My Sponsor says Slower is… Better?

[mynameGeoff]

 

Thanks ASUS for sponsoring today’s video! Check out the new ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 below:

https://rog.asus.com/us/laptops/rog-zephyrus/rog-zephyrus-g14-2024/

https://rog.asus.com/us/laptops/rog-zephyrus/rog-zephyrus-g16-2024/

 

We're all gearing up for CES 2024 coverage this year, but ASUS came by to give us a first look at what's coming up for ROG. Let's take a peek at what's new and if slower = better

[LloydLynx]

Please don't tell me they put a turbo button on it.

[emosun]

a real nintendo excuse

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Am I the only one intrigued with the editing at 10:53? Like I didn't know we needed 10 seconds of an awkwardly zoomed-in shot of his head that doesn't entirely fit in the frame with no view of the obvious hand gestures he's making?

[djenson]

6 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Am I the only one intrigued with the editing at 10:53? Like I didn't know we needed 10 seconds of an awkwardly zoomed-in shot of his head that doesn't entirely fit in the frame with no view of the obvious hand gestures he's making?

Guessing he was holding something that they didn't want shown 

[powertoys]

"good news: the m.2 slot is not soldered"

 

Blows my mind that this is now considered "good news". It used to be "doing the basics".

[GhostRoadieBL]

when you can't figure out how to make it faster, make it slower to keep shoveling out models for the marketing team longer. Waiting for the 2025 model with "wow look at the 5% improvement compared to the last model!"

Between this and the Dell/Alienware announcement it's looking like major players in the industry are taking a generation performance hit leading into the expected world recession before pushing the numbers back up in the next or next after that generation.

Imagine if they just skipped a generation giving their teams an extra year to make things even more polished?

 

I think I'm just tired of the single digit % improvements when you know a company like Framework is swinging for the fences whenever a "new" model comes out. (mainboard upgrades aren't "new models" just upgraded parts)

Wish other companies would get on the modular bandwagon. Let me just swap the mainboard, there aren't even that many changes between generations. Not like these companies NEED to shuffle the ports every year. How many laptops have 2-3xUSB-C ports, an HDMI, a Headphone jack and a microSD (should be full size) in similar enough locations to swap between companies? same vents at the back and a pair of fans in the bottom, it's effectively standardized but just different enough to force you to use one brand's entire system. This is where port and ribbon cable standardization between generations and companies would make so much more sense! Let me have a Dell screen and keyboard with an ASUS mainboard/cooling. Somehow this works fine for desktops, why can't my keyboard and monitor have drivers from one company and the IO and WIFI come from someone else? Companies can still make their complete systems, just use standardized pin layouts and chassis mounting points.

 

If it's too much trouble to keep the ports the same just swap the bottom cover and mainboard as an assembly, keep the old battery, screen, keyboard, trackpad and replace the bottom half.

[boomdoom1000]

At 3:10, Linus and the graphic onscreen disagree about the resolution of the displays of the G14 and G16, Linus says that the 3K panel is in the G14, and the QHD+ is in the G16, while the graphic says the opposite.

[PoultryPants]

33 minutes ago, boomdoom1000 said:

At 3:10, Linus and the graphic onscreen disagree about the resolution of the displays of the G14 and G16, Linus says that the 3K panel is in the G14, and the QHD+ is in the G16, while the graphic says the opposite.

Came here to say the same thing - the graphic and Linus’s words seem to disagree about the exact specifications on the G14 and G16.

[ARandomPerson]

Why is no one talking about how 2 LTT videos are released on the same day?

[jlowens76]

2 hours ago, ARandomPerson said:

Why is no one talking about how 2 LTT videos are released on the same day?

Oh god, you better phone the president, the pope and queen!

[Geneleco]

 

7 hours ago, boomdoom1000 said:

At 3:10, Linus and the graphic onscreen disagree about the resolution of the displays of the G14 and G16, Linus says that the 3K panel is in the G14, and the QHD+ is in the G16, while the graphic says the opposite.

What linus is saying is correct,the graphic is wrong.

[fulminemizzega]

I do not know where I've heard it, maybe from MLID or Techtechpotato, I think it is microsoft that is requiring a certain level of AI performance to OEMs. Look at the snapdragon elite X, it reports 45 TOPS from its NPU, AMD has similar 39 TOPS. Intel I do not know.

See https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/amd-ryzen-8040-set-up-to-fail/

https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/qualcomm-snapdragon-x-elite-arm-based-soc-windows-ai-pc/

[AbsoluteWoo]

8 hours ago, jlowens76 said:

Oh god, you better phone the president, the pope and queen!

The queen is dead. We have a King now.

[Granular]

I've asked this before, but didn't get an answer.

What is your beef with MediaTek wifi? You are aware that MediaTek is in the business of making WiFI AP SoCs, while Intel dumped their equivalent division?

[ThePointblank]

2 hours ago, Granular said:

I've asked this before, but didn't get an answer.

