Asus’ Republic of Gamers line has a reputation for creative aspirations, but the company may have outdone itself with the ROG Zephyrus S17 ($3,299 as tested). The exotic features of this 17.3-inch gaming laptop include a tilted (and, of course, RGB backlit) optical-mechanical keyboard, six-speaker Dolby Atmos-tuned sound, and a G-Sync screen, not to mention a sleek aluminum-magnesium chassis. It’s also a bold performer thanks to an Intel “Tiger Lake-H” processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080. And on top of all that, it runs quietly and lasted nearly eight hours in our battery test. If there’s something this rig doesn’t do well, we struggled mightily to find it. A world-class, cost-is-no-object gaming notebook, the Zephyrus S17 will leave you with few regrets beyond your next credit-card statement (or three). It earns our Editors’ Choice award in the premium gaming category.
Bleeding-Edge Laptop Tech
As you’d expect from its lofty pricing, the Zephyrus S17 has the latest and greatest laptop hardware. Our test unit (model GX703HS-XB98) includes an eight-core, 2.5GHz (4.9GHz turbo) Core i9-11900H processor, the 16GB GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, 32GB of dual-channel memory, a 2TB PCI Express 4.0 solid-state drive, Windows 10 Pro, and a one-year warranty. Asus’ website lists several other models, but this was the only one I found for sale.
The pricing compares favorably to Alienware’s new x17, which came in at $3,576 with a Core i7-11800H (also eight-core, though slightly lower-clocked than the Asus’ Core i9) and a 4K display, while MSI’s GS76 Stealth was $3,099 with a Core i7-11800H CPU and relatively modest 1TB SSD and a 1080p screen. Meanwhile, the $2,599 Aorus 17G YD includes just a 512GB SSD and a 1080p screen.
Those hardware comparisons ignore the Zephyrus S17’s special features, of which it has plenty. The first one you’ll notice is its keyboard, which automatically lifts five degrees upon opening the lid. It’s the most visible design change from its 2019-2020 Zephyrus predecessor.
The lift cleverly provides breathing room for the laptop’s cooling fans. The deck is completely rigid, exhibiting no wobble or flex whatsoever. For better or worse, it can’t be folded flat without closing the lid.
Stepping back, the Zephyrus S17’s all-black chassis looks smart if somewhat nondescript.
The laptop feels uncompromisingly solid thanks to aluminum and magnesium—no plastic here. A silicon soft-touch palm rest and a laser-engraved and beveled lid add to the luxuries.
The Zephyrus S17 is reasonably trim for a 17.3-inch laptop at 0.78 by 15.5 by 10.4 inches (HWD), and at 5.73 pounds, it’s only about a pound heavier than your average 15.6-inch gaming laptop. The system’s 280-watt power adapter adds roughly two pounds, though the Asus’ long battery life means you may be able to leave the power brick at home.
Not Your Everyday Laptop Keys
The Zephyrus S17’s optical-mechanical keys offer a uniquely tactile experience. Unlike the membrane keys of most laptop keyboards, these emit subtle yet high-pitched clicking sounds when pressed. Their ample 1.9mm vertical travel and mechanical action tell your fingers exactly what is going on.
The only thing I don’t care for is the nonstandard number pad layout, though Asus deserves a thumbs-up for including full-size arrow and F1 through F12 keys. You can customize the per-key RGB backlighting through presets in the Armoury Crate app or experiment with advanced effects, including layers, in the Aura Creator app. The latter can even be used to synchronize the Zephyrus S17 with other Aura Sync-compatible devices.
The keyboard has one other surprise at its top left: a physical wheel called the Multiwheel.
This tactile wonder controls audio volume by default; simply press it down for mute. It supports acceleration, too, for large adjustments with a quick swipe. You can reassign it as a scroll wheel, a task switcher, or to control other settings like screen brightness by pressing and holding it and selecting the desired option from the function menu. It’s super intuitive.
The oversized, buttonless touchpad is also well-thought-out. Though its physical clicks are too loud for my liking, they require just enough pressure that you can quickly move your fingers across the pad and click without pausing.
Killer Screen Choices
The 165Hz refresh rate of my review unit’s display is a good match for its WQHD (2,560-by-1,440-pixel) resolution, which shows 50% more detail than full HD or 1080p panels. Another option is a 120Hz screen with 4K (3,840-by-2,160) resolution that is best suited for creative work.
I’d like to see Asus offer a 300Hz or faster 1080p screen, but unless you’re a hardcore esports player, it’s impossible to be disappointed with the WQHD panel. It offers vibrant color (Asus rates it for 100% of the popular DCI-P3 gamut), a perfectly smooth picture with Nvidia G-Sync, and enough brightness to make you reach for the controls to dial it down with its rated 300-nit luminance.
The Zephyrus S17’s six speakers deserve their own paragraph. Two are below the display and the others in the front half of the chassis. Tuned with Dolby Atmos—the app is preinstalled should you feel the need to tinker—they sound stellar at all volume levels. Entertaining a few friends with this laptop is a practical possibility.
Up-To-Date Input and Output
The Asus’ abundant connectivity starts on the left side with an HDMI 2.0b video output, Gigabit Ethernet, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, two USB Type-C ports (the first supports Thunderbolt 4 while the other is version 3.2 Gen 2), and a headset jack. The power adapter connects midway. The laptop can also be charged via either USB-C port.
Meanwhile, you’ll find two more USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports and a full-size SD card reader on the right.
A MediaTek MT7921 network card provides Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5. Though the average-quality 720p webcam lacks IR face recognition, the power button doubles as a Windows Hello fingerprint reader.
