ASUS has a wide range of gaming laptops available across a few different ROG product lines, but none do as much to promote the portability of a laptop while pumping out top-tier gaming performance as the ROG Zephyrus series. Over the past month and a half, we’ve been testing the 2025 model of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 that comes with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 to see how it really performs as a top-tier gaming laptop. Is it really worth the money? We aim to answer that in this review, but it’s also worth noting that ultimately, whether or not it’s worth the money will come down to what you’re looking for and how much you’re personally willing to spend to get it.

At a retail price of around $4,599.99, the RTX 5090 model (120W GPU) of the 2025 ROG Zephyrus G16 is not a cheap laptop. This is the upper end of gaming laptops, and while not the most expensive, it’s still a lot more than a majority of gamers are probably willing to spend. Still, there is a market for this type of gaming laptop, or ASUS wouldn’t make it in the first place. If you’re the type of person who looks for the best available, regardless of the cost, then this review is for you. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump into it.

Specs

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 (GU605CX-XS98)

Display

Size
16 Inches

Type
2.5K (2560 x 1600, WQXGA) OLED

Aspect Ratio
16:10

Response Time
0.2ms

Refresh Rate
240Hz

Processor

CPU
Intel Core Ultra 9 285H 2.9GHz

NPU
Intel AI Boost NPU up to 13 TOPS

Graphics

GPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU

Software

OS
Windows 11 Pro

Memory

RAM
64GB LPDDR5X 7467 on board

Storage
2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD

Power

Battery
90WHrs, 4S1P, 4-cell Li-ion

Power Supply
Rectangle Conn, 240W AC Adapter, Output: 20V DC, 12A, 240W, Input: 100~240C AC 50/60Hz universal

Audio

Speakers
4-speaker (dual-force woofer) system with Smart Amplifier Technology, 2 Tweeters

Microphone
Built-in 3-microphone array

Features and Support
Smart Amp Technology, Dolby Atmos, AI noise-canceling technology, Hi-Res certification (for headphone)

Connectivity

Network and Communication
Wi-Fi 7(802.11be) (Triple band) 2*2 + Bluetooth 5.4 Wireless Card (*Bluetooth version may change with OS version different.)

I/O Ports
1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C support DisplayPort / power delivery / G-SYNC, 1x Thunderbolt 4 support DisplayPort / power delivery, 1x card reader (SD) (UHS-II, 312MB/s)

Hardware and Design

Keyboard and Trackpad
Backlit Chiclet Keyboard 1-Zone RGB, Touchpad

Camera
1080P FHD IR Camera for Windows Hello

Dimensions
35.4 x 24.6 x 1.49 ~ 1.74 cm (13.94″ x 9.69″ x 0.59″ ~ 0.69″)

Weight
1.95 Kg (4.30 lbs)

View Device Specs

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 Ultimate Review: Hardware and Design

I haven’t always been a fan of the designs ASUS chooses for its gaming laptops, at least not every single model. Over the years, it’s gone through an absolute metric ton of style changes for its gaming laptops, but these days, most of them are pretty tame compared to what was on offer 15-20 years ago. I’m talking humungous gaming laptops that took design inspiration from fighter jets, with giant swooping angled lines for the vents. That’s compared to now, where something like this laptop doesn’t even look like a gaming laptop. Your tastes in design might be different from mine, but for my money, the 2025 ROG Zephyrus G16 is the best-looking gaming laptop that ASUS offers. Bar none.

Its sleek metal chassis with a matte finish gives it a refined look that makes it just as suitable in the office or in a classroom as on your desk while you’re gaming. In fact, this is one of my favorite things about the design. Other than the backlit keyboard, you won’t find any RGB lighting on this thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love some RGB lighting here and there, but I also love when companies are willing to break away from that and put out something that completely avoids it on the outside of the hardware. That’s what ASUS has done here, and it deserves to be appreciated. There is a light bar that goes diagonally across the lid, but this uses white LEDs only, and it can be turned off. Making this laptop an unassuming gaming powerhouse that you wouldn’t know was built for gaming.

