to its full potential, and I'd recommend most people stick with the RTX 4080 (or lower) option. Nevertheless, it should prove to be a powerful laptop that excels at work during the day and gaming at night.