Asus ROG is known for expensive, high-performance gaming equipment and their extravagant display of RGB lighting and the Asus ROG Strix G has all of this. The previous generation Scar II came with a catchy RGB bar on the front, the Strix G from this year takes the bar and duplicates in on either side of the laptop extending all around the base. The biggest differentiating factor of the Asus ROG Strix G when compared to the other laptops in this price segment is the inclusion of a 240Hz refresh rate panel.
The Asus ROG Strix G also comes with the Keystone profile technology allowing you to make and move your profile over compatible devices.
Raw Specifications
We generally don’t start a review talking about the specifications, but the Asus ROG Strix G has boast-worthy specifications that can put most gaming laptops to shame. The device is one of the first portable gaming machines to offer a 240Hz display making it a unique selling point for avid gamers.
The Asus ROG Strix G has a lot to offer in terms of RAW specifications, the variant we received had a 15.6-inch FullHD IPS panel with a refresh rate of 240Hz. The processing power on the laptop is provided by the latest 9th generation Intel Core i7-9750H CPU, the graphics processor is the 8GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX2070 GPU. The variant we received came with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD space which is big enough to store a huge library of games.
Design – RGB all the way
The Asus ROG Strix G is surprisingly sleek for the internals that it comes with, the weight of the laptop comes in at a meager 2.39Kg and while it isn’t the lightest laptop in the market, it might be one of the lightest laptops of a given caliber. The laptop is light enough to comfortably carry in the backpack, however, the massive power brick does add significant weight, overall, the package is totally worth the extra weight. The Asus ROG Strix G is surprisingly mostly made of plastic which is one of the main reasons it ended up so light. The laptop doesn’t feel very premium and sturdy given the price point it is being offered at, the design is vivid and has textures across the plastic chassis of the laptop. The abundant RGB is a subjective choice to liking or disliking.
Apart from the individually lit RGB keyboard and the RGB bars on the bottom of the laptop, their logo on the back of the Asus ROG Strix G is also RGB seeking more attention than usual. The RGB Light bar and the keyboard lighting can be easily customized using the bundled Aura Sync software on the laptop. The laptop does come with some cool and unique lighting effects including Laser, Ripple, and Rain.
The display of the Asus ROG Strix G looks beautiful and the slim bezels to the top and sides only add to the appeal, however, it was rather disappointing to know that the webcam was skipped and there is no webcam above the display. We did a little searching around and found that Asus provides an optional clip-on camera, this is due to the fact that a lot of gamers have told Asus that they prefer to have the freedom to place the webcam at a location of their choice rather than adapting to the given fixed location. There is a huge bezel to the bottom of the device with an asymmetric cutaway to the right side.
The connectivity options are many, the left edge of the laptop contains three USB Type-A ports and a headset jack while the rear of the laptop contains the power port, USB Type-C, RJ45 Ethernet port, and an HDMI 2.0 port. The right edge of the laptop hosts only the proprietary Keystone port, this is a memory drive that allows you to transfer ROG profiles and the lighting effects quickly to another laptop.
Display – Best in class
We’ve commonly seen in the past; some excellent Gaming Laptops being ruined because of the subpar displays included. The Asus ROG Strix G luckily comes with an extremely capable display and doesn’t fail to impress. The 15.6-inch IPS panel on the laptop comes with a matte finish and is viewable even under bright lighting. The display has a peak brightness of about 278nits which is honestly a little on the lower side, but the brightness is more than adequate for gaming in most indoor conditions. While the color reproduction was decent on the laptop, the contrast ratio was a little disappointing at 972:1. This is a lot lower than a typical gaming laptop and the gap between dark and light colors isn’t as striking as most good displays.
The color reproduction, on the other hand, is excellent. The Asus ROG Strix G covers 94% of the sRGB gamut with a volume of 99%. This overlaps closely with the color space used by most PC applications and web content, the color accuracy is outstanding with Delta E of 0.94 which is one of the best scores we’ve personally seen on a portable machine. The icing to the cake is the 240Hz refresh rate on the Asus ROG Strix G which promises the smoothest gaming experience.
