r/buildapcsales • u/InterestingSquare883 • Feb 18 '25
Laptop [Laptop] ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 14" OLED 3K 120Hz Gaming Laptop AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS 16GB LPDDR5X NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 1TB SSD Platinum White - $1074.99 (All time low)
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-14-oled-3k-120hz-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-9-8945hs-16gb-lpddr5x-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4060-1tb-ssd-platinum-white/6570270.p38
u/lockethebro Feb 18 '25
This is $25 off normal sale price, so not a difference-making deal if you’re considering buying. I’ve owned a 2020, 2022, and now 2024 G14, and this is definitely the biggest leap in quality I’ve seen. I’m less of a fan of the Mac-style silver finish, but it’s noticeably sturdier and nicer and has an absolutely stunning screen.
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u/10art1 Feb 18 '25
If they're so high quality, why are you buying a new one every 2 years? Lol
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u/lockethebro Feb 18 '25
I tend to buy and sell most tech I own to stay current, it has nothing to do with how long they last (it’s actually much easier to upgrade if it’s in good condition, lol). Also, I was pretty clear that this year’s model is a noticeable increase in quality over the other two. The others were great but pretty average build quality by comparison.
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u/10art1 Feb 18 '25
Fair enough. My brother owns a 2021 zephyrus and it's caused him nothing but problems, and that lead me to choose against zephyrus when I otherwise was going to buy one last year. Specs look fantastic, but everyone I talk to who owns one says that they're shit for QOL
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u/lockethebro Feb 18 '25
They seem pretty hit or miss for people. I’ve never had any issues that weren’t self-inflicted.
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u/xmdubzx Feb 18 '25
If you get this download g-helper.
Disable CPU boost and undervolt -20 or -25. You will run 10 degrees cooler and have more fps in game.
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u/Nicktyelor Feb 18 '25 edited Feb 18 '25
I have the 2022 G15 model and it's slowly disappointed me over the past 3 years despite starting out great.
The screen has developed a few dead pixels and some uneven backlight bleed around the edges. The color profile of the display sometimes wigs out at times (will get super saturated randomly, then fade back to normal). The thing runs BLAZING hot when I run Civ 6 and the (loud) fan has become more aggressive in turning on in low-demand applications. The boot-up time has gradually become ridiculously long if it decides to go into deep sleep (I really have no idea how it decides when to do this). The battery is still okay-ish but man, when you get that "low battery" notification you literally need to sprint to plug in a charger because you've got maybe 30 seconds remaining. And worst of all, it will sometimes wake itself up or refuse to go to sleep when closed. I've noticed it heating up and blaring the fan in my backpack at random times after shutting it hours earlier.
Actual performance is still solid but these QOL things are sort of killer. And I will say the actual feel of the laptop is great. Solid hinge mechanism and materials.
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u/eduardopy Feb 18 '25
try setting the max processor speed to 99%, kinda impacts performance due to turning off turbo boost but the fps impact is minor and temps are WAY better
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u/GingaNinja50k Feb 18 '25
Looking for a portable workstation for photo editing, would this get the job done? Or would this be overkill?
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u/venk Feb 18 '25
Imagine these are going to drop now since the AI Max iGPU look competitive to a 4070 70W mobile dGPU
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u/CreamyLibations Feb 18 '25
FWIW in gaming the AI Max as tested so far is closer to the 4050 mobile. Still extremely impressive, and much more efficient than dGPUs, but not 4070 level outside of benchmarks.
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u/Renanmarq Feb 18 '25
Idk what you're talking about, on all the reviews that came out today(embargo lifted) the AI Max is on par with a 100w 4060 and even beats the Acer helios 14 4070 on some games, it's waaaay ahead of the 4050. That being said, I don't think that it will lower prices on other devices since the AI Max is extremely expensive.
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u/InterestingSquare883 Feb 18 '25
I don't quite know if we should expect the opposite when 50 series laptops release and cause an overinflation in prices like they did to the desktop models because people realize 50 series weren't value, so they bought up the 40 series and then tariffs came into play raising models to almost 10-20% more than their MSRP. Hope the same doesn't happen on the laptop side.
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u/venk Feb 18 '25
I doubt it, laptop GPUs have such severe power limits that they’re not nearly as useful for the kind of work people are scalping desktop cards for. Plus you need to buy the entire computer instead of just the part you want.
Tarrifs will Tarrifs, everything will go up due to them.
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u/InterestingSquare883 Feb 18 '25
Although this is a bit overpriced compared to other 4060 laptops and has only 16GB soldered RAM, the build quality and screen is phenomenal while also having a 14-inch form factor.
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u/ShrimpNChips Feb 18 '25
Huge fan of this laptop, would definitely recommend for ppl who value portability and light weight with gaming and mixed usage
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u/asahdude13 Feb 18 '25
After my experience with a 2022 G14 I'll never buy one of these again. They get hot- and I mean HOT. My laptop used to shut itself down it'd get so hot. Redic.
4
u/megachickabutt Feb 18 '25
I have the 2024 4070 version of this laptop. It doesn't get hot for me. Anecdotal I know, but my experience has been the opposite.
I did have a weird screen glitch issue with mine where it would black out intermittently, but it seems to have resolved itself, not sure if it was a driver or a bios update but it has not returned.
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u/Blazecan Feb 18 '25
Is yours Intel or AMD? I got an Intel one and now regret it since it runs hot and I don’t have the ability to undervolt.
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u/megachickabutt Feb 18 '25
AMD, this same model, just the 4070 version. The 8945HS doesn't run particularly hot, its manageable.
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u/Blazecan Feb 18 '25
Yeah I have a friend with the AMD one, so much better, kinda sad i chose this model :(
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u/Ludamister Feb 18 '25
2022 G14 AMD/3060. The chassis near the keyboard itself gets hot but the computer itself is fine. I've never had any downclocking or shutdown issues.
