Gaming laptops
Double debut for Ryzen 5000 and GeForce RTX 3070
Even if you have no interest in gaming laptops, the Asus ROG Strix G17 should give you pause for thought. This 2.7kg box, costing less than £2,000, contains almost as much 3D acceleration as a top-end gaming PC of a mere 18 months ago.
Take the £2,600 Yoyotech Warbird X2 ( see issue 294, p52). Featuring an overclocked Core i9-9900K and a GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card, this was the pinnacle of gaming desktops in late 2019 and blitzed through two of our 1080p tests of the time: 202fps in Metro: Last Light, 167fps in Rise of the Tomb Raider.
While this ROG Strix can’t quite match those results it comes within a companionable distance: 182fps in Metro: Last Light (so 20fps behind) and 125fps in Rise of the Tomb Raider
(a more distant 42fps gap). And it beat the Yoyotech PC in 3DMark’s Time Spy test, with an overall score of 10,051 against 9,904. Who said Moore’s Law was dead?
Power within
All of this power is possible due to two technological debuts. The first and most important is i Nvidia’s N idi ’ mobile bil incarnation of its GeForce RTX 3070 graphics. graphi It’s a remarkable improvement ov over the h mobile RTX 2070, 2070 as reflected by the H Hitman 2 graph opposite opposite: its 57fps makes the Razer Blade 15 look slovenly at 36fps. 36fps
There are even more graphs to enjoy on p49, where you can see se how the ROG Strix G17 fares compared to the four other laptops we test this month with an RTX 3070 inside. I also tested three of the laptops with SPECviewperf 2020, and it was notable that the ROG Strix G17 always came out on top: Asus has clearly worked hard to get the most out of Nvidia’s RTX 3070 graphics. Unless there’s a particular game you’re interested in, though, it makes little sense to drown in these numbers. Each of the RTX 3070 laptops will produce smooth play in any game at 1080p.
What is worth checking is whether the game in question supports the d ti f ray tracing (RT) h a key feature of X 3000 Series. ores are almost s fast as the first on, so supported ll show a big k frame rates with switched on. TX 3070 is fast. bl nd this feels odd o argue – too fast. You have to question whether RTX 3060 makes
To get the most out of a gaming graphics card, you need a fast processor. In the ROG Strix’s case, the CPU is AMD’s Ryzen 5800H ( see “AMD Ryzen 5000 Series for mobile: what you need to know” overleaf), and with the ROG Strix’s ample cooling it proved capable of running all eight of its cores at 4GHz under load.
Featuring AMD’s latest Zen 3 architecture, the Ryzen 5800H pushed the ROG Strix G17 to a stellar score in the PC Pro benchmarks.
These tests place a heavy emphasis on video editing and multitasking, and that’s where having eight cores and 16 threads proves a huge advantage over lesser chips.
In fact, there was no area of our benchmarks where the 5800H failed to impress. A multicore result of 11,031 in Cinebench R23 is the fastest we’ve seen in a laptop, while any result above 7,000 in Geekbench 5’s multicore section is cause for celebration (it scored 7,087).
The 5800H proved equally strong in single-core benchmarks. Its best performance was in the image-editing test within the PC Pro benchmarks, where it scored 196 to the 179 of the Intel-powered Gigabyte Aero 17 ( see p53), but I expect Intel to retake the lead for single-core tasks when it eventually updates its highperformance “H” Core processors with 11th-generation technologies.
If all this is making you ponder the age-old question of desktop PC or laptop, desktops still have the cards stacked in their favour. For instance, upgrade that Yoyotech Warbird to a GeForce RTX 3070 card and its scores will rocket: expect
80fps in Hitman 2, over 300fps in Metro: Last Light and around
13,500 in 3DMark.
Complete package
The reason I have such confidence in those scores is that they’re what the PC Specialist Fusion X ( see issue 317, p91) returned two months ago. This £1,499 PC paired a Ryzen 5800X with a GeForce RTX 3070, and while its benchmark results are a joy to the eyes, the sound its six fans produce at full pelt aren’t a joy to the ears. Even when idling, there’s a constant hum from the watercooler.
Compare that to the ROG Strix
G17, which is silent in general use. Using Asus’ intuitive Armoury Crate software, you can tweak the balance between noise and speed as you see fit – there are four presets, as well as a manual setting if you want to dig into the detail. When plugged in, there’s even a Turbo setting to give an extra boost – to switch it on, simply click the dedicated fan button above the keyboard.
If such fine control brings joy to your heart, just wait until you dive into Asus’ Aura Creator app. Here you can take full control of the colours of your keys, including whether they’re static, pulsing, strobing and beyond. You can do the same for the six LED strip lights on the laptop’s base too.
High end
“Featuring the latest Zen 3 architecture, the Ryzen 5800H pushed the Asus ROG Strix G17 to a stellar score in our benchmarks”
All this RGB excitement reflects the ROG Strix’s status: amidst Asus’ many gaming laptops, the Strix series is top dog. What you can’t expect is the slimmest or lightest machines – within Asus’ gaming laptops, that honour goes to the Zephyrus range – with the Strix G17 a mighty 2.7kg and over an inch thick at 27.5mm.
