Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 - GTX 1080 MaxQ OC?

Hello everyone,

could someone tell me if it would be possible to overclock the GTX 1080 MaxQ in den Asus Zephyrus GX501 e.g. with MSI Afterburner. I wonder what could be possible with a "healthy" OC on the MaxQ GTX 1080. Would be nice to raise the clocks a bit.

Someone has experiences with this or has results of such a OC e.g. in FireStrike?

 

You don't really have thermal headroom for any meaningful overclocking on that device. You'd need to raise voltage and the heat will overwhelm the cooling solution.

 

Mine will arrive tomorrow. I will give it a try. I will report here if there is anything to share.

 

From what users have reported, temps should be about 80-85*C max under load. Though it varies from machine to machine. The highest I've seen on the GX501 is 90*C

 

Just found this Post of a reviewer. Here is a short text about OC. Sounds very good to me. I will test it

"Because of the Max-Q design though, performance isn’t like a full GTX 1080. Nvidia claims performance should be at least 90% of the desktop cards and my numbers match up. This is still better than a GTX 1070, so there is some value to having the Max-Q 1080, even though it’s a little slower than a fully powered card. Still, I’m pretty happy with the results I’m seeing.

The heat is a little troublesome on the CPU side, but that can be fixed with a slight undervolt. With a simple -100mV undervolt, I was able to improve my CPU temperatures by 6-8C in benchmarks and gaming sessions. The GPU is far under the thermal limits in all my testing, so no worries there.

There is some room for overclokcing the GPU as well. I was able to overclock the GPU and RAM by 225Mhz, using MSI Afterburner, and so far so good as far as stability is concerned. My Firestrike score increased to a combined score of 15204 with the graphics score going up to 20362. I also reran the Witcher 3 at the default Ultra 1080p settings – my framerates increased to 74-86fps. GPU temps were only a couple degrees higher.

Considering the stock Firestrike scores on the Alienware 17, I reviewed the other day, were 15411 with a graphics score of 21690, this is actually pretty impressive. Even my desktop 1080’s graphics score gets a stock score of 21786. That puts the performance close to 94% of the full GTX 1080 card"


Source: http://www.ultrabookreview.com/16110-asus-gx501-zephyrus-review/

 

A full-power 1080 laptop should score around 22000 at stock and closer to 24000 when OCed. That's about 20% higher than the 1080MQ. Also, testing by NBC confirms that a OCed 1070 laptop such as the MSI GT series beats the 1080MQ laptops consistently. Don't put your hopes too high, the 1080MQ is just a normal 1080 with a downclock.

 

yeah I know and I'm with you. All in all the Max-Q will be more than enough for a Full HD Panel. It is just for my own interest what a Max-Q card can deliver in performance. I really like the thin design and I hope more will come. Currenlty I'm using the Alienware 15r3 with 1070 and it rocks every game in Ultra and Full HD. But the Alienware is very bulky and I really like this "Ultra Book Style" of the ASUS.

 

Be prepared for a drop in battery life, though. The GX501 can only manage about 2 hours of battery use.

 

Just a short update: Running my Zephyrus 1080 Version with +200mhz in MSI Afterburner. Everything is running just fine. +1000 graphics points in FireStrike. Getting now 19777 points.

 

You'd be better off getting a laptop with a full gtx 1080 and downclocking it. Same exact think except u can turn it back up whenever u want.

 

Do not understand your point, all full 1080 Laptops I know are very heavy and bulky. The zephyrus is esepcially for people who like thin and light notebooks which they can carry arround. When I think about the Alienware 17R4 this is much to heavy. Besides that the 1080p screen is far enough for the 1080MQ. Nevertheless everyone should choose the laptop which fits the personal needs. For me it is heaving a light high performance gaming laptop which can be easily carried

 

I still don't see any portability in the GX501 with only 2 hours of battery life. I can't really use it away from a power outlet so the weight/size factor becomes a semi-moot point. The ZenBook Pro - now that's portable. You can use it for 8 hours without a charge being needed.

