Asus TUF FX705GM (i7-8750H, GTX 1060, FHD) Laptop Review

The FX705 has a premium appeal thanks to the metal lid. Even though the base unit is made of plastic, it also looks like aluminum due to the brushed finish. The entire chassis receives a positive verdict for sturdiness. The surfaces do not yield, even under a lot of pressure.

We were particularly fond of the thin display bezels that were almost able to reduce the dimensions down to the level of a 15-inch notebook. With a width of 40 cm (~15.8 in) and a depth of 27.9 cm (~11 in), the FX705 is surprisingly compact for a 17-inch device. For comparison: At 41.2 x 28.5 cm (~16.2 x 11.2 in), the competing MSI GS73 8RF is significantly larger. The same holds true for the Schenker XMG A707 (41.9 x 28.9 cm /~16.5 x 11.4 in) and the Acer Predator Helios 300 (43.2 x 29.0 cm /~17 x 11.4 in). The design height tells a different story. While 2.7 cm (~1.1 in) are neither thick by any stretch nor the worst value, by now there are far thinner devices, although this often negatively impacts cooling performance. Likewise, the weight of 2.75 kg (~6 lb) is neither very light nor very heavy.

As for the design, Asus has made an effort to find a good compromise between playfulness and elegance. Even though the case has numerous pattern and texture accents, the look does not appear too "geeky". We do not have many reasons to complain about the hinges either, since they do a good job (one-handed opening is possible). The workmanship could be better however. As for our press sample, which does not necessarily represent the final level of production, the transition between the lid and the display border was rough. The quality of the case is appropriate with respect to the price however.

Connectivity

Buyers will have to compromise when it comes to port selection. In order to reduce production costs, Asus not only forgoes a card reader, but also the otherwise common Mini DisplayPort. It also lacks a Thunderbolt 3 port. Even more vexing, the FX705 does not even have a USB type-C 3.1 Gen2 port. The three available USB ports all adhere to the type-A (2x 3.0 and 3.1 Gen1 & 1x 2.0) standard. External displays are connected via the HDMI 2.0 port, headsets and microphones can be connected to the audio jack. There is also an on-board network connection for RJ45 cables.

Right-handed users will be particularly happy about the distribution of ports. Since all of the ports except for the Kensington Lock slot have been placed on the left side, mouse movements are not restricted in any way.

Asus deserves praise for the Wi-Fi performance. The FX705 is able to deliver excellent data transfer rates thanks to the brand-new Intel Wireless AC-9560 chip. 700 Mbit/s more or less constitute the peak value that current laptops manage to reach in our Wi-Fi test (at 1m/~3 ft distance to the reference router Linksys EA8500).

As far as our test device is concerned, there is significantly less software than on ROG-series representatives. The installed fan controls are among the most important features. Buyers can choose between three different profiles using a shortcut (Fn + F5), namely Silent, Balanced and Overboost. All of the measurements in this article have been made on the medium setting, which is called Balanced. In the other two modes, many results will vary widely (key word noise level).

The scope of delivery of the press sample only includes the power supply. The maximum configuration of the TUF FX705 uses a 180-watt model with an approximate weight of 0.4 kg (~0.88 lb) and the dimensions 16 x 7.5 x 2.5 cm (~6.30 x 2.95 x 0.98 in) is used.

Maintenance of the 17-inch model has proven to be anything but exciting. After removing 11 Phillips screws, the entire bottom can be removed with some force (or a small lever tool). On the inside, there are two DDR4-RAM slots (SO-DIMM format), an M.2 slot and a 2.5-inch slot, all of which were occupied on our test device. The cooling solution consists of two fans as well as several metal structures and heat pipes. The heat pipes run across the soldered-on CPU and GPU. As with most Laptops from more recent years, the battery is only accessible from the inside.

In Germany, the warranty period is 24 months. Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

Touchpad

As for the mouse substitute, Asus has followed the current trend and installed a ClickPad without dedicated keys in the FX705. Fingers comfortably glide across the touchpad (as long as they are dry and not greasy) due to the smooth surface. The touchpad is also helpful for the supported gestures, which can be used to quickly zoom into and scroll through web pages and documents. We were less pleased with its precision, which could be slightly better. All things considered, the input devices still perform well, even though they do not quite make the very top of the list.

While other budget gaming notebooks only offer a 60 Hz display, the FX705 configuration we tested has a 144 Hz panel installed. The B173HAN04.0 from AU Optronics (AUO409D) has impressively low response times. 7.4 ms gray-to-gray and 10 ms black-to-white are pretty good values for the notebook segment, although the MSI GS73 and the in-house competition Asus GL703 have low switching times as well.

In its maximum configuration, the TUF FX705 represents a rock-solid gaming notebook. The Core i7-8750H and the 32 GB of DDR4-RAM (which is likely to only be 16 GB at maximum in Germany) come with enough reserves to last for years to come. The GeForce GTX 1060 will likely become obsolete sooner, even though the performance is currently sufficient for high to maximum details - at least at the native Full-HD resolution.

