ASUS - ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition 15.6" FHD Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 9-5900HX - 16GB Memory - Radeon RX 6800M - 512GB SSD

Overall Impression: Keyboard had a great layout and respectable amount of travel. I liked it far more than the mechanical variant found in the STRIX Scar 15. My display was ~319 nits bright at the center, measured with my Wacom display calibrator. 300Hz was buttery smooth and automatically switches to 60Hz to save battery, which is a neat trick and convenient. Battery life was fantastic, easily getting 7-8 hours with 'real' work (i.e. emails, Slack, Excel, with YouTube in the background for music) at 75% brightness. Performance was nearly identical to the numbers that JarrodsTech found after his RAM swap, which I also did (I had a 64GB OLOY kit with better secondary subtimings that I used for testing). I was absolutely floored at the scores I was seeing. Expect to perform better than a 3070 in most titles, and even a 3080 in others, particularly so with an external display attached (DLSS/RTX aside) Disassembly was straightforward and only required a Phillips screwdriver and small pry-tool to disengage the various clips that hold the bottom panel to the chassis. CPU temperatures were pretty awful in any dual-load, even with max fans manually enabled. CPU was regularly in the low to mid-90s even in menu screens or practice lobbies (e.g. Apex Legends firing range). GPU temperatures were acceptable, usually around 65-75C. This persisted even in GPU-bound scenarios, where the CPU was only pulling 20-25W. The liquid-metal application was horrendous and outright dangerous to machine longevity, particularly on the GPU-side. ASUS used far too much Conductonaut and was practically spilling over their proprietary barrier. Some of the GPU traces were left bare as well. I decided to remove much of the liquid metal and reapply myself, since both the CPU and GPU looked pretty bad. Unfortunately, load temperatures remained largely unchanged, which was disappointing. I experimented further and removed the liquid metal entirely and replaced it with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. This dropped CPU temperatures by 5C and GPU temperatures by 8C in the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Highest preset). This would indicate that the vapor chamber/heatsink combo has poor mounting pressure which is basically required while using liquid-metal, given its viscosity (or lack thereof). Finally, my friend decided to run tests without the bottom panel on, which seems to be quite restrictive to airflow for the intake fans. It was. Load temperatures dropped nearly 10C across the board between runs, bringing the CPU to 73-75C and peaking at 81C rather than the 90's. TL;DR: The STRIX G15 Advantage Edition is a fantastic value and is quite capable after a RAM swap despite its poor thermal performance. Though, for a laptop that's employing liquid metal, has a huge vapor chamber, and is about 1" thick, it is thermally-disappointing. The fact that standard aftermarket thermal paste aided in load temperatures is something that needs to be researched, as well as the impact on removing the bottom panel.

This gaming laptop is a sleeping beast! In good hands, this beast can wake up and smash all competitors. Let me be clear with you - I have read all reviews and FAQ's on every possible sites. I truly believe that my review will help you decide to buy this model! All links, recommendation or references for other products are my honest opinion (it is not promotion or advertisement) and serving for purely informative purposes only. //OVERALL I have bought this laptop in July 2021 and picked up at the beginning of August 2021, so all information is valid on that date. I am pretty sure if you're going to buy the same model, my review will be useful for you. But, please, double check everything before buying! //PACKAGING Pretty massive package including 1) laptop itself, 2) charger, 3) paperwork, 4) two replaceable bumpers for customization. It does NOT include any USB cables, mouse, keyboard, external camera, bag or anything else. //LOOK It looks amazing. Also, I wouldn't say that it is super heavy. I can easily hold it in one hand. Sure, it looks thick but when I tried to put it in my bag for 15" laptops when I hold my MacBook 15", it fitted pretty good. So, please, don't be afraid of the size of this laptop. The other thing is charger. This thing is MASSIVE. If you ever see MacBook laptop