ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512 review – breaches the 4.00 GHz threshold in stress testing

In a world where obnoxious gaming laptops are becoming rarer than undercooked beef, ASUS is actually taking a step back. Now, you can see that the Strix G15 G512 is a gaming device from miles away, with its rather aggressive base and backside. However, the lid cover is pretty sleek, but the glowing strips on the bottom panel are giving it away.

While it falls in the medium-budget part of the market, the laptop offers a wide range of configurations for pretty much everyone. When it comes to the processor, there are two Core i7s – the six-core and the eight-core. When it comes to the GPUs, you can pick from the GTX 1650 Ti if you want to keep the price down, or you can go all the way up to the RTX 2070 Super, should you need to extract the most out of your wallet. Of course, you can get pretty much everything in between these two.

Furthermore, there are two display options, including very fast IPS displays – one 144Hz and one 240Hz.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-rog-strix-g15-g512/

Contents

Specs Sheet

What’s in the box?

The configuration we got comes with a 150W power brick, some paper manuals, and the device, itself. Contrary to the more budget-oriented TUF series, this device’s packaging looks very pretty.

Design and construction

Well, something that definitely keeps the price down is the plastic material. As we mentioned, the design is significant for the ROG Strix series and makes the laptop easily distinguishable. In terms of measurements, this laptop is not one of the most portable ones out there. The weight is 2.39 kg, while the profile stands at 25.9mm tall.

Fortunately, the lid can be opened with a single hand, but its rigidity is not great. Ultimately, this means that the lid is pretty bendy when you force it, and we found that our unit has very fragile side bezels. When we start twisting the lid, the entire side bezel tries to break away and slides off the display. By the way, the ROG Strix G15 G512 lacks a Webcam, similarly to the G531.

When it comes to the keyboard, we see a NumberPad-less unit an RGB backlight, relatively clicky feedback, and good travel. Additionally, there are five multimedia/special buttons above the function key row, which enable you to adjust the sound, turn off the mic, push the fans to the max and enter the ROG app.

One thing we didn’t like about this keyboard is the size of the arrow keys. They are so small, that we don’t see anyone using them for something more than adjusting the brightness or changing the modes of the AURA backlight.

Further down below, you can see the touchpad, which has great gliding and tracking and is extremely comfortable to use. It also has its own dedicated buttons, which have low resistance, and more interestingly – there is a NumberPad function embedded into the touchpad, itself.

Now, looking at the bottom plate we see the ventilation grill, which is not really big in area, but instead – its grills are scattered across a large surface. So, in addition to them, there are the speaker cutouts, which are firing both from the bottom and from the side, and obviously, the huge RGB strip running from the left side to the right, going through the front.

Ports

On the left side, there are three USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports and a headphone jack. Then, on the back, you’ll find the power plug, a USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 2) port with DisplayPort and G-SYNC support, an HDMI 2.0b connector, and an RJ-45 port.

Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

There are 11 Phillips-head screws that hold this notebook’s bottom plate in place. 10 of them can be removed, while one stays attached and lifts the panel upwards, so you can start the prying process from there. By the way, don’t forget the RGB strips, which are connected to the motherboard via two ribbon cables. So, lift gently, then unplug the connectors, and remove the bottom panel from the chassis.

In terms of cooling, there are only two heat pipes, which are shared between the CPU and the GPU. Thankfully, the graphics memory and the VRMs are cooled by thin metal covers. Additionally, unlike some of its biggest competitors out there, the STRIX G15 G512 has only two heat sinks.

How about memory? Well, there are two RAM SODIMM slots, and you can buy the laptop with up to 16GB of DDR4 memory. Probably you will be able to upgrade to 32GB but we can’t confirm that. What is more impressive, however, is that there are three M.2 NVMe slots, and you can configure your storage devices in RAID 0 mode.

Lastly, there is the battery with its 48Wh capacity, which is definitely too small for that hardware, but it’s not something new in the gaming laptop world.

Display quality

ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512 in the configuration we tested has a Full HD 144Hz IPS panel with a model number Panda LM156LF-2F01 (NCP004D). Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

Viewing angles are excellent. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

We measured a maximum brightness of 298 nits in the middle of the screen and 274 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 14%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 7460K – colder than the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work. The contrast ratio is good – 1380:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers only 55% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 25 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512’s display doesn’t flicker at any brightness level. This provides comfort in extended periods of use.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512 is equipped with the same 144Hz IPS panel, like the TUF A15 (FA506). Similarly, it has comfortable viewing angles, good contrast ratio, and doesn’t flicker under any brightness level. Sadly, though, it covers only 55% of the sRGB color gamut, and a very slow pixel response time, which really takes away from the 144Hz experience.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512 configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS Panda LM156LF-2F01 (NCP004D).

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Sound

ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512’s sound quality is questionably poor. It also has deviations from clarity in the low, while the mids and highs are clear.

Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://rog.asus.com/Laptops/ROG-Strix/ROG-Strix-G15-series/HelpDesk

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Small battery = short battery life. Our 48Wh unit was capable of 5 hours and 18 minutes of Web browsing and 4 hours and 43 minutes of video playback.

CPU options

Currently, the notebook can be purchased with either the six-core Core i7-10750H or the eight-core Core i7-10875H.