The FX705 left a very good impression in the benchmarks. Both the Cinebench R15 multi-core test and the Cinebench R11.5 multi-core test place the 17-inch device up to 10% above the 8750H-competition.

However, Intel's notebook six-cores are infamous for their inability to maintain their automatic turbo's maximum level for more than a short period of time. The Asus computer suffers the same fate. In the first Cinebench loop, the core clock already dropped from 3.9 GHz at the start to 3.0 GHz, leading to an overall score that was around 10% lower. Although as mentioned earlier, the FX705 is not alone in this. Competing devices level off at an even lower average score.

As expected, the system performance is excellent. While the 17-inch model ranges between the Asus GL703GM (5.525 points) and the Schenker XMG A707 (4.734 points) in the PCMark 10 test, it manages to claim first place among its competitors in the PCMark 8 Work test (2nd place @Home test). Since Windows has been installed on a solid-state drive, the operating system feels smooth and mostly reacts lightning-fast.

The solid-state drive easily outperforms SATA-III models thanks to PCIe and NVMe technology (see results of the Acer Predator Helios 300). The WDC model has a much harder time against other PCIe drives. Here, it achieves a lower final score in the AS SSD benchmark than both the Samsung PM961 (Asus GL703 & MSI GS73) and the Samsung 970 EVO (Schenker XMG A707). Subjectively however, buyers will likely notice little to no difference.

If you wish to play current triple-A games with good graphics, you should choose the FX705 with the GTX 1060 instead of the GTX 1050 (Ti). The DirectX-12 model from Nvidia's Pascal generation comes with 1,280 shaders and marks the beginning of the high-end segment. It accesses its 6 GB GDDR5-VRAM through a 192-bit interface.

Even though the clock speed behavior does not show any anomalies, the 3D performance is ever so slightly worse than on other laptops with an i7-8750H and a GTX 1060. The Asus GL703GM, for example, manages a 6% higher GPU score in 3DMark 11 (the installation of 3DMark 13 kept crashing with an error message). The deficit of the FX705 might be connected to the preinstalled driver, which may not have been perfectly optimized.

The 17-inch notebook was able to complete the gaming stress test without any issues. The core clock of the GeForce GTX 1060 was at 1,645 MHz after running The Witcher 3 for 60 minutes. We measured the same average value in the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark. The turbo spectrum of the GTX 1060 under load ranges from 1,405 MHz (base clock) to up to 1,911 MHz (maximum overclock).

The FX705 is able to stomach almost all games at high to maximum details, as long as no QHD or UHD display is used. Only the most demanding or poorly optimized titles (such as Assassin's Creed Odyssey) push the GeForce GTX 1060 to its limits.

If you want to be even more future-proof, you can choose a GTX 1070 or GTX 1070 Max-Q based laptop, such as the MSI GS73. The latter is more than 30% faster in The Witcher 3 (49.6 vs. 36.5 FPS @Full-HD/Ultra). Meanwhile, notebooks with a GTX 1050 Ti fall far behind. The Acer Helios 300 and the Schenker XMG A707 perform worse by around 30% in the open-world RPG.

The situation is not ideal under load either. 46-50 dB(A) is somewhere between clearly audible and downright annoying, making the use of a headset advisable. Only the Acer Predator Helios 300 was even louder during the stress test.

We tested the state of the hardware using the tools FurMark & Prime95. The result: While the Core i7-8750H kept its turbo active (even if only around 2.5 GHz), the GeForce GTX 1060 throttled to around 1,190 MHz. In turn, at a maximum of 85 instead of 88 °C (~185 instead of 190.4 °F), the GPU stayed slightly cooler.

There is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to sound. According to our audio analysis, the sound stage lacks bass, which messes with the balance and somewhat marginalizes lower tones. The Strix GL703 proves that Asus can do better (see table). In general, games, musical pieces and movies sound tinny and mushy, which is why it would be advisable to use headphones or external speakers to consume media. By the way, the two speakers are located behind red grills on the sides.

In order to improve battery life and pricing, Asus scrapped Nvidia's image improvement technology G-Sync and instead installed Optimus. The graphics switching feature allows the CPU-internal GPU (UHD Graphics 630) to take care of simple tasks such as office suites, video, and web, which significantly decreases energy consumption. At 13 to 24 watts during idle, the FX705 still consumes a lot more power than many competitors. The MSI GS73, the Schenker XMG A707 and the Acer Helios 300 all consume less energy. During 3D use, comparing the values becomes difficult due to different dGPUs. Here, the FX705 pulled between 106 and 179 watts out of the wall.

We would describe the battery life as workable. For a high-end notebook, 4.5 hours of surfing the web via Wi-Fi (luminosity reduced to 150 cd/m²) is an okay result. In ideal circumstances, which is to say low load and minimal brightness, the FX705 lasts up to 6.5 hours. Gaming sessions at maximum brightness exhaust the 64-Wh battery after about 1-1.5 hours. Top: 3D performance barely drops in battery mode. The performance in Witcher 3 decreased by around 10%.