Customer Ratings & Reviews

They send me a secondhand laptop and still have someone account in it. Its not right with the prices of $2400. They give me secondhand laptop. And when it come. Its dirty and the label have been opened. I got scammed for sure.

I bought this expansive laptop only one month , but when I open it , it goes black and only have a mouse. The Best Buy do not help me return and you have to pay a lot to repairs. I was a Best Buy loyal customer but I deeply hope the company fail down.

Initial Impressions: The Asus ROG Strix G18 (2024) G814 gaming laptop with Intel 14th Gen i9-14900HX and Nvidia 4080 graphics is a beast of a gaming laptop. It handled every game I threw at it. Scored higher in 3Dmark Port Royal than any other computer, laptop or desktop, I have ever tested. It integrated seamlessly into my Home Theater. And it can handle external monitors and gaming equipment like a champ. The screen is bright and beautiful. The keyboard is comfortable and quiet. It can get hot but has the cooling capacity to keep it around 71c under all conditions. Overall, this laptop can be a true desktop replacement. Benchmarks: I run 3DMark Port Royal benchmark on every gaming desktop and laptop I have owned. My custom-built Ryzen 9 5900X, RTX 4070 graphics, 32GB DDR4 Ram, and an ASUS ROG motherboard scored 16,705. This laptop scored 18,688! Individual GPU scores were 17,618 and 19,097 respectively. I was expecting a laptop 4080 GPU to meet or be slightly less than a desktop 4070 due to the additional power and cooling ability of the desktop part. Color me impressed! I next benchmarks I conducted were Forza 5’s built in benchmark using the G18’s Nebula screen, my 1440p Alienware AW3423DWF 34-inch gaming monitor, and my 4K OLED. In all instances, Forza set the graphics settings to settings to Ultimate, High, DLSS On, Frame Generation On, and Ray Tracing on. I managed 151 FPS on the G814’s screen, 145 FPS on the AW3423DWF, and 60 FPS on my 4K OLED over HDMI. It must be noted that my 4K TV can only handle 60 FPS at 4K. In all cases, the game looked and ran beautifully. I did not notice any latency with DLSS or Frame Generation. I also did not notice any strange artifacts with DLSS. Regular play, non-benchmarking runs, I got an average of 147 FPS on the G814’s screen in Middle-Earth: Shadows of War with a high of 284 and a low of 59. I managed to hit 300+ FPS at full graphics settings running Star Wars Squadrons. Some of my other favorite games are CPU bound so the FPS was capped between 80 to 130 FPS. Very playable but not much of an improvement over my 4070 desktop. On the bright side, this laptop exceeds the performance and specs of my gaming desktop. Meaning, I could comfortably replace my desktop with the ASUS ROG G18. Gaming: Game play was fantastic with all games. The G18 is more than capable of driving any game I own. The only times I noticed any screen tearing or aliasing was when the game was poorly tuned for the system. Armoury Crate has some features that allow for some system tuning. nVidia Experience also provided some game tuning recommendations matching the G18’s specs which provided a great gaming experience. Other games have their own internal benchmarking system that also helps set the optimum settings for the best gaming experience. The point is that there are multiple tools available on this system, and built into some games, that will resolve the majority of performance issues. It is also capable of connecting to external monitors, mice, keyboards, headphones, and other gaming peripherals. For the G18, due to the placement of the USB A ports, wireless adapters for mice and keyboards will work best. The reason being is that the USB A ports are on the right side of the laptop and next to my mouse. For testing, I used a wired Corsair gaming mouse. The left mouse button kept getting caught under the mouse cable at the port. This became a real issue for me during hot gaming action where the mouse would get stuck under the USB plug sticking out of the laptop or I would hit the plug with enough force to trigger my left mouse button. More than a few of my fellow online fallen heroes got shot in the back, by accident, with this setup. This issue was solved by switching to a Razor Wireless mouse. The compact size of the wireless adapter did not interfere with my mouse or hand. However, using my Corsair Wireless headset with the included wireless adapter put me right back where I started when using the wired mouse. This is because the Wireless adapter sticks out about an inch. Bottom line, in my opinion, the USB A ports are poorly placed. Wired external keyboards suffered the same issue. Wireless USB keyboards did not due to the compact size of their dedicated USB wireless adapters. For external monitors, I used the USB C/Display Port and USB Thunderbolt 4 ports. Both worked with my Alienware AW3423DWF monitor using a compatible cable. The Thunderbolt 4 port worked much better with my 1440 monitor. This may have been due to the higher available bandwidth. Windows does allow, and I recommend, that when gaming with an external monitor that you disable the G18’s 18-inch Nebula display. This will take the stress off the GPU while you game on the external monitor. Overall, using external gaming peripherals were speedy, compatible, compatible with the peripheral control software, and simply worked. My only criticism is the number of ports. My desktop gaming computer has 8 USB A ports,1 USB C port, 1 HDMI port, and several Display Ports. The G18 only has 2 USB C, 2 USB A, and a single HDMI port. An external solution will be required if additional ports are needed. Sound: Asus claims this laptop has 5.1.2 Channel Virtual Surround Sound with Dolby Atmos. The G18 only has two laptop speakers so keep your expectations reasonable. There were times where my games sounded larger than the laptop. But full virtual surround sound seems a bit of a stretch. Just getting 5.1 with Netflix movies was a stretch. It was good. But not what I would expect from 5.1. However, I was able to achieve full surround sound, with the help of Dolby Experience application, when running Forza 5 through my Home Theater over HDMI. This configuration worked amazingly well. Battery Life: Battery life is about what one would expect from a high-power gaming laptop. It stinks unless you purposely configure the laptop for maximum battery life. For example, through Armoury Crate, I was able to set the laptop to Eco Mode, turned off LCD overdrive, set the Intel processor to use 4P Cores and 4E Cores, set the fans to Silent mode, dimmed the LCD screen, and set the LCD to 60hz. Turning off the keyboard backlight will also extend battery life. Gaming is obviously not the goal in this configuration. But, if you are like me, and use your laptop for general low power tasks such as MS Office, Web Browsing, streaming, or other common daily computer tasks then turning off unnecessary bells and whistles is a must. I was able to get about 1.5 to 2 hours battery life. Screen Quality: The Nebula LCD screen is excellent, bright, and vibrant! Armoury Crate has several pre-set screen configurations such as Eye Care, Vivid, FPS, Racing, etc that auto-set different color and brightness settings. The Nebula LCD is fantastic in any mode. The backlighting on my unit has the best uniformity I have ever seen. To test, I made a black image in MS Paint and displayed it full screen on the LCD screen. I then viewed the screen in a dark room. The screen was not 100% uniform but pretty close. Normally, I see dark and bright spots on the screen. The G18 provides a more consistent brightness and contrast than most other LCD screens I have used. The G18’s screen also has an anti-glare coating. Here again, Asus did a great job with the anti-glare implementation. I have used this laptop in bright rooms. Any reflections are soft, dull, or absent unless I am purposely trying to create a reflection. Head-on viewing looks perfect with a bare minimum of reflections. Direct sunlight, as any monitor, will overwhelm the monitor. Moving the laptop away from direct sunlight and/or boosting the brightness is enough to overcome most issues. Heat: This laptop will get hot, but I have yet to see a temp over 71C. The cooling power of the G18 is seriously over engineered. At no point did I feel like my hands or palms were uncomfortably warm. The laptop will get uncomfortably warm if using it on my lap without any power savings features turned on. The laptop will also heat my room after long gaming sessions. Noise: The default fan curves are thought out and implemented. The system will get noisy during gaming but not hair drier noisy. Silent mode is silent. The fans will kick on if the laptops start building heat. Final Thoughts: Overall, this is a fantastic gaming laptop and desktop replacement solution. The Asus G18 will do anything you ask it to do.

