The definition of extravagance asus rog gx700

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We’ve come across over-the-top gaming laptops before – think full-fl edged mechanical keyboards and dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980Ms in SLI – but the ASUS ROG GX700 is quite a different beast altogether. Not only is it the world’s first liquid-cooled gaming notebook, it is also equipped with an overclockable mobile processor, a desktop-class NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, a 512GB RAID 0 SSD setup, and a whopping 64GB of DDR4 RAM.

The liquid-cooling system is housed in a separate cooling dock, which means you get to enjoy both the relative mobility of an undocked notebook, and when you’re ready to get settled for some mad fragging, the extra performance that liquid-cooling will unlock. In addition, you get chilly temperatures and more overclocking headroom for both CPU and GPU, which equates to even more performance.

The 1,920 x 1,080-pixel 75Hz G-Sync display can seem a bit underwhelming in a time of 4K displays on compact ultrabooks, but it may actually be a good thing for a gaming notebook because you can be assured of running even more titles on it. Furthermore, G-Sync synchronizes the display’s refresh rate with the frame rates the card is pushing, so you get an overall smoother gaming experience.

When undocked, the ROG GX700 serves up performance on the level of an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M. In our gaming benchmarks, it matched other tested GeForce GTX 980M-equipped notebooks, and even managed to best them in some areas. It’s safe to say that the notebook is a solid performer even without the added boost from liquid-cooling dock. For instance, it turned out an average of 72.20fps in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor on Ultra at 1080p, so you should have almost no trouble running most modern titles.

Performance rocketed to proper GeForce GTX 980 levels when docked. The same Shadow of Mordor benchmark saw a 23% improvement on Ultra and a 38% boost on High. The liquid-cooling allows the desktop GPU to run at its full specifi cations, effectively removing the speed throttling in place when the notebook is undocked.

But the GPU isn’t solely responsible for the performance boost though. Docking the notebook also automatically overclocks the CPU quite aggressively. The multiplier is increased to 40 for a maximum Turbo speed of 4.0GHz – a huge boost over the default 2.7GHz base frequency.

When it came to monitoring operating temperatures, it was the GPU that registered the largest drop (71°C vs 62°C). On the other hand, the CPU displayed a more modest drop from 91°C to 85°C when moving to the dock. The latter figure is actually still higher than the 80°C we noted on the Intel Core i7-6700K in the ROG G752, but the difference can probably be attributed to the higher overclocked speeds on the GX700.

ASUS has included all the ports and connectors that you would possibly need on this notebook. On the left are two USB 3.0 ports, a microphone jack, a headphone jack and an SD card reader. On the other side, there is another USB 3.0 port, an HDMI port, a mini-DisplayPort, a Thunderbolt 3 port and a separate USB 3.1 Type-C port. There’s even space for a Gigabit Ethernet jack, something serious players of multi-player online games will appreciate.

The backlit keyboard provides a generous 19mm of travel, which makes for a fairly pleasant and tactile typing experience. Five configurable macro keys are located in the top left, so you can bind custom functions to them. There’s even a shortcut key to launch XSplit Gamecaster, an app for recording and streaming your gameplay. Clearly, ASUS is doing everything it can to please even the most demanding of gamers.

We were also impressed by how thin the notebook was. At just 38.5mm thick, it is much thinner than the less powerful ROG G752, which is a hefty 51mm thick. It weighs 3.6kg, almost a kilogram lighter than the 4.4kg ROG G752, so it is also slightly more mobile. Of course, lacklustre battery life is expected of a notebook of this size and class. The GX700 lasted over two hours in our battery life tests, which consisted of a mix of real-world applications and usage scenarios in PCMark Home. The GX700 may be quite easy to cart around for a 17.3-inch laptop, but you’re not going to be able to spend too long away from a power outlet.

With all that said and done, The GX700 is a premium, luxury product through and through. It’s not likely something you’d go out and buy on a whim. Perhaps it’s worth just stepping back and marvel at what ASUS has created

The red connector delivers power while the two flanking pipes pump out the coolant.

There are dedicated Thunderbolt 3and USB 3.1 Type-C ports.

CONCLUSION

A premium notebook with a premium price tag, the ASUS ROG GX700 is for gamers who want the best possible notebook gaming experience.