Moving on, the version of Windows 10 installed is 1809, which gained notoriety for its post-launch issues and data losses.
If they prefer Pro over Home, then Pro should have been pre-installed anyway. ASUS went as far as to recommend Windows 10 Pro on their website. The laptop comes with Windows 10 Home, which is disappointing because of how limited you are in configuring Windows to prevent everyday annoyances.
For ASUS to pack in those two in a laptop that’s less than 1 inches thick and just under 5lbs is surprisingly good. These two are currently the latest hardware in AMD processor and nvidia GPUs in the laptop market. While it has an integrated GPU, it also comes packed with nvidia’s GTX 1660. The 3750H is a 4-core/8-thread CPU coupled with a Radeon RX Vega 10 GPU. This gaming laptop is surprisingly thin for the hardware it has. It’s a very capable entry level gaming pc, that is the perfect size for gaming on the go. The screen itself doesn’t produce the widest range of colors, but the matte finish was perfect for avoiding glare. The graphics were smooth, and the detail was still there. Overall, when testing various games on this laptop, such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Star Wars Battlefront II, I was very please with it’s gameplay. So, when the system doesn’t have a need to use the discrete NVIDIA video card, it uses the integrated AMD graphics to save power and allow the battery to last longer. For integrated graphics alone, that’s pretty good. Even under the low benchmark settings with 1280 x 720 resolution, it still received an average frames per second of 41. I even went a step further and deliberately disabled the discrete NVIDIA graphics card, and measured the laptop using the integrated AMD Radeon RX Vega 10 graphics that is coupled with the Ryzen CPU/APU. It was able to maintain a respectable 54 frames per second average under the High setting, and a solid 74 frames per second average under the Medium setting (see included image). It renders real gameplay visuals and produces various measures such as frames per second, as well as a composite score. To test this particular model, I ran a video game benchmark program called Superposition by Unigine 2. In addition, more games are being designed to utilize multiple cores. First, the AMD Ryzen processor excels at running applications that utilize multiple cores, such as photo and video processing. Returning to the performance of the AMD Ryzen 7 processor and discrete NVIDIA video card, together they performed well during testing and gameplay. To some, that will be a deal breaker, to others, they may appreciate the privacy. It’s worth nothing here that the bezel is so thin because this model does not come with an integrated webcam. And the very thin bezel around the screen really cuts down on the unit’s overall size.
The black aluminum top and solid plastic base provide a sleek look comparable to the more expensive all aluminum models in the $2000 plus price range. It is possible to find other gaming laptops with slightly stronger processors in the same price range here at Best Buy, but they won’t be packaged in as nice a chassis as this. It’s a gaming laptop with a solid AMD processor that’s packaged in a thin and light frame for easy traveling and a mature look. Hopefully, these improvements allow the internal components to holdup over the many hours I hope to put into this laptop for gaming.īefore I get into some benchmark scores I ran on this laptop, I do want to note what I think is the main draw of this model. Once gameplay starts, the heat generated was very noticeable, but these newer model Asus ultra-slim gamer laptops have improved cooling components with multiple heat pipes, self-cleaning mechanisms, and thin-blade yet high density fans. Doing so will dial up the internal fans in preparation for gaming. Within this software, you’ll need to select the Turbo profile to tune the system for peak performance.
However, in order to obtain those results, I needed to get familiar with Asus’s system performance tuning software know as Armoury Crate. Coupled with the NVIDIA GPU, AMD’s processor performed quite well playing the latest resource intensive games at medium to high video settings (depending on the game).
I was curious to see how AMD’s new Ryzen 7 processor performed in an entry level gamer pc.