ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022) review | LaptopMedia.com

Ladies and gentlemen, one of the best gaming laptops have just been made better. The ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 is an exquisite machine that is great not only for gaming, but also for content creation, photo, and video editing, and pretty much everything you can imagine. Last year, we were blown away by its sleek design, good battery life, and astonishing performance.

This is why ASUS had very little homework for this year. However, they still appear to deliver as there are some improvements on the hardware front. Gone are the Zen 3 processors, which make way for their Zen 3+ refreshes. This means you get RDNA 2 integrated graphics, and ever so slightly improved performance, and again – 35W of TDP.

Speaking of power, the graphics cards this year feature a 20W (25W for the RTX 3060) bump over last year, which will definitely make a positive impact on gaming performance. Not only that but the device is now paired with DDR5 memory. And you know what? ASUS has ditched the 1080p option. This leaves the 1440p 165Hz IPS display as the base choice, with the top tier model featuring a 1440p 240Hz IPS unit, both sporting Adaptive-Sync and Pantone validated colors.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-rog-zephyrus-g15-ga503-2022/

Contents

Specs Sheet

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022) – Specs

What’s in the box?

Inside the box, you will find some paperwork, as well as two sets of chargers – a 200W, and a 100W USB Type-C unit that is great for when you are traveling, because it takes half the space, and can charge your other tech.

Design and construction

Once more we are met by a stunning design that combines the sleek forms of a business notebook with some shiny elements typical for the gaming industry. This includes the dot-matrix design on the lid, which sits on top of a special film that produces reflections of different colors.

Of course, the laptop is still made out of a magnesium-aluminum alloy, which makes it very sturdy, and pretty light. In fact, it measures 1.9 kilos, while its profile is 19.9mm.

Furthermore, its lid not only opens with a single hand but also lifts the back side of the base from the ground, to provide the dual fan setup with more headroom for cool air. This year, this section of the laptop bears some upgrades as well. The Web camera is now paired with an IR face recognition scanner. In addition, ASUS states that the clever technology behind the camera will improve the quality of the image, especially in low-light conditions.

Then, let’s take a look at the keyboard. It is flanked by a couple of grills, which are housing the two 2W tweeters. Up top, you have a power button, doubling as a fingerprint reader. To its left, you get some media keys and an Armoury Crate shortcut.

The keyboard itself has decent key travel and clicky feedback. We feel that it is very comfortable for typing, and not bad for gaming (with the exception of the small Arrow keys). It’s good to know that the touchpad is also extremely big, while its glass surface offers a very smooth gliding experience.

If you’re wondering where this laptop draws cool air from, it’s through some vents on the bottom panel, and through the keyboard. While we are at the bottom, we can notice the two speaker cutouts, which are home to the so-called “Force-cancelling” pairs of woofers. They minimize the unwanted resonance, which results in deeper and cleaner-sounding audio. By the way, the hot air gets exhausted through four cutouts – two on the back, and one on either side of the machine.

Ports

On the left side, there is the power plug, an HDMI 2.0b connector, a LAN port, a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 2) port, two USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) ports with DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery 3.0 support, as well as an audio jack. Switch sides, and you will see the Kensington slot, a MicroSD card reader, and another USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 2) port.

Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

To get this laptop disassembled, you first need to remove the three rubber covers in the middle of the bottom panel. Then, undo all 13 Phillips-head screws and pry the panel starting from the front right corner.

Inside, we find a 90Wh battery pack, which lasts for 8 hours of Web browsing, or 6 hours and 30 minutes of video playback. To continue with the disassembly, unplug the battery connector, and undo the four Phillips-head screws keeping it in place.

Here, you get either 8 or 16GB of DDR5 memory soldered to the motherboard. You can expand it by 32GB via the single SODIMM slot. Storage-wise, you get two M.2 PCIe x4 slots, which support Gen 4 drives.

This device has a really special cooling, which incorporates three heat pipes shared between the CPU and the GPU, as well as one more for each of them. A sixth heat pipe takes care of the VRMs and the graphics memory, while four heat sinks, and two fans help with heat dissipation. Also, the processor comes with a liquid metal thermal compound.

Display quality

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022) in the configuration we tested has a 165Hz QHD panel – Innolux N156KME-GNA (CMN1540). Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution is 2560 х 1440 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 188 ppi, and a pitch of 0.13 х 0.13 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 46cm (18″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

Viewing angles are excellent. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

We measured a maximum brightness of 328 nits in the middle of the screen and 325 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of only 5%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 6650K – slightly colder than the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K.
In the illustration below you can see how the main display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work. The contrast ratio is good – 1030:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 100% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976, and 98% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, resulting in a vibrant and punchy image.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results in factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

We also compare the scores of ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right) against the P3-D65 color space.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 10 ms. (With Panel Overdrive enabled)

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022)’s display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness at any point. This means it is comfortable for long gaming sessions without harming your eyes in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022) configurations with 15.6″ QHD IPS Innolux N156KME-GNA (CMN1540).

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected]

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia’s products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

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Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

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Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

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Drivers

All drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-zephyrus/rog-zephyrus-g15-2022-series/helpdesk_download

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This device’s 90Wh battery pack lasts for 7 hours and 58 minutes of Web browsing, or 6 hours and 25 minutes of video playback.

CPU options

You can expect to see this laptop with the Ryzen 7 6800HS, or the Ryzen 9 6900HS, both of which are 35W processors.

GPU options

In terms of graphics, you can choose from the RTX 3060 (120W), RTX 3070 Ti (120W), or the RTX 3080 (120W).

