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Immediately after CES 2021, ASUS has made its products available to customers, and today we also have one of the ROG Strix G17 G713 gamer laptop for review. As you know, the Strix G series is the popular Asus ROG gaming laptop line and the affordable line in the ROG family (except TUF), which is aimed at students who want a powerful laptop in an affordable price range. But this year’s ROG Strix G17 G713 is not just geared towards that audience, it is slowly getting ready for professional gamers.
The product line launched at CES this year came with the slogan “For Those Who Dare”, which means the same sentiment for those who dare to innovate and create. This year’s ROG Strix G inherits a lot from the high-end Strix Scar series, such as similar design, more metal, nearly identical configuration, and especially heat-destroying ability.
Design
The ROG Strix G17’s most dramatic change in design this year is that the A-side of the machine is finished in metal rather than plastic, as in previous versions. ASUS has further perfected this metallic A-face part of a strip of ROG printed letters that are tiny and imprinted, very even, and beautiful.
This reminds us of last year’s highly successful ASUS Zephyrus G14 with a tiny pattern of mini-LED bulb holes that customize the front of the machine and enhance the user’s creativity even more. We were very impressed with that G14 design, you can see our ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 review to know more about it, and this year ASUS brought that inspiration to the Strix G series.
Next to it is the ROG logo that glows instead of chrome like the previous version, unfortunately, it’s just white LEDs, not RGB LEDs like the high-end Strix Scar or Zephyrus. We expect ASUS to bring the RGB LED to the Strix G version next year.
At the rear, the A-side is a hump part, completely solid from the Strix Scar down and new this year, layers with overlapping heatsinks are gone, but there are letters instead. This is a hallmark of the ROG Strix series, which ASUS has maintained for many years, both enhancing design aesthetics, differential, and more efficient heat dissipation.
Also on the top is the ROG logo, which is embossed, giving ASUS users three color versions this year, including Gray, Orange, and particularly Masculine Pink. We are very impressed with the colors that ASUS points to on the Strix G17 G713, we waited a lot for the pink or orange version, but unfortunately, we got the Gray color only.
Display
Before talking about the screen for more information, we would like to talk about the bezel completed by ASUS, which extends a bit from the frame, making it easier for users to open the machine. There is brand experience with popular laptops and we care about such small but important things but ASUS thinks differently.
What are we going to get on screen? The 17-inch panels in the laptop world are a much larger screen, a higher quality IPS panel, which has Full HD resolution with an incredible refresh rate of 300Hz. Users will have the option to choose between Full HD 300HZ and QHD 165Hz. The version we have is Full HD 300Hz and in fact, our experience with it over the last few days has been quite satisfactory.
In terms of display quality, we haven’t measured yet, but ASUS said that with the Full HD 300Hz option, we’ll have a panel with 100% SRGB coverage, and in the 165Hz QHD option we have more DCI colors, -P3 reaches 100%, which translates into approximately 132% sRGB.
With such display quality, gamers no longer have to sacrifice between configuration and other parameters, we can fully operate the graphics on the machine with high color accuracy. Now not just for playing games, moreover, with such a high refresh rate, makes the working experience, graphics or office work even easier and more enjoyable.
Keyboard and touchpad
At the bottom of the screen, you’ll have a full-size keyboard with 4-zone RGB LED for a button you choose. For the high-end Strix Scar line, you will get a per-key RGB LED and will be a mechanical keyboard, a true premium piece with a laptop keyboard. For the Strix G, we only have a generic keyboard, but the way ASUS adapts it very well for gaming and office.
First, it is equipped with additional keys for gaming, such as a button to quickly adjust fan speed, a button to quickly open the Armory Crate driver, a button to quickly disable the touchpad, and ASUS also equipped the NumPad for Strix G, so if you often work with numbers, it is there but you will not need to use too much.
We liked the typing feel and responsiveness of the Strix G keyboard, it was neither too shallow nor too deep, but the moderate travel gave us a comfortable typing feel, not too loud and gliding. If your ability to remember keys is low, you still won’t get any trouble in the game because the keys are too fast, the custom RGB LED also adds excitement. In general, we were satisfied with Strix G.
A plus point of the Strix G keyboard is that it feels very soft, smooth, and velvety when you pick it up, so you feel very hands-on and unaffected by the temperature, which is very comfortable to play the game for a long time. But in return, it would be easy to left sweat as well as fingerprints if you’re a sweaty person, fortunately, we don’t think this refinement of ASUS is very tasty.