What is your beef with MediaTek wifi? You are aware that MediaTek is in the business of making WiFI AP SoCs, while Intel dumped their equivalent division?

As someone who owns a 2023 G14, the MediaTek WiFi card is at best, hot garbage. Many users I've seen on Reddit swap the card out for an Intel card for better performance and consistency. 

[Ubersonic]

/Vomit

 

So because most of their customers couldn't afford the top end model ASUS assumed we didn't want it, and made the GPU offerings worse in order to make a laptop that was a fine size smaller? >.>

 

I really don't get this obsession some manufacturers have with trying to make their gaming laptops as thin and light as possible to the detriment of both performance and thermals, why not just strike a balance /sigh

[FairPumpkin]

I know this was sponsored but that power connector excuse was LAME as f***! Thank you EU for making sure in the near future no one will get away with bullshit like this. First they pulled the 24W of waste heat straight out of their asses and second the laptop motherboard is only at 20V because they want it to, they can design whatever they want.

 

Asus being Asus, just like with the external graphics proprietary thing - if thunderbolt really wasn't enough they could have used oculink!

[ShadowfoxEX]

It it just me or does the "Slash Lighting" look a lot like "X" (Former Twitter)'s logo. How long do you think it'll take Elon to sue ASUS for a TM infringement

[itsabearcannon]

Since when is LMG now in favor of soldered RAM? 
 

I was extraordinarily disappointed to see that the G14 and G16 have soldered RAM - instant no-buy for me and anyone who asks me for a recommendation. I firmly believe in buying the minimum spec of RAM and upgrading it myself, and have done this for pretty much every laptop I’ve owned as well as family members who have asked me for a recommendation. For many laptops now, you can get the 16GB or 8GB option, and then buy a separate 32GB kit for $100-$120. Saves a boatload pretty much every time, doesn’t violate the warranty (at least in the US/Canada/EU), and ASUS clearly knows that. Seems like they just want to choke off that upgrade path to secure the revenue stream. Disappointing to see them follow the Dell/Alienware route with the X-series and soldered RAM, for sure.

 

What disappointed me even more, though, was the fact that Linus just swept it under the rug during the review without even a sideways glance at the camera to indicate any form of disapproval. 
 

He did indicate some concerns at least visually with the speakers and with the included Wi-Fi on the G14, so I don’t think it’s an issue of it being sponsored - they’re clearly willing to state negatives. I don’t know why they’re suddenly willing to overlook soldered RAM especially when some of their other laptop reviews have lambasted manufacturers for limiting upgradability. 

I’m glad they’re dropping ASUS as a sponsor if this is the direction they’re going with their flagship Zephyrus lineup. If you’re going to offer soldered RAM, you had better at least offer insane amounts of it, and I’m guessing they’re not going to offer more than 32GB. Macs are absolutely the least upgradeable laptops on the market, but at least they offer up to 128GB of RAM on the MacBook Pro. 

 

[fulminemizzega]

1 hour ago, itsabearcannon said:

Since when is LMG now in favor of soldered RAM? 
 

I was extraordinarily disappointed to see that the G14 and G16 have soldered RAM - instant no-buy for me and anyone who asks me for a recommendation.

I think that this ship has sailed, connectors make up most of the cost of a PCB (excluding cpu/gpu...), soldering RAM lowers the production cost, likely skips an assembly step, lowers power consumption and allows faster speeds. It is a tradeoff that incindentally chokes the "upgrade path" of the very fews. Maybe at some point RAM will be directly soldered above of below the digital IC and in its place there will be a fast, dense non-volatile memory in a DIMM format.

[fulminemizzega]

12 hours ago, FairPumpkin said:

they pulled the 24W of waste heat straight out of their asses

They lost the opportunity to win the 2024 worst step-down converter award 

[itsabearcannon]

2 hours ago, fulminemizzega said:

I think that this ship has sailed, connectors make up most of the cost of a PCB (excluding cpu/gpu...), soldering RAM lowers the production cost, likely skips an assembly step, lowers power consumption and allows faster speeds. It is a tradeoff that incindentally chokes the "upgrade path" of the very fews. Maybe at some point RAM will be directly soldered above of below the digital IC and in its place there will be a fast, dense non-volatile memory in a DIMM format.

It most definitely has not sailed. HP's Omen laptop lineup, as well as the Victus, still use DIMMs. To my knowledge, Lenovo, MSI, and Acer do as well. Dell uses it on the M series Alienwares as well as their G series. That's a huge chunk of the gaming laptop market if not a majority. Most business laptops also use DIMMs, including most of the Dell Latitude/Precision/Vostro lineup as well as HP's ProBook/EliteBook/ZBook lineups.

[Qyygle]

19 hours ago, FairPumpkin said:

I know this was sponsored but that power connector excuse was LAME as f***! Thank you EU for making sure in the near future no one will get away with bullshit like this. First they pulled the 24W of waste heat straight out of their asses and second the laptop motherboard is only at 20V because they want it to, they can design whatever they want.

