Asus ROG Strix G16 overview: Fierce the place it counts

The Asus ROG Strix G16 (G614) is a strong gaming laptop computer getting into the mid-to-high vary of the market, because it’s capped at an RTX 5070 Ti. It might not have essentially the most elegant construct, combining principally plastics with an aluminum lid, and its IPS show isn’t fairly as jaw-dropping as OLED rivals, however the Asus ROG Strix G16 places up highly effective efficiency for the cash, proving itself a worthy rival to the Lenovo Legion Professional 7i 16 Gen 10, even when it will probably’t fairly dethrone that beast. With a beginning value of $1,599 and choices as much as $2,499, there’s a great little bit of room to configure a system that fits your wants with out going overboard. However as examined right here on the top of the vary, it’s one heck of a performer.

Asus ROG Strix G16: Specs and options

• Mannequin quantity: G614
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D
• Reminiscence: 32GB DDR5-5600
• Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti 12GB VRAM, (140-Watt TGP)
• Show: 16-inch, 2560×1600 IPS, 240Hz, 500 nits, one hundred pc DCI-P3, G-Sync, Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR
• Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD
• Webcam: 1080p + IR 
• Connectivity: 2x USB4 (1x 100W PD assist), 2x USB-A 10Gbps, 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL, 1x GbE, 1x 3.5mm combo audio
• Networking: WiFi 6E 2×2, Bluetooth 5.4
• Biometrics: Home windows Howdy facial recognition
• Battery capability: 90 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 13.94 x 10.39 x 1.2 inches
• Weight: 5.22 kilos
• MSRP: $2,499 as-tested ($1,599 base)

The Asus ROG Strix G16 is available in a number of configurations. Just a few come from Asus immediately whereas some are unique to Walmart and Finest Purchase and have totally different shows from Asus’s direct choices. All of them are constructed round AMD CPUs and RTX 50-series GPUs. Help for Wi-Fi 6E, twin SSD slots, 1TB of included PCIe Gen 4 storage, 90Wh batteries, and 280W chargers are all frequent amongst them. 

The bottom mannequin is a Walmart-exclusive, begins at $1,599, and contains an AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX CPU with 16GB of reminiscence, and an RTX 5060 GPU. The show here’s a 1200p IPS panel with a 165Hz refresh fee, 300 nits of brightness, and one hundred pc sRGB shade gamut. Finest Purchase has two extra fashions utilizing the identical show. These each include an earlier AMD Ryzen 9 8940HX CPU. A $1,699 mannequin contains an RTX 5070 and a $1,999 mannequin bumps to an RTX 5070 Ti. 

The remainder of the configurations come immediately from Asus and bump as much as a 1600p, 240Hz panel with a 500-nit brightness stage, G-Sync, one hundred pc DCI-P3 protection, and Dolby Imaginative and prescient assist. Additionally they get 32GB of reminiscence. The primary of those fashions is $2,199 and contains an RTX 5070. For $2,399, the GPU will get an extra improve to an RTX 5070 Ti, however all else stays the identical. Lastly, at $2,499, we attain the configuration examined right here. This bumps up CPU, swapping to an AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D.

These diversified configuration and retailer choices present an fascinating combine that ought to permit avid gamers to pick their priorities. Walmart presents the most affordable entry level, whereas Finest Purchase’s choices favor worth on the GPU facet, letting you land an RTX 5070 Ti for $400 lower than Asus’s configuration. In the meantime Asus’s configurations provide a higher-grade show for individuals who plan to do a whole lot of gaming immediately on the laptop computer. 

Asus ROG Strix G16: Design and construct high quality

The Asus ROG Strix G16 isn’t delicate about being a gaming laptop computer. From its textured and striped exhaust tail, the big grilles on each the perimeters and again, varied branding on nearly each floor, a very over-engineered base plate (finished as much as look a bit like a motherboard with a CPU socket), and all of the RGB lighting, it nearly shouts “gamer.” The RGB even extends a bit past the everyday keyboard backlight. A lightstrip stretches throughout the entrance fringe of the laptop computer to forged a colourful glow in entrance of the Asus ROG Strix G16.