charger, charger for this laptop is twice bigger and heavier. So If you think to carry this laptop in your backpack - be ready for a workout. //OS Despite ASUS website, this laptop comes with Windows 10 HOME EDITION (NOT PRO). You can upgrade to Pro version for extra cost, though. //CPU and CHIPSET Based on CPU-Z app, here are CPU and CHIPSET specs: Number of cores 8 (max 8) Number of threads 16 (max 16) Manufacturer AuthenticAMD Name AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX Codename Cezanne Specification AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics Package Socket FP6 CPUID F.0.0 Extended CPUID 19.50 Core Stepping CZN-A0 Technology 7 nm TDP Limit 45.0 Watts Core Speed 3243.4 MHz Multiplier x Bus Speed 32.5 x 99.8 MHz Base frequency (cores) 99.8 MHz Base frequency (ext.) 99.8 MHz Northbridge AMD Ryzen SOC rev. 00 Southbridge AMD Carrizo FCH rev. 51 //GPU This laptop has two GPU - Dedicated and Integrated. Here are specs of INTEGRATED GPU: Name AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics Board Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Cores 512 ROP Units 8 Memory size 512 MB Here are specs of DEDICATED GPU: Name AMD Radeon RX 6800M Board Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Codename Navi 22 Cores 2560 ROP Units 32 Technology 7 nm Memory type GDDR6 Memory size 12272 MB Driver version 27.20.15002.9006 WDDM Model 2.7 // MUX switch MUX is a technology, simply means that laptop can switch between Integrated and Dedicated GPU's. It DOES NOT mean that Dedicated GPU is disabled or something like that. In this particular laptop video signal can be displayed in two ways: 1) When using laptop screen. In this case, video signal after Dedicated GPU goes through Integrated GPU. Because Integrated GPU is slower than dedicated one, it cost you 10-15% FPS in the game. 2) When using Display port. In this case, video signal from a Dedicated GPU (AMD Radeon RX 6800M) goes directly to the display. That means, that using the external monitor, you will see 10-15% more FPS than playing on your laptop screen. I would recommend reading the official ASUS answer about this case. It is published here: https://twitter.com/JarrodsTech/status/1403162485390077954 //RAM Here are stock RAM specs: Manufacturer: Micron Amazon link - https://www.amazon.com/Micron-MTA8ATF1G64HZ-3G2J1/dp/B084GQRGMW Brand name - Micron MTA8ATF1G64HZ-3G2J1 FULL SPECS: Memory Type DDR4 Memory Size 18 GBytes (2X8 Gb). Channels Dual Memory Frequency 1596.8 MHz (1:16) CAS# latency (CL) 22.0 RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 22 RAS# Precharge (tRP) 22 Cycle Time (tRAS) 52 Bank Cycle Time (tRC) 74 Command Rate (CR) 1T Uncore Frequency 1596.8 MHz Speaking of upgrading RAM you can find many question about slow memory in this laptop. First, I would say that is not exactly right. Here is ASUS statement about it: "The ROG Strix G Advantage Edition uses the fastest 8GB memory sticks available, and performs extremely well, especially considering its aggressive price point of 1649 USD in the USA. DRAM chipmakers have shifted production, and as a result, the only 8GB memory sticks available today and going forward will be single rank x16. This is a PC industry-level transition and not limited to any one model or brand. Older memory sticks can perform 5-10% better depending on the chips used and their configuration (x8). The performance difference depends on the game and graphics settings, but is generally smaller for newer titles that use more efficient memory management mechanisms. The memory in the StrixG Advantage Edition is fully upgradeable, so anyone interested in getting the most out of their ROG StrixG Advantage Edition and has access to an older 8+8GB memory kit or a 16+16GB memory kit can get a couple of extra FPS by swapping their memory". Here is a link where you can read it: https://twitter.com/JarrodsTech/status/1403162485390077954 I would like to say that I use this laptop for resource intensive tasks, including game streaming. So I decided to upgrade my RAM. I think that the best product overall is Crucial 32GB Kit (16GBx2) DDR4 3200 MT/s (PC4-25600) CL22 DR x8 Unbuffered SODIMM 260-Pin Memory - CT2K16G4SFD832A. And that is the product I bought for myself. Here is my new RAM specs: Manufacturer: Crutial Memory Type DDR4 Memory Size 32 GBytes Channels Dual Memory Frequency 1596.8 MHz (1:16) CAS# latency (CL) 22.0 RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 22 RAS# Precharge (tRP) 22 Cycle Time (tRAS) 52 Bank Cycle Time (tRC) 74 