The side of the laptop came smashed, the upper left side of the screen is with a different color them the rest, that must be because of the visible hit on the side of the laptop. Can't even return the laptop because I'm using it to work and can't keep a few days without a computer.

This thing absolutely crushes games including cyberpunk 2077. The screen is very bright and extremely vivid with nice colors and the speakers sound excellent. It made a complete my career of my 2018 ASUS ROG strix. Don't expect to go very long on the battery even watching YouTube only goes an hour or two.

I have to say i've owned some powerful laptops in my time. This Asus machine takes the cake though. It runs circles around my desktop i built last year just for gaming. The hardware is solid. well designed, cooling is excellent, sound quality of the speakers is really good for a laptop, and the keyboard is top notch. My MSI GE75 Dominator i bought back in 2020 has a cheap laptop feeling keyboard that you think you are going to break it just by typing on it. not the ROG though. the keyboard reminds me of a silent mechanical keyboard. has good travel and feels nice to type on. The lighting on the machine is nice. i'm not a huge fan of RGB but i don't mind this. Performance is really awesome but if i were to complain at all, i would complain that asus did a poor job with their windows image build. meaning there were security policies built in to where you could not do basically anything. downloaded files nope. execute web shortcuts. nope. i'm a IT tech of 30 years. i know my way around the OS but even I couldnt fix it. so i just reloaded the machine from scratch. the machine is way too new yet to carry any built in drivers for pretty much anything on the laptop so you will need to put the intel IRST drivers in uncompressed form on the flash drive before you nuke the OS. otherwise you will not be able to do much unless you have another computer or laptop to get the drivers from asus's website. it felt like the windows xp days but i actually didn't mind that. i don't mind installing drivers and software. This particular machine came with a single 2TB NVME m.2 drive. there are 2 m.2 nvme drive interfaces in the machine. so i added another m.2 2TB from the MSI i had. The display is awesome. i have failing eyes so it is nice to be able to see what's going on. also the Asus Amour Crate is really nice software. you can also connect it to your cell phone or tablet and control your laptop's functions from there or even just monitor the hardware. anyway, you can't go wrong with this machine. it has power, it is nicely built and so far i have yet to make it choke even once.