The other thing that’s really nice about the design is the color. We have the Platinum White model, and it’s sort of a silver color on the outside with a nice matte white inside, along with matching white keys and a massive white trackpad.

The huge trackpad is awesome

Speaking of the trackpad, the absolute sheer gargantuan size of it is really refreshing to see. I found it way easier to use the laptop for longer periods of time throughout the day without a mouse, with how big the trackpad on this laptop is. Mainly because I had so much room to drag my finger around whenever I needed to drag something to a folder or move files around. I also really love the glass power key. This is a very minor thing because you really don’t spend much time interacting with it. However, this attention to detail to make something as mundane as the power key a premium design element just feels nice.

Top-tier build quality

With a design this good, you probably wouldn’t expect the build quality to be anything less than stellar, and that’s exactly what ASUS is delivering with this year’s ROG Zephyrus G16. Everything about the laptop feels just as premium as it looks, and overall, the laptop feels very well-made. The lid/display has just enough flex to not be rigid and risk being more fragile and susceptible to damage. It’s also quite easy to open the laptop lid with one hand.

Nothing creeks when picking this thing up or using it on a daily basis, either. The keys also feel really nice to type on for longer periods of time, and they sound pretty good, too. They’re not overly loud, and they provide a satisfying clack when typing away. The keyboard is fairly sizable as well, and I never felt like my typing experience was cramped or restricted.

In terms of ports, you get pretty much everything you could ever need. I wouldn’t have minded one or two extra USB ports, but there’s only so much room on a laptop this thin. With that in mind, I think ASUS did a great job at fitting the ports it did on the 2025 ROG Zephyrus G16. On the right side of the laptop, you have one USB-A port, one USB-C port, and an SD card slot. On the left side, you get one more USB-A port and one more USB-C port, the 3.5mm headphone jack, and an HDMI 2.1 port, as well as the power port for the laptop’s power supply.

No toolless bottom panel

If there’s one thing that I wish the ROG Zephyrus G16 did differently, it would be the toolless bottom panel. This is something ASUS implemented with the ROG Strix G18 this year, and it was a really cool idea that I wish the company had stuck with here on this model. The panel on this one is still easy enough to remove, but you need the right tools, and if you don’t already own them, then that means you’ll need to buy them. On top of that, you’ll have to wait until they arrive. Unless you’re able to find them locally.

That being said, once the panel is off, you can still swap out the SSD, but RAM is soldered on, so you can’t swap that out as easily. Overall, this isn’t a deal-breaker; it’s just something I wish ASUS carried over.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 Ultimate Review: Display

The display on the ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 is quite nice, and it’s an OLED panel. Although it’s only 2.5K resolution and not 4K, it ends up working out in the laptop’s favor because it helps with battery life. If this were a 4K panel, it would most certainly drain the battery life faster, and that’s not great when the battery life can already be terrible unless you disable the dedicated GPU.

Battery life aside, if you have this plugged in, crank the brightness on the display because it looks awesome when you’re running games. I played some Borderlands 4 among other games, and the display really helped the game’s vibrant style, colors, and flashy graphics pop. Since it’s OLED, there is a bit more of a chance for glare, so you have to be careful about where you have the laptop display positioned and what angle you choose to put it at. This is also a 240Hz panel, and that means really zippy refresh rates in games that support a refresh rate as high as 240 frames per second. Provided you have the graphics tuned the way they need to be. I was mostly seeing peak brightness around 400-500 nits, which is more than bright enough in most cases. If you’re planning to use this laptop outside at all, just make sure to find some shade.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 Ultimate Review: Performance

I’ll be honest, I was a little skeptical about what performance would be like on the Zephyrus G16 even with an RTX 5090 inside, partly because I’ve never extensively used a Zephyrus laptop before for longer gaming sessions, and partly because of how thin it is, so I wasn’t sure how good the thermals would be and if the performance would hit a bottleneck. ASUS is also using a 120W RTX 5090 laptop GPU.