The system is cumbersome, measuring over an inch thick, however it’s virtually surprisingly gentle for its dimension. It weighs 5.22 kilos, which nonetheless isn’t gentle however is type of gentle for a 16-inch gaming laptop computer. A whole lot of that weight and dimension is coming from the cooling system. The Asus ROG Strix G16 has air flow wrapping across the again half of the bottom, utterly spanning the rear and overlaying a portion of every facet. There are even two little vents on a bit of hinge shelf above the keyboard. Asus makes use of a triple-fan association to chill the internals, although certainly one of these is sort of small. With such extensive air flow, the system doesn’t must go shrill throughout heavy gaming. It produces a lightweight breeze sound that’s not disagreeable to listen to even at an arm’s size

With all that’s packed in, the Asus ROG Strix G16 finally ends up sturdy, with little flex to the bottom although it’s all made out of ABS and polycarbonate. Solely the show lid will get a contact of the premium with an aluminum cowl. The ABS plastic on the underside of the system feels tough and a bit of low-cost, however nonetheless powerful. There’s simply sufficient flex from the show that it bends a bit of when opening or closing it with a hand on the nook, however a bit of lip on the prime gives a extra balanced level for opening and shutting. 

The Asus ROG Strix G16 comes with a beefy 280-watt energy brick for charging, and it provides virtually one other 1.5 kilos to the package deal. On the intense facet, 100-Watt USB-C charging can be supported if you wish to use a smaller charger on the go. 

Asus ROG Strix G16: Keyboard, trackpad

IDG / Mark Knapp

Bodily, the keyboard is a pleasure to kind on. It has a satisfying, gentle backside out that makes for comfortable typing. I used to be comfortably in a position to kind at over 110 phrases per minute with out feeling like I used to be dashing in Monkeytype, and managed a good diploma of accuracy. 

It has a few downsides, although. Asus prioritized full-sized arrow keys, and it shrank the fitting shift key significantly within the course of. I discover myself recurrently hitting the up arrow once I imply to hit shift, and as an alternative of getting a capital letter, I begin messing up an entire paragraph. As useful because the RGB keyboard lighting is for seeing key legends at midnight, the marginally darkish key legends when backlighting is off could make it a bit of arduous to see the keyboard even in a properly lit room. 

As soon as in the midst of my testing, in the midst of utilizing it, the keyboard immediately stopped working completely. The trackpad nonetheless labored, however neither keys nor keyboard shortcuts labored. After plugging the system in and letting it restart, the keyboard resumed correct functioning, however it was an odd and upsetting expertise nonetheless. I’ve by no means recognized a pc to not have the odd hiccup at times, although, and as this wasn’t a recurring subject, I didn’t elevate an excessive amount of concern. 

For gaming, the keyboard deck will get a bit of heat, however the palm space doesn’t, and the WASD keys are snug to relaxation on. Solely the realm across the quantity row and above heats up, as that’s the place many of the heatsink sits.

The Asus ROG Strix G16’s trackpad in all fairness spacious, pleasingly {smooth}, and presents a satisfying, gentle bodily click on. t might be wider, however after experiencing frequent palm rejection points on the Razer Blade 16’s ultra-wide trackpad, I’m not mad at Asus for holding it modest. 

The trackpad has a particular perform seen on a variety of different Asus laptops. With a long-press  close to one nook, it will probably flip right into a quantity pad with illuminated characters and math perform keys. It’s an fascinating characteristic to have, however the great thing about a quantity pad is how muscle reminiscence permits for contact typing, and this setup doesn’t actually facilitate that fairly as properly. 

Asus ROG Strix G16: Show, audio

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Asus ROG Strix G16’s show is nice total. It has so much going for it. For one, it delivered 480 nits of brightness in my testing, and that mixes with a powerful anti-glare coating that makes it straightforward to see in virtually any circumstances. The 2560×1600 decision is respectably sharp, and it runs at a super-smooth 240Hz with solely minor ghosting. It’s additionally splendidly colourful, absolutely overlaying the DCI-P3 shade area. Shade accuracy wasn’t on level, although. The show additionally reveals some annoying dimming conduct, slowing ramping the brightness up or down relying on the display screen content material. It doesn’t present up a lot whereas gaming or watching films, however whereas shopping the online, the place the brightness of content material can change immediately, it turns into distracting.

The 2 down-firing audio system present respectable, clear audio for voices, making for a great way to hearken to educational/instructional movies or have voice calls. They pump out loads of quantity, however it’s a bit harsh at max quantity. Dialed again, the audio system nonetheless present ample quantity and first rate fullness with out the identical harshness. There’s even a little bit of bass. Asus suggests they’re able to Dolby Atmos audio and might play into digital 5.1.2-channel encompass sound, however that’s extraordinarily beneficiant for audio system that hardly handle fundamental stereo.