This review is for the Asus ROG Strix 18 inch 2560 x1600 resolution screen (not a touch screen) laptop. It is equipped with an Intel i9 14900HX 2.2 Ghz (peaks at 5.7 GB/sec and runs at about 4 GBs/sec at steady full load) CPU, Intel UHD integrated graphics, dedicated Nvidia RTX 4080 12 GB GDDR6 VRAM GPU, 32 GBs of DDR5 5600 RAM, it has a PCI-e 5.0 motherboard and has a 2 TB NVMe SSD. It has a Dynamic lighted keyboard and has the Armory Crate App for controlling lighting, fan curve and a host of other features. The display is a 240 hz G-Sync screen. You can let it automatically choose whichever display adapter it needs or lock in the RTX 4080 for everything. It has good speakers with a little woofer thump. Good volume. If you want it loud, it will get as loud as you want, providing there was good audio volume recorded on the content you are viewing. Surround effect is good. It has two USB type A receptacles, one each of HDMI, Ethernet, USBC and Thunderbolt. It comes in a great box that is shipped inside of a box with formed padding. AS a note regarding setting up lighting in Armory Crate. You need to go to Windows settings>personalization> dynamic lighting control and move Armory Crate to the first selection. You do this by dragging Armory Crate to the first option. Don't know why the Windows engineers couldn't just have used check boxes. If you don't do this, then every time Windows starts or wakes up it will revert to the default keyboard lighting theme. And you have to have Dynamic Lighting in Windows turned on if you want to use a static/constant single color. I am going to state my complaints, which unfortunately are your first impressions of the laptop first. The power brick is quite large, not a problem. The power cord that feeds the brick is plenty long, the cord that comes from the brick that plugs into the laptop is way too short ( 4 Ft.). It has a ninety degree plug, which is nice, but instead of the power receptacle being in the back or at one of the rear corners it is on the left side 4 inches from the back corner and the anti-static collet on the cord is right at the corner of the laptop so the cord can't go around the corner smoothly. Huge mistake by Asus. The plug should have been in the back, which is convenient regardless of where you want to put the power brick and put a long enough cord on it so you can put the brick wherever you want. Or send a cord extender for those who need a long cord. Also, the backlighting on the keys, only lights the main characters on the keys and not the shift options. And the shift option symbols on the keys are hard to see even in a bright room, as they are painted gray and there is little contrast between the gray of the symbols and the black keys. If you aren't really familiar with keyboard shift options, you are not going to like this keyboard. Although neither of the previous complaints affect the overall operation of the laptop, they are an ever-present aggravation and Asus engineering should not have let such obvious easily corrected issues be a constant aggravation. This may not be an issue to someone who is going to use this strictly for gaming, but this is a very versatile powerful laptop that users of Office and Graphic apps are going to be drawn to for its high-end features and the extra vertical real estate of the 16:10 screen. You have to be a very proficient keyboarder to not have to look to the keyboard when you are using the Shift enabled features. Regarding the power cord, this is a big laptop that in most cases is going to be stationary and even if you use it mobile, the battery isn't going to last long unless you neuter all its features and run the screen dim, and then it becomes an exact opposite of why you bought it. So therefore, the charger is nearly always necessary, and not being able to leave the charger brick on the floor and reach your laptop with the cord is a huge mistake. The display is a QHD (2560 x 1600}/ 16:10 display. Although it is an 18 inch it is really about the same width as a 16:9 17-inch laptop, but it is taller, so it gives you a lot more vertical real estate. This is great for everyday use but can be a positive or negative for games. Out of the box the display is a disappointment as it is not sharp and quite dull. But setting the video setting in Armory Crate to Vivid and setting Nvidia's Super Resolution to Auto or 2 and turning up sharpness a tad, makes a huge difference. Not quite as good as 4K, but way better than out of the box. Performance wise it is great. I run flight sims. I have a desktop with an RTX 4080, 5800X3D and a 32-inch 4K 144 hz monitor and while running DCS World with all the performance settings in DCS and the Nvidia control panel set to high, it runs at 120 FPS. This Intel i9 14900 and RTX 4080 laptop CPU and GPU with the same settings run DCS World at 100 to 110 FPS at 2560 x1600 resolution. Pretty good for these laptop chips. I didn't hook it up to my 4K monitor, but I think it would run it at 80 FPS, which is more than acceptable for Flight Sims. But there is a fly in the ointment when it comes to cooling. This laptop runs hot. Even with the fan set to Turbo. I was hitting 100 Celsius on the CPU and it was doing a lot of throttling. So, I put 3/4-inch extensions on the rear legs and that brought max CPU temps down to 90. Dropped the GPU temps about 4 degrees. Just can't get enough air under it as it is built. This also helped with angling the keyboard towards you, which is a big help, because the keyboard is set back from the front edge farther than what is comfortable as it has a large touchpad and hitting the touchpad with your wrists while typing screws up what you are typing. Also, this helped with the static collet as it now goes under the case corner and the bend in the cable isn't as obtrusive. It boots fast. Really quick, opening and running apps, as it should be with the i9 14900. You don't need to be adding RAM or another SSD as it comes with 32 GBs of RAM and a two TB SSD. I partitioned the two TB SSD. Set Windows at 350 GB, Data at 500 GB and the rest for Games. Colors seem quite accurate. Don't think I would recommend it for critical photo or video editing, you really need to get the 4K version for that, but it should make a great graphic processing unit for non-critical work. If you are going to use it with a high-quality external monitor, then you should find this a great laptop for graphics work. It is really quiet. Even when the fans are at full speed it isn't bad. It has a really good WiFi adapter. I get the fastest downloads on Speadtest's Ookla of all my computers that are connected wirelessly. Bluetooth saw all my devices. Hardcore gamers should like the WiFi and the features in Armory Crate. Everyday users and office users should really love the large screen with the extra vertical screen space. A full hearted recommendation for this laptop this is a hard choice for me. Power cord is a nuisance. Keyboard lights will be a minus for non-expert keyboarders. The touchpad is too easy to hit when reaching for the keyboard with the extra setback on this large laptop, but you can turn it off and use a mouse. Under steady demanding use it will get hot unless you get some air under it. Come on laptop builders. You are all guilty of this. Give us rear feet extensions that we can use if needed. But, if you want a large screen, fast processing, a great GPU, great speakers, great WiFi, well-built solid screen hinges and be able to compete competitively when online gaming, then this fits the bill. As another note to the gamers, you can run this at 2560 x 1440 and gain another 10-15 FPS and still have the same real estate as a 17 inch 16:9 laptop and not give up any screen quality, and after all, how good the display looks is still the most important part of a PC.

Excellent laptop so far. Huge upgrade from the over eight years old gaming ROG I had before, and the screen is bigger than I anticipated, but so far everything I run on it, even intensive stuff like latest games on ultra, runs super smooth on it and looks fantastic. The lighting on the laptop itself is fully customizable and stands out in a pleasant way. I've run into a few problems with Windows 11, but that's simply difficulties with the OS and some of the bloaty background processes it runs on default, which is an easy enough fix. The battery life and how hot the laptop can run leaves a lot to be desired, but either of those things aren't really big obstacles due to the way I usually have my setup running. I ultimately wasn't even going to replace my old laptop with another ROG even though I've never had problems with ROG. But in the end I got one anyway, but I must admit, this Strix is every bit worth the amount it cost.