This weight doesn’t mean an all-metal chassis. In fact, Asus has chosen plastic for the palmrest as it stays “cooler to the touch for more comfortable marathon gaming sessions”, and while this means you see the palmrest bend downwards when you place force on it, the Strix’s overall construction is solid. Wisely, Asus protects the wide expanse of screen with an aluminium alloy lid.
If you take the Strix on your travels then you’ll also need to carry the chunky, 760g power supply. This isn’t because of poor battery life – it lasted 9hrs 58mins in our video-rundown test, which is excellent for such a big gaming laptop – but because for peak performance this laptop must be plugged in. Besides, battery life will drop faster than your health bar once you start pushing the CPU and GPU to the maximum.
Big screen
The other big power draw comes from the 17in screen. Safe to say it’s geared for gaming: a 300Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time are as good as you’ll get in a gaming laptop. The Strix G17’s panel returned a fine contrast ratio of 1,286:1 too, and with a peak brightness of 342cd/m2 you won’t have any trouble spotting lurkers in dark corners.
It’s also colour accurate. If you stick within the sRGB gamut then it’s effectively perfect, with a maximum Delta E of under one (0.74 to be exact) while covering 100% of the sRGB space. What you don’t get is the wide gamut coverage of the Gigabyte Aero systems we test this month: the Strix G17 covers 73% of Adobe RGB and 76% of DCI-P3, compared to 100% and 89% for the Aero 17 ( see p53).
The other factor to note is the Strix’s Full HD resolution. While 1,920 x 1,080 makes sense for esports competitors, if your work-gaming balance is anything more than 50% in favour of work then you should consider a higher resolution offering. Not necessarily 4K, which feels overkill even for 17in panels, but 1440p gives you twice the pixel density and makes it more pleasant to view windows side by side.
Wide keyboard
Asus uses the expanse of space provided by a 395mm-wide chassis to include a number pad beside the keyboard, but it cleverly narrows those keys slightly. This almost removes the skew-whiff feel that some people complain about when their hands are tapping away off-centre; the keys are still further to the left than normal, but I didn’t even notice this until I came to write this paragraph.
What I did notice was the crisp, positive action of the keys; they aren’t mechanical, but they feel like they could be. Asus has gamers in mind with the key layout too. Note how the function keys are split into three groups to make each shortcut easier to find, while the cursor keys are separated out. And while gamers will surely invest in a high-dpi wired mouse, the large, glass-coated touchpad is as good as such technology gets. My only criticism is that its clicks are louder than might be appreciated if you’re in a quiet working environment.
Asus expects you to connect the bulk of your peripherals to the rear-mounted ports, with one USB-A 3.1, one USB-C 3.2 (with support for Power Delivery and video output), one full-size HDMI output (up to 4K at 60Hz) and a Gigabit Ethernet port.
This is where the power input goes too, meaning it could
quickly get crowded. The right-hand side is free of connectors, but Asus concedes the battle on the left with a further two USB-A 3.1 ports and a 3.5mm combo jack.
Asus doesn’t include a webcam or a fingerprint reader, but you do get a cracking pair of speakers with all the bass you would hope for from such a large unit. Nor does it lack subtlety: each strum of a guitar string emerges clearly, while vocals are full-bodied. There aren’t many laptops that can do justice to a tricky Björk album, but the ROG Strix G17 is one of them.
I’m less enamoured by the built-in mic. Due, I suspect, to the “AI” Asus employs to get rid of background noise, my voice sounded like I’d been thrust into a cave.
“Focus “on all the things the Strix S G17 does so brilliantly: it’s fast, the keyboard is excellent and it’s built like a
Battlefield V tank”
Final count
Fortunately, the mic glitch should be solvable via a software update, so it shouldn’t be a big factor in a buying decision. Instead, focus on all the things this laptop does so brilliantly: it’s fast in every area, the keyboard is excellent and it’s built like a Battlefield V tank.
Your biggest decision concerns the combination of 17.3in with a 1080p screen. I would be inclined to hold out for a version of the Strix G17 with a 1440p screen, even if you have to sacrifice the refresh rate.
The downside, other than waiting, is that it’s likely to cost more. For there’s no denying the value on offer here; just to hammer this home, note the 1TB SSD.
What’s certain is that the combination of Ryzen 5000 series mobile processors and GeForce RTX 3000 graphics is a potent one. Combine all that firepower with the Strix G17’s competitive price and this is one gaming laptop that won’t disappoint. 8-core 3.2GHz (4.4GHz 4.4GHz boost) AMD Ryzen 7 5800H 800 processor or Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 graphics hi 16GB B DDR4-3200 RAM 17.3in non-touch IPS display, 300Hz, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5 USB-C SB-C 3.2 3 x USB-A 3. 1
HDMI DMI 2.0b Gigabit Ethernet 3.5mm .5mm combo jack 90Wh battery attery Windows 10 Home 395 95 x 282 x 27.5mm (WDH) 2.7kg .7kg 1yr C&R warranty