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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →The 2025 ASUS ROG Flow Z13 makes demanding PC games viable on a compact 13-inch detachable, but the Radeon 8060S does not deliver the same experience in every title or setting. HotHardware’s February 18, 2025 review found it competitive with some mobile GeForce RTX 4070 systems in selected tests—not a universal RTX 4070 equivalent—and several demanding games needed upscaling or adjusted settings.
What the gaming results establish
HotHardware tested the Flow Z13 with AMD’s Ryzen AI MAX+ 395, 32GB of LPDDR5X memory at 8000 MT/s and a 1TB NVMe SSD. Its Radeon 8060S is integrated into the processor, not a separate graphics card. ASUS offers multiple configurations, so those test-unit details should not be assumed for every GZ302 listing.
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The review’s broad takeaway is that Strix Halo graphics are unusually capable for a compact hybrid, while real performance depends on the game, resolution, settings and power or thermal limits. In selected 3DMark comparisons and game results, the 8060S kept pace with mobile RTX 4070 systems. HotHardware cautions that mobile GPU results vary with manufacturers’ power and thermal configurations, so the comparison is not a fixed property of either GPU name.
How it performed in games
Strong results in lighter or well-suited games
F1 22 ran very quickly at 1080p High in the review’s comparison test. In Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the Flow Z13 reached 105 FPS at 2560×1440 on High and placed among RTX 4070 systems in that comparison. Fortnite using DirectX 12 delivered high frame rates with little of the stutter the reviewer expected. The article also describes Hogwarts Legacy, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Rocket League as running well.
#1 Best Overall
- THE ULTIMATE 2-IN-1 – Stay in the zone with a larger touchpad, up to 10 hrs of battery life, and a flexible 170° kickstand that adapts effortlessly to create, game and work on the go.
- POWER MEETS PORTABILITY – Equipped with a brand-new one stop shop chipset experience in the AMD Ryzen AI MAX 390 processor with 12 cores, up to 50 TOPs NPU power and RDNA 3.5 graphics in a 13-inch chassis. The Flow Z13 is designed for the next generation of portable power.
- GAME CHANGING AI ASSISTANT – Experience productivity boosts and improved power efficiency curtesy of ROG Intelligent Assistance with Copilot + PC powered by AMD Ryzen AI.
- SEAMLESS PERFORMANCE – The LPDDR5X 8000MHz quad-channel memory dynamically balances the integrated CPU and GPU. With 32GB of low-latency memory, it ensures smooth gaming.
- ROG NEBULA DISPLAY, BRILLANCE UNLEASHED – Experience brilliance with the 16:10, WQXGA, 180Hz, 3ms, PANTONE Validated touchscreen, covering 100% DCI-P3 color space.
Playable demanding games, often with compromises
HotHardware found Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Dragon’s Dogma 2 playable. Cyberpunk at Ultra settings needed considerable upscaling to sustain playable performance. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle also ran well with upscaling from 1080p. These are observations from the review’s test, not guarantees for every game version or settings combination.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested at its highest preset at 1080p and 2560×1440. Performance was consistent, but at 1440p the Flow Z13 placed last among the comparison systems. Black Myth: Wukong performed poorly in the reviewer’s test, a reminder that the 8060S’s strong results do not carry over uniformly to every demanding title.
Rank #2
- THE ULTIMATE 2-IN-1 – Stay in the zone with a larger touchpad, up to 10 hrs of battery life, and a flexible 170° kickstand that adapts effortlessly to create, game and work on the go.
- POWER MEETS PORTABILITY – Equipped with a brand-new one stop shop chipset experience in the AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 processor with 16 cores, up to 50 tops NPU power and RDNA 3.5 graphics in a 13-inch chassis, the Flow Z13 is designed for next generation portable power.
- GAME CHANGING AI ASSISTANT – Experience productivity boosts and improved power efficiency curtesy of ROG Intelligent Assistance with Copilot + PC powered by AMD Ryzen AI.
- SEAMLESS PERFORMANCE – The LPDDR5X 8000MHz quad-channel memory dynamically balances the integrated CPU and GPU. With 32GB of low-latency memory, it ensures smooth gaming.
- ROG NEBULA DISPLAY, BRILLANCE UNLEASHED – Experience brilliance with the 16:10 WQXGA 180 Hz/3ms PANTONE Validated touchscreen, covering DCI-P3 color space.
Ray tracing and frame-time trade-offs
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy was playable with ray tracing, but the feature hurt frame-time stability and minimum FPS. The reviewer recommends disabling it for better minimums. In the pre-release Monster Hunter Wilds benchmark, enabling ray tracing reduced performance by about 5% in that test. In Dragon’s Dogma 2, the reviewer observed no performance effect from enabling ray tracing, while ambient occlusion improved. Those results are specific to the tested games and builds.
Why resolution and upscaling matter
The review identifies memory bandwidth as a constraint for the Radeon 8060S, as it is for integrated graphics generally. Reducing resolution or using a game’s upscaling option can ease the workload, though upscaling changes image quality and does not make every setting combination practical. That trade-off is especially relevant when aiming for demanding settings such as Cyberpunk 2077 at Ultra.
