ASUS ROG G551 vs Dell Inspiron 7559 – a time-tested gaming line vs a promising new model

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After a short break we are back to the arena to compare some of the best value mobile gaming devices available on the market. Today our focus shall be on ASUS ROG G551 and Dell Inspiron 7559 that have been compared many times to other devices but not to one another. The two machines have different CPUs which shall be examined in the lines below, while the other specs are more or less the same – and this will very likely lead you to the dilemma which one to choose. This is why we interfere and lend you a helping hand with the present article which distinguishes the advantages and disadvantages of both laptops.

We remain true to our style and hereby present you with the differences in the most important categories: design and construction, display, specs, battery life, gaming tests and temperatures, and we leave the decision in your hands – there is no final winner in our comparative articles.

ASUS ROG G551: Full review / Check price

Dell Inspiron 7559: Full review / Check price

Design and construction

The distinguishing features in this respect are more than a few which will facilitate your choice. We start with the gaming laptop by ASUS which is more than familiar to users because of the facts listed below that were retained over the years.

ASUS ROG G551 proved one of the most durable series from the Republic of Gamers line because of its great build quality. We must not forget the fact that this series received a hardware upgrade increasing the laptop’s performance, while preserving its standard price. The upper plate of the lid is made of brushed aluminum which reinforces its stability and overall build quality. In the middle we find the traditional gaming logo of Republic of Gamers that highlights the laptop’s belonging to the great Republic of ASUS. Black is the dominant color for the lid, with the exception of the white backlighting of the logo which glows when the device is on.

Dell Inspiron 7559 is one of the rare gaming solutions offered by the American company (leaving aside their daughter company Alienware that produces some of the most powerful gaming devices meant for games alone). The Inspiron line features chiefly budget and business offers and if you are confronted with the Inspiron 7559 for the first time, you won’t notice any significant difference. Its lid is exceptionally elegant, without any aggressiveness in features or bold design that may suggest its gaming purpose. The entire surface is covered by matte rubber and the only thing that stands out is Dell’s Bordeaux red logo. It is in a very pleasant way that it contrasts against the black of the Inspiron 7559.


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The interior of ASUS ROG G551 is entirely made of black plastic. If you are after simplistic design around the keyboard, you will be happy with this model. The only inscription to be found there is “Republic of Gamers” placed slightly above the keyboard and between the speakers. Additionally, the logo itself is in white and can be seen below the NumPad area, while the red backlighting adds style and a gaming flavor to the appearance.

Similarly to ASUS ROG G551, Dell Inspiron’s design is both pleasant and simplistic. As we said earlier, the interior is also covered by matte rubber and the speakers are above the keyboard and cover almost the entire length of the device (just like ASUS ROG G551). Also, we notice the red color that contributes to the fascinating and nice looks of the interior. To make it a complete gaming notebook, Dell has added white backlighting which brings not only style, but also ease when working in poorly lit conditions.


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Both models provide quality as well as clean and pleasant design that will be approved by most users – we exclude those of you who are after aggressiveness and extravagance in design. Despite the fact that the two laptops have the same weight of 2.6 kg, the Dell is only 25 mm thick, whereas the ROG G551 is 32 mm thick – do bear this in mind if portability is important for you.

ASUS ROG G551: Detailed description of design and construction

Dell Inspiron 7559: Detailed description of design and construction

Display

It is here that one of the models takes the upper hand. Both laptops come with a 15.4-inch display (1920 x 1080 p). Their panels are IPS which means that image quality will be the same from any viewing angle. And this is where the similarities end.


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ASUS ROG G551 offers two features which are great merits for every user. The first feature that is quite impressive is the good enough sRGB coverage of 84%. Bearing in mind that the target group of this model is people who spend a lot of time playing games and not video or photo editing, this is a great result. The second one concerns your health and fortunately for you and us the ASUS ROG G551 is very user-friendly in this respect. What we have in mind is PWM – it is abscent across all brightness levels which is of paramount importance.


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However, this is not entirely the case with the Dell Inspiron 7559. Its sRGB coverage is just 55% – making a difference of almost 30% when compared to its opponent. Again, we have to say that these are gaming laptops and this is not a key factor for them. Also, PWM is observed across all brightness levels but the high frequency of 20.5 kHz reduces the negative effect. To further reduce the negative effect of PWM, you can purchase our profile package.


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As we already said, ASUS ROG G551 has a serious advantage in terms of display quality. Fortunately, our profile package and the high PWM frequency in the Inspiron 7559 reduces significantly or removes its presence which is crucial if you want to avoid eye soreness during work.

ASUS ROG G551: Detailed description of display tests

Dell Inspiron 7559: Detailed description of display tests

Specs sheet

The two laptops feature different series of CPUs of different generation. The ROG G551 offers an Intel Core i7-4720HQ CPU.  It offers 4 physical cores and, as most Intel chips, supports the Hyper-Threading technology, emulating a virtual core for each phyisical one. The chip’s base frequency is 2.6 GHz, which can be increased up to 3.6 GHz, thanks to Intel’s Turbo Boost technology. On the other hand, Dell Inspiron 7559 comes with the Intel Core i5-6300HQ CPU. It offers only four physical and logical cores with base frequency of 2.3 GHz. The latter can be increased up to 3.2 GHz so that the CPU won’t bottleneck powerful GPUs.

More info about the chips and their position in our Top Laptop CPU Ranking, you can find here.

Both laptops feature the same GPU which, however, comes with different own memory. Whether this will have any effect, you can checkin our Performance section. The GPU is GeForce GTX 960M, and in the Inspiron it comes with 4 GB, whereas in the ROG G551 – with only 2 GB. In our gaming tests below you can see if this would be enough and what frame rate can be expected – for this check we have used one of the latest and greatest games.