My current laptop was bordering a little over 3 years old. It's been a great system and supplemented my high-end desktop (RTX 4090) really well, when I wanted to be elsewhere in the house. Given the amount of time I've had it, I felt that since it was my first laptop and I've put it to good use, I was due for an upgrade! Enter the new 2024 Asus Rog STRIX G18 (18"). My other laptop was a 15" (1080p), so I wanted to take this opportunity to increase the screen size, as some games I play, I just much prefer a bit higher resolution and screen size. Plus, getting older stinks, what with the eyesight changes, haha. Well, let me say that the size of this thing does NOT disappoint! It's definitely bigger than I expected it to be, but not "too big", if that makes snese? I was really torn between this model and the Zephyrus G16 one, but I chose the Strix because of the bigger screen size, improved cooling and higher power output due to the design of the system - given that I don't really need the portability. It never leaves the house, only from room to room, periodically. I usually keep my laptop setup on the kitchen table and that still works well with this system. As for hardware, this thing is loaded. This system has an RTX 4080, 14th gen i9-14900HX, 32GB RAM at 5600Mhz, 2560x1600 18" IPS Display, 2 TB Primary SSD (Wow, it's even a Western Digital drive!), WiFi 6E, and Windows 11. Inside the box is literaly JUST the laptop and power brick - nothing fancy and pretty basic - although I do love the box itself and the artwork, which was a nice touch. It weighs areound 6.5 lb, which is pretty hefty, but it doesn't feel as bad as it sounds. I also did flip it over and install a Western Digital 2TB SN850x NVME SSD. This process went great and it was immediately recognized and detected in Windows 11 Disk Management. Once I set it up there, it's been great. This is where I install all of my Steam games and such. Other Launchers, such as Battle.net, Epic Games, etc, I just install those games to my main SSD (C: Drive), since it's also a 2TB. This allows me to split up my games in an organized manner and gives Steam it's own drive, since that's where I own and play most of my games. Epic and Battle.net are usually only 2-3 games each, so not a big deal, there. The only issue I had when installing the drive was after removing all of the screws (except the bottom right one, which remains attached), it was very tough to get the panel to pop off - I had to take one of my solid metal credit cards and wedge it in between (after watching some YouTube how-to's) and angle it in such a way that it popped out and just had to go all the way around like that. So, it's secure, for sure! Zero issues gettting it popped back on, either. Not mentioned above with the specs I listed are the two biggest advertised "features", which are a bit of a letdown to me: The "Crystal Clear Audio" and the 720p Camera. I'd have loved to seen better speakers and camera, but I guess that's what the upcharge of the Strix SCAR model is for. To hit on the lows first (since every other feature of this system is OUTSTANDING), the speakers do seem "Ok", but nothing special and I even prefer my other laptop speakers over these. It just struggles a bit in the mids and highs and sounds a bit "tinny" at the higher volumes. As for the camera, even if it is 720P, having Windows Hello face recognition support would have been great...but it doesn't even offer that. Video is just "OK". Nothing to write home about, really - not an issue for me as this is strictly a gaming system and I'll probably never use it. Also, I wish there were a privacy slider for it. As for the screen, the 18" format in the laptop is really nice. It is an IPS panel with a resolution of 2560x1600 and a 240hz refresh rate. There is the usual "IPS Glow" backlight bleed, which I didn't expect, as Asus advertises it as a super high quality "Nebula Display". I'm honestly not seeing what makes this display stand out from any others, to be honest, as it seems farily standard for an IPS display. But, the colors are great, seem pretty accurate and the overall image quality is pretty crisp and clear. I do like the slim borders areound the edges, as well. Since this supports G-Sync and goes up to 240hz, you'll definitely want to ensure you're taking full advantage of this feature, as it makes all the difference in the world for me. So, in order to set up G-Sync properly: You right-click on the desktop, click "show more options" and select "Nvidia Control Panel", from there. Then, you go to "Set up G-SYNC". Within that panel, you'll select "Enable G-SYNC, G-SYNC Compatible" and ensure the radio button beside "Enable for Full Screen Mode" is selected. Once done, you'll then go over to "Manage 3D Settings". From here, you'll want to ensure "Vertical Sync" is "On", "Monitor Technology" is "G-SYNC" and "Low Latency Mode" is set to Ultra (Nvidia just released a driver update a month or two ago that now eneables that for DX12 games!). Also, make sure V-Sync is disabled on the game-by-game level, since it's already on at the system level. Overall, I'd give the screen a 4 out of 5 stars. It would be a 5 all the way, if there were perhaps less backlight bleed (which is all located in the corners, but you can only really see it on black screens) and an obvious difference between this and any other similar screen, given Asus calls it thier "Nebula Display". For all the other hardware, everything is excellent! I've had zero issues, except one thing, which I will touch on last. Performance is golden. Games I've tested so far have been Baldurs Gate 3, Last Epoch, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Diablo IV and of course, Vampire Survivors and Deep Rock Galactic: Survivors. Now, you may be asking..."why the last two"? Well, yeah, these games obviously run at the full 240 FPS and are not hardware intensive. But I do know that with these type of games, if there are any sort of micro-stutters, tearing or any other graphical/performance issues, you'd be able to tell with these games more easily Vs. others. Both Survivor gamees performed admirably with zero hitching, micro-stutters or other graphical anomalies. Here's how some of the games I've tested so far fare, as far as performance goes: Baldur's Gate 3: Aabsolutely fluid at max graphical settings and I'm getting roughtly 100-110 FPS, on average - 90 or so at the absolute lowest, when a lot is going on. This is with Quality set to Ultra and DLAA scaling. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3: Gets around 120 on average in Multiplayer with graphics set to "Extreme", with DLSS Frane Gen "On" and Upscaling set to "DLAA" mode. As CoD is currently the most demanding game I've tested, my GPU temps were getting around 85 C. In an effort to lower this, I purchased a pair of rear "feet" off Amazon to prop up the back of the system a bit (by about 1" or a hair over). Since then, my average GPU temps are now around 81-82 C. Diablo IV: With Graphical settings at Ultra, Frame Generation "On" and Resolution Scaling for "NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution" set to DLAA, I'm getting an average of 145-150 FPS, with it dipping down to 120-125..ish in hectic battle moments. Last Epoch: Around 100-110 FPS with everything maxed out. Runs great, no issues other than the normal "loading" microstutter, which I've gotten across all 3 systems I've played it on (it's the game, not the sytem). Similar for Path of Exile, as well, but just higher FPS and no micro-stutter. So, gaming on this rig is supurb and I expect it to be able to run most everything on max settings for the next 2-3 years, at least (as this was the case with my previous laptop and it was a 3070). I give performance and thermals (after adding the little feet on the rear) a solid 5 out of 5. I definitely do receommend propping the back up by an inch or so, as to accomodate a bit better airflow. I also want to get Helldivers II (once they allow cross-progression) and Dragons Dogma II to try out on this rig, in the future! Now, on to the one "major issue" I had, that I mentioned earlier. Out of the box, the right side of my front RGB Light Strip was flickering. Only that side. My initial thought was it was hardware related, as it acted more like a short or something. I updated Armory Crate fully over the course of time that I've had and tested this system and it never corrected it. I've had times where the light bar AND keyboard goes out completely and I have to shut it down, reboot, unplug and plug back in the power cable multiple times, etc, just to get it back to working. Thankfully, Asus has been awesome and are working on getting me a replacement (agreeing that it's a hardware issue), but it'll take a week or two. Otherwise, the system fucntions without flaw. One other thing I wanted to mention is Armory Crate. I've seen so many folks say they hated it and it has so many issues, but I've personally never really had any problems. Granted, I've not used it to make crazy changes and customizations or anything, so for me, it just "works". Also, MyAsus has a "Battery Saver" feature that keeps the charge topped off at 80% instead of 100%, as to not degrade the battery so quickly. Don't worry, though - as the charge indicator light still remains white, showing "fully charged" at 80% with this feature enabled. Overall, I'd give this system a 4.5 out of 5. However, since we can only do whole star reviews here, I'm just gonna give it a 5! I also love the fact that I can add an additional warranty through MyAsus to the system that also includes accidental damage for a number of years and it's not too pricey! Once I get my replacement, I actually plan on plunking down the money for the additional peace of mind!