Asus ROG Strix G16: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

The webcam on the Asus ROG Strix G16 is first rate. It may get a bit of grainy in dimmer environments, however it does a powerful job with publicity. It manages to get many of the image clear with out overexposing. It’s not a grasp although, in extra-dim rooms with one sturdy gentle, it will probably run into overexposure in its effort to get the remainder of the image lit up, however even then it appears to be like acceptable. 

The microphones are strong. They decide up my voice loud and clear with out an excessive amount of room echo. Additionally they do a great job reducing down on background noise. Even with a field fan operating in a window close by and development outdoors, my voice remained clear with out awkward compression or clipped phrases, and the fan itself was inaudible whereas the development was lowered to delicate clinking. 

Sadly, you’ll be counting on a password, PIN, or safety key to log onto the Asus ROG Strix G16. It doesn’t characteristic any facial or fingerprint recognition know-how. 

Asus ROG Strix G16: Connectivity

IDG / Mark Knapp

Like most huge gaming laptops, the Asus ROG Strix G16 gives a great smattering of ports. You’ll discover two USB4 Kind-C ports on the left facet, and a type of helps 100W energy supply for charging with out the G16’s beefy energy brick (although don’t anticipate full efficiency whereas plugged on this method). There’s additionally a 3.5mm headset jack, HDMI 2.1 port, and Gigabit Ethernet port over there together with the primary DC barrel jack. The precise facet of the laptop computer contains two USB-A 10Gbps ports. An additional USB-A port or SD/microSD card slot would have been good to see. Sadly, Asus’s cooling design takes up your complete rear of the laptops and half of every facet, so all the ports are lined up alongside the entrance half of both facet. I discover this awkward when  plugging in a number of gadgets, particularly in case you plan to sport that method, as you’ll have USB dongles/cables protruding proper the place you’d probably need a mouse. 

Wi-fi connections have been reliable. The system helps Wi-Fi 6E, letting you get a fast and secure connection and even step as much as the 6GHz band for further throughput. Examined on a standard Wi-Fi 6 community with fiber web, the Asus ROG Strix G16 made the many of the speeds. 

Asus ROG Strix G16: Efficiency

The Asus ROG Strix G16 is not any slouch. In fact it couldn’t be for the value it calls for, however it’s making its parts work for it. We haven’t examined a whole lot of techniques not too long ago which have intently matching parts, however prior technology heavyweights just like the Gigabyte Aorus 16X, Alienware m16 R2, and Alienware x16 R2 present what sort of efficiency positive aspects this newest technology of {hardware} can ship. And the RTX 5080-equipped Lenovo Legion Professional 7i Gen 10 presents a take a look at how the Asus ROG Strix G16 stacks as much as a laptop computer within the subsequent tier up. Whereas that Lenovo Legion Professional 7i Gen 10 was $3,599 as examined, there’s an RTX 5070 Ti configuration that goes for $2,849, making it extra aggressive with the Strix G16. 

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Asus ROG Strix G16 instantly proves its competency in on a regular basis duties with a excessive rating in PCMark 10, a holistic check that duties the system with launching apps, net shopping, making spreadsheets, enhancing images and video, and rendering 3D graphics. With a quick processor, GPU, and storage, the Asus ROG Strix G16 performs exceptionally, beating out all three 2024 techniques and practically maintaining with the pricier Lenovo Legion. 

IDG / Mark Knapp

A whole lot of that efficiency might be chalked as much as the CPU. The AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D in here’s a veritable beast. It manages to finish our handbrake encoding job in 9 minutes, stepping up significantly from even heavy hitters just like the Intel Core Extremely 9 185H. It couldn’t fairly match the Lenovo Legion Professional 7i Gen 10’s Intel Core Extremely 9 275HX, however the AMD CPU additionally has 8 fewer CPU cores, so the very fact it comes as shut because it does continues to be spectacular.

IDG / Mark Knapp

Unsurprisingly, we see comparable efficiency in Cinebench, with the Asus ROG Strix G16 barely tailing the Lenovo Legion as each put up merely glorious efficiency numbers. And it’s not simply multi-core efficiency. The Asus ROG Strix G16’s CPU has glorious single-core efficiency as properly, once more beating all the different techniques besides the Lenovo Legion, which it narrowly trails. Since all 16 cores on this AMD CPU are efficiency cores and so they show so succesful, it’s comprehensible how the AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D is coming near the Intel Core Extremely 9 275HX (which presents an 8P+16E association) regardless of having significantly fewer cores total.

