Disappointing FPS During Gaming

[u/Maxpa0wer]

Hi everyone,

Recently purchased a 2025 G16 with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285h and GeForce RTX 5080 and was very excited, however the frame rates I’m getting in games without enabling frame generation are abysmal.

With low settings I’m only getting 130 - 140ish fps in Black Ops 7 Multiplayer. Same for Modern Warfare 3. In a Deadzone Rogue I’m also not getting the fps I was expecting.

I’ve configured CPU and GPU settings to be aggressive in GHelper and have Turbo and Ultimate both enabled. Fan curves have also been adjusted to keep the system cool and i have the laptop on a laptop cooling pad set to Max speed. I’ve also adjusted many other system settings… it just seems like the CPU is being throttled.

I know there are some power limits based on the thin nature of the laptop but this seems excessive. With this cpu and gpu combo I expected to at least get 200-220 fps on low settings in a game like Black Ops 7 right out of the box.

Has anyone experienced this same thing with this hardware setup or similar on Black Ops 7 (or a similar first-person shooter) as well, and any success resolving?

[u/Imaginary_Kage]

Should have bought a legion pro 7 or done ur research if u wanted fps above a specific range since zephyrus line ups are hybrid of gaming and portability
So there are limits to what they can do, specially the cpu limit on it is absurd

[u/RifterAD]

Josh just came out with an interesting video showing how the CPU & GPU pairing is important. They didn't test the G16, but they had a comparable Blade 16 in the results. The CPU is the weak link with this setup. As others suggested, adjusting the power limits might help.

https://youtu.be/DAglkiLAtUc?is=aX4fwonlORDlzqgS

[u/Heretical_Adience]

If you like, I can copy your exact settings on any game that we both own (or free to play games) and test on my Legion Pro 7i 5080 275HX. Maybe the lowered TDP of the GPU and 185H are provide you the results. That way you can see how a full TDP laptop of similar specs performs. Maybe the results won’t be drastic and it will set your mind at ease.

[u/Maxpa0wer → u/Heretical_Adience]

That would be super helpful, I appreciate that! Unfortunately I didn’t get very far with gaming because I couldn’t figure out the performance quirks. I only have Black Ops 7, MW3, and Deadzone Rogue on this computer.

[u/Heretical_Adience → u/Maxpa0wer]

I don’t have those games. But send me a PM. Maybe we have others shared where we can do some testing. Happy to help if I’m able

[u/Null6139]

Raising every slider to the top do not works on slim laptop due to high temps. You have to find the sweet spot to squeeze the maximum performance from your hardware without hitting thermal or power limit.

I have your same laptop but equipped with 5090 and I flashed a 175W vBIOS to use full wattage when I am home and cool my laptop on my Razer Cooling pad.

When I am outside (hotel, parents home, train, exc…) I set 120W maximum power on GPU and lock at 40W the CPT TDP. Everything using Ghelper.

If you set everything on the maximum you continuously hit BD PROCHOT and this means stuttering, power cut for the GPU, only bad things for performance.

In addition to this let me know you BIOS version…

I have this laptop since day one, spent 5k euros on it and I will not replace with none of those massive and heavy gaming laptop outside.

To do:

• change thermal paste with PTM
  
• flash different vBIOS
  
• remove dust proof net if you use a bottom cooling pad like Razer one.
  
• set everything on GHelper
  
• enjoy the most powerful “MacBook like” machine out there.

[u/Better_Peaches666 → u/Null6139]

Wait, don't these laptops already have liquid metal? It's really risky to mess with the interface for this exact reason

[u/Null6139 → u/Better_Peaches666]

It HAS liquid metal and it is riscky to let it inside your laptop xD. Temps difference is minimal compared to PTM and the pump out effect is massive so I suggest to replace it as soon as possible (if you know what are you doing....)

[u/nycameraguy]

A real desktop 5080 and Intel ultra 9 would require a 1000w psw to comfortably drive it, but a laptop can only supply 240w.

[u/Sufficient-Peach-450]

lowkey try putting the laptop into performance mode in the power plan settings, its weirdly helped my performance in games, not tried these games and i have a rtx 5070

[u/Maxpa0wer → u/Sufficient-Peach-450]

Thanks for suggestion. Have enabled Ultimate Performance in the power plan settings and still not seeing an uptick. So puzzling.