Command Rate (CR) 1T Uncore Frequency 1596.8 MHz As you can see, all parameters are identical (despite capacity of cause). So as I told you before I wouldn't say, that stock memory is bad or slow. Also, I wouldn't upgrade the RAM if I need this laptop only for gaming (without streaming). I think that stock memory is more than enough for this kind of purposes. IMPORTANT: Based on information from ASUS official website and from my SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2021 - the maximum RAM you can install in this laptop is 32Gb. I have read about technical possibility to install 64Gb but I can't either deny or confirm this information, not to mention I haven't seen any 64Gb RAM tests in this laptop. Overall, if you need so, I would stick with 32Gb which is more than enough basically for every possible task. //STORAGE Here are SSD specs (I did NOT upgrade SSD, so if you buy this laptop this one is what you get): INTEL SSDPEKNU512GZ Type Fixed, SSD Bus Type NVMe (17) Capacity 512 GB Controller NVM Express (NVMe) Controller at bus 6, device 0, function 0 Link Speed PCI-E 4x @ 8.0 GT/s\ Link for product (oficcial INTEL website): https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/204107/intel-ssd-670p-series-512gb-m-2-80mm-pcie-3-0-x4-3d4-qlc/specifications.html My honest opinion, this SSD is very good and more than enough, speaking of speed. I ran some tests using CrystalDiskMark 8. In all tests, reading speed was about 3500 Mb/s and writing speed was about 1600 Mb/s. If you don't want to expand the storage capacity and 512 GB is enough for your needs, then I wouldn't recommend upgrading SSD. If you want to upgrade this SSD, be advised of the following FACTS: 1) This laptop DOES NOT support GEN. 4 of NVMe (based on the information from SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2021 and ASUS website). That means that though you can physically install GEN. 4 of NVMe in this laptop (because it is universal M.2 port) you WILL NOT get full speed from your GEN. 4 SSD. Instead of increasing SSD speed, I would consider thinking about increasing the total capacity. 2) This laptop has two M.2 slots. One is occupied with stock SSD. Second one is empty. 3) There is no hardware limitation of SSD you can plug-in. Despite ASUS website which claimed that you can upgrade SSD up to 1 Tb - you can buy as big SSD as you want. The problem here is the modern market of SSD's. As far as I know, the biggest M.2 SSD right now is Rocket Q 8TB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD Solid State Drive (SB-RKTQ-8TB). It cost about $2000. If you want to upgrade SSD, I think that the best option right now is Crucial P5 2TB PCIe M.2 2280SS SSD (2TB M.2 SSD • PCIe NVMe Gen 3 • 3400 MB/s Read, 3000 MB/s Write). It is faster and bigger and relatively chip. If one day I decided to upgrade my SSD, I would definitely think about this option. //MISCELLANEOUS It looks amazing! First the RGB light is magnificent! Feature: if you put the laptop in sleeping mode, RGB light will be flashing red color and it looks like heartbeat of sleeping beast! I would recommend buying a keyboard cover to protect the laptop from liquid and coffee leaks. Also, it will protect the keyboard buttons from abrasion. Also, I would recommend buying a cooling pad. It will reduce inner temperature of CPU and GPU for couple degrees and protect your arms from heat (if you will hold your arms close to ventilation holes - it could burn). Both of these products I bought for myself. //CONCLUSION There are no doubts that this laptop is the best gaming laptop (speaking of comparison of the price/quality and price/power) you can buy right now. I can't recommend it enough!!! I haven't experienced any problem with the quality of manufacturing, random rebooting, with display or something else. You can easily upgrade this laptop following detailed guides by ASUS itself. If you think about buying it - JUST DO IT! P.S. I physically posses this laptop and if you want me to run any tests or answer any question - please leave a comment to my review. I am happy to help you!

Great Laptop! When reading reviews, Isaw that the liquid metal heat sync tends to cause a lot of issues. I replaced it with my own heat sync compound. Haven't had any issues with the laptop. Battery life is surprisingly good for a gaming laptop. I usually get about an hour and a half to 2 hours while on battery if not using it super heavily. The laptop can play any games I've thrown at it. Overall, a great laptop. Highly revommended!