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Asus ROG Strix G16 additionally places up glorious gaming efficiency. In 3DMark’s demanding Port Royal check, which employs a whole lot of ray-traced results, the Asus ROG Strix G16 exhibits how a lot the RTX 5070 Ti steps up from the RTX 4070, even coming near the RTX 4080’s efficiency. The RTX 5080 within the Lenovo Legion nonetheless distances itself on this check, although. The cooling within the Asus ROG Strix G16 additionally helps it keep its efficiency. In 3DMark’s Metal Nomad Stress Check, which runs the benchmark sequence 20 occasions in a row, the Asus ROG Strix G16 maintained 97.7 p.c constant outcomes. 

IDG / Mark Knapp

The outcomes we noticed in Port Royal line up intently with the Asus ROG Strix G16’s efficiency in Metro Exodus. The Asus ROG Strix G16 is able to operating the sport easily even in its Excessive settings preset, once more outpacing the weaker two techniques, virtually maintaining with the RTX 4080-equipped Alienware x16 R2, however nonetheless lagging behind the RTX 5080-equipped Legion. 

IDG / Mark Knapp

Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s benchmark exhibits that the GPU was the obstacle for the Port Royal and Metro Exodus exams. This sport is much less demanding on the GPU, significantly because it doesn’t depend on ray tracing. And on this case, the CPU will get to assist out extra, letting the Asus ROG Strix G16 rocket forward of the Alienware x16 R2 and are available a lot nearer to the Lenovo Legion than within the different exams. 

That CPU efficiency can let the Asus ROG Strix G16 get in near the RTX 5080-equipped Lenovo Legion in different circumstances as properly. Operating Cyberpunk 2077 with the Extremely preset (no ray tracing) at 1080p, the Asus ROG Strix G16 pulls of 137 FPS common to the Legion’s 151 FPS. That truly lets the Asus ROG Strix G16 beat the RTX 5090-equipped Razer Blade 16 resulting from that system being CPU-bound in that check. 

Bumping as much as 1440p or the monitor’s native 1600p sees extra load shift to the GPU, and in these circumstances the Asus ROG Strix G16 falls again a bit farther from the likes of the Lenovo Legion and Razer Blade 16. It nonetheless performs properly, however you’ll need to stick to 1080p/1200p in case you plan to benefit from the built-in monitor’s 240Hz refresh fee. 

Asus ROG Strix G16: Battery life

Gaming laptops are getting higher at operating on battery energy, however they’re usually nonetheless not nice. The Asus ROG Strix G16 fell just some minutes shy of a six hour runtime in our native 4K video playback check, and that’s with the dGPU disabled, all keyboard lighting off, Airplane mode, and the display screen set between 250 and 260 nits (and self-limited to 60Hz). Actual-world use takes that even decrease, with the laptop computer usually giving me 3-4 hours of on a regular basis use. It’s nonetheless aggressive for many gaming laptops, although the Razer Blade 16 not too long ago impressed with over 10 hours in our testing.  

The Asus ROG Strix G16 even tries to assist preserve energy. The system will pop-up a notification if an app is holding the dGPU lively whereas on battery energy — helpful! However that notification will take you to Armoury Crate, and from there, the “Cease all” button for ending these duties that had been utilizing the dGPU doesn’t all the time do its job. Additionally, the system isn’t arrange ideally for battery life. Nvidia Optimus was not enabled by default, and the “Optimized” setting in Armoury Crate was not lively. It’s nonetheless doable for the “Customary” mode to show off the dGPU on battery energy, however there’s no assure it’s going to, in contrast to the Optimized mode. 

Asus ROG Strix G16: Conclusion

The Asus ROG Strix G16 is successful. It presents glorious efficiency, particularly as configured, with its CPU serving to profit from the RTX 5070 Ti inside. This sensible stability avoids CPU-bound situations at 1080p, giving it a leg up on loads of its competitors. The efficiency combines with an total good package deal that advantages from a sturdy design, high quality show, respectable audio system, and passable connectivity. It’s a worthy rival to the Lenovo Legion 7i Professional 16 Gen 10. It’s a bit thicker, however lighter than Lenovo’s system, and it comes at a small low cost for a comparable configuration from Lenovo.