 

Agree with the battery life...2 hours is just nonsense. Nevertheless I will never use a gaming laptop without the AC Adapter because the low battery life while gaming and the reduce of graphics power. So in combination for me the ASUS Zephyrus is a very nice compromise.

 

Except the Zephurus is not a laptop... because you cannot use it on your lap; even if plugged in. Got the flappy bottom cover to bend on your lap, and ridiculous keyboard placement for awkward close typing. Only worth using as a DTR; but in that case, why does it have to be so thin?

You can get MSI 16L13 with full GTX 1080 at only 6.4 Lbs, and 1.6" thick doesn't "look sleek" but it is hardly bulky.

 

For that reason i don’t want to buy it, i mean i love this laptop but i don’t like few things, the first one is the screen, at this price they could put on it a 3k screen 120hz and i don’t like even the cpu on it and battery life.

 

This really is the kind of laptop that's hard to judge without having it in hand.
Its got a lesser gtx1080 that with a 200mhz overclock can almost reach stock gtx1080 levels of performance. Mine holds that speed no problem and stays under 80c playing Pubg.

Thats unheard of before at that dB and thicknesses . If it overclocked and wasn't able to cool then I would understand the problem but this laptop delivers. So call it a dumbed down 1080 or a souped up 1070, but it wouldn't be able to stay cool in this chassis at that level of performance unless a 1080 was used and then optimized.

Keyboard aside, this may be the only laptop ever created that can actually be used for gaming on one's lap. (maybe there has been a laptop before with no intake on the bottom?) It doesn't need a cooler or have a bottom vent to worry about.
Realistically Id bet a lot of us put their lappies on our beds in the evening. Is there any other gaming laptop in the world that can survive on a bed without a laptop tray underneath?

Not to mention finally being able to play graphically intensive games without the fans creeping up and blasting away, reminding us why we have to wear headphones and deal with our wives waking up and freaking. Lol

What it says it will do it does so well. That's all I'm trying to say.

 

Perfectly stated.

We all understand that we can put a desktop in our backpack and plug it in places but we value something that won't make us all cripples for carrying it around not to mention piss off our wife or roommate. I got a Dead in arrival zephyrus from Amazon refurb and my replacement arrives today, looking forward to putting it to the test. Had a hard time deciding between this or a gtx 1070 like the aero 15x or msi stealth

 

The compromise is just right for the niche market. I am one of the niche market buyer. I manage to run this laptop up to 3 hours browsing the Internet. To be honest, this laptop looks pro unlike the bulky gaming ones that look like a toy. Sorry I'm a bit old gen prefer clean and fit in office.

Other thin laptop manage to get 7-8 hours with GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti fine but I got to tell you, the performance between 1050-1060 range vs 1070 Max-Q to 1080 Max-Q range is a total different world even the number is only "10" more.

Especially for me as a business travel sometime, I do have to carry my company laptop and I really did not want to add a 4-5kg of 2-3 inch gaming laptop with it. I would collapse at airport hallway on my way.

 

Overclocked my zephyrus 225 core and 250 memory. Interesting enough the clocks jump all over the place. Seems to average 1600~ but jumps anywhere from 1500-1924. Doesn't seem to affect performance but I thought it was strange since my desktop doesn't do that.

 

Probably power limit. If you overclock using the voltage curve and apply an undervolt that will help.

 

The voltage is locked on afterburner and when I tweak on the voltage curve it gives some very strange results. Fans are also locked. I bet if someone cracked the bios raises the TDP and unlocked these features we could probably get much better performance out of the max Q 1080s. I feel like there's so much potential. The Zephyrus keeps things surprisingly cool except for the CPU, which undervolting helped a lot.

 

Hi guys.
I got GX501 with 1070 Max-Q. I heard that overclocking will improve performance and lower temps, is it true?
Everyone here got 1080 Max-Q, so im looking for setup from MSI Afterburner for my 1070 Max-Q, anyone? @knibbler ?
At the moment my GPU Clock is: 1215mhz, GPU Memory: 4000mhz.

Thanks!