ASUS ROG STRIX G15 (G512) CPU的变体

在这里，你可以看到市场上[系列]机型的CPU之间的大致比较。这样你就可以自己决定哪一个[系列]型号是最划算的。

注：图表显示的是最便宜的不同CPU配置，所以你应该通过点击笔记本的名称/CPU来检查这些笔记本的其他规格是什么。

GPU options

On the GPU front, though, you can get the GTX 1650 Ti, GTX 1660 Ti, RTX 2060, RTX 2070, or the RTX 2070 Super – a very wide spectrum that will certainly test the chassis of this notebook.

ASUS ROG STRIX G15 (G512) GPU的变体

在这里，你可以看到市场上[系列]型号的GPU之间的大致比较。这样你就可以自己决定哪一个[系列]型号是最划算的。

注：图表显示的是最便宜的不同GPU配置，所以你应该通过点击笔记本的名称/GPU来检查这些笔记本的其他规格是什么。

Gaming tests

Far Cry 5	Full HD, Normal (Check settings)	Full HD, High (Check settings)	Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti	69 fps	64 fps	60 fps

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016)	Full HD, Lowest (Check settings)	Full HD, Medium (Check settings)	Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti	117 fps	88 fps	45 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)	Full HD, Lowest (Check settings)	Full HD, Medium (Check settings)	Full HD, High (Check settings)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti	89 fps	61 fps	55 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands	Full HD, Medium (Check settings)	Full HD, High (Check settings)	Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti	59 fps	54 fps	48 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i7-10750H (45W TDP)	0:02 – 0:10 sec	0:15 – 0:30 sec	10:00 – 15:00 min
ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512	4.16 GHz (B+60%) @ 81°C	3.99 GHz (B+53%) @ 95°C	3.52 GHz (B+35%) @ 87°C
Acer Nitro 5 (AN517-52)	3.05 GHz (B+17%) @ 68°C	3.05 GHz (B+17%) @ 75°C	2.90 GHz (B+12%) @ 79°C
Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-55)	3.02 GHz (B+16%) @ 82°C	3.04 GHz (B+17%) @ 92°C	2.67 GHz (B+3%) @ 92°C
Lenovo Legion 7 (15)	3.78 GHz (B+45%) @ 80°C	3.69 GHz (B+42%) @ 83°C	3.51 GHz (B+35%) @ 83°C
MSI GP65 Leopard 10Sx	3.65 GHz (B+40%) @ 95°C	3.41 GHz (B+31%) @ 95°C	3.30 GHz (B+27%) @ 95°C

This unit exceeded the 100W power limit and this launched it straight into the 4.00 GHz territories. When you compare it to the MSI GP65 Leopard and the Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-55), you can see a huge difference in terms of temperatures and clock speeds.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti	GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)	GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)	GPU frequency/ Core temp (Turbo mode)
ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512	1647 MHz @ 66°C	1626 MHz @ 70°C	–
Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-55)	1628 MHz @ 74°C	1601 MHz @ 81°C	–
Acer Predator Triton 300 (PT315-52)	1581 MHz @ 70°C	1551 MHz @ 78°C	1673 MHz @ 66°C
ASUS TUF A15 (F506)	1566 MHz @ 68°C	1549 MHz @ 69°C	–

Again, the temperatures here were very well maintained, and we monitored a relatively high frequency even after 30 minutes of gameplay.

Comfort during gaming

Comfort was decent both in terms of heat and noise.

Verdict

We got some very interesting results here. In terms of pure performance, the ROG Strix G15 G512 is a pure beast, adjusted to the hardware we tested.

If you are looking for a video editing machine, the Strix G15 happens to be a lot faster than the Nitro 5, even when configured with the same processor – the Core i7-10750H. Although, there falls the ASUS TUF A15 (FA506) with its AMD Ryzen 7 4800H and its lower price tag, which annihilates today’s notebook in this type of load.

How about the versatility, then? Well, you get three M.2 SSD slots, which is kind of cool if you think about it. Instead of providing you one (or two) M.2 slot(s) and a 2.5″ SATA drive bay, ASUS has decided to give you one M.2 extra. Given the low price of SSDs of this type, this will slowly swallow the market and probably would lead to the extinction of 2.5-inch drives in general. Additionally, you have two RAM SODIMM slots, working in dual-channel mode, the keyboard is relatively comfortable (if you are not counting the Arrow keys), and the touchpad is simply great. Plus, it features an embedded NumberPad to compensate for the lack of a real one.

ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512 is equipped with the same 144Hz IPS panel (Panda LM156LF-2F01), like the TUF A15 (FA506). Similarly, it has comfortable viewing angles, good contrast ratio, and doesn’t flicker under any brightness level. Sadly, though, it covers only 55% of the sRGB color gamut, and a very slow pixel response time, which really takes away from the 144Hz experience.

Still, we don’t really know how well the 240Hz panel would fair, but from what we saw with the “slower” one, it needs pretty much zero effort to be better. Another thing we want to mention is that the battery life we got from the 48Wh unit was below average with roughly 5 hours of Web browsing and video playback. We really hope that the 66Wh package, that is fitted in some machines performs better.

So guys, are you fans of RGB, or do you prefer a sleeker chassis, like the one of the Lenovo Legion 5 (15), or the TUF A15 (FA506)? Moreover, we are yet to review the Acer Predator Helios 300 (15), which was one of the best choices last year, and the expectations are high for 2020, as well.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-rog-strix-g15-g512/