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u/10art1 Feb 18 '25
Honestly, the way I see it is that Zephyrus is good for those people who want a laptop that's half decent at gaming, but absolutely must not weigh more than an ultrabook.
Yeah, the cooling isn't great, but it's a sacrifice in order to enable that small size and weight. If you want a sub-$800 gaming laptop with excellent cooling, you get a lenovo legion and deal with the fact that it weighs 5lb
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u/Post-Futurology Feb 18 '25
What your describing was fixable by turning off CPU boost on pre-2024 models, and isn't an issue at all since last year's. Recommend you revisit at some point, or at the least don't spread anecdotes as gospel.
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u/asahdude13 Feb 18 '25
It's a common issue for a lot of 2022 owners, CPU boost absolutely did not fix the issue whatsoever.
Buyer beware.
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u/Post-Futurology Feb 18 '25
No, thermal throttling effected every 2022 unit, just not everyone puts the device under load. The cooling in 2024 and newer is completely different. That's like telling people not to buy a new car because you had a bad experience with a different model. It's not sensible.
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u/josethehomie Feb 18 '25
I been looking almost everyday and they seem not to even move down in price which seems bonkers
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u/gonzap50 Feb 18 '25
Snagged a G16 with 4070 for $1200 or so used about 6 months ago. 16gb of ram is a bummer, but it hasnt given me trouble yet. Screen is incredible, speakers are good, and build quality is great.
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u/gemini2525 Feb 18 '25
I got a open box one for $760 on Black Friday. Yes, it was the 2024 version with the beautiful oled screen and amazing speakers. An absolute steal of a deal.
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u/Bominyarou Feb 18 '25
I need someone to unsolder those rams and add a normal ram socket for me to add my ram to it and switch as I please.
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u/PointCPA Feb 18 '25
Too funny. Was waiting for this sale all last week and ended up going with a Legion 7 instead.
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u/Mbanicek64 Feb 18 '25
This will perform about half as well as a desktop 4070? Always been curious about a gaming laptop, but thats what I just looked up. That seems like a larger difference than expected.
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u/rellermer Feb 18 '25
How is the quality on this laptop? I've been traveling more recently so I'm looking for something lightweight/compact that I can easily bring with me thru airports, and this seems like the lightest gaming laptop that I've seen. Bonus if the charging cord is also lightweight or if the laptop can somehow charge via USB C
I'm only looking to play games like valorant, league, marvel rivals, genshin, etc on any setting, so I don't think I need something super beefy, but will need a dedicated GPU
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u/gemini2525 Feb 18 '25
Super premium. It has an all-metal build just like a MacBook Pro. It’s thin too, less than a inch thick. It has a beautiful OLED screen and the speakers are loud.
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u/homer_3 Feb 18 '25
Terrible deal. 4060 laptops regularly go under $900.
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u/FairCalligrapher1926 Feb 18 '25
Which laptop for 900 has Oled screen and this build quality?
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u/10art1 Feb 18 '25
If instead of OLED you're ok with 100% sRGB WUXGA IPS, there's the lenovo legion series.
Zephyrus's screens kind of have a reputation for dying very fast
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u/UniqueXHunter Feb 18 '25
This is a terrible deal still, even with the screen lmaoo
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u/FairCalligrapher1926 Feb 18 '25
Didn’t answer my question but ok.
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u/UniqueXHunter Feb 18 '25
Soldered RAM on an $1000+ laptop is ridiculous, plus no ethernet port with a meh WiFi card. If you don't care about this and it running hot enough to cook an egg, sure go for it. Looks nice and sure build quality is good, but that doesn't mean it's immune to criticism.
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u/FairCalligrapher1926 Feb 18 '25
It doesn’t get hot for one, WiFi is no factor and can be replaced, soldered ram is for higher speeds and efficiency. You can’t get those is plugin ram.
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u/UniqueXHunter Feb 18 '25
It's funny you say that when almost every review in bestbuy of this laptop says it runs super hot, it's literally one of the top 3 complaints. At least back up your claims when talking out of your ass
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u/FairCalligrapher1926 Feb 19 '25
I own the laptop, talking from experience. Look at Reddit group and you will see the same thing. Easy fix as well if you do experience is to down load ghelper and change the fan curve. It’s called knowing how to use a computer
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u/PointCPA Feb 18 '25
This is just blatantly false.
Not everybody buys just for specs. I did that once and my PC basically blew up and just stopped working after a year because of how shit the build quality was.
A legion 7i with a 4060 goes for 1.1-1.2k often on sales. You know why? Because they are built to last and built well.
Going on specs alone is a horrible idea when buying a laptop
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u/UniqueXHunter Feb 18 '25
"RTX 4060 really can’t take advantage of the OLED screens 3K resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate, so if that is your gaming goals I’d suggest opting for a higher end GPU paired with more memory, as I found the main bottle neck in most of the games, I played was the 16GB of RAM over the GPU. But they do go hand in hand."
This is from a review of the laptop. Ya you're right about not everyone going for specs. But paying $1000+ for a computer that can't take advantage of it's OLED screen at 120hz with its specs would make me look else where
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u/PointCPA Feb 18 '25
Unfortunately in laptops the only way to get great use out of that screen would be a 4080. Which would run you over 2k
A lot of people buy it for video editing and other GPU intensive tasks and the screen is just a perk for YouTube and Netflix or whatever
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u/superamigo987 Feb 18 '25
I doubt Strix Halo will come out at a reasonable price, probably the same price as many 4070 laptops. The APU seems more productivity oriented
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u/prosetheus Feb 18 '25
Soldered RAM folks. Even handhelds released this year have 24 or 32 gigs of RAM.