Asus ROG Strix GL702ZC (Ryzen 7 1700, Radeon RX 580) Laptop Review

The case only reflects the revolutionary components (first time an 8-core CPU is used) to some extent. With a height of 3.4 cm, the chassis is significantly thicker than the GL702VM's, which we reviewed in late 2016 with Core i7-6700HQ and GeForce GTX 1060. However, the height hardly differs from the GL753VD's (Core i7-7700HQ and GeForce GTX 1050) from early 2017.

The 17-inch laptop is neither especially thick nor thin but complies with the gaming average. We had expected a bulkier chassis in view of the CPU power. The Clevo barebone of the Schenker XMG U727, which also comes with a desktop CPU (with a TDP of 91 Watt instead of 65 Watt, however) measures 4.7 cm for example. The Aorus X7 v7 (2.5 cm) and the Acer V17 Nitro (2.8 cm) are notably thinner.

The weight of the GL702ZC is also quite unspectacular. 3.2 kg is usual for a 17-inch gaming laptop, which is also shown by the MSI GE72 7RE (3.0 kg). Once again, the Schenker notebook takes the lead with a hefty 5.0 kg. None of the mentioned devices is really portable. Those who travel frequently are better off with a slim 13-inch or 15-inch laptop (see our mobile Gaming Top 10).

The case quality of the GL702ZC appears to be good. Apart from accurate build quality, the stylish lid made of aluminum is a pro. While the top side of the base unit also looks like brushed metal, Asus used plastic here. By contrast, it becomes apparent at the first glance that the textured underside is made of plastic. Nevertheless, the device is not "nothing but plastic".

The stability is on par with the competition. Although the keyboard warps at the WASD part and the number pad when heavy force is applied, the base unit is quite pressure resistant otherwise. The lid's stability is slightly worse yet still acceptable.

Asus does not risk much in terms of design. Shape and the red accents (touchpad bezel, key labels, logo, etc.) are similar to those of other models of the ROG series. Due to the dark color, dust will be visible. Dirt (fingerprints, etc.) primarily collects on the lid. The hinges allow opening with one hand. Nevertheless, the display does not teeter intensively on vibrating surfaces.

The connectivity leaves room for improvements. Many gamers expect a Thunderbolt-3 port in the price range above 1000 Euros (~$1194), which the GL702ZC unfortunately lacks. The Type-C port on the left side only supports USB 3.1 (at least Gen2 according to Asus).

The other interfaces are standard for current notebooks: RJ45, three USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and two digital videos-outs in form of HDMI and mini DisplayPort. The usual card reader and a Kensington lock slot are also available. It is slightly disappointing that Asus uses a combined audio jack for headphones and microphone. Two separate ports might be more convenient for most users and should be obligatory for 1800 Euros (~$2150).

We liked the interface layout. Due to the rear-heavy arrangement, cables will barely or not at all interfere with a mouse.

The performance of the SD-card reader is quite unspectacular. The 17-inch laptop ranks mid-range at 90 MB/s (sequential reading) and 76 MB/s (transfer of images). While the Acer V17 Nitro and the MSI GE72 7RE only achieve USB 2.0 speed, the Schenker XMG U727 and the Aorus X7 v7 almost use the full potential of our reference card. It is annoying that inserted SD cards stick out of the slot so much that accidents are likely.

Realtek devices are responsible for communication. Gigabit-LAN makes wired connections to the WWW possible. The wireless chip 8822BE supports WLAN 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.2 and performs well in our range test (1 m distance to the reference router Linksys EA8500) at a rate above 600 Mbit/s. The results vary quite heavily, however.

Our test model did not include any accessories beyond the power adapter. The reviewed GL702ZC is powered by a 330 Watt monster (20 x 10 x 4.5 cm), which is only used by real high-end laptops with GeForce GTX 1080 or SLI systems otherwise.

Maintenance is a mixed bag. Due to the lack of a maintenance hatch, it is not very easy to remove the underside. In order to remove the underside, you have to remove 10 screws and many hooks, which requires considerable force and might put laypeople off.

Afterwards, buyers gain access to all inner components from the two RAM slots and the hard drive slots (1x 2.5-inch & 1x M.2 Type 2280) to the cooling system. The latter consists of two fans and several heat-pipes, which are installed quite "artfully" (not to say chaotically). Shape and screwing of the battery are also a bit strange. The laptop earns plus points for having the processor installed on a socket. This means that the processor can be replaced. By contrast, it is not possible to replace the graphics chip (soldered).

Asus grants a warranty of 24 months on this device. Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies & Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

The mouse replacement with a size of 10.3 x 7.2 cm is a ClickPad. Unfortunately, the GL702ZC confirms that touchpads without dedicated mouse buttons do not always works flawlessly. Sometimes left and right clicks lack reliability as the system registers a mouse movement instead of a click and the general precision does not fully reach a (good) conventional touchpad's.

We appreciate the smooth finish, which feels nice to the touch and also allows fast input with slightly wet or greasy fingers. Multi-touch is certainly supported. We could scroll and zoom websites with two-finger gestures without problem in a short test with the Microsoft browser. The 17-inch laptop is not ideal for use in quiet surroundings (libraries, etc.) as the keyboard is loud and clatters.