The Asus ROG Strix 18" sure deserves serious consideration for gaming and design, and well overall use if you want to show off a big powerful laptop. One of the most noticeable things is that it comes with an 18" screen, big enough to not require an external monitor, and better yet, capable of a 240Hz refresh rate. With its RTX 4080 GPU and other physical characteristics, I think it is one of the most powerful laptops out there. In addition, it comes with a full keyboard, with a numeric pad, which was one of the reasons I chose it. The sound is crisp and clear if you choose to use its speakers. It is a little heavy, but given its screen size and specs, it is not an obstacle for choosing it. Almost all in this machine merits a thumbs up. This is my first Asus ROG gaming laptop, and I am very happy with it. I have other gaming laptops from other manufacturers and an Asus ROG gaming PC machine, and this machine has been an awesome upgrade as it outperforms them all (well this is expected as it has newer and more powerful hardware). I had mixed feelings about giving this a 4 or a 5 rating, but from an overall view of the device capabilities and experience with it so far, I chose the latter. - Pros: big 18" screen size, powerful i9 CPU, new RTX 4080 GPU, high RAM 32GB, plenty of storage 2TB, high refresh rate 240Hz, numeric pad. - Cons: numeric keyboard a little small. >> Setup Initial basic setup was about half an hour. After signing on the computer with my Microsoft account, there were lots of updates applied, both for Windows and Asus apps, as well as BIOS updates, with multiple restarts. So, all in all it took over an hour to get the laptop with all the updates, and this time doesn’t include what was needed for installing Games and Video apps. A little surprise here since I thought setup would be faster. Some notes: - I chose to set up Windows as a new machine. I have an Asus gaming PC and other gaming laptops, from which I could have imported a lot of the stuff, but I preferred to have a clean setup. - Easy Asus registration in the setup process. I usually don’t register my products, but in this case, there was just a single form with name, email and phone. - The laptop comes with a 3-month XBox ultimate license. I already have one 12-month pass, which I can extend with this 3-month pass. - It looks like the machine already came with Windows 11 23H2 (or I didn't notice it getting updated). >> Gaming I had a “small” hiccup the first time I tried to play games on this laptop. After installing Xbox and applying any pending updates, I installed the Forza series (Motorsport and Horizon) to play. I started Forza Horizon and the laptop stopped responding all together. The fan went up very high and the machine got really hot. It became unresponsive, with the keyboard flashing red on a black screen. I had to manually turn off the laptop (crossing fingers that nothing got ruined). I decided to do a quick diagnostic on the hardware using the BIOS setup diagnostics utilities (Hint: press Esc to get into the BIOS). I ran all the Asus system diagnostics tests and besides the storage test one, that was taking over the half hour estimated time and I had to cancel, all tests passed. I tried the cancelled storage test once more, and this time it took a couple of seconds to finish, well this was very odd. Well, after that initial experience, so far, the machine has been performing great with the couple of games and design apps I’ve tried so far. >> Designing Given that Gaming Laptops are also used for designers and architects, and especially this one that has a big screen that appeals to graphics designers, I decided to give a shot at Lumion Software and see how this machine performed rendering different videos. It does its job extraordinarily well. The machine still is responsive while the GPU is cracking at the video generation, so this is great, as it allows multitasking with multiple monitors. >> Performance This machine is awesome and seems to perform at the highest level, but hard numbers are needed to have a more accurate view of this machine’s performance. Images attached show the different results in PCMark10 and 3DMark for reference. >> Hardware Overall, the machine feels well built. The 18” screen size with 60Hz and 240Hz settings is perfect for playing games and creating and consuming media. In terms of connectivity/ports, it comes with a HDMI and USB-A and USB C ports, plus a network interface for added network speed and reliability. I've used the USB-C port with a high refresh rate external monitor and the signal coming out of the USB-C port could be tuned at 60Hz or 120Hz, not 240Hz but not bad at all. A special section needs to be devoted to the keyboard. One of the reasons I chose this machine was that it featured a numeric pad, which is usually lacking in most laptops. I've seen it available in laptops with big screen sizes (as this one is), though. I assume most people (including me) will have this machine connected to an external full-size keyboard and mouse, a good chunk of time. But in cases where none of the former are not available, having the numeric keyboard makes a huge difference. For example, for entering numbers, assigning shortcuts for your games, and using the Alt+code for special characters. I frequently use the Alt+code feature to write especial characters in Spanish, and it is a problem if there is no numeric pad. I'd bet it'd be something similar for people writing in other languages. Of course some would say, why not change the keyboard layout, well I am not fond of that as I want when I press a key to clearly see what key it is. The only critique to the keyboard is the size of the keys, they are small for the main panel and very small for the numeric pad. I think people with fat fingers might have issues typing. >> Random Notes - I only had one perceivable freeze while playing Forza Horizon 5, it was clear that the video froze for perhaps a second or so, but it was clearly noticeable. Hopefully nothing will go wrong in the coming future. - Aesthetically, the laptop overall feels a little "rough" when turned off, just the feeling of the case and overall appearance. Once it comes to life, then it changes into this beautiful machine. - One thing that I still need to replicate is that after some usage time the laptop got really sluggish with some of the Asus software reporting errors/warnings in the Event Windows System. Overall the machine was very slow at responding, opening new apps, typing, clicking the mouse, etc. Task Manager didn’t report any resource being consumed highly. After rebooting, the machine was up and running smoothly again. I wonder what it might be, the only thing that comes to mind is that the machine was up for a long time and in that period o

