Asus ROG Strix GA15
One of the best pre-built gaming machines of the year.
PRICE $2,998 ONLINE www.asus.com
The best gaming PCs - and best gaming laptops, to an extent - come in all shapes, sizes, and, of course, configurations. However, this doesn’t mean that cramming the most expensive components inside is key to victory. We’ve seen more carefully considered designs in the last few years, and this has resulted in some great machines that tone down the desire to cram in the latest components and opt for more deliberate combinations (all while offering an easy and straightforward way into PC gaming). The ASUS GA15 does exactly that.
The case is slick black in its aesthetic, and on the whole, and I could almost leave it at that. However, there are some accents to the design which are cool and/or make for good functionality. All over the case, be it the neat frontage or relatively plain majority of the case, there are vents and holes everywhere. These work both aesthetically and functionally, never impacting the design, and also providing plenty of built-in airflow.
Importantly, the ASUS GA15, much like most pre-builts from the big players, comes in a vast array of builds. Using GPUs as a broad-brush barometer of build ‘power’, this can stretch from machines with Nvidia 1650 cards, all the way up to a 2070 Super or an AMD 5700XT. There are fewer processors to choose from but that’s no problem when they all harbor AMD Ryzen excellence. As you can see from the specs box, the build sent in to us blends those worlds of Ryzen processors and Nvidia graphics cards to create a PC at the lower-end of the ray-tracing spectrum, but one that offers a lot of bang for your buck. The 2060 Super card is probably the best value card for ray-tracing now, while the Ryzen 7 processor is an equally excellent component that balances performance, reliability, and durability with an affordable price tag. Supported by that dual storage combo, and 16GB of RAM, this is what I would call a ‘sensible high-end’ build.
At 1080p, this PC can provide blistering experiences - getting close to 60fps in Metro Exodus on its RTX benchmark is an achievement, for sure. This also bodes well for gaming at 1440p if settings are toned down a bit, too. While it might not give you every tiny detail combined with the incredibly high frame rates that a high-end Alienware gaming PC and laptop might offer, you’ll still get just as satisfying and enjoyable a gaming experience on it. The GA15 never struggles to run a AAA or demanding game, and it’ll just go about its business presenting games to you at an enormously enjoyable level of fidelity and smoothness. It all runs quietly too, and I’ve barely ever heard it struggle – or even work hard, really – no matter the task or game. ROB DWIAR