ASUS ROG Stix G15 test (G513QR): The best performance-price ratio of the moment?

Technical sheet Design screen software performance autonomy price and availability conclusioncommers have the product sheetwards available to 2599 €

In the Strix family, the G15 is placed as a laptop without compromise by taking up the majority of the assets of its big brother, the Rog Strix Scar 17, which we reviewed recently ago.Despite a slightly less delusional price, this laptop intends to be one of the most efficient on the market with its Ryzen 9 processor and its latest generation RTX 3070 graphics card.Best seller approaching?We take stock with this test.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

Definitely, Asus does not do half-measures with its ranges of laptops for 2021.After coming out fully satisfied with the test of the affordable Asus Tuf Gaming A15, the overpowered Asus Rog Stix Scar 17 and the very elegant Asus Rog Zephyrus G15, the time has come to examine an equally attractive version on paper with this rogStix G15.

ASUS ROG Stix G15 technical sheet (G513QR)

The PC was loaned by Asus for this test.

The Asus Rog Stix G15 is a real monster of power on paper.Powered by a Ryzen 9 5900HX processor, it is also accompanied by an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card whose TGP reaches 130 W with the famous Dynamic Boost 2.0.Besides that, we take advantage here of "only" 16 GB of RAM (DDR4 - 3,200 MHz) with the possibility of upgrade up to 32 GB, an SSD NVME of 1 TB, and to finish an IPS 15 slab,6 inches in Full HD with a 300 Hz splendor!

A gaming look "for those who dare"

Aesthetically, the Strix G15 does not leave marble, and even risks dividing opinions.Like the Tuf Gaming series, Asus, in our opinion, offers a design that cuts by targeting the players, while keeping a sufficiently discreet appearance for other uses.The LED bar, the backlit logo on the hood, the various graphic elements and certain curves of the chassis do not deceive on the scope of this product.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

Apart from the LED bar whose colored lighting is clearly visible when the PC is switched on, the ROG Strix G15 gives in the subtlety.We note it in particular with the lettering ROG which travels keyboard and cover diagonally, with the messages hidden on non -slip pads, and to a lesser extent with a led bar much more soberly integrated here than on the MSI Ge76 Raider that we are tesing therelittle.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

The materials used by the Taiwanese manufacturer are good.First thanks to an aluminum hood which ensures good rigidity on the screen, but also because the plastic chassis seems very good and does not retain fingerprints, which is not the case with the ROGStrix Scar G17.The whole is relatively fine and light for a laptop which has so solid arguments in terms of power.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

With a thickness of 22.6 mm and a weight of 2.30 kg, this PC is not among the thinnest on the market, on this point the Razer Blade 15 Advanced seems much more compact, but allows Asus to position a generousRTX 3070 in this configuration, and a thermal dissipation system which, logically, is much more effective than that of Razer.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

Finally, if the lower border of the screen remains wider than the average, Asus offers a thin frame to its IPS slab with a Screen-to-Body ratio of 85 %, a beautiful asset to strengthen immersion in play, butalso an important aesthetic argument.Nevertheless, the finesse of this framework is above all made possible by the absence of webcam and facial recognition, an element to take into account if you ever plan to use this laptop in telework for example.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

Keyboard and touchpad

Given the excellence of the keyboard with opto-mechanical contactors of the Strix Scar G17, we are a little disappointed to note that the test in testing today is satisfied with a chiclet keyboard.This does not mean, however, that this keyboard is bad, it is on the contrary very pleasant for the entry, and offers a correct experience in play thanks to a slightly longer racing length than the average.However, we remain on our hunger with regard to the directional, tiny, and the Ctrl and Maj touches, a little too thin to our taste.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

The absence of a digital pavement nevertheless makes it possible to enjoy a good spacing between the keys, and the addition of a line of keys to the right of the keyboard for multimedia controls.On the top left, there are also several shortcuts to control the volume or put the microphone in mute, as well as to access the Compagnon Armoury Crate software and quickly change performance profile (silent, performance, and turbo).

The touchpad is perfectly integrated into this machine: effective, precise and large enough, we do not find much to blame it.

