Asus ROG Mothership GZ700GX Laptop Review: Out of this world

As mentioned before, the ROG Mothership is a 2-in-1 laptop. The keyboard can be detached and folded up for a more flexible user experience, leaving the display standing independently (like a normal monitor). While the mechanism for attaching the keyboard works relatively well thanks to the magnets, it can feel somewhat clunky at times.

The display hinge warrants no criticism. Similarly, the stand showed itself to be surprisingly stable throughout our tests. The same cannot be said for the keyboard, however. While attached, the center area is particularly susceptible to flexing.

The design looks quite futuristic, which is typical for Asus devices. Not only the keyboard but also the bottom edge of the display border are illuminated. The build quality of the GZ700 is on a very high level. All elements of our test device smoothly transition into one another. The quality of the materials leaves nothing to be desired either. The metal surfaces gives the laptop a premium look and feel.

At 4.8 kg (~10.6 lb), the GZ700 is very heavy. Some of the competing devices are more than 1 kg (~2.2 lb) lighter. In terms of thickness, the Asus laptop falls between the HP Omen 17 or MSI GE75 9SG (2.7 cm/~1.1 in) and the Alienware Area 51m or MSI GT76 9SG (4.2 cm/~1.65 in).

Ports

The port selection matches the price. There is a total of 6 USB ports, 5 of which support the 3.1 Gen 2 standard. 2 of the USB ports have the Type-C form factor (1x with DisplayPort support and 1x with Thunderbolt 3 support). Additionally, there is an HDMI output, two audio jacks (headphone + microphone), a card reader and a Kensington Lock port. There is also a blazing-fast 2.5-GB/s LAN port.

Since all ports reside on the display unit, there is enough space for an external mouse in front or to the sides of the device. Here, unlike on many other laptops, there are few ways for connected cables to get in the way.

Unfortunately, the installed card reader is not one of the fastest models. At around 80 to 90 MB/s for sequential read and write operations on images, it only achieves an average result (in the same ballpark as the HP Omen 17) compared to the competition. With the ROG G703GXR, Asus shows the right way to do it, since its card reader almost fully exhausts the capabilities of our reference card. Meanwhile, the MSI GE75 is the slowest and only reaches USB 2.0 speeds.

Intel's brand-new AX200 chip serves as the wireless module. The results listed in the table are not quite directly comparable with those of competing devices. We recently upgraded our test setup from an ac router (Linksys EA8500) to an ax router (Netgear Nighthawk AX12). The latter causes the speed in our range test to approximately double. Transfer rates in excess of 1,400 MB/s is an excellent result.

Aside from the ports and components, the scope of delivery is generous as well. With a gaming mouse (Gladius II) and a gaming headset (Cerberus) included in the giant package, gamers can get started right away. When travelling, the laptop and accessories can be stowed away in the included backpack. Not one, but two 280-Watt AC adapters, which have a combined weight of 1.7 kg (~3.7 lb), are used to power the GZ700.

Unlike on most laptops, the majority of the hardware is not installed within the base unit, but rather behind/below the display. In order to access the hardware on the inside, the back plate of the display has to be removed (7 Philips screws and 4 Torx screws). Subsequently, almost all of the components are accessible, as you can see in our photos. This includes storage (3x M.2 slots with cover), the wireless module, the battery and the cooling solution. There are two fans and multiple heatpipes, which stretch themselves across CPU and GPU. Unfortunately, only 2 of the 4 RAM slots can be accessed.

The touchpad is a mixed bag. While at 8 cm (~3.15 in), the length is more than sufficient, the width of only 6 cm (~2.36 in) is very small. Users will need to readjust their finger when it comes to longer distances or drag-and-drop operations. However, we were impressed with the feature that allows the touchpad to transform into a numpad at the press of a button (see picture). The dedicated mouse buttons are nothing out of the ordinary. The same holds true for the precision, the gliding properties and the multitouch support (as in gestures).

Although more and more laptops are featuring 240- or even 300-Hz displays, 144-Hz screens continue to be a good choice for gamers.

