CPU and Storage Performance

While gaming is obviously the main focus of the ROG Zephyrus, we wanted to get a better idea of general performance in tasks as well. Equipped with an Intel i7-7700HQ quad-core mobile processor, the ROG Zephyrus is the most powerful laptop we have ever tested.

In the Cinebench R15 rendering benchmark, the i7-7700HQ in the ROG Zephyrus uses Hyper Threading to its advantage for a 37% improvement in multi-core rendering over the quad-core non-Hyper Threaded i5-7300HQ in the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming.

Similarly, in Handbrake video encoding, we see a 35% advantage over the Dell gaming notebook and a 73% speed increase over the MacBook and ThinkPad X1 Carbon with low-voltage processors.

It's worth noting that the Zephyrus did not let us run our encode in Intel QuickSync mode. This is likely due to the lack of Intel integrated graphics drivers on this system since it ships with a GTX 1080 in an always-on configuration.

PCMark 8 is a benchmarking suite that aims to emulate several different usage scenarios ranging from basic productivity to mixed workloads with light gaming and to applications for creative professionals like photo and video editing. While the "conventional" tests are running applications as you'd expect, the "accelerated" versions add OpenCL acceleration and use the available GPU devices for some operations.

In PCMark 8, we see the power of the i7-7700HQ CPU and the OpenCL performance of the GTX 1080 combine to obliterate the other notebooks we have previously tested.

Storage results from the Samsung SM961 SSD in the ROG Zephyrus are as expected. We see industry-leading performance similar to Samsung's consumer-focused Samsung 960 Pro.

Overall, the ROG Zephyrus is well equipped to handle any task you may run into. Whether it's basic productivity in Word or Excel, video editing, or gaming, this machine is a top-of-class performer.

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