Connectors

For the most part gathered at the rear of the chassis, it lacks the connectors of this laptop only an SD card reader for more exhaustiveness.On the sides, there is only a Jack 3 combo socket.5 mm and two USB 3 ports.2 Gen 1 Type-a on the left.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

A third USB port is placed at the rear and accompanies the RJ 45 connector and the USB-C Gen 2 (with support for the Display Alt Mode and the load up to 100 W), as well as an HDMI 2 port.0b.Regarding a connector directly connected to the IGPU, we do not take advantage of HDMI 2.1, just like the Thunderbolt which is, as you know, reserved for Intel processors.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

Audio

The power and sound rendering of the two 4 W speakers integrated here are amazing, compared to the gaming laptops that we have tested so far in 2021.With a sufficient volume to cover ventilation noises, we take advantage of a good quality sound with very present bass and a level of detail that remains correct for this type of solutions.The Strix G15 is one of the few games to show sufficient audio potential to play without necessarily using a helmet.

An ideal screen for the game

The IPS slab of the Strix G15 displays overall good results under the impartial eye of our colorism probe.We note, however, that the contrast is quite bad with a report of 810: 1.The light peak reaches a correct value of 321.8 cd/m², sufficient to enjoy the screen in an environment a little brighter than normal, but the level of black does not descend below 0.4 cd/m².

The calibration of the default image mode leaves something to be desired.The RGB curve is stable, but the average color temperature is far too cold with 7,135 k.You will have to play with the cursors in Armoury Crate, or with more options in AMD Radeon Software, to reach a rendering closer to reality.The gamma curve shows that a more advanced calibration would benefit this slab, especially with a sudden dropout around 90 % brightness.

Besides that, it must be said that the colors are very correctly restored on this screen.First with a colorimetric coverage which reaches 100 % of the SRGB space, 77 % of DCI-P3, or 74.7 % for Abobe RGB.Apart from fairly large drifts on whites, the accuracy of colors is there, with a medium delta e of 2.84.

The slab of the Stix G15 clearly promotes performance with its 300 Hz refrash allow it to announce a latency of only 3 ms.His response time is also among the lowest on the market;In other words, we are dealing with an ideal screen for playing, but a little less when it comes to creative use.

Software

While ASU continues its partnership with McAfee, present on this machine, the manufacturer has accustomed us to get a very good experience with its different software suites.Here we find two very practical utilities with Myasus and Armoury Crate.The first, however, delegates the majority of its features to the second, which keeps hands on a large number of parameters via a functional and aesthetically very successful interface.

In just a few clicks, Armoury Crate lets us choose between several performance modes or personalizing the power of the processor and the GPU clock frequency, while creating fans via manual mode.We also have the possibility of deactivating or going into "IGPU mode" to save the battery, to manage the audio settings, to choose between different colorimetric profiles for the screen, or to manage the keystroke by keyboard keyboard keyboard.Aura Creator allows to go a little further in the personalization of the device, with the creation of light effects.

Performance

Asus has chosen to place its new Strix range under the sign of power!For this, the manufacturer opts here for one of the most efficient mobile processors on the market, namely the Ryzen 9 5900HX.With 8 cores and 16 threads and a frequency between 3.3 GHz and 4.6 GHz in Boost mode, this processor has 16 MB of L3 cache and 4 MB of L2 cache, all with a thermal envelope of thermal envelope45 W+, indicating the overclocking capacities of this chip.

Without real surprise, we see that this Ryzen 5900HX surpasses its direct competitors, with Intel processors like the Core i7-10870h and Core i7-10875h that we have already examined with other machines.The most important gap obviously concerns multi-core performance;Our test model obtains 13,364 points under Cinebench R23, a score higher 42 % compared to the i7-10870h and approximately 3 % higher than Ryzen 7 5800h.The gap is less dug in single, with a significant gain and a score of 1,462 points.The Vega graphic nucleus is doing so with honors, collecting a graphical score of 16,392 points during the 3D Mark Night Raid test.

Our configuration is also perfectly cut for content creation, as shown in the different scores below obtained with the Modern Office Test of PCMARK 10.