Gaming tests

Metro Exodus
Full HD, Low (Check settings)
Full HD, High (Check settings)
Full HD, Extreme (Check settings)

Average FPS
103 fps
70 fps
33 fps

Borderlands 3
Full HD, Medium (Check settings)
Full HD, High (Check settings)
Full HD, Badass (Check settings)

Average fps
75 fps
68 fps
70? fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands
Full HD, High (Check settings)
Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)

Average
64 fps
57 fps
45 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS (35W TDP)
0:02 – 0:10 sec
0:15 – 0:30 sec
10:00 – 15:00 min

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022)
3.83 GHz @ 82°C @ 75W
3.81 GHz @ 88°C @ 75W
3.80 GHz @ 90°C @ 75W

The processor holds up really well during prolonged extreme workloads. The liquid metal definitely pays its dividends.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)
GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)
Max Fans

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022)
1544 MHz @ 75°C @ 94W
1645 MHz @ 75°C @ 106W
–

MSI Pulse GL76 (12Ux)
1620 MHz @ 77°C @ 105W
1608 MHz @ 81°C @ 105W
1650 MHz @ 70°C @ 105W

ASUS ROG Strix G17 G713R (2022)
1827 MHz @ 83°C @ 139W
1825 MHz @ 85°C @ 139W
–

ASUS ROG Strix G15 G513R (2022)
1844 MHz @ 81°C @ 139W
1723 MHz @ 74°C @ 118W
–

ASUS TUF Gaming F17 (FX706, 2021)
1548 MHz @ 80°C @ 95W
1540 MHz @ 81°C @ 95W
–

HP Omen 17 (2021, 17-ck0000)
1861 MHz @ 72°C @ 129W
1857 MHz @ 73°C @ 130W
–

Lenovo ThinkBook 16p Gen 2
1535 MHz @ 69°C @ 75W
1517 MHz @ 76°C @ 75W
–

Lenovo Legion 5i (17″ Intel, 2021)
1886 MHz @ 75°C @ 127W
1879 MHz @ 76°C @ 127W
–

Lenovo Legion 7 (16″, 2021)
1867 MHz @ 70°C @ 126W
1858 MHz @ 74°C @ 127W
–

Lenovo Legion 5 (15″ AMD, 2021)
1831 MHz @ 75°C @ 129W
1815 MHz @ 80°C @ 129W
–

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (16″)
1803 MHz @ 76°C @ 129W
1787 MHz @ 81°C @ 129W
–

MSI GP66 Leopard
1863 MHz @ 72°C @ 124W
1852 MHz @ 75°C @ 125W
1849 MHz @ 69°C @ 127W

MSI GP76 Leopard
1860 MHz @ 71°C @ 129W
1857 MHz @ 73°C @ 128W
1869 MHz @ 67°C @ 128W

The same cannot be said about the RTX 3060. Instead of its 120W TGP, we monitored 94W at the second-minute mark, and 106W at the 30th minute. Interestingly, the GPU boosts to about 115W for 20 seconds at the beginning of the test, after which it fades away to around 90W before making its way above 100W at about minute 28. Let’s hope that this is an issue only with our unit.

Gaming comfort

Even though the laptop wasn’t running at its full potential, the keyboard got pretty hot, while the fans were being loud.

Verdict

Some of this laptops upgrades were not really needed, but are more than welcome. Its IR face recognition scanner will make the lives of many people easier, as it will let you log in to your device even more effortlessly and securely than before. We have to mention that it is highly unnatural for a gaming device to have biometrics authentication, let alone two types of it.

Furthermore, the move to DDR5 memory is good for the future, where developers could make better use of the higher bandwidth. For now, the Gen 4 SSD support is a way a bigger improvement.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022)’s IPS panel has a Quad HD resolution and a 165Hz refresh rate in the configuration we tested. In addition, it sports a good contrast ratio, comfortable viewing angles, and a non-flickering backlight. Furthermore, it covers 98% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, and its color accuracy is on point right out of the box, which is pretty impressive. Not to mention the short pixel response time.

What is the big deal here is the fact that ASUS completely ditched the 1080p panel, and swapped it for a 240Hz 1440p option. It was about time, manufacturers… it was about time.

The port selection here is pretty solid as well, with there being two USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) ports, which can output a DisplayPort signal, and support Power Delivery 3.0. The last one is important because the laptop comes with two chargers – a 200W and a 100W USB Type-C one. The latter can charge all your USB Type-C devices and is significantly smaller, making it easier to carry.

In terms of performance, the Zen 3+ CPUs don’t bring a huge boost compared to last year. And our unit wasn’t really able to extract the full potential of the 120W RTX 3060, which is a bummer. Thankfully, the liquid metal on the CPU means it can push the 35W chip hard pretty much indefinitely. However, the externals get pretty warm during gaming, which is not optimal.

Even gaming showed mixed results, and we are not sure why. It may be something wrong with our particular unit, as we did update the BIOS to the latest available.

This is why we can’t 100% recommend buying this laptop. It is an amazing piece of hardware, but from what we saw, you are better off going for the previous model. If we are able to get ourselves another ROG Zephyrus G15 GA503 (2022), we’re going to update you with our findings.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-rog-zephyrus-g15-ga503-2022/

Pros

• IR face recognition scanner, fingerprint reader, Wi-Fi 6E support
• Up to 48GB of DDR5 RAM in dual-channel mode
• Dual PCIe x4 Gen 4 drive support
• PWM-free display (QHD, 165Hz panel)
• Quick pixel response times (QHD, 165Hz panel)
• 100% sRGB coverage + almost full DCI-P3 coverage and great color accuracy thanks to our Gaming and Web design profile (QHD, 165Hz panel)
• The USB Type-C port supports charging and DisplayPort 1.4
• Liquid metal on the CPU
• Improved camera software

Cons

• No Thunderbolt support (due to AMD limitations)
• The keyboard has tiny arrow keys
• No NumberPad
• Weird behavior from the graphics card