*Note* - This article was first published on 23rd December, 2015. It is re-published again on 20th January 2016 as this is the notebook's official launch day.
Behold, the world's most extreme gaming notebook
In 2006, ASUS founded its Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand. It was to be a sub-brand created with the express purpose of delivering cutting-edge gaming hardware to gamers. And now, almost 10 years on, the ROG has delivered what is quite possibly their most outrageous piece of gaming hardware yet.
The new ROG GX700 from ASUS is quite possibly the world's most outrageous gaming notebook.
Announced earlier this year in Berlin at IFA 2015, this is the ROG GX700 gaming notebook. It’s a 17-inch gaming notebook that features the latest Skylake processor and a GeForce GTX 980 GPU with 8GB of framebuffer. That’s wasn’t a typo, the ROG GX700 is in fact one of the few gaming notebooks running a desktop-class GeForce GTX 980 GPU. But more than that, its pièce de résistance is its liquid-cooling dock. Yes, the ROG GX700 is the world’s first liquid-cooled notebook.
The liquid cooling dock is huge and immensely heavy.
The dock also extends the footprint of the ROG GX700 significantly.
Why liquid-cooling? Well, it’s to unlock more performance. First of all, the GeForce GTX 980 GPU within the ROG GX700 supports NVIDIA’s GPU Boost technology, which takes temperature and power requirements into account and dynamically adjusts the GPU’s clock speeds. Factor in liquid cooling and that would mean the internal components of the notebook can operate at a much lower operating temperature than a conventionally cooled notebook. Ultimately, a lower operating temperature means higher clock speeds can be achieved, which in turn translates to more performance. Secondly, the Skylake processor found inside the ROG GX700 isn’t any ordinary processor. It is in fact, the Core i7-6820HK (2.7GHz, 8MB L3 cache), which happens to also be Intel’s first overclockable mobile CPU. In all, ASUS says that when the ROG GX700 is docked, the average user will be able to enjoy up to 20% boost in performance. In practice, we found that claim to be accurate. A quick run on 3DMark showed that the ASUS GX 700 (undocked) managed a score of 9310 on Fire Strike. But when we put it on the dock, it managed a 21% increase in performance, giving it a score of 11338.
While the liquid-cooling system does provide a substantial boost to performance, there are some down sides. For one, the dock is heavy and immense, and takes up quite a lot of space. With the notebook docked in place, the ROG GX700 takes up a lot more space than your typical 17-inch gaming notebook/desktop replacement system. Additionally, the liquid-cooling dock's twin fans are quite loud, especially when the notebook is under heavy loads, and it can be distracting.
A peek at the cooling system of the ROG GX700. When docked, the CPU and GPU are both liquid-cooled. Otherwise, they are cooled by the massive heatsink and two internal fans.
The red connector is for power while the two pipes flanking it are for liquid-cooling. Note also the alignment pins on the extreme left and right on the mounting plate. The push button above undocks the notebook and cuts off the liquid-cooling circuit.
Unscrew this cap to top up the coolant reservoir.
Docking the ROG GX700 is also a very simple task, though it's worth mentioning at this point that the dock is really heavy. Simply align the notebook to the alignment pins on the dock, push down on the locking lever to secure the notebook in the place and you are done. As you push down on the latch, the liquid-cooling pipes are extended from the dock to meet the notebook's matching inlets to form a closed circuit. A complex system consisting of a two-way piston rod and O-rings help ensure minimum leakage during docking and undocking. Sensors within the dock warn users if coolant levels are running low, and a port at the side lets users easily top up the coolant reservoir.
More about the ROG GX700 beast
Complementing the beastly CPU and GPU is a whopping 64GB of DDR4 2133MHz memory and a storage subsystem made up of two 512GB PCIe-based NVMe SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration. However, we understand that the ROG GX700 will be offered in different configurations and users will be able to pick from variants that will come with less memory and storage.
The ROG Gaming Center app lets users monitor their notebooks' status as well as gain access to its overclocking functions.
To help owners get the most out of their system, there’s the ASUS ROG Game Center app. It’s an app that lets users monitor their system, setup profiles for different game modes, and overclock their system. It provides a wealth of options allowing users to do things such as disable the Windows hotkey, activate lighting zones, turn on or off the headphone amplifier and so on. However, we suspect users will be using the ROG Game Center most for its overclocking function, which lets users easily overclock their CPU and GPU.
