ASUS Refreshes ROG Laptops With G752 and Liquid Cooled GX700 Series
by Brett Howse on September 2, 2015 7:00 AM EST
Today at IFA ASUS is announcing some of its fall laptop lineup. As with the other vendors, they have been waiting on Windows 10 which launched at the end of July, and Intel’s Skylake processors which launched just a few hours ago. The combination of new operating system and new processor is likely going to mean there are a lot of new products coming out in the next while.
Specifically in this announcement is the refresh of the Republic of Gamers laptops. The G752 is an upgrade to the G751 that we reviewed. New of course is Windows 10 installed by default, as well as Intel’s Skylake quad-core processor. There will be two options depending on the model purchased, with the Core i7-6700HQ processor as the base. This is a quad-core, eight-thread Core i7 with a 2.6 GHz base frequency and up to 3.5 GHz Turbo on a single core. On the top tier G752 you can get the Core i7-6820HK model, which is 2.7 GHz to 3.6 GHz and bumps the L3 cache from 6 MB to 8 MB. Being a K part, it means that it is overclockable as well which may let adventurous owners squeeze some extra performance out assuming they can keep the laptop cool. The G751 that we tested actually had a great cooling system so I don’t see that being a big issue. As is usual for a mobile quad-core, these are 45W CPUs.
The G752 also keeps what is great about the G751, with the NVIDIA GTX 980M GPU available to handle the graphics duties. One of the great features from the G751 was the introduction of NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology and I am pleased to say this has continued with the G752. The big difference though is that the G752 will be offered with a 1920x1080 panel as the base model, but the top version will be available with a 3840x2160 panel for the 17.3-inch laptop.
The G752 is not just a spec upgrade either. ASUS is rolling out a new chassis with a new design. It is not a huge departure from the outgoing G751 but it does clean up the lines and make the laptop a lot sleeker in my opinion. It will also be available in three colors, with plasma copper, armor titanium, and lava red options. The keyboard is a gaming keyboard with anti-ghosting 30-key rollover and 2.5 mm of travel in the keys. Thunderbolt 3 will also be available, and clearly Intel is pushing this quite heavily now that it can be piggybacked on a USB-C port.
| ASUS ROG G752 | |||||
| G752VL | G752VT | G752VY | |||
| Processor | Intel Core i7-6700HQ Quad-Core + HT 2.6 GHz-3.5 GHz 6 MB L3 45 watt TDP |
Intel Core i7-6700HQ Quad-Core + HT 2.6 GHz-3.5 GHz 6 MB L3 45 watt TDP Optional Intel Core i7-6820HK Quad-Core + HT 2.7 GHz - 3.6 GHz 8 MB L3 45 watt TDP |
|||
| Memory | Up to 64 GB DDR4-2133 | ||||
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M 2GB | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3/6GB | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M 4/8 GB | ||
| Display | 17.3" 1920x1080 IPS with G-SYNC | 17.3" 1920x1080 IPS with G-SYNC | 17.3" 1920x1080 IPS with G-SYNC 17.3" 3840x2160 IPS with G-SYNC |
||
| Storage | NVME 128/256 GB SSD Up to 2TB SATA HDD |
NVME 128/256/512 GB SSD Up to 2TB SATA HDD |
NVME 128/256/512 GB SSD Up to 2TB SATA HDD |
||
| Optical Drive | DVD Combo Blu-ray writer | ||||
| Dimensions | 428 x 334 x 23-43 (mm) 16.85 x 13.15 x 0.91-1.69 (inches) |
428 x 334 x 23-53 (mm) 16.85 x 13.15 x 0.91-2.09 (inches) |
|||
| Weight | 4.06 kg / 8.95 lbs | 4.36 kg / 9.61 lbs | |||
| Price | Starting at $1499 | ||||
I quite liked the G751 but I found the chassis to be a bit dated, so these updates make it a pretty compelling gaming laptop. It will be available in Q4 starting at $1499.
The big announcement from ASUS though is a completely new gaming laptop called the GX700 series. This is a new flagship gaming laptop from the company and they have tried to pack in quite a few unique features to differentiate from the competition. Someone can correct me if I am mistaken here, but I believe this is the first modern gaming laptop to be offered with a closed loop liquid cooling system. We have seen what a dramatic difference this can make under load on the recently launched AMD Fury X GPU, and ASUS is just teasing us for the moment and will release more details about this later. It will feature a 3840x2160 17.3-inch display, and a yet to be determined GeForce GTX graphics system. The GX700 will feature the mobile K-series Skylake processors much like the G752 and will therefore support overclocking. With the water cooling system, this could make for a pretty powerful laptop. The GX700 will be released in Q4 as well but the price is not final yet.
Source: ASUS
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WithoutWeakness - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
My best guess is that it's a dock with a separate GPU in it that is watercooled with a closed-loop cooler. The laptop has either a docking connector on the back/bottom to connect to the dock or there is a cable that needs to be plugged in to connect to it. It'll be like a watercooled version of Alienware's Graphics Amplifier or MSI's Gaming Dock for their Shadow laptops.The other (less likely) option is that it could be some sort of quick-disconnect system for water cooling pipes connected to the CPU/GPU in the laptop. If you're familiar with Razer's Project Christine they used a similar quick-disconnect system for liquid cooling modular components in a desktop form factor. This would not only be an engineering nightmare in a laptop form factor but also put a ridiculous burden on the end user to connect and disconnect safely from the loop. It would make for a cool concept piece though.
DanNeely - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
It's a quick disconnect hookup, see the gallery at:http://www.windowscentral.com/asuss-new-rog-gx700-...
WithoutWeakness - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Crazy. Hopefully it's not too difficult to get on and off the dock. I'm curious what impact the water sitting in the blocks will have on heat dissipation while it's off the dock.DanNeely - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
I suspect the water loop is replacing the traditional heatpipes entirely, and that the laptop will have a pair of small internal radiators where the fins on the ends of a conventional cooler are.Looking at how big the dock is, I'm wondering if we'll see a TDP boost when docked. It should be able to easily dissipate the combined ~200W of the CPU and the GM204 based GPU running at desktop desktop GTX980 clocks/voltages.
Vepsa - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
I'm looking at the G572 and thinking, finally a gaming laptop not in red. Personally, I'd rather see blue but its a start.grammatonF - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
Laptops are laughable.Stochastic - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
I suppose I'm just too stingy, but I can't mentally justify to myself spending $1500+ on a gaming laptop. What I would like to see are mainstream, non-gaming laptops for around $1000 that can run modern games at medium settings, 1080p, 30 FPS. Hopefully in a few more generations integrated graphics will be powerful enough that this is feasible, especially if Intel keeps adding more eDRAM to non-Iris parts.nerd1 - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
$1800ish gaming laptops with 980m can run most of current games maxed out at 1080p at around 50-60fps. That's a big difference.Stochastic - Wednesday, September 2, 2015 - link
True, but $1800 is quite a bit more than the $800-$1200 that will buy you a very nice ultrabook. Plus, you have to deal with the additional size, weight, heat, and noise of a gaming laptop, not to mention the mediocre battery life. I'm not knocking gaming notebooks for those who use them as their primary PC or who have extra disposable income, but for a lot of people such as myself it makes more sense to split that money between a nice ultrabook and a midrange gaming desktop. Since desktops are a lot more upgradeable than laptops, you save even more money in the long run.nerd1 - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Midrange gaming desktop costs $1K (usually more), and nice ultrabook costs $1K - it makes more sense to get $2K gaming laptop instead to me. Battery life only matters if you fly a lot - and I have android tablet for that.