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Reviews<br />
be left juggling games to keep your<br />
most-played ones on the solid-state<br />
storage. Games installed on the<br />
SSD will load quicker.<br />
The CPU is similar. It’s a Core<br />
i5-6300HQ rather than an i7,<br />
generally favoured in gaming <strong>PC</strong>s.<br />
It’s a quad-core CPU, so still faster<br />
than the dual-core i7 processors<br />
you’d see in a £1,200 to £1,400<br />
ultrabook, but as our gaming<br />
tests show, the extra CPU power<br />
may be worth the upgrade.<br />
Running the built-in Thief<br />
benchmark, the CPU actually<br />
bottlenecks performance, managing<br />
an average 66.4fps at 1080p ultra<br />
settings, and 75.5fps at 720p, low<br />
settings. This is to an extent a quirk<br />
of the benchmark, which is very<br />
CPU-intensive, and the fantastic<br />
results when playing Alien: Isolation<br />
are more indicative of how good<br />
a gaming machine this is.<br />
Alien: Isolation runs at a<br />
blistering 197fps at 720p, low<br />
settings and a, well, still-blistering<br />
135fps at 1080p max settings.<br />
This is significantly faster than<br />
the results of the first GTX 1060<br />
laptop we reviewed, presumably<br />
because the drivers have<br />
improved so much since launch.<br />
For most gamers who want a<br />
1080p laptop, the Strix GL702VM is<br />
exactly the sort we’d recommend.<br />
GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 laptops<br />
are eye-wateringly expensive,<br />
and their power only currently<br />
useful in models with screens of<br />
resolutions in excess of 1080p.<br />
It’s difficult to overstate how<br />
much better the GTX 1060 is than<br />
last year’s GT 960M. Not only are<br />
the new laptop cards much closer<br />
to their desktop counterparts than<br />
before, Nvidia also made huge<br />
performance strides more generally<br />
with the Pascal generation.<br />
Despite holding the Thief test<br />
back, the Intel Core i5-6300HQ<br />
processor is also very capable. It’s<br />
more powerful than the CPU of<br />
the £2,000 MacBook with Touch<br />
Panel, for example. You can edit<br />
video with this laptop. It scored<br />
9393 in Geekbench 4, and you can<br />
expect a score around 12,000 points<br />
from the Core i7 £1,349 version.<br />
In <strong>PC</strong>Mark 8 it scores 3633<br />
points — a great result for an<br />
Intel Core i5 machine.<br />
One consequence of a relatively<br />
slim frame, considering the powerful<br />
GPU, is that at times of strain the<br />
fans have to work quite hard. Most<br />
of the time the Asus ROG Strix<br />
GL702VM is near-silent, and give<br />
out a fairly light inoffensive whoosh<br />
during light gaming. After a while,<br />
the underside and area above the<br />
keyboard get warm, eventually<br />
spreading into the keyboard itself,<br />
but no parts became worryingly<br />
hot during testing.<br />
However, max the system out<br />
and after 10 minutes or so the fans<br />
do kick up to a higher gear. There’s<br />
no high-pitch whine, but the noise<br />
is noticeable.<br />
Audio<br />
The speakers do have a chance of<br />
competing with it, though, thanks<br />
to a bulky, thick tone. There’s<br />
more bass than the average, and<br />
a smooth mid-range that’s better<br />
for games and movies than a<br />
bog-standard thin laptop speaker.<br />
Treble clarity is limited, mind,<br />
making the GL702VM sound quite<br />
sultry and dark next to something<br />
like the MacBook. At times we<br />
were also left wishing for 10- to<br />
20 percent extra volume, but we<br />
imagine many of you would use<br />
a headset or headphones for<br />
any serious gaming anyway.<br />
Battery life<br />
The use of an HQ-series CPU<br />
rather than a low-power U-series<br />
one instantly tells you this laptop’s<br />
battery life is not going to be<br />
stellar. However, it is still better<br />
than some gaming laptops, lasting<br />
four hours 55 minutes when<br />
playing a 720p video on loop at<br />
120cd/m 2 screen brightness.<br />
That’s fairly good for a laptop<br />
not designed for ultra-portable use,<br />
enough to last for long meetings,<br />
train journeys or whatever reason<br />
you might have for needing to be<br />
away from the plug for a while.<br />
You won’t get that sort of<br />
stamina when gaming, though.<br />
Expect around 90 minutes when the<br />
laptop is maxed-out or close to it.<br />
Verdict<br />
We have just one issue with the<br />
Asus ROG Strix GL702VM: its<br />
trackpad does some strange<br />
things, most likely because of<br />
driver issues. Operating under the<br />
assumption that this can or will<br />
be fixed, this is a great gaming<br />
laptop. It’s not incredibly expensive<br />
by today’s standards, but still gets<br />
you desktop-grade gaming power,<br />
a good display, solid build and fair<br />
battery life. Thanks to the great<br />
power of Nvidia’s latest laptops<br />
graphics cards, this could well be<br />
the only gaming machine you need.<br />
And this particular one is hundreds<br />
cheaper than some others using<br />
the same GPU. J Andrew Williams<br />
<strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong> www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews 33
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