The response times are also typical for an IPS display. 23 ms black-to-white and 39 ms gray-to-gray are normal. Moreover, we could not detect blurring. Flickering was detected (up to 90% brightness), but this should not even cause problems in sensitive people due to a high frequency. As mentioned in the introduction, the display is FreeSync-capable. We disabled this feature in all our measurements.

It is not exactly easy to categorize the GL702ZC in a specific performance class. While the Ryzen 7 1700 definitely plays in the top league, the Radeon RX 580 is between mid-range and high-end. The same is true for the used SSD, which lacks PCIe/NVMe technology. There is also room for improvements in terms of RAM, since Asus only used a single 16 GB module in single-channel mode (DDR4-2400 from Samsung).

The Ryzen 7 1700 is best comparable with the Core i7-7700 (without K for free multiplier). While the latter only features 8 instead of 16 MB L3 cache, it achieves higher clock rates (3.6 to 4.2 vs. 3.0 to 3.7 GHz). The GL702ZC uses the clock range of the octa-core CPU quite well. A maximum of 3.7 GHz in single-core applications and exactly 3.2 GHz when all cores are used conform to AMD's specification.

Thanks to its high core count, the Ryzen 7 1700 performs much better than the competitors in the multi-core tests. With 1408 points, it even outperforms the 91 Watt Core i7-7700K in Cinebench R15 by 47% (+49% @Cinebench R11.5). This is the best result of a notebook we have seen so far. As expected, single-core benchmarks are not a strength of the GL702ZC. The Ryzen CPU slightly falls behind the popular notebook CPU Core i7-7700HQ (2.8 to 3.8 GHz, 45 Watt TDP, 6 MB L3 cache) here. Since most modern applications are multi-threaded, this is hardly important.

In practice, the high consumption has a negative impact, which we will explain later. While the GL702ZC gets very loud under load and the cooling system reaches its limits, the CPU can deliver constant performance for a longer period of time. The figure below shows that the Cinebench score is still extremely high after many runs. More benchmarks to the Ryzen 7 1700 can be found in our database.

The system performance also didn't give any bad surprises. The GL702ZC ranks relatively mid-range between its competitors in PCMark 8. The Aorus X7 v7 performs slightly better due to its fast PCIe SSD. Subjectively, the operating system reacts exceptionally fast. Apart from booting, also opening games only takes a short time - if they are installed on the SSD.

In case the SSD's storage capacity is not sufficient, the laptop features a secondary 1 TB HDD in 2.5-inch format (Seagate ST1000LM035). It works at 5400 RPM and delivers an acceptable performance for an HDD. You should avoid installing games on it however, since loading times will increase dramatically if you do so.

It is not necessarily only due to the VRAM if the 6 GB variant of the GeForce GTX 1060 performs more than 10% better than the RX 580. It might also be due to the lack of AMD optimization by gaming developers. Many titles, including Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Watch Dogs 2 and Ghost Recon Wildlands, belong to Nvidia's gaming program "the way it's meant to be played". AMD's counterpart called "Gaming Evolved" can be found significantly less often in the intro videos of games. The gap to the GTX 1060 in several games can also be explained by the still immature driver. According to our experience, AMD always slightly trails behind Nvidia in driver development.

Speaking of the driver: Since the Ryzen 7 1700 does not include a graphics chip, the Radeon RX 580 runs permanently. On the one hand, this has a very negative impact on power consumption, battery life, and emissions in idle mode. On the other hand, AMD's graphics switch called Enduro could never really convince in the past and close up to Nvidia's Optimus technology.

Back to the Radeon RX 580: The DirectX 12 chip performs quite well in our benchmark course. Both the Time Spy test and the Fire Strike test of the current 3DMark rank the RX 580 very close behind the GeForce GTX 1060 with 6 GB VRAM. The GeForce GTX 1050 Ti performs about 30% worse and the GeForce GTX 1070 is about 60% faster.

The graphics driver caused hardly any anomalies in our tests. We only faced the problem that several games (Ark Survival Evolved, Rocket League, Dirt 4 & Titanfall 2) did not run at 3840x2160 pixels on our external display. Far Cry Primal and Watch Dogs 2 refused to run on the internal display with resolutions under 1920x1080 pixels.

The mobile Radeon RX 580 is based on AMD's Polaris architecture. It has 2304 shader units in common with its desktop counterpart, but the base clock is significantly lower (1077 vs. 1257 MHz). In contrast to the desktop model, we could not detect a boost feature. The Radeon RX 580 never exceeded its standard clock of 1077 MHz in the 3D tests. At least it does not throttle - with the exception of the slightly unrealistic stress test.

The GL702ZC performed flawlessly in our gaming loop with The Witcher 3 (60 minutes @FHD/Ultra). The only complaint is battery use. The performance fell by 75% in The Witcher 3 on battery.

We finally reached possibly the most important aspect: gaming performance. The benchmark table below confirms that the Radeon RX 580 has been designed for the Full HD range. Like the GeForce GTX 1060, it allows playing most games at maximum details in 1920x1080 pixels. The GL702ZC is only capable of handling higher resolutions to some extent. The RX 580 will stutter very frequently on UHD displays. The following overview shows how the AMD chip ranks in comparison to competitors (average of Full HD benchmarks).

As finally only the level of the GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q is reached, the GL702ZC appears a bit too expensive from the gamer's point of view - while AMD systems are usually known for their good price-performance ratio. You will also get GTX 1070 laptops for 1800 Euros (~$2150), which feature a significantly better gaming performance (+45%) and are much more future-proof.