Benchmarks: Power Draw and Battery Life
We've talked about fine-tuning and battery life is an area in which the GX502 leaves you wanting more. Just over five hours of longevity in our standard video rundown test is a below par return, and do note that the laptop was tested in an Optimus configuration; switching to G-Sync would reduce battery life further.
Looking ahead, we're in the process of changing our testing methodology to incorporate the new PCMark 10 Battery Profile benchmarks. Three tests will be used; Office, which intermittently uses the writing, web browsing and video conferencing workloads from the main PCMark 10 benchmark; Video, which loops a 1080p full-screen movie file for the duration; and Gaming, which uses the common Fire Strike test to stress the GPU until the battery is drained.
In order to make the results comparable between laptops, each system is configured with a balanced power plan, wireless radios disabled, and screen brightness set as close to 120cd/m2 as possible using a calibration device.
Three similar 15.6in laptops have undergone the PCMark battery tests, and in each scenario the Asus GX502 falls some way short of the rival Gigabyte Aero 15 models. There's a lot to be said for laptop optimisation, and we're frankly astonished to see the Aero 15 Classic keep going for twice as long as the ROG Zephyrus in the PCMark 10 Video profile.