More info about this GPU model and its position in our Top Laptop Graphics Ranking, you can find here.

ASUS ROG G551Dell Inspiron 7559
CPUIntel Core i7-4720HQ (4-core, 2.60 – 3.60 Ghz, 6MB cache)Intel Core i5-6300HQ (4-core, 2.30 -3.20 GHz, 6MB cache)
RAM8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR3, 1600 MHz8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR3, 1600 MHz
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (2GB GDDR5)NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (2GB GDDR5)
HDD/SSD1TB HDD (7200rpm)1TB SSHD (7200rpm, 1TB HDD + 8GB SSD)
Display15.6-inch (39.62 cm) – 1920×1080 (Full HD), IPS matte15.6-inch (39.62 cm) – 1920×1080 (Full HD), IPS
Optical driveDVD burner
ConnectivityLAN 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11a/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0LAN 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11a/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
Features
  • 3x USB 3.0
  • integrated webcam
  • integrated microphone
  • 2x 3.5 mm jack for headphones and external microphone
  • LAN
  • HDMI
  • VGA
  • Card reader (SD, MMC, MS)
  • Sonic Master loudspeakers
  • LED keyboard backlighting
  • mini DisplayPort
  • 3x USB 3.0
  • integrated webcam
  • integrated microphone
  • LAN
  • HDMI 1.4
  • Card reader (SD, MMC)
  • Waves MaxxAudio loudspeakers + subwoofer
  • LED keyboard backlighting
Battery6-cell 5000 mAh (52Wh), Lithium Polymer60Wh (4050 mAh), 4-cell battery
Profile thickness32.2 mm25.4 mm
Weight2.6 kg2.6 kg
PriceCheck priceCheck price

Battery

If you follow our battles with Dell Inspiron 7559, it is very likely that you will know the winner in this section. Of course, there are those of you who are interested only in this comparative article, so we shall mention the type of batteries the two laptops feature and their results. Bearing in mind the class of these devices, the results are more than good.


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ASUS ROG G551 offers a 6-cell 56 Wh battery, while Dell provides a 4-cell 74 Wh battery. The winner here is Inspiron 7559 and the difference in results is not small at all – do bear this in mind in case you are planning to spend a lot of time working on your laptop, while you are away from the charger. You can find the results displayed in the lines below. We used our standard test settings: screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2, Power Saver turned on and Wi-Fi connection for web browsing and gaming. The ASUS ROG G551 “lasted” for entire 4 hours and 33 minutes in the first test, while the Inspiron 7559 held up for the impressing 7 hours and 41 minutes. In the gaming test we registered 64 minutes for the first model and three times more for the second – 182 minutes.

ASUS ROG G551: Battery life

Dell Inspiron 7559: Battery life

Performance

These results may change over time. This is due to the fact that NVIDIA has a very good support of its driver packages and there are frequent updates for better performance of the GPUs. Nonetheless, the framerates we registered will give you an idea about the power of the two laptops. As you may see below, the differences are minimal when your settings are medium or high, which is crucial for good gaming experience.

ASUS ROG G551: Gaming tests

Dell Inspiron 7559: Gaming tests

Temperatures

A key moment in our tests – it checks how laptops manage heat which determines comfort and high performance. Before displaying the results, however, we would like to mention that there is no chance of you acheiving so heavy a load in real-life conditions. We conduct these experiments to check the maximum temperature after long stress tests and the overall stability of the laptops. ASUS ROG G551 features a single cooling vent, whereas Dell’s solution has 3 – two rear and one on the left.

We begin with ASUS ROG G551. In our primary test (100% CPU load) we registered 3.2 GHz which is 200 MHz below the maximum Turbo frequency, but still higher enough than the base frequency, and temperatures of 80-90 degrees Celsius. After the parallel GPU stress test was launched, things turned bad for the ROG G551, mainly due to the engineers from ASUS. The company has added a sensor to the chip which reduces the GPU performance considerably, when 74 degrees are reached.

Dell Inspiron 7559 also did a great job in the 100% CPU load, ticking at 2.8 GHz – slightly lower than the maximum frequency and despite the somewhat low 68 degrees. After the parallel GPU test was launched, after an hour and a half, the CPU frequency remained the same and the GPU still engaged its full capacity – a good news, indeed.


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You may be wondering how these internal temperatures affect the exterior of the two laptops. Fourtunately, the maximum temperature we measured in ASUS ROG G551 is 41.7 degrees Celsius around the Space key. On the other hand, Dell Inspiron 7559 is a bit warmer – 52.3 degrees. Despite these results, we did not sense any discomfort while using this machine, and the palm rests remained cool in both models. In the images below you can find our temperature maps.


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Verdict

Our battle “ASUS ROG G551 vs Dell Inspiron 7559” pointed out enough differences which should make your choice easier. The American machine offers thinner chassis and better cooling which did great in our temperature tests. Furthermore, the battery results speak for themselves – there is very little chance of a device with such outstanding battery life coming into our lab in the near future.

On the other hand, ASUS ROG G551 offers better and more durable design, and has a very good choice of display (when compared to the Inspiron which has poor sRGB coverage). We can’t but mention the lack of PWM across all brightness levels – agreat advantage important for our health. All these characteristic features can help you decide which one is for you, and we shall continue with our battles between the most interesting and affordable gaming laptops.

ASUS ROG G551: Full review / Check price

Dell Inspiron 7559: Full review / Check price



Reasons to choose ASUS ROG G551

  • better color accuracy
  • lack of PWM across all brightness levels
  • metal chassis




Reasons to choose Dell Inspiron 7559

  • thinner construction
  • longer battery life
  • better cooling system


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shayan
shayan
7 years ago

i7559 is 4gb 960m not 2gb