Rank #3
- AMD Ryzen Al Max+ 395 16 Core - 32 Thread Processor, 3.0 GHz (Max Turbo Frequency 5.1 GHz), 80 MB Smart Cache
- HIDevolution upgrades the 13.4" 2.5K (2560 x 1600, WQXGA) 180Hz IPS-level, Touch Screen Gaming Laptop with stocked Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut on CPU for improved performance and optimal system temperature
- HIDevolution installed PCIe based storage--2 TB M.2 2230 PCIe NVMe Gen4 SSD--ensures that you experience the fastest boot up & load times
- 128 GB LPDDR5X 8000 dual channel on board system memory (Speeds subject to system capability)--run memory hungry applications and multitask with ease
- Operating system: Windows 11 Pro. HIDevolution Promise: Authorized ASUS Build to Order Dealer, thorough quality testing, a 1 Year Warranty, and access to our expert support staff. Contact us for more customization options.
HotHardware’s synthetic tests illustrate why no single benchmark tells the whole story. It ran four 3DMark workloads because the Flow Z13 sits between thin-and-light and conventional gaming performance classes:
- Night Raid: A lightweight DirectX 12 mobile integrated-graphics test. The 8060S led the comparison, although few recent discrete GPUs were included.
- Wild Life Extreme: Renders at native 4K and places substantial stress on memory bandwidth. The Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 nearly tripled the next-highest x86 result in this comparison.
- Fire Strike Extreme: In this DirectX 11 test, the 8060S roughly kept pace with some mobile RTX 4070 and Radeon RX 6800S results.
- Time Spy: In this DirectX 12 test, it landed near mobile RTX 4070 results and within reach of an RTX 3070 Ti result.
These synthetic results help show the chip’s potential, but game-specific results and the settings that matter to you are more useful for deciding whether it fits your needs.
Rank #4
- ✔【Screen】 13.4-inch 2.5K QHD+ (2560 x 1600) 16:10 touch screen with a 180Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness, and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut;
- ✔【Memory & Storage】 64GB LPDDR5X-8000 MHz and 1TB Solid State Drive (SSD) storag;
- ✔【Processor】 AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (16 Cores / 32 Threads, 3.0 GHz up to 5.1 GHz), with a built-in NPU delivering up to 50 TOPS for local AI workloads;
- ✔【Graphics】 Integrated AMD Radeon 8060S Graphics;
- ✔【Connectivity】 2 x USB4 Type-C ports (supporting DisplayPort and Power Delivery up to 40Gbps),1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port,1 x HDMI 2.1 FRL port,1 x MicroSD card reader (UHS-II),1 x 3.5mm audio combo jack, Wi-Fi7, Bluetooth 5.4;
How to compare it with another gaming laptop
When comparing the Flow Z13 with a gaming laptop or tablet, compare like with like rather than relying on the GPU model name or a single average-FPS figure.
- Check the exact game, graphics preset, resolution, upscaling mode and ray-tracing setting.
- Look at frame-time consistency and minimums as well as average performance; ray tracing affected minimums in the review’s Guardians of the Galaxy test.
- Account for the power and thermal limits of the specific mobile GPU configuration. HotHardware notes that RTX 4070 laptop performance varies across systems.
- Weigh gaming results alongside portability, memory capacity, display and battery priorities.
What the Flow Z13’s design adds
ASUS lists the 2025 Flow Z13 GZ302 as a Windows 11 system with a 13-inch CNC aluminum chassis, 70Wh battery, 2.5K 180Hz Nebula display and adjustable 170-degree kickstand. ASUS also specifies 16 Zen 5 CPU cores and 40 GPU compute units for the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 configuration. These are manufacturer specifications, not independent measurements of gaming performance or battery life.
Best Value
- ✔【Screen】 13.4-inch 2.5K QHD+ (2560 x 1600) 16:10 touch screen with a 180Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness, and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut;
- ✔【Memory & Storage】 128GB LPDDR5X-8000 MHz and 2TB Solid State Drive (SSD) storag;
- ✔【Processor】 AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (16 Cores / 32 Threads, 3.0 GHz up to 5.1 GHz), with a built-in NPU delivering up to 50 TOPS for local AI workloads;
- ✔【Graphics】 Integrated AMD Radeon 8060S Graphics;
- ✔【Connectivity】 2 x USB4 Type-C ports (supporting DisplayPort and Power Delivery up to 40Gbps),1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port,1 x HDMI 2.1 FRL port,1 x MicroSD card reader (UHS-II),1 x 3.5mm audio combo jack, Wi-Fi7, Bluetooth 5.4;
ASUS describes the system memory as unified quad-channel memory that can be reallocated between system RAM and VRAM; changing that allocation requires a reboot. This is relevant to a system whose graphics are integrated, but memory allocation should not be confused with adding a separate graphics card.
Verdict: a potent compact gaming system, with game-by-game limits
In Zak Killian’s February 18, 2025 review, the Radeon 8060S showed that a compact detachable can handle a meaningful range of PC games, with selected results near mobile RTX 4070 systems. The practical question is whether your games perform well at settings you are willing to use: some ran strongly, others benefited from upscaling or lower resolution, and Black Myth: Wukong was a notable weak result. HotHardware’s measurements date from that review; later game patches and driver versions may change results.
Sources: HotHardware’s gaming review, by Zak Killian (February 18, 2025); ASUS ROG Flow Z13 (2025) product specifications; ASUS media-review listing.
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