It’s not running at as powerful a wattage as it could be, and this is going to impact performance. However, I can safely say that performance has been nothing short of awesome my entire time with the laptop. It had no trouble with any of the games I played. This includes the recently released Borderlands 4, which has notoriously had some problems with performance for some players, even on powerful rigs. Granted, this might be in large part due to the optimization and the issues with Unreal Engine 5. However, it’s also worth noting that I haven’t had any major performance issues in this game on any machine I’ve used to play it. That being said, this did require me to keep DLSS and multi-frame generation on. For Borderlands 4 specifically, this is more reflective of the game’s hardware optimization than this laptop’s hardware. I just felt this was worth pointing out.

In-game performance

Borderlands 4

On the ROG Zephyrus G16, I was able to crank the graphics up to the maximum (Borderlands 4 calls it “badass”) and still get a solid 120-130 frames per second. In some cases, the frames were sitting around 140fps or above. This is with multi-frame generation on at the 4x level. Without it, you could not run the graphics settings up to the maximum without running into frame rate issues. You could, however, get decent frames without dumping the graphics down too much. So make of that what you will. Some people may not prefer to enable the multi-frame gen, and that’s perfectly fine. You should, though, because it allows for higher graphics settings to make your games look better, without sacrificing too much of the frame rate. It might not be pure hardware performance, but does it really matter when the games look awesome and run smoothly? I don’t think so.

Black Myth: Wukong

In addition to Borderlands 4, I also tried a few other high-end games with demanding graphics and was pleasantly surprised with most or all of them. In Black Myth: Wukong, with the graphics settings at maximum (cinematic), I was getting about 70-80 frames per second in most situations. This is with multi-frame generation on at 4x. Given Black Myth: Wukong’s level of graphical detail, I’m not surprised that the frame rate was lower than in Borderlands 4, but I was expecting it to be higher. I was actually getting a lower frame rate on average than I did with the ROG Strix G18 with an RTX 5080, and this is almost certainly because the ROG Strix G18 is a thicker and larger laptop with more room for airflow, resulting in better thermals and better cooling. Not to mention the GPU has a max TDP of 175W compared to the 120W 5090 inside the Zephyrus G16. I suspected this would be the case, of course.

Cyberpunk 2077

Naturally, I also had to check out Cyberpunk 2077 on this laptop because it’s one of the most demanding games out there right now. Much like Crysis was the de facto benchmark for a gaming PC back in the day, Cyberpunk 2077 can be considered the de facto benchmark for today’s gaming laptops and gaming desktops. Cyberpunk didn’t toss too many issues my way, and the ROG Zephyrus G16 handled it pretty well even after cranking the graphics settings up. During my playtime, the laptop was able to keep the game running at around 72-74 frames per second on average, sometimes jumping above that. This was with the graphics settings at their highest, with path tracing enabled and DLSS multi-frame generation enabled at 4x. In general, a pretty smooth experience. If you’re like me and you don’t mind decreasing the graphics a little bit, you can squeeze out quite a few more frames and make the gameplay even smoother. Though I don’t think it’s too necessary, as the combat in this game is just fine at around 70 frames per second, and you benefit from the amazing visuals.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

In Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the frame rate is locked at 60 frames per second, and this laptop was able to achieve that without any sort of issue. The game looked great, and the laptop was able to keep up the high frame rate. For Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, I had graphics completely maxed out, and the laptop was able to sustain above 200 frames per second with zero issues. Again, this is with DLSS and multi-frame generation on at 4x. The game looks great, though, and runs buttery smooth.