The all AMD gaming systems are great when it comes to gaming. Especially in a laptop where the TDP is limited. The 6800M performs just as good as a 3080 in some titles, but average performance is like a 3070Ti from most titles I play (1080p). Very happy with how it games and the cooling is amazing. This is where the money is well spent. Asus knows how to cool their products with the 3 fan system . Battery is kinda mid, but I don’t care too much as I use this as a “docked” travel laptop used when it’s plugged in. Like a desktop setup when I can’t be at home. The only cons about this laptop is the glossy lid and keyboard area is very susceptible to fingerprints and no camera. If you want a strictly gaming laptop this one is amazing. Especially if it’s on sale

Hey just made this for benchmarks I recorded. I got this open box for $1,401 and was completely unused with all original wrap on it. Some notes to get the best performance turn on max fan settings in "manual mode", connect a ONLY A USB-C to display port cable from the back of the laptop to monitor DIRECTLY, if you hook this up to a display link docking station you will see significantly lower speeds (8000 timespy vs 11000 total timespy), and a ram upgrade is needed as well to achieve max performance. Using USB-C is the only way to directly connect to the 6800m directly, using a HDMI cable to that port passes the 6800m through the integrated graphics and slows the speed. Timespy benchmarks - 1080P 1st pic - Fan turbo - No external display 2nd pic - Fan max manual - No external display 3rd pic - Fan turbo - External display (USB-C to Display port) 4th pic - Fana max manual - External display (USB-C to Display port)

I purchased my G15 Advantage on October 23, luckily upon being delivered I found out it was an M6 Model. I was very excited as I did see there were problems with other people's models (M1-M5, liquid metal seeping, graphical artifacts, random re-boots) and I didn't want to go through the hassle of having to return it or send it over to ASUS and have to wait another 1-2 weeks without a PC. (ASUS however has been on top of all those problems and I believe the M6 was the first of the revisions that fixed the major problems) ANYWAYS - I really enjoy this laptop, I use it mainly for producing music and playing games on the side. While it isn't the best out of the best on the market, you definitely get HUGE performance out of this compared to any 3060-3070 laptop, EASILY with the RX 6800M + Ryzen 9 5900HX. Yes, you will potentially need to upgrade the RAM to a better set (the ram that comes with the laptop is good, but you can get a 10%-30% performance increase) depending on the games or operations you run. You might also want to upgrade NVMe Storage if you prefer to have more than 512GB. Overall, I spent $1600 and DO NOT regret my purchase one bit. I'm coming from a full desktop, i9-10850K, 32GB 3600MHz, RX 6800 XT and I have 0 complaints. This is your best option for the price vs any Nvidia GPU laptop in the $1000-$2200 price range. I always figured I'd lose out on moving to a laptop but to be honest, everything I was able to do on my desktop I can do on a laptop, and be mobile which is a +1 in my book!

I bought this laptop open-box after watching many reviews on Youtube. Initially, I was a bit spooked after reading several negative reviews on open-box purchases of this laptop, but thankfully my unit works fine and I can vouch for the many positive qualities of the laptop. For context, this is my second gaming laptop (my first gaming laptop is a mid-tier Acer Predator Helios purchased in 2018) and 5 other non-gaming laptops purchased between 2008-2019. Also, take note that in the pictures, I placed dark tape on the non-RGB lights and on/off button which is just personal preference. But anyway, on to the pros and cons: Pros: 1) RGB: It really is a sight to behold. It's bright, has full range of lighting (I think?), and has many different modes. The keyboard is divided into 4 zones and it has lighting under the laptop as well which is cool. I'm not a huge RGB fanatic so I tend to just leave it in on in bright yellow. 2) Performance and Price: I have played Assassin's Creed Valhalla (averages around 70-80 fps max settings at 1080p on Silent) and Overwatch (buttery smooth, probably between 100-200 fps at max settings 1080p). I think there are many videos on Youtube that can give a better comparative perspective on the performance (which basically show that the 6800m graphics card of this laptop performs somewhere between the mobile versions of the GTX 3070 and 3080), but based on gameplay on my unit, the gaming performance is great. Considering the price, it feels like a steal! 3) Keyboard: A pleasure to type on. I've had 6 laptops bought in the past (including a ThinkPad) and I think the ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition gave me one of the best typing experiences. It has excellent tactile feel and great responsiveness, the keys are perfectly spaced-out, and it feels as good as a Thinkpad (in my humble opinion). 4) Screen and Speakers: Excellent for watching movies and videos. Speakers don't sound "cheap". No complaints. Cons: 1) Stutters: Sometimes it stutters as I am task-switching between gaming/watching a video/using an app in fullscreen. I hope its not an issue with my open-box unit alone. I suspect this has something to do with software settings in Smartshift but I can't be too sure. I hope AMD updates can fix this issue. 2) Display settings: Probably also an AMD software issue. Basically, I can't create custom display profiles as easily as I used to using Intel's Graphics settings. AMD's Radeon Software display settings just seems a bit...clunkier 3) Overheating: This laptop can reach the 90s Celsius in gaming sometimes though I didn't feel the heat on the keyboard nor did I experience thermal throttling. I am considering a laptop cooler to alleviate this. 4) No Webcam: Not a deal breaker for me since I don't use one, but do take note if one requires a webcam. Conclusion: Despite several (possibly software-related and fixable) inconveniences, the ROG Strix G15 was a great purchase and I would highly recommend it for those looking for a value-for-money, mid-to-high tier gaming laptop.