The trackpad of the Asus ROG Strix G17 G713 is larger than last year’s version and is covered with glass, which is extremely important for us to have a perfect experience with Microsoft’s precise touchpad driver.
Performance
In terms of the Asus ROG Strix G17 G713 configuration, we have a monster inside the rugged body. In more detail, we have:
- CPU: Ryzen 7 5800H 8 core 16 threads, 3.2GHz base clock, and turbo-boosted to 4.4GHz, L3 cache 16MB
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3070 8GB DDR6
- RAM: 16GB DDR4-3200MHz
- SSD: 1 TB
Regarding the Ryzen 7 5800H CPU, it is AMD’s 5000 Series CPU, which is TSMC’s 7nm FinFET process. With the Ryzen 7 5800H CPU, it runs with 45W TDP, but often manufacturers want to push CPU TDP more than it is designed to maximize its power and computation. There is a story that ASUS previously shared with the Ryzen 4000 series CPU, very few good gaming laptop devices equipped it with high-performance GPUs such as the RTX 2000 series.
The reason here is that because the Ryzen 4000 series does not use the full power of those high-performance graphics cards, it does not use the full PCIe 3.0 bandwidth of the GPU, so its performance is not as the user expected.
But now that it has been settled with AMD’s 5000 Series, brands can equip the CPU of the Razen 5000 Series with high-performance GPUs like the RTX 3000 series, as you can see here with the ROG Strix G17.
We have tried a rough benchmark with basic tools such as PC Mark 10, 3D Mark, and Cinebench R23, the number is very high.
This is a change and dares to think of ASUS when they say that all their gaming laptops will be equipped with liquid metal heat dissipation this year. You already know the heat dissipation effect of liquid metals, but the component is prone to fire hazards and risks if not carefully arranged and shielded. ASUS says that users have peace of mind because they have resolved that situation. Supporting a cooling system with large copper pipes and liquid metal thermal paste is a system of large heat sinks, this year ASUS has equipped the ROG Strix G17 with 4 heat sinks instead of 3 as the last generation. The gaming notebook equipped with 4 heat sinks will help vent the hot air more efficiently and absorb cooler air.
During the past few days of testing, we have played today’s great games like Resident Evil 3, Tomb Raider, FF XV, Horizon Zero Dawn, GTA V as well as online games like CS: GO, Valorant, the FPS results are outstanding, and the temperature of both CPU and GPU does not exceed 85 degrees.
This is a staggering number for the Asus ROG Strix G17 G713 laptop for gaming. The surface temperature we measured with the FLIR system and felt by hand is quite cool, ASUS effectively engraves the keyboard surface. Does not make users uncomfortable if using heavy tasks for a long time, or while playing games for a very long time.
Connectivity
The connection port of the ROG Strix G17 G713 is quite full, we have 3 USB-A ports, an HDMI port, an RJ45 port, a USB-C port with 100 W PD support, and a 3.5mm combo jack. The interesting thing about this year’s ROG Strix G is the 100W PD-enabled USB-C port, allowing users to take advantage of other USB-C charging accessories to charge the machine in emergency time.
Of course, this is not possible with the charger that comes with a laptop with a capacity of 240W (much larger and heavier), but when instant charging is required to perform light functions, there is a USB-C PD. According to ASUS, the 90Wh battery life will last about 4 hours with normal functions.
Features
Asus ROG Strix G17 G713 features an Armory Crate driver, with Armory Crate, users will be able to customize this machine even more. Especially with Armory Crate this year, users can even set the level of TDP that the CPU and GPU consume, now there is no need to use Intel XTU software anymore and ASUS also gives several suggestions for users to use.
Besides, we can also turn on and off and optimize the iGPU based on the task, when working lightly, turn on the iGPU and turn off the discrete GPU, when needed to play games or heavy graphics, turn on discrete GPU. This approach is not new in the gaming world, but ASUS has simplified the user experience and made it possible for those who are not very familiar with tweaking. Apart from this, Asus has also introduced a two-way active noise cancellation technique using AI.
Final line
Overall, the ASUS ROG Strix G17 G713 is a great gaming laptop in this year’s gaming world, with changes made by Asus and improvements with the Strix G series, which we think will be worth considering.
For you, if you want to find yourself a good gaming laptop that offers great performance in a beautiful design. So the ROG Strix G17 will be a great option for you, whose price range starts at $1,799.99 on Bhphotovideo.com, which is our expected price for this configuration.
