Benchmarks: Power, Temp and Noise
It is always interesting to observe the way in which manufacturers handle heat in thin-and-light laptops. Asus lets the Core i7 stretch its legs, with the chip maintaining high frequencies while running at close to 90ºC. The chassis doesn't get particularly hot, and temperatures eventually drop when the going gets tough; the average of 74ºC in the graph represents the last five minutes of load during a 4K video encode.
But more heat typically results in more vocal fans, and our sound meter registers peak noise at 45.6dB. The number indicates a distracting laptop, yet the fact that the fans create a smooth hum suggests otherwise; it doesn't sound particularly loud to our ears and is practically silent when idle.