Excellent laptop! I'm not a gamer. I'm old. The large, crisp, high resolution screen is a must for me. The speed is awesome! When multi-tasking, we old folks can lose our groove if we are forced to wait for a refresh. And the refresh rate is smooth. I'm very sensitive to herky-jerky refreshing. I love this computer! Some day, I may even play minesweeper or something on it.

Wow, without making a "That's what she said" reference, it's tough to describe how large and how much presence the ASUS ROG Strix 18" G814JZR laptop commands.   Adding in a TL:DR section because I got a bit carried away trying to document all the details.  This laptop screams gaming, and luckily it has the specs to back it up.  It's not subtle by any means, it's more like your friend with the Hawaiian shirt and hot pink pants, everyone knows it's there and it's serious about being the center of attention.  The build is well made, not overly bulky, highly portable, with crisp looks and customizable lighting.  The CPU/GPU auto and manual adjustments allow everyone from entry to advanced level gamers to play at max capability, and helps those who are learning, figure out how to optimize performance specs based on gaming needs.  This laptop gives my custom built gaming PC a bit of competition, and since it's portable, this is absolutely what I'm taking with me if I need something that will get the work done and then quickly transition to gaming. ASUS did a great job on marketing, both the packaging and laptop design 100% embody the Republic of Gamers (ROG) charter and style. The laptop arrives in an upright carrying box, with a handle, presenting the laptop, power cord, and paperwork securely packaged in a pull out platform. Setup is plug and play, the laptop comes equipped with Windows 11, a 30 day trial of Microsoft office, 90 days trial of Xbox GamePass Ultimate, and the ROG Armoury Crate.  This is nice, as it's set up for those who want to get straight to gaming and not have to deal with bloatware or software packages that aren't needed.   The ROG Armoury Crate software is one of the tools that helps gamers progress from thinking they know what specs and speeds they need, to actually being able to adjust configurations based on the need of each game. Inside the software you can adjust the following:  1. Home tab (see photo) this allows you to swap between the different GPU/CPU profiles or customize your own.  Options are Windows, Silent, Performance, Turbo, and Manual.  See photo for info on Turbo mode and benchmarking results performed in this mode. 2. Device settings   3. Aura Sync tab for all compatible lighting devices, including peripherals, this allows for customized effects, in-game lighting effects by game, and "festive" effects for birthday and holidays.  4. Game Visual mode -  Default for optimized non-game usage, Racing mode for fast paced games, Scenery for color optimization, RTS/RPG for gaming graphic sharpness and color vibrance, FPS for enhanced dark scenes, Cinema for vivid visuals and contrast, Eye care to reduce blue light, and Vivid to enhance color saturation and brightness of image.  5. A game library tab to manage games that you choose to integrate, scenario profiles to pre-build settings based on user profile, this includes hotkeys, settings, aura lighting effects, and GPU mode.  6. Last two tabs are featured games for purchase and news on ASUS updates. Also inside of the Armoury Crate software you can mange the GPU which has four modes: ultimate, standard, eco, and optimized. Ultimate is absolutely the way to go for graphics intensive gaming, but it's also a power consuming beast in this mode. Standard mode works fine for most gaming and perfectly for non intensive tasks like streaming and browsing. Eco mode disables the discrete GPU, which is good for long hours of low intensity work without needing to charge the device. Lastly, Optimized mode enables MUX switching between iGPU (integrated GPU, less powerful, longer battery life) and dGPU (discrete GPU, more power consumption hence shorter battery life). As far as specs, the G814 is powered by an Intel Core i9 (36MB cache, 24 cores <physical footprint on the chip, improves performance>, 32 Threads <virtual construct, the more threads, the higher efficiency>) paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 GPU, and 12 GB GDDR6.  The display is an 18" OLED ROG Nebula 2.5K Display with 16:10 aspect ratio, anti-glare, and 3ms response time.  The memory is 16 GB DDR5-5600 and boasts 2TB PCle 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD storage.  All of this is packaged in a well designed 6.6 lb frame, so while it looks large, it doesn't necessarily feel bulky. Why did I tell you this if you can read it on the product details page - because when combined these specs deliver a laptop that can breeze through your basic Office work without draining the battery, but would much rather be unleashed on graphic intensive games.  I'm sure if I did enough multitasking with 3d image rendering, photo editing, some large macro execution while streaming content I could bog this laptop down, but I'd have to be trying really hard. As far as gaming performance, I don't play a lot of super heavy graphics intensive games, and the laptop handles all of my Steam games with zero issues. As for an intensive game, playing Fortnite, I saw no stutters, tears, or anything other than 200+ fps, yielding a seamless visual experience. Other key items that impress me: From dead, the battery charged to 50% in about 25 minutes. There are a TON of connection and port options: 2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen2 port (1 with Thunderbolt4 supports DisplayPort, 1 supports DisplayPort & PD Charger), 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI 2.1 port, RJ45 LAN jack (up to 2.5G), and a microSD card reader Wifi 6E enabled The Nebula display - QHD+, 500 nits brightness, 240Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 coverage, Dolby Vision yields vivid colors, high contrast images, and amazingly nuanced dark shades, especially during gaming AI Noise cancelation, optimized so it doesn't bog down performance MUX switch - no reboot required to move between performance and low consumption tasks Fan noise is minimal compared to other gaming laptops, about 57 dB during benchmarking running in turbo mode Well ventilated - sides and bottom vents to dissipate heat LED ambiance style bar that runs across the front and partially up each side on the bottom of the laptop frame Full keyboard with number pad, the keys have 1.9mm of travel and are highly responsive due to the Overstroke technology that is exclusive to ROG   The keys are backlit and RGB lighting and sequencing customizable through the Aura settings.  