With an overall score of 7,010 points, the ROG Strix G15 displays a performance gain between 3 and 18 % compared to recent machines tested here.

Source: Matthieu Legouge

The SSD NVME Signed SK Hynix displays excellent results, especially with 3.6 GB/s in sequential reading and a little more than 3 GB/S in sequential writing.

Performance en jeu

Equipped with a GeForce RTX 3070 card at 115 W TGP, our test copy benefits from the Dynamic Boost 2.0, raising this value to 130 W.We find the support of the Technologies resizable bar and Whisper Mode 2.0, however the latter is not yet activated on this PC when carrying out this test.The Optimus Advanced option is one of the absent, an absence that goes hand in hand with that of the G-Sync.

3D Mark

The ROG Stix G15 is a monster of power;His performances come to tu that of the Rog Strix Scar 17, which is equipped with a RTX 3080 at the 130 W TGP.The Benchmark Time Spy Extreme of 3D Mark displays an overall score of 5,067 points, with no less than 5,222 points for the graphic part and 4,340 points for the CPU.

In reality, the Strix 15 displays consistent results compared to its generous TGP, much higher than what we have seen on finer laptops with a less generous cooling potential.We also noticed it with the various tests whose results are displayed below:

Apex Legends

Conclusive experience on APEX Legends, our laptop here holds an average rate of 208 FPS, enough to appreciate good fluidity on this Battle Royal.Competitive players will appreciate the extreme fluidity that it is possible to reach by playing on the graphic parameters, with an average of 260 FPS, just that!

Red Dead Redemption 2

With a Full HD definition, the Gourmet Title of Rockstar poses no concern for our configuration.As the average of 78 FPS in Ultra shows it, it is possible to appreciate all the subtleties of this open world without ever being embarrassed.

Benchmarks in the games with Ray Tracing

Control

The ROG Stix G15 is completely competent when it comes to activating Ray Tracing.Control runs at 63 fps on average in this situation, a value that rises to 94 fps when activated the DLSS.Otherwise, we take advantage of 104 medium fps by deactivating the Ray Tracing.

Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs: Legion posed more difficulty in this configuration, but it is still doing well by holding an average of 57 FPS with the Ray Tracing.The DLSS does not do miracles here, but allows you to exceed the fateful threshold of the 60 fps.The fluidity is however better without ray tracing with 82 fps on average.

Thermal dissipation and noise

Let's start by approaching the temperature issue.The ROG Stix G15 has a cooling system that has been completely effective during our various game sessions.After two hours of play on the titles mentioned above, the GPU of our machine displayed a peak at 78 ° C while for its part the temperature of the CPU did not exceed 86 ° C.These are temperature peaks, by analyzing the averages we see that the GPU revolves more around 57 ° C, where the CPU displays an average of 64 ° C.

About decibels produced by ventilation, it must be admitted that this laptop is not one of the quietest.The nuisances are however contained, even in turbo mode and the Strix G15 is ultimately not too disturbing on this point.Only manual mode makes it possible to directly push ventilation to its maximum: it is certain that in this case the nuisances are much higher, but this is useful only in case of overclocking.Finally, its silent operation below 60 ° C is very appreciable and the Strix G15 is a PC which will not disturb anyone by limiting office use in an open-space for example.

Autonomy

The Strix G15 passed the battery performance test hands down.We obtain a score of 5,693 points under PCMARK 10 Modern Office;In total the benchmark lasted 10 hours and 30 minutes to go from 100 % to 3 % battery.A very interesting result which shows the potential of this machine and its versatility, despite a battery with a capacity of only 80 WH, where there are references culminating at 99 Wh, in MSI in particular.

Price and availability of Asus Rog Stix G15 (G513QR)

We do not know when writing these lines if the model presented here will be available for the French market.However, an almost similar reference is offered in France, the ROG Stix G15-G513QR-HQ109T.

The difference between the latter and our test model lies only in the IPS slab.Instead of a Full HD slab in 300 Hz, Asus offers a WQHD screen with a frequency that is limited to 165 Hz.Apart from this, this configuration is in every way identical to ours and is displayed with a price of € 2,299.