14 inches with the GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop - Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 2025 review

Asus has equipped the new 2025 model of its ROG Zephyrus G14 with significantly faster GPU options and in doing so, it has eliminated one of the issues of its predecessor, which was only available with the RTX 4070 Laptop at best. The new RTX 5080 Laptop results in a significant leap in performance. However, its cooling has additionally needed to be adapted, which is why the laptop's case is 2 millimeters thicker at the back than previously. That being said, its fans are loud when gaming and its case gets relatively warm. The AMD chip's CPU performance is also very good.

The laptop's 120 Hz OLED panel is unchanged and continues to offer excellent picture quality with smooth movements, vibrant colors and fast response times. Its weak points are its somewhat low maximum brightness values (both SDR and HDR) and its PWM flickering—even if we noted quite a high frequency. Its battery life has gotten slightly better and there isn't much to complain about in terms of its connectivity, input devices or speakers.

Nevertheless, the new GPU options also bring us to a point of criticism, because if the manufacturer has already made the effort to install the RTX 5080 Laptop, we don't understand why Asus hasn't additionally released a model with the RTX 5090 Laptop. This would finally allow them to replace the old 2023 model with the RTX 4090 Laptop with regards to GPU performance, which the RTX 5080 Laptop can't always manage. The additional VRAM would also certainly be an advantage for some users.

With the two powerful GPU options available, namely the RTX 5070 Ti Laptop and the RTX 5080 Laptop, the new ROG Zephyrus G14 is currently pretty unrivaled, as the normal RTX 5070 Laptop is noticeably slower. We are curious to see whether other manufacturers, such as Razer, will follow suit.

The new ROG Zephyrus G14 will soon be available to buy directly from Asus, with prices starting at $2,099.99.

Asus has updated the ROG Zephyrus G14, addressing one of the biggest criticisms of its predecessor, which had done without the fastest GPU options in favor of a slimmer design and was equipped with the RTX 4070 Laptop at best. The old 2023 model, on the other hand, was previously also available with the RTX 4090 Laptop. The new 2025 model has a slightly thicker case and combines the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with the new GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop. Buyers can now additionally go for 64 GB of RAM.

We tested the top-of-the-range model of the new ROG Zephyrus G14 G403 with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, the new RTX 5080 Laptop (maximum TGP 120 watts) and 64 GB RAM. Its OLED panel with a 2.8K resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate has been carried over unchanged from its predecessor.

In general, the device's case design is the same as the 2024 model, including the slash lighting on the screen lid. The quality and finish of the unibody metal case are still impressive, but our dark gray model is quite sensitive to fingerprint marks. The white version is also available once more.

The big innovation is that the 2025 model comes in two different case variants. Models with the RTX 5070 Laptop use exactly the same one as in 2024, but the more powerful variants with the RTX 5070 Ti Laptop and the RTX 5080 Laptop are 2 millimeters thicker at the back. This is due to the improved cooling and slightly heftier fans to enable the higher power limits. Some additional changes have been made to its heatpipes and fan configuration. However, we will go into this in more detail later. The changes also result in a weight increase of around 100 grams (1.58 vs. 1.48 kilograms).

No changes have been made to its connectivity and you can expect all the important standards for everyday use. Users still have to do without Thunderbolt, but this isn't a big deal thanks to the device's USB 4.0 port. Because of the AMD chip's fast NPU, this is a Copilot+ laptop that supports Microsoft's advanced AI functions. The left USB-C port is connected via the iGPU, so you can connect an external monitor here without automatically activating the dedicated Nvidia GPU.

The Wi-Fi module supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. In our test with our reference router from Asus, its transfer rates were very good and we noted no problems with signal quality. The laptop's 1080p webcam only takes average photos and features no shutter, but it supports Studio Effects. An IR camera for facial recognition via Windows Hello is on board, and the device's microSD card reader is still very fast.

Asus hasn't provided any information on the laptop's CO₂ footprint or its use of recycled materials. Its packaging consists almost entirely of paper/cardboard.

No changes have been made to its display compared to the 2024 model, as it features the same panel from Samsung (ATNA40CU05-0), which is why we refer you to our review of the predecessor for a detailed description. The image quality of the reflective panel (no touchscreen) is still excellent and very accurate factory profiles are available for the P3 and sRGB color spaces. Its weak points include reflections, PWM flickering (albeit at a high frequency) and its somewhat low maximum brightness values (both SDR and HDR). Other OLED laptops offer more in this respect.

Asus has once again gone for an AMD processor, but the maximum amount of RAM has been doubled to 64 GB in the 2025 model. However, it's still soldered-on RAM (LPDDR5x-8000).

Asus offers all the familiar energy profiles (Quiet, Performance, Turbo) and we carried out the following benchmarks and measurements in Turbo mode. Performance mode is the maximum available in battery mode.

The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 features 12 Zen 5 cores and achieved very good performance values during our test thanks to its high power limit of 80 watts. Moreover, they remained stable under prolonged load. Within our comparison group, the new G14 came out on top and was on par with the Core Ultra 9 285H in the larger ROG Zephyrus G16, although its short-term consumption was as high as 100 watts in this case.

The new Zephyrus G14 also came out at the top of the system benchmarks, and the compact laptop proves to be a very responsive companion during everyday use. Only when switching the graphics card (e.g. when starting a game) did we note a brief hang, but this corresponds to the current state of the technology when relying on Advanced Optimus GPU switching.