Performance – The best of all worlds
The Asus ROG Strix G comes with some of the best internals, this is obvious given the price it is being offered at and the display that it needs to power. The CPU is the latest 9th generation Intel Core i7-9750H CPU, and the graphics processor is the 8GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX2070 GPU. The included RAM on our unit was 16GB of Dual-channel DDR4 memory and the storage was provided by a 1TB m.2 NVME SSD.
Asus ROG Strix G did pretty well in the Geekbench 4 test with a multi-core score of 20,478 and a single core score of 4045. These are some of the highest scores we’ve seen on a gaming laptop and it clearly depicts the performance levels bound to expect. However, during the intensive repeated tests, despite the decent cooling on the laptop, we hit temperatures of 95-degrees on most cores. The plastic chassis gets extremely hot and the air being pumped out of the laptop can be used to warm your hands on a cold winter night. While the cooling on the laptop cannot be blamed for the given internals and size, it is rather disappointing to see such powerful components being held back from achieving their full potential due to heat management issues.
A laptop of this caliber sets high expectations, this was the first laptop reviewed by us that came with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 GPU and it is a massive step up in performance when compared to the previous generation chips. The DiRT: Showdown benchmark resulted in a record breaking average of 121fps which is the fastest we’ve seen on a mobile computing device. The GFX Bench GL Car Chase benchmark resulted in even better 222fps average, while there were other laptops delivering better results, their 144Hz refresh rate panels were a major setback anyway.
It is a controversial topic of argument among most gamers about the number of frames the human eye can perceive, however, with the Asus ROG Strix G you can be confident of getting excellent playable frame rates from any game even at the highest settings. While running the Forza 7 game on the laptop we got an average of about 70FPS even at the highest settings. Testing out the SSD performance, the sequential read speeds were about 1485MB/sec and the sequential write speeds were about 241MB/sec. While the read on the SSD is fast enough, the write rates were pretty slow. However, this is fine for a gamer as the games and levels will load as quickly as it can be.
While the Asus ROG Strix G does have a decent battery, the heavy internals drink up the juice rather quick, the Core i7 CPU along with the RTX2070 GPU still resulted in about 2:30 mins of video playback and web browsing. While it does sound very disappointing, most gaming laptops have similar battery life and it is a sacrifice one has to make for the performance. The battery life massively drops with even a little more load on the CPU or GPU and this is evident while playing games.
Keyboard and Trackpad
The Asus ROG Strix G comes with an island-style keyboard which is adequately sized for typing, the key travel is pretty good, and each click feels like a solid one. The space bar is asymmetrical and matches the bottom display bezel which is a thoughtful touch. Beyond the typical shortcut keys, there are the power control toggle and the ROG Armoury Crate key. The power toggle allows you to shift between the Turbo, Balanced and Silent modes which control the CPU, GPU performance and the thermals. There is no physical numeric pad on the Asus ROG Strix G which has now been moved to the trackpad.
The NumPad can be activated by holding the finger on the NumLk sensor to the top right corner of the trackpad for a second, tapping the sensor again will turn off the NumPad. While the NumPad isn’t the most convenient to use overall, it is a smart way of providing a full-sized numeric pad without compromising on the keyboard sizing.
Verdict – Is it overkill?
If you like RGB lighting on your computing device, then the Asus ROG Strix G is one of the best deals in the market. The Asus ROG Strix G is one of the most powerful gaming laptops in the market right now with one of the fastest CPU and GPU. The laptop can handle any given game at the highest settings without breaking a sweat. Reducing the settings to normal can help you enjoy the ultra-smooth 240Hz display that the device comes with. The thermal management on the device is a hit and miss, better thermals would’ve resulted in even better overall performance. While the laptop is pretty expensive, it is one of the best gaming laptops you can buy right now for the money.
