Kısa inceleme: Asus ROG Strix GL753VD Notebook

The design of the Asus GL753VD is similar to the previous GL752 and the thinner GL702, respectively. We get a black 17-inch laptop with some orange accents like the ROG logo on the palm rest as well as the lid, and the red surrounding of the touchpad. The cooling fins inside the case as well as the rubber feet at the bottom are colored, too. Turn the system on and the keyboard will be illuminated, just like the ROG logo on the lid. We can only see small differences compared to the predecessor GL752. Similar to the GL702, the GL753 got additional visual elements at the top of the base unit. They create a three-dimensional effect, even though the device itself is completely flat.

Asus uses plastic components for the base unit, while the lid is made of an aluminum plate that was pressed into shape. The stability of the notebook is more than satisfying for a 17-inch system. We could not hear any creaking sounds during our review period. The build quality is decent as well, and we can only notice some uneven gaps in the area around the optical drive.

The Asus ROG Strix GL753VD is pretty average among other gaming notebooks in terms of size and weight. High-end systems like the G752, for example, are much heavier and thicker than the GL753, while systems like the MSI GS73 or the Asus GL702, which put more emphasis on mobility, are even lighter and thinner in particular. This is usually achieved by removing the optical drive.

All the important ports are available on the Asus Strix GL753, but the laptop does not offer any highlights. On the left side are the power connector at the back, and a LAN port, HDMI, mDP, 2x USB 3.0 Type-A as well as one Type-C jack towards the front. The latter, however, does not support any other standards. The headset port is located very far to the front. The SD-card reader sits at the front, but it is hard to see due to the wedge-shaped design.

At the front of the right side are two additional USB ports, but only one of them supports the 3.0 standard, which is only indicated by a tiny symbol. You should therefore watch out when you attach an external hard drive, or the transfer rates will be low. Finally, there is an optical drive and a Kensington lock slot at the right side.

The insufficient labeling of the USB 2.0 port is not the only problem. The location of the ports very far to the front of the sides could be an issue for some users as well. Not only numerous cables could occupy space for left-handers, but peripherals with short cables might also be tricky to use. The 90 cm long cable of the Razer Orochi gaming mouse, for example, is not long enough to be used comfortably. It has to be attached on the right side as a result, which will then affect the range of motion. At least one USB port at the rear of the sides would have been a better solution.

As per usual, we check the performance of the integrated SD-card reader with our Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II reference card. The reader manages good results both in the realistic copy test as well as the maximum transfer rate (read). Some devices are equipped with much faster modules, but the GL753 is on par with comparable devices. By the way, the card does not stand out from the slot, so it could stay inside the reader in theory. Ejecting the card was a bit tricky and required using fingernails after the front of the device is lifted.

The Wi-Fi performance of the Asus Strix GL753 leaves a very good impression. The laptop manages high transfer rates of up to 666 Mbps in our standardized test, so it can compete with high-end systems. We also increased the distance to our test router and compare the results of the GL753 with the MacBook Pro 13, which performs very well in this regard. Even multiple concrete walls between the router and the test model (distance around 10 meters) do not prevent a connection, and the transfer rates are roughly on par with the MacBook Pro. Well done, Asus.

Asus offers numerous accessories for its ROG gaming notebooks. The lineup includes external input devices like keyboards and mice, headsets, bags, and even cloths, all with a matching design (http://rog.asus.com/).

Asus grants a two-year manufacturer's warranty including a Pick-up & Return service, which is common in Germany.

The determined response times are rather long at 33.2 ms black-to-white and 28.8 ms gray-to-gray. Systems with fast 120 Hz panels have a clear advantage in this respect. Asus does not use PWM, so even dimmed brightness levels should not be a problem for sensitive users. Nvidia's G-Sync is not supported.

The Core i7-7700HQ (Kaby Lake) is the successor to the i7-6700HQ (Skylake), a mobile quad-core CPU, which runs in many gaming and powerful multimedia notebooks. The chip is now manufactured in a 14 nm process and has a TDP of 45 Watts with a clock range of 2.8-3.8 GHz.