The question is, why this laptop instead of the many other choices. I personally think this is a very well built hardware combination, nice sturdy construction, and unique, gamer oriented, appearance. It won't beat a high end custom desktop build, but it also doesn't cost as much as a custom build. There are a few options for additional customization, but honestly, I think the value is that this is a plug and play machine that will travel and can hold it's own next to the majority of gaming builds, laptop or desktop.

easily upgradable. I've added 4tb WD SSD Black and it feels like G18 is loading faster than. Great display. Battery live is 3.5 - 4 hrs on eco mode. I'm getting 90 - 100 fps playing Metro Exodus on ultra settings. Speakers are better than most of laptops but I like speakers on macbook pro way better

Visuals are great. Runs everything super smooth and fast at ultra settings. Massive screen with huge storage space. Battery dies a lil fast so definitely need a charger nearby while gaming. With regular tasks it will last maybe 3-5 hours depending on how much its charged but thats just the trade off for how much power it can produce. Overall great laptop

It's been many years now that you've seen ads claiming a laptop to be a replacement for a gaming desktop. Well, this may be the one that convinces you to set aside your current gaming hardware. First off, it's just the sheer gaming real estate that you're getting. When I opened the lid for the first time, something just struck me as being "different." The reason for this is the decision Asus made to change the standard aspect ratio. The majority of laptops are in a 16:9 format, this ROG presents a 16:10 ratio, giving it a more squarish appearance. Just wanted to point that out up front, as you may have a preference dependent upon your usage. In my case, when not gaming, I do a lot of side by side screen splits with different browsers, I found this afforded me the ability to have to do less scrolling as it presents more of each page lengthwise. The downside of this would be if you're streaming, you'll be getting a slightly larger letterbox on the top and bottom of your screen. But you're dealing with an eighteen inch screen, so your actual picture still has more screen space than a standard 17". In my case, this is a replacement for my Alienware M17, I can say that I'll never want to go back to the old format. Your opinion/needs may vary, but that's why I wanted to highlight this feature which you might not immediately pick out when browsing through multiple ads. While unboxing, the first thing to mention is the box itself. It's in a slideout format, which is handy in the event you do want to transport the unit. Easy to use; compact, not much bigger than the unit itself, and has a carrying handle. Good design. As for the setup, you have of course the standard Windows updates; the Asus updates took some bit of time consisting of their Armoury crate, and it also required a Bios update. I'm always apprehensive when doing a Bios update for fear of bricking a unit, after the download and install procedure was done it took some minutes staring at a blank screen; far longer than I've ever experienced previously before it rebooted; which had me a bit nervous, but it finally did start up without a hiccup. Whew! The ROG has a nice lighting strip along the front of it, and the keyboard is nicely lighted, all of this had a myriad of different effects; via the Armoury Crate & Asus Aura. There is a choice to hand this over to Windows Dynamic Lighting; however I'll need to do some research as to how all this integrates. For the moment I set the keyboard backlight to my preferred color & level, I'll do a deep dive when I get the time. There is no lid lighting ala the alien had, but that's ok. Another feature I immediately noticed are the lid hinges. Unlike other laptops I've owned, they are very robust, as is the screen frame itself. This is a very weighty and solid unit; there is no flex when raising & lowering the lid, it has a very reassuring feel. Also reassuring is the abundance of ventilation ports. Aside from the two USB ports on each side there is the RJ45 and power input. There is no card input. As a result, the entire back, bottom, and most of the sides are dedicated to making available space for this puppy to breathe, which is what you want in a power laptop. The charger itself is sizable, and in the time I've been using it, did not appear to become unreasonably warm. There was an option in the settings to only charge the battery to 80% to increase its lifespan, I enabled this as I've previously had laptops where the lithium battery started to expand; it's one less thing to worry about. If there's something to pick at, I would've preferred the keyboard to be slightly larger given the space available; however, the trackpad is oversized, certainly the largest I've ever seen. As for performance, the specs on this unit speak for themselves - it's just a powerhouse. While I don't do first person shooters that require high frame rates; my personal gaming preference is for Civilization 6, which after loading my Steam account, I raised all the lighting and shading effects to their upper levels. I can say that when I've gone late game with an expansive world, my M17 would start sounding like it had emphysema; the ROG took it all in stride. All in all, Asus has put together a great package that's hard to beat in its class. Very well built, and should provide me with many years of service.