The ROG Mothership is a pure-blooded desktop replacement that effortlessly handles even demanding applications and presumably offers enough performance for years to come.

Good: The ROG Mothership makes fairly good use of its Turbo Boost potential. In Cinebench R15, we measured a clock speed of between 4.2 and 4.5 GHz for a single-core load or 4.2 GHz exactly with all cores active.

These clock speeds put the GZ700 ahead of the 9880H competitors HP Omen 17 and MSI GE75 9SG. Only desktop processor based gaming laptops achieve even better results. The Core i9-9980HK cannot quite keep up with the Core i9-9900K inside of the Alienware Area 51m and MSI GT76 9SG. Meanwhile, the current "default" laptop CPU choice, the six-core model Core i7-9750H, can slower by as much as 30%.

The system performance is sublime. 6,789 points in PCMark 10 is a result that commands respect; only the Alienware 51m achieves a slightly higher score. Subjectively, Windows 10 is very responsive and boots within a few seconds. Loading times are pleasantly short as well.

In terms of storage performance, the ROG Mothership also chases records. Asus fits the 17-inch device with a total of three NVMe SSDs with the M.2 form factor (1x Samsung PM981 + 2x Intel 760p), which run in RAID 0 and have a total capacity of 1.5 TB. With sequential read and write speeds of 4,000 MB/s (AS SSD benchmark), it leaves the remainder of the comparison in the dust.

In order to be able to capitalize on the 144-Hz refresh rate of the Full-HD display, the extremely high-performance DirectX 12 model Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 is installed in the laptop. 2,944 shader units and 8 GB GDDR6-VRAM (256-bit interface) is a statement.

According to the tool GPU-Z, Asus has increased the memory speed from the base value of 1,750 to 1,788 MHz and the core clock from 1,575 to 1,675 MHz. Thanks to GPU boost, even higher frequencies are possible. As our Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (one run) and our "The Witcher 3" tests (60 minutes @FHD/Ultra) show, users can expect a clock speed of about 1,720 to 1,740 MHz - a good result for an RTX 2080 laptop.

The 3DMark 13 and 3DMark 11 benchmark scores put the 17-inch device at the top spot or close to it.

The GeForce RTX 2080 does not break a sweat at 1,920x1,080 pixels. Almost all the titles we tested ran at above 80 FPS with maximum details. Only in extremely demanding games, such as "Red Dead Redemption 2", the 60-FPS mark is not reached.

Usually, a high performance level goes hand in hand with high fan noise. The GZ700 falls into the same category. 37 to 39 dB(A) during idle mark the worst resullt in our comparison. The fans are very noticeable even during harmless tasks such as office work, playing videos and web browsing.

While gaming, the fans increase their speed significantly and reach up to 52 dB(A) - a distractingly loud noise level. For noise sensitive users, an average of 48 dB(A) while playing "The Witcher 3" is not a good result either. As a result, a headset is almost a necessity for gaming.

The surface temperatures of the case vary significantly. While the keyboard unit remains comfortably cool in any situation, the back of the display can reach up to 51 °C (~124 °F).

In terms of our audio analysis, the GZ700 produces the best sound of all gaming laptops we have tested. According to the data sheet, the ROG Mothership includes 4 speakers with 4 watts each. They produce a fairly powerful, clear and balanced sound, although it sounds somewhat dull in the author's opinion.

The 17-inch laptop consumes a lot of power with the graphics switching disabled, even while idling. The idle test demanded between 37 and 59 watts. Under load, the consumption increases to between 105 and 349 watts. Thus, the two AC adapters (560 watts total) are well dimensioned and even offer some headroom.

Aside from the MSI GE75 9SG (65 Wh) and the HP Omen 17 (70 Wh), all competitors come with a battery capacity of 90 Wh or more. The GZ700 manages to get a maximum runtime of 3 hours out of its battery. In our Wi-Fi test, the 17-inch lasts about 2.5 hours at medium brightness. When using Optimus instead of G-Sync, users can expect to be able to browse the web for around 4.5 hours.