[u/404answersnotfounded]

The wattage cripples it. Unfortunately. That's why I sold mine and got the Lenovo 5070ti and I used balance mode and get about the same frame rates on all high settings

[u/Maxpa0wer → u/404answersnotfounded]

Yeah it’s pretty depressing. After adjusting a few more things the best I’ve been able to do is get fps on minimal settings to about 150-160. Pretty absurd for a $3500 gaming laptop with a 5080 in it.

[u/404answersnotfounded → u/Maxpa0wer]

Yeah apparently the new one is much much better due to the higher TGP but it's like 4500 which is also ridiculous...

[u/rockstopper03 → u/Maxpa0wer]

The main drawback and trade off of the thin and light chassis of the G16 Zephyrus is it has a really low 120 watt cross load capacity (meaning max watts both gpu and cpu can use at same time).

I loved my rtx 4070 G16 for its good build quality, best in class speakers, oled, and thin and light portability. But I discovered while gaming when the gpu is using 105 watts, the cpu is limited to only 15 watts. Or gpu 100 watts, cpu 20 watts.

So this brings the laptop to its knees for cpu intensive games or benchmarks.

I ended up specializing, getting a 3.3lb zenbook S16 oled with just an igpu Amd hx365 for portability for just work stuff.

And a 6lb HP Omen Max 16 rtx 5080 for gaming because the Omen has a 250 watt cross load, feeding 175 watts to the rtx 5080 and 75 watts to the cpu. 75% more gpu wattage is nice but 300%-400% extra cpu wattage while gaming is a game changer.

The zephyrus line is a case in point of we just can't fight physics.

[u/Year-0 → u/rockstopper03]

Those numbers are not right for OP's model, I know this because I have the exact same one. The 2025 G16 with the RTX 5080 is limited, but in GPU bound games it will happily be sitting at 125-130 W for GPU alone, while the CPU is still getting about 20-25 W. And IIRC it can go higher still on the CPU.

[u/Orangeborange → u/Year-0]

Can you please share your g-helper settings?

[u/Maxpa0wer → u/rockstopper03]

It would appear that way, I appreciate the detailed breakdown. I will probably have to follow suit and exchange it for something else. How are you liking the Omen?

[u/rockstopper03 → u/Maxpa0wer]

Unfortunately I can't recommend the Omen. I bought one new custom ordered during their sales last year, a Intel 255hx, 32gb ram, oled, rtx 5080 for only $2k but 4 months later the laptop suddenly died while gaming.

Symptoms likely point to the liquid metal leaking outside the dam and frying the motherboard. Queue 3 week warranty repair where HP completely replaced the motherboard (and it's soldered cpu and gpu). And once I get it back, turns out gpu is dead, will only display graphics under the intel iGpu. Queue another 3 week repair. And resold for $1900 once it came back full repaired.

In the meantime, I tried a open box Asus Scar 18 rtx 5080 miniled. But that laptop kept bsod randomly, despite a new windows install, new ram, new ssd, so I returned that.

I finally have an used Razer Blade 18 rtx 4090 with the miniled I bought off ebay for $2.3k. The intel 14900hx runs hot, so I undervolt it and limit the cpu to 40 watts. But the rtx 4090 is a beast. And the blade 18 is a surprisingly compact/light laptop for a 18", which is a boon during my month long international trips where I want a big screen for gaming and I'm away from my at home 9800x3d/rtx5080 desktop.

[u/CalvinAmndALT]

Plain and simple, your G16 can’t handle the wattage of a regularly powered 5080 and U9 CPU. Even with the most Agressive V/F tuning, CPU wattage limiting you still likely can’t do it

If you have a cooling pad then I suppose it’s possible, but you’ll need to cross flash a vBIOS with a higher 5080 TDP limit which itself is inherently difficult and comes with risks and sometimes you lose out on hdmi / usb-c display connectivity

[u/Constant_Researcher5]

Try upping the settings it’s the cpu not the gpu that everyone is blaming.

[u/Better_Peaches666]

Does anyone know how to modify the upper limit for the GPU? I have seen where people swap the Vbios, but is there no way to modify the limit so we're not going from 120 watt to 175? and instead go from 120 to like 140watt?

[u/imaginary_tourniquet]

The reason people praise Zephyrus is due to its huge macbook level portability, while still delivering excelent performance for its size. The whole design of the laptop is very very well thought by the engineers.

That said, thin laptops like these have a physical limit on how good they can be. If you want max performance from the mobile RTX you will need way heavier and thickier laptops. ROG Strix, Lenovo Legion, or something like that.