Let's have a look at the CPU benchmarks: The Strix GL753 scores 151 points in the Cinebench R15 Single-Core Test, which is about 4-11% faster than devices with the previous i7-6700HQ, while we can see an advantage of 8-9% in the Multi Test. This is roughly on par with the improvements we saw with the previous change of CPU generations. Overall, the chip is a bit faster, but it is not necessary to upgrade, especially since gaming notebooks are still limited by the graphics performance.

More information about the new Intel Kaby Lake quad-core processor generation with numerous benchmarks and analysis is available in our dedicated article.

We can give the Asus Strix GL753VD a good rating in terms of system performance thanks to the components, the benchmark results, and our subjective impression during the review period. Our test model is a very good foundation for any kind of multimedia application, all the way up to smooth gameplay in modern titles.

The GeForce GTX 1050 is the successor to the GTX 960M and will therefore be mainly found inside multimedia notebooks. The 3DMark benchmarks show an advantage of around 30% for the GTX 1050 compared to the old GTX 960M and is roughly on par with the GTX 965M, which already bridged the gap between multimedia and gaming. The next faster model, the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, as well as the older GTX 970M, is clearly ahead with an advantage of around 30%. It is once again impressive to see the performance of Nvidia's high-end chips: The GeForce GTX 1060, which is the "entry-level GPU" for full-fledged gaming notebooks, is almost twice as fast as the GTX 1050.

This brings us to one of the most interesting sections, the actual gaming performance. How does the GTX 1050 really perform compared to the old GTX 960?

We performed benchmark tests for a couple of games and can see that the majority of modern titles run smoothly in Full HD and the High preset. The performance advantage over the GTX 960M can be as high as 30% depending on the game, sometimes even more. The GTX 1050 is therefore roughly on the level of the older GTX 965M. The new GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is another 30% ahead of the standard GTX 1050 and is roughly on par with the GTX 970M.

One thing we noticed in our tests was the sometimes inconsistent performance with low GPU load (low, med details). This might be a result of the GPU driver (376.19), which is not yet finalized. It is also possible that some games will perform even better with an improved driver version.

The fan of the GL753 was never deactivated on our test model, but the dull and sonorous murmur is not a big issue. The fact that the fan speed often fluctuates even with office workloads is more annoying, because you can clearly hear the rpm increases and decreases, respectively. A more conservative fan control for peak load situations in office scenarios would have been possible when you consider the comparatively cool hardware temperatures.

The system will get louder under sustained gaming workloads. It depends a lot on the hardware requirements of the game. We can measure values between 42.7 dB(A) and 47.4 dB(A), although the latter is already very loud when you consider the mainstream GPU performance. Still, the noise characteristics stay unobtrusive, and we did not hear any kind of electronic noises.

Not only the components of the laptop stay comparatively cool while idling, this is also the case for the surfaces you come into contact with. The whole chassis of the Strix GL753 only warms up to values slightly above room temperature. 

If you really stress the notebook for longer periods (stress test), you can feel that the surfaces warm up, but it is almost negligible at up to 37.7 °C. Attention: The marker on the following infrared picture of the bottom (52.3 °C) is targeted at the cooling fins inside the chassis!

Frequency comparison (checkboxes can be selected)

Nvidia's Optimus technology is supported, so the GL753 can use the integrated HD Graphics 630 from the processor with simple workloads and the power consumption even drops below 10 Watts while idling. For comparison: The values in our measurements are slightly below the HP Pavilion 17, which is equipped with the GTX 960M GPU and Intel i7-6700HQ CPU, the respective predecessors. This is a very good result when you consider the performance increases of around 10% for the CPU and sometimes more than 30% for the GPU.

The majority of gaming notebooks cannot convince with long battery runtimes. Little more than four hours in the realistic Wi-Fi test is actually not a bad result for the GL753. However, you should not expect the full gaming performance of the system on battery power, because the GL753 can only utilize a fraction of its potential (CPU!) without a socket.