ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX517 – Top 5 Pros and Cons

The TUF Dash series from ASUS brings a more affordable thin and light gaming experience. Previously, if you wanted the same form factor ASUS laptop, you’d have to shell out more $$$ for the Zephyrus G14 and G15 laptops, which do come with higher-tiered hardware, offering up to an RTX 3080, there’s not going to be a lot of people with the money to spare for that GPU.

This is where the TUF Dash comes in, providing a quality laptop for a reasonable price (we’ll see how reasonable since ASUS has been thorough with their exploits, going above and beyond to transform the TUF brand from budget to mid-range). The TUF Dash F15 FX517 that we have today brings Alder Lake H-series CPUs and RTX 30-series graphics, which are so far shaping up to be a deadly combination for gaming and creating.

Today we present you with LaptopMedia’s top 5 picks about the ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX517.

ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX517: Full Specs / In-depth Review


4 reasons to BUY the ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX517

1. Design

The TUF laptops have evolved their designs to match their competitors from other brands. The minimalist trend has engulfed the gaming space, with most gaming devices looking more like office devices than ones for your mancave. The only brand that is still going strong is ROG, whose RGB-infused laptops will never surrender. The TUF Dash F15 has a very low-key look, with a dark grey exterior. The metallic lid has little branding, while the plastic base isn’t as durable as we would have liked. Overall, however, you will be fine. In terms of dimensions, the laptop’s weight is kept pretty low, weighing 2.00 kg and having a profile of 20.7 mm.


2. Input devices

The keyboard on the laptop does have some mushy qualities to it, however, you can precisely feel when the click registers, which is very good for gaming. Furthermore, the keycaps are big enough, while the WASD ones are transparent, allowing the backlight to take full effect. The touchpad is a thing of beauty, not just for gaming notebooks, but for all notebooks. The smoothness of the surface and the accuracy are unmatched. Everyone can learn something from it.


3. Upgradeability

The Upgradeability is very good, giving you both two SODIMM RAM slots, which fit up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, along with two M. PCIe x4 slots that support Gen 4 drives.

Here is our detailed teardown video, which shows how to access both the RAM and storage slots.


4. Battery life

With a 76Wh battery pack, you can be pretty sure that the laptop will last you through the day. In our tests, we managed to squeeze out 8 hours and 50 minutes of Web browsing, or 6 hours and 48 minutes of video playback. Now, we conduct the battery tests with the 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.


1 reason NOT to buy the ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX517

1. CPU Performance

Despite carrying the Alder Lake H-series of processors, the laptop’s performance metrics don’t reflect it. We tested the unit with the Core i7-12650H, and it felt pretty lackluster staying behind last year’s top competitors, the Core i7-11800H and the Ryzen 7 5800H.

Take a quick look at the stress test and you can see what is happening. The CPU doesn’t go over 75°C, which means that there’s still a lot of wiggle room. The clock speeds don’t go as high as we would like as well, both the Performance and Efficiency ones, leading to the lack of performance. Let’s hope that this is something ASUS can address early on and can be resolved through a firmware patch.

Intel Core i7-12650H (45W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX5173.03 GHz @ 2.67 GHz @ 67°C @ 72W3.06 GHz @ 2.68 GHz @ 75°C @ 72W2.30 GHz @ 2.25 GHz @ 69°C @ 45W

All ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX517 configurations:

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