The short version is this is an incredible machine. It's an 18" laptop with a 240hz display, and an RTX4080 graphics card, and you really do get everything you expect out of a beast of a machine with those kinds of specs. As you can imagine, this thing pumps out a lot of heat, which aside from the size, is the biggest reason I put "laptop" in quotes. I have a laptop pad for my 15" laptop I've been getting awkwardly by with while trying to find a good setup for an 18" laptop, but haven't managed to find exactly what I'm looking for yet due to 18" being a less standard size. If you're using this on a desk, you won't have any issues, but if you're using this on a couch like I often enjoy doing, you'll definitely need to invest in a cooling pad or lap pad of some kind. For quite a while now, Ark has been my benchmark game for testing new graphics cards as most setups struggle under Ultra maxed settings. My previous laptop boasted an RTX3070 and was able to handle Ark on High without any problems but ran into frame rate issues under Ultra settings. This RTX4080 card is the first time I've been able to run Ark on Ultra settings on a laptop without any frame drops at all. I was able to run around the world on max settings smoothly and without any issues. Seriously impressive! Aside from the non-standard size making it a bit difficult to find a good cooling pad, and a carrying backpack that won't break the bank, the only other minor drawback for me is the camera. The laptop includes an HD camera that works for video conferencing, or whatever you want to use it for, but doesn't also have an IR camera, and therefore doesn't support Windows Hello. Given they already added a bit of a notch at the top for a camera, and the overall premium nature of this device, this felt like a surprising exclusion. Honestly, coming from another laptop that supported Windows Hello, I'm just ever so slightly annoyed every time I open this up and have to type in my passcode to unlock it instead of it just automatically recognizing me and logging me in. There's a lot of factors to consider when choosing a gaming laptop, size, power, refresh rate. This is truly a beast in every aspect of the word. If you have your heart set on a very large laptop, and are looking for incredible refresh rate, ample memory and storage, and a very powerful graphics card, look no further than the ROG Strix 18" with an RTX4080 card. You won't be disappointed.

The Asus ROG Strix 18 is a powerhouse when it comes to gaming performance. With its top-of-the-line hardware and cutting-edge technology, this laptop delivers unbeatable speeds and graphics that will blow your mind. From the moment I started playing games on this machine, I could feel the difference. The smooth gameplay and crystal-clear visuals made every session feel like a new experience. The powerful processor and graphics card ensure that even the most demanding games run flawlessly with no lag or stuttering. The design of the Asus ROG Strix 18 is also worth mentioning. The sleek and stylish look of the laptop not only makes it a great addition to any gaming setup but also enhances the overall gaming experience. Overall, if you are looking for a laptop that offers the best performance in gaming, look no further than the Asus ROG Strix 18. Its unbeatable speed, graphics, and design make it a must-have for any serious gamer.

Has some light bleed on bottom right above where the time and date are. It’s visible when the screen is completey black but not very much. Originally there was another one center bottom, but after reading another review that mentioned how they pressed the bezel around the light bleed area I tried it…..AND IT ACTUALLY WORKED! The light bleed in that spot completely went away! ————————————————————————————For some reason, I am not getting high fps for games such as Warzone and COD Multiplayer. On my last laptop(Alienware m16 4080 AMD) I averaged at least 160 fps but could go up past 200 fps on low settings. With this laptop on the same (normal) settings I barely get 110-120. Maybe I have to play with the settings more but I definitely didn’thave to do as much with the Alienware to get the high fps out of the box. ————————————————————————————I bought this laptop on sale for $2200. I probably would have bought a desktop for the current full price. Overall decent PC fir the sale price, but for full price I’d look at desktop options.

Truly exceptional performance for a laptop, genuinely couldn't be happier with it. Can do everything from 3D modeling to running every game at Ultra Settings, and any software related task is a breeze. If you are switching from an Xbox console its nice because you can actually use Gamebar (think the Xbox home interface on your PC), underpowered PCs I have had struggled with Gamebar on Windows 10 but it's nice to actually use it and it works on this machine. Would recommend and I probably won't need a new PC for a while given how well this is running. Exceeded my expectations.

Fast. Very Fast! Big screen, plenty of cooling, and faster benchmarks than similar gaming laptops.