 

Asus being Asus, just like with the external graphics proprietary thing - if thunderbolt really wasn't enough they could have used oculink!

But also actually... 24W of HEAT losses? What're they using for a step down converter, a raw potato?? Did nobody at LTT think it might've been good to review the 'facts' the sponser spouted to them before repeating them verbatim?

 

ASUS is already on my shitlist for having gimped all their past machines when using non-ASUS PD charging. You can barely use most 100W PD chargers with any of their past ROG machines unless you use one of their own chargers, they'd cap all others to 60W.

The last 3 of 3 machines I bought from them all did this. My current ProArt Studiobook, will literally become unsable when docking to a thunderbolt station with PD because it not only is charging limited, they've somehow screwed up the firmware so the CPU locks to 400mhz when accepting USB-C PD. When the FM16 finally releases batch 1, I'm gifting this to a friend and never looking back. What the hell is the point of industry standards if you only pretend to follow them?

[ThePointblank]

On 1/9/2024 at 6:46 PM, FairPumpkin said:

I know this was sponsored but that power connector excuse was LAME as f***! Thank you EU for making sure in the near future no one will get away with bullshit like this. First they pulled the 24W of waste heat straight out of their asses and second the laptop motherboard is only at 20V because they want it to, they can design whatever they want.

 

Asus being Asus, just like with the external graphics proprietary thing - if thunderbolt really wasn't enough they could have used oculink!

The standard USB-PD spec is not designed to handle loads in excess of 100W. The 2023 G14 draws close to 240W; the new 2024 draws about 180W at top load from what I can see. Even closer to idle with the discreet GPU turned off, I've seen my 2023 G14 draw around 60W; add in battery charging and you are already at the 100W top limit for conventional USB-PD.

 

Oh, and the current EU mandate only covers devices under 100W; higher performance devices are excluded from the mandate.

 

While in theory, USB-PD can supply more than 100W under the USB-PD 3.1 EPR spec, it comes with a ton of caveats.

 

For one, the pins in the connector aren't strong enough to deliver so many amps. Therefore you'd need to raise voltage to above 40V, send it with 5A, and then step it down back to 12V and other low voltages.

 

Just this process of stepping up and down would produce significant amount of heat.

240W via USB-PD is very sketchy. To have such power delivered on 20V, which is a standard now, you would need 12A. This is current almost as big as whole household circuits (15A). Imagine sending the same amount of current a standard household circuit provides via a USB cable; the cable and the connectors are not going to have a good time.

 

To use current standard of cables, rated up to 5A, you need exactly 48V to make it happen. Which is what the USB-PD 3.1 EPR specs call for. But that's a lot. It is possible, not ideal however.

 

Also, almost every PC laptop on the market is 20V. There are a very few non-20V ones but their market share is negligible. Asus would have to totally redesign the internal components on the G14 and G16 to handle more than 20V, which would be a very expensive undertaking.

 

You can achieve much safer results in much easier way using normal power connectors.

 

Not to mention that there aren't any commercially available 180W or 240W USB chargers on the market...

 

The only solutions I've seen that can provide such power from mainstream manufacturers are from HP and Lenovo with their high wattage docks for some of their workstation laptops; they are using standard USB C for data and a separate proprietary cable for high wattage power delivery and then snap a piece of plastic over the two cable heads to make the "plug a single thing" action possible; sure it has two separate metal plugs but who cares?

 

So they have a "single cable high wattage" use case already solved, and the above 100W space is so much smaller. Gaming laptops are so not interested in docking stations to begin with, and they aren't volume sellers; the driving force behind such high power docking stations are fleet purchases, and those are kinda edge case scenarios to begin with.

 

Honestly, I suspect that USB-PD 3.1 EPR is DOA. It will remain a paper only standard. Wouldn't be the first spec that nobody uses. And it seems like most laptop makers agree; German manufacturer Schenker/XMG has a pretty good writeup on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/XMG_gg/comments/13vl7sv/survey_should_traditional_charging_ports_be/

The TL;DR version is:
* With high-performance laptops, you want to do as much voltage conversion as possible in the brick / PSU, not in the laptop itself, because the heat situation caused by high-end CPUs and GPUs is already bad to the point where the fan noise becomes unbearable.
* Converting from around 20V to whatever voltage is needed for a specific component produces less heat than converting down from 48V.
* 48V is a clutch because the USB consortium was stupid and refused (for whatever reason, possibly cable width/thickness) to go above 5A.

* USB connectors are still fairly delicate and complex compared to a standard barrel connector, and requires a lot of very fine solder points that are susceptible to damage.

 

The last point is especially important; a more delicate power connector is NOT good for device longevity, and may in fact contribute to planned obsolesce. It is significantly much harder to fix broken USB ports, as when a USB port becomes damaged or is torn out accidentally, it causes a LOT of damage to the mainboard that is practically unrepairable; see what this repair specialist has to say on the topic: