Razer Blade 15 (2018) or Asus Zephyrus GM501

[Meritor]

Hey everyone,

I’m in the market for a gaming laptop, I’ve got around £2000 to spend and I seem to have narrowed things down to either a Razer Blade 15 (2018) or an Asus Zephyrus GM501.

The laptops main use will be a combination of Photo/Video/Design work and then Gaming in my own time. I have an external NAS for storage so that’s not an issues when it comes to the work side of things. I will be hooking the laptop up to a 34” ultrawide monitor when it is at my desk.

Which of these two would you recommend or should I be looking at something else?

Additionally, I had been considering an eGPU docking solution using an existing 980 Ti, would this be worth it or are laptop GPU’s at a point now where they are comparable once you take into consideration the loss of “power” when using the TB3 connection? Or would I be better looking for a standard docking solution to connect to my desk setup?

Any opinions, help or assistance welcomed

 

[MiSJAH]

Have you considered the AORUS X5 V8?

Better CPU and a full fat GTX 1070 rather than the downclocked max-q versions in the blade and gm501?

The benefit of the full fat 1070 means no need for the eGPU as the 1070 performs on par or slightly above the desktop 980Ti I have an older X5V7 with a quad core I7 and can hit nearly 16K in firestrike - https://www.3dmark.com/fs/14356419

 

[Meritor]

Have you considered the AORUS X5 V8?

Better CPU and a full fat GTX 1070 rather than the downclocked max-q versions in the blade and gm501?

The benefit of the full fat 1070 means no need for the eGPU as the 1070 performs on par or slightly above the desktop 980Ti I have an older X5V7 with a quad core I7 and can hit nearly 16K in firestrike - https://www.3dmark.com/fs/14356419

Hey,

Thanks for the reply, I was a little concerned about the Max-Q version in the Blade as it sits somewhere between the 1060-1070 IIRC, but as far as I was aware the GM501 does come with a full sized 1070 meaning the X5 V8 is £400 more for a minor CPU upgrade (although please correct me if I'm wrong as the contradictory information available on the internet always contributes to confusion lol!).

The X5 V8 still looks like a great laptop though!

 

[Loki]

Hi @Meritor

I have the GM501GS as my work laptop. For reference, all of the GM501 range in the UK come equipped with MaxP GPU only so these are the full fat version. For my set up for my home office, I have the following

Monitor 1 - 34" 3440 x 1440 Gsyc 100hz Display via Thunderbolt Port
Monitor 2 - 27" 1920 x 1080 Gsync via HDMI

Still, use the GM501 as third screen. Great for gaming, Lunch time only if the boss is watching

 

[Meritor]

Hi @Meritor

I have the GM501GS as my work laptop. For reference, all of the GM501 range in the UK come equipped with MaxP GPU only so these are the full fat version. For my set up for my home office, I have the following

Monitor 1 - 34" 3440 x 1440 Gsyc 100hz Display via Thunderbolt Port
Monitor 2 - 27" 1920 x 1080 Gsync via HDMI

Still, use the GM501 as third screen. Great for gaming, Lunch time only if the boss is watching

Hey

Thanks for the reply, as someone who uses the GM501 on a daily basis how does it fair for the tasks I require? At present I’m using a Lenovo Thinkpad T440 (its horrendous) as my mobile solution and a custom built desktop (3570k / 16gb RAM / 980 Ti) which is starting to show it’s age (I added the 980 Ti after my 7990 failed). Any feedback about the laptop, it’s build quality, typing experience, real world gaming performance etc etc would be welcomed as I find its much better to have first hand opinions than reading reviews conducted on review units.

Thanks again

 

[Loki]

Hey

Thanks for the reply, as someone who uses the GM501 on a daily basis how does it fair for the tasks I require? At present I’m using a Lenovo Thinkpad T440 (its horrendous) as my mobile solution and a custom built desktop (3570k / 16gb RAM / 980 Ti) which is starting to show it’s age (I added the 980 Ti after my 7990 failed). Any feedback about the laptop, it’s build quality, typing experience, real world gaming performance etc etc would be welcomed as I find its much better to have first hand opinions than reading reviews conducted on review units.

Thanks again

Hi @Meritor I have the GM501GM which is 1060 version. (GS will be 1070). In regards to gaming I can compare it to my desktop set up pretty easy.

Desktop - i5 6600K / 16Gb DDR IV / GTX 1080

Notebook - i7 8700K / 16Gb DDR IV / GTX 1060

Hosting a multipe player game of Stellaris and the load time, creation for the MP environment was considerably quicker. For Gaming in general no issues, I play a lot of RTS and FPS.

For example Doom Single player I have this running at

Custom Settings
Lights Quality - Ultra
Shadow Quality - Nightmare
Directional Occlusion Quality - High
Decal Quality - Ultra
Decal Filtering - Anistropic 16x
Reflections Quality - Ultra
Particles Quality -Ultra

Holds a steady 70 - 75 FPS in intense battles.

For video editing I have only done one edit for some Mavic footage. Not done any direct comparisons on render time but 4K video render times are certainly on par and feels a little quicker than my desktop using Adobe Premier Pro. Again can't give absolute accurate time comparison.

Of course any gaming laptop is power hungry regardless of what you are using it for. What I like specifically about my GM501 is that I can switch between Discrete Graphics and Optimus mode. So if I'm on the train to London from Mcr, that's a nice option to have as I can do a lot of prep for meetings on the train and still get where I'm going and have a relatively decent amount of juice left in to do what I'm doing. Then putting it into silent fan mode gives it a little bit more.

Hope that helps