I will keep my review unique to my needs: Pros: 1- This thing is a beast. This is hands down the Best Value/performance laptop you can found at moment. 2- I bought the open box version (~1523 USD) and it was without a doubt a steal. This is my first AMD GPU in years so I was a little hesitant but boy did the laptop changed my perception of AMD. 3- Constant 6-hour game session followed 1.5 Hour Time-spy Loop Stress Test and this machine didn't break a sweat. Though the Junction Temp of the GPU 2 did reach 100 degrees still I didn't notice any stuttering or crashes. All of my usage on this device was on Performance Mode using laptop screen without Ram Upgrade: Dota 2 Ultra Settings: ~130 FPS Death Stranding Max Settings: ~140 FPS Little Nightmare 2 Max Settings: 144 FPS (FPS are locked by the game) NFS the RUN Max Settings: ~ 260 FPS 4- I like the Keyboard as it wasn't too cluttery like Lenovo but that does cost it NUM-Pad. 5- I Used it for 3 days and was constantly getting updates making it more stable. The first day I witnessed random restart but that cleared out on the second and third day possibly because of updates. 6- I received Bios Update on my Day 3, which made Fan noise even on Performance very decent. Cons (These are specific to me so might not apply to you -> Work Related) 1- There is no recording support by AMD. I used Nvidia Shadow Play a lot to record my game-plays but that that thing is absent on this. The reason being AMD record/Stream is only available for desktop GPUs. There are some hacks with which there are ways to run AMD Relive on AMD Laptops (Shadowplay Counter Part) but that did not work for me. I tried like hell for them to work :o . 2- I also tried to record using OBS which I saw online as the only sensible alternative but the performance degradation is too much to ignore. Shadow of Tomb Raider Benchmark without recording came around 95 FPS but with recording, it dropped to 63 FPS. I repeated these things 3 times before giving up. 3- I used Filmora and Camtasia (I am a noob at Video Editing) for brushing my videos, but both of them do not actually use the Hardware Acceleration (GPU) Feature (At atleast not Properly). The performance of this laptop's video export was more or less comparable to that of my GTX 1060. I think my GPU was never being used for rendering. The support for this GPU is almost negligible (at least in these 2 apps). 4- (Too Personal Very Highly Unlikely that it applies to you) I am preparing for CCNP. The support for New AMD CPUs by cisco is also close to non-existent. I kept running into errors while trying to set up my lab on it. There are definitely fix presents but when you are preparing for something you would rather prefer if it ran on your system out of the box (like it did on i9-9900k) I ran some Benchmarks and all of these are also done on Performance Profile You would get more on Turbo Profile. Time Spy in-game Picture is taken after 40 Min of (Constant Loop of Stress Test). GPU 2 is integrated and GPU 1 is Dedicated. Two temperature on GPU 1 is Standard Temp and Junction Temp respectively. ---In Summary, if you just want to Game (no game-play recording/streaming) then without a doubt buy this beast. Before Ram upgrade, this thing lands Between RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 but after Ram Upgrade this equals RTX 3080 and even with RAM upgrade this costs at least 500 $ less.With upcoming games demanding more Vram I highly recommend 12 GB of 6800m over 8 GB of RTX 3070. As you can see my cons are very nitpicky and will not apply to 95% of you guys so I only shared my experience for the remaining 5%--- I am returning this for an i7 11800h with RTX 3070 and trust me even with my work requirements a major part of me is crying due to the sheer amount of performance this thing gives for such a price and build.