Upgrading the Zephyrus S17 is possible. Behind its bottom panel (it comes off after removing a front-right-corner screw if you place the laptop upside down) are two open M.2 slots; getting to the third requires further disassembly. There is also one open SO-DIMM slot, occupied in my review unit by a 16GB DDR4-3200 DIMM. The other 16GB of memory is soldered (non-upgradeable). Up to 48GB is supported if you install a 32GB So-DIMM.
The laptop’s bottom gets hot to the touch while gaming, though the rest of the machine stays cool. This is what it looked like after a 20-loop 3DMark Time Spy stress test using a FLIR One Pro.
The touchable surfaces admirably stayed below 100 degrees F. Fan noise was audible but well-controlled and nonobtrusive. Internal temperatures also fared well; the GeForce RTX 3080 stabilized in the upper 70 degree C range and the Core i9-11900H in the upper 60 degree C range, both well within the components’ respective ratings. The GeForce RTX 3080’s total board power was consistently between 125 and 130 watts, validating its 125-watt rating in this laptop.
Benching With the Best: Testing the 2021 Zephyrus S17
It’s time to let the rubber meet the road. I paired the Zephyrus S17 against four heavy-hitting 17.3-inch gaming laptops whose basic specs appear below. In addition to the abovementioned Aorus 17G YD, they include the still-potent Alienware m17 R4, the bulky MSI GE76 Raider, and the even larger Acer Predator Helios 700.
Only the Zephyrus S17 and the Aorus carry Intel’s latest “Tiger Lake-H” silicon, though the eight-core “Comet Lake” CPUs in the others are no slouches. (See more about how we test laptops.)
Storage, Media, & CPU Tests
Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, a holistic performance suite that simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, Web browsing, and videoconferencing. The Zephyrus S17 posted one of the highest scores we’ve ever seen from a gaming laptop, well above the 4,000 points that we consider the sign of superb productivity. All five systems’ fast SSDs breezed through PCMark 8’s storage subtest.
Next up is a pair of CPU-crunching tests: Cinebench R15 stresses all available processor cores and threads while rendering a complex image, while in our Handbrake test, we put a stopwatch on systems as they transcode a 12-minute clip of 4K video down to 1080p.
The Zephyrus S17’s Core i9 chip propelled it into the lead, just ahead of the Core i7-based Aorus. Its relatively cool CPU temperatures helped it maintain high clock speeds throughout both tests.
The final test in this section is photo editing. We use an early 2018 release of Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud to apply 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG image, timing each operation and adding up the totals. This test is not as CPU-focused as Cinebench or Handbrake, bringing the performance of the storage subsystem, memory, and GPU into play.
The excellent single-threaded performance of its “Tiger Lake-H” chip helped the Zephyrus S17 snag another win. Its Core i9-11900H tops out at 4.9GHz versus 4.6GHz for the Aorus’ Core i7-11800H.
Graphics and Gaming Tests
Our first two benchmarks in this section use gaming simulations to measure a PC’s graphics potential. In UL’s 3DMark, we run the Sky Diver (lightweight, capable of running on integrated graphics) and Fire Strike (more demanding, for high-end gaming PCs) tests, both DirectX 11-based. Unigine Corp.’s Superposition is the other; it uses a different rendering engine to produce a complex 3D scene.
The Zephyrus S17 trailed the Alienware in both tests mainly because its GeForce RTX 3080 has a lower power rating. On the flip side, the Aorus’ version is rated for just 105 watts, which allowed even the Acer’s previous-generation GeForce RTX 2080 Super to outpace it. If you’re buying a GeForce RTX 30 series gaming laptop, be sure to see our feature on the GPUs’ performance variations.
For real-world gaming results, we use the built-in 1080p benchmarks of Far Cry 5 (at its Normal and Ultra presets) and Rise of the Tomb Raider (at its Medium and Very High presets). Far Cry 5 uses DirectX 11, while we flip the Lara Croft adventure to DirectX 12.
The Alienware edged out the Zephyrus again, but not to a meaningful degree. The Asus’ otherwise excellent numbers indicate it will have performance to spare running games at its native 1440p screen resolution. It should also have no issue saturating its 165Hz refresh rate for esports titles.
Battery Rundown Test
For our last benchmark, we measure a laptop’s unplugged runtime while playing a locally stored video with screen brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We use Windows’ energy-saving rather than balanced or other power profile where available, turn off Wi-Fi, and even disable keyboard backlighting to squeeze as much life as possible out of the system.
Nvidia G-Sync is—or was—known to drastically reduce battery life since it forces the GeForce GPU to be always active, so how did the Zephyrus S17 manage such a stellar time? It uses Nvidia’s new Advanced Optimus technology to dynamically switch between the discrete GPU and the CPU’s integrated graphics. The switch isn’t entirely seamless—I noticed a brief hiccup when it occurred—but that’s a small price to pay for the flexibility. (Note that Advanced Optimus is only available on the Zephyrus S17 with the WQHD screen, so expect much less stamina from the 4K model.)
A Gamer’s Dream Machine
If you’re going all out for an elite gaming laptop, it’s almost impossible to go wrong with the new Zephyrus S17. Our sample’s $3,299 is a lot of cheddar, but it’s more or less the going rate for this level of hardware, and no other laptop we know off offers a tilted optical-mechanical keyboard plus a six-speaker sound system. Esports hounds might bemoan the lack of a high-refresh-rate 1080p display, but the 165Hz WQHD screen ought to thrill everyone else. Epic in every way, the ROG Zephyrus S17 is our new Editors’ Choice pick for a deluxe big-screen gaming laptop.