Overall, the in-game performance was great, but you need to be ok with the fans being quite loud. My way around this is to just put on my gaming headset, and I can’t hear them. If you prefer speakers, you could use the laptop speakers and crank the volume, or connect a speaker or soundbar and turn the volume up to try and drown the fans out. In my experience, this worked fine, but it didn’t completely drown out the fan noise. Unfortunately, that’s the nature of gaming on a laptop with demanding games if you want peak performance and peak graphics. In addition to testing what in-game performance is like, we also put the laptop through a handful of benchmark tests to see what scores it comes up with. Benchmark results won’t necessarily end up translating to your personal experience, but they give a good look at what to expect.

Benchmarks

For the benchmarks, we like to use Geekbench 6 and Cinebench to test the CPU. We also test the GPU in Geekbench 6. I like to throw in a few different 3D Mark tests to get a better grasp of the GPU performance, and ran the ROG Zephyrus G16 through Speed Way, Steel Nomad, and Time Spy.

LaptopCinebench Single-CoreCinebench Multi-CoreASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 20251241,173ASUS ROG Strix G181342,032Lenovo Legion Pro 7i1351,879ASUS ProArt P161161,142

Cinebench

For Cinebench, the ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 ended up with a single-core CPU score of 124 points. That’s 10 points lower than the ROG Strix G18 and 11 points lower than the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, both of which carry the RTX 5080. Again, though, both those laptops are larger with more space for airflow, and they’re running higher wattage GPUs. For the multi-core CPU score, the ROG Zephyrus G16 scored 1,173 points. This isn’t bad at all considering it weighs a lot less than those other laptops, and is still able to pump out pretty good in-game performance in just about anything.

LaptopGeekbench Single-CoreGeekbench Multi-CoreGeekbench GPUASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 20252,82117,006195,893ASUS ROG Strix G182,94618,945203,350Lenovo Legion Pro 7i2,85213,878117,636ASUS ProArt P162,76413,61443,556

Geekbench 6

For Geekbench 6, we ran both the CPU and GPU tests to see how the laptop stacks up. The single-core CPU test ended up with a score of 2,821, while the multi-core CPU test resulted in a score of 17,006. For the GPU test, the score was 195,893.

3D Mark Tests

For the 3D Mark tests, we’ll start with Speed Way, which is intended to test ray tracing. The ROG Zephyrus ended up with a score of 5,237. For the Steel Nomad test, the laptop ended up with a score of 4,868, and the Time Spy test resulted in a score of 17,734. Overall, pretty good. These aren’t the highest scores, but they’re towards the top, and in-game performance is really good across all the titles I played.

Battery Life

We also test the battery life of the laptop so you have an idea of how long the laptop will last when not plugged in. The way I did this is the same as the ROG Strix G18. I turned the operating mode down to silent and the GPU mode down to eco. I left the display brightness and the backlit key brightness at their maximum levels. With these settings, I worked off the laptop throughout the day for a week, and on average, I was getting about 4 hours of battery life before the laptop needed to be plugged in.

It was slightly better than the ROG Strix G18, but that’s to be expected given the display is smaller and it’s not drawing as much power. This still isn’t great if you need a laptop that lasts all day. However, you can try to extend it by lowering the brightness of the display and turning off the backlighting on the keyboard. This should help you get at least another hour, maybe a few. It’s also worth noting that the laptop may last you all day, depending on how often the laptop is awake. For example, if you’re a student and the laptop is asleep from time to time throughout the day, you might get by without needing to plug it in. I would still keep the charger on you just in case, though.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 Ultimate Review: Software

The software experience is going to be basically the same as the ROG Strix G18 I reviewed back in July. It’s running on Windows 11, it’s an ASUS ROG laptop, so the majority of its unique software experience compared to other Windows 11 laptops is going to be the Armoury Crate app. This is where you’ll tweak and adjust things like the fans, the GPU mode, and other small things. The one difference between this and the ROG Strix G18 is that you can adjust the light bar on the lid here. That being said, the ROG Strix G18 has RGB around the base of the laptop, so even this aspect of the software is pretty much the same. In terms of usability, the software experience is what you’d expect from a Windows computer if you’ve ever used one running on Windows 11.

Armoury Crate is where you can tune and adjust performance and lighting

With regard to Armoury Crate specifically, it’s rather easy to use, and you get a fair amount of information from it. You can use it to check your CPU and GPU frequencies and usage, monitor fan speed, tweak the Aura Sync RGB lighting, and more. You can even create and manage macros here and access your game library if you want. I didn’t really mess with any of these features. If I do use macros, I usually create them in the software for the peripheral I’m using. Which is to say I’m generally not using keyboard macros. As for game libraries, I simply launch whatever game client has my games, because this is all Armoury Crate is going to do anyway. So I might as well cut out that step. Still, if you want to see all of your installed games from several clients in one place, it’s nice that ASUS allows you to import everything to do just that. Overall, the software experience was solid, and I didn’t run into any problems with stability.

Customizing the Slash Lighting

The Slash Lighting is the official name for the LED light bar on the lid of the laptop. It’s possible to customize this by changing its effects, and there are several options here. To start, there are several themes, and each theme will have roughly 4 or more options for the LED effects, in addition to a static option. In the same menu where you change these effects, you can also enable the Slash Lighting while on battery power, although I wouldn’t recommend it, as this will drain the battery faster.

This is a neat visual effect of the laptop that feels more for anyone around you rather than your own personal enjoyment. Mainly because you won’t be able to see it when you’re using the laptop. It’s a little gimmicky, but still cool if you like that extra bit of flashy style.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 Ultimate Review: Battery Life and Charging

While battery life isn’t going to be great in most cases if you don’t make some adjustments to the laptop, you can extend the battery life by tweaking things. For example, if you leave things as is out of the box, you’ll probably get a few hours at most from the ROG Zephyrus G16 2025. However, you can eek out more battery life if you disable the dedicated GPU. In doing this, you should be able to get closer to 8-10 hours of battery life, which is probably more than enough for most people when it comes to how much they need in a day. This is what you’d do if you need the laptop for research, studying, or general browsing and watching videos.

You could also play games on the battery, but this will definitely drain the battery a lot faster. If you’re going to play games on the battery, I highly recommend sticking to more casual games that aren’t demanding on the resources. Older games, for example. In my experience, by disabling the dedicated GPU, the Zephyrus G16 lasted for around 9 hours with the display brightness at around 50% and the keyboard backlighting disabled. As for charging, the laptop only took a little over an hour to charge back up all the way. With a 90Wh battery inside and a 240W power supply, the ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 should last long enough for whatever tasks you need to complete, as long as you temper expectations and adjust what needs adjusting to help things.

Should you buy the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 (GU605CX-XS98)?

Really, it all depends on whether you want something that is very high-performance but also portable. There are other high-performance laptops that would potentially cost less money, but you would be looking at something that was likely bigger and not as easy to carry around. For example, a larger, 18-inch laptop or a 16-inch laptop that isn’t as slim will likely weigh more. So, while you could carry them around in a backpack, provided you have the right backpack, they’d be heavier, and you probably wouldn’t want to carry them around on your back most of the day.

The thing is, slimmer laptops like the ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 with the higher-end GPUs take quite a bit of engineering, and that gets reflected in the price, unfortunately. So, if you’re someone who wants as portable a laptop as possible, but also with the best specs possible, then you should buy this laptop. It performs very well for a laptop as thin as it is. You might be leaving a little performance on the table compared to if you went with something thicker that has more airflow, but you’re trading a little of that for something that’s more comfortable to carry with you places. And ultimately, you still get a very powerful gaming laptop. If you’re willing to pay for it.

You should buy the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 (GU605CX-XS98) if:

You want a really powerful gaming laptop

You’re looking for a gaming laptop that’s more portable and doesn’t weigh a lot

The price tag really isn’t a factor in your choice

You shouldn’t buy the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2025 (GU605CX-XS98) if:

You’re looking for something even smaller and more portable

You don’t want to spend over $4,000

You want something with better performance and don’t mind it being bigger

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