The IPS display produces rich, bright colors. However, a Full-HD resolution display doesn't cut it anymore these days.
The 17.3-inch IPS display can also be spec’ed in two resolutions, Full-HD or 4K, and ours was the former. The colors are bright and vivid, as you’d expect from an IPS display, but Full-HD resolution these days isn’t really great to look at, considering there are no shortage of notebooks with much higher resolutions these day. Nevertheless, most gamers might be tempted to opt for a Full-HD display if only to get higher frame rates. That said, we think this machine won’t have problems with 4K gaming especially since the display (both Full-HD and 4K) supports NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology. We mentioned G-Sync numerous times in the past so if you are still unfamiliar with it, read this and then this, but to put it very briefly, it syncs the refresh rate of the monitor to the GPU’s draw rate to create a more fluid gaming experience.
The new color scheme is pretty attractive and certainly beats boring black and red. Nicknamed Plasma Copper, it also looks kind of like rose gold.
On the outside, the ROG GX700 gets a new color scheme to differentiate it from ASUS’ older gaming notebooks. ASUS calls this new color scheme Armor Titanium and Plasma Copper, and it looks pretty nice, especially the copper accents, which has a rose gold-like hue that’s especially attractive and gives the notebook a very premium look.
Given the ROG GX700’s impressive specifications, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find that the ROG GX700 is quite the hulk of a machine. It measures about 38.5 mm thick at its thickest point and weighs about 3.6 kg. This is actually pretty decent, and it also means that the ROG GX700 is slightly thinner and lighter than some comparable 17-inch gaming desktop replacement systems. But that doesn't mean that it is portable. If your intention is to get a high-performance yet portable gaming system, best stick to the slimmer and lighter 15-inch gaming notebooks or even the smaller 13 and 14-inch ones.
On the left, users can find two USB 3.0 ports, a microphone jack, a headphone jack (S/PDIF), and a SD card reader.
On the right is another USB 3.0 port, a HDMI port, a mini-DisplayPort, a Thunderbolt 3 port, a USB Type-C (Gen 2) port, and a Gigabit Ethernet jack.
On the plus side, its larger size does mean that ROG GX700 offers an impressive selection of ports. There are three USB 3.0 ports plus a single USB Type-C port that supports USB 3.1 (Gen 2) and a Thunderbolt 3 port. For video outputs, users can conveniently select between the HDMI 2.0 output or Mini-DisplayPort. There’s also an SD card reader and a Gigabit Ethernet jack, a boon for online gamers since nothing beats a wired connection. Since we are on the topic of Internet connectivity, the ROG GX700 also has an Intel Wireless-AC7265 adapter which supports wireless 802.11ac and two spatial streams, which means speeds of up to 867Mbps. We would have preferred a more powerful wireless adapter that supports three spatial streams and speeds of up to 1300Mbps, but this isn’t too bad either since a good number of notebooks are equipped with this exact wireless adapter.
The ROG Gamefirst III lets gamers manage and control their incoming and outgoing connections.
On the subject of wireless and wired connectivity, the ROG GX700 also comes bundled with an app called ROG Gamefirst III, which can be best described as a network manager and software QoS (Quality of Service) for gamers. It lets users monitor all incoming and outgoing connections on the notebook and gives users the option to decide which applications should get priority. Users can also make use of the preset modes for various scenarios like gaming, media streaming or file-sharing.
The keyboards have a generous amount of travel and is pleasant to use.
The WASD keys are highlighted with bolder red accents.
Macro keys let you execute stringed commands on the fly, while the record key lets you easily save your best game footage.
The keyboard is particular nice to use and that’s partly because of its size and its generous 19mm of travel. This makes for a really nice and tactile typing experience. The keyboard is backlit, of course, but the color can’t be changed. And as befits a gaming notebook, there are five configurable macros key up in the top left corner. There’s also a shortcut key to launch XSplit Gamecaster, an app that lets you record and stream your gameplay. The trackpad is also a joy to use and has none of the hesitancy or erratic behaviors that we’ve seen on some other Windows notebooks.
On the audio front, ASUS has followed recent trends and outfitted the ROG GX700 with a built-in ESS headphone DAC and amplifier. This will be useful to gamers who prefer pairing their notebooks with high impedance audiophile-grade headphones like the Sennheiser HD 650 and Beyerdynamic DT 880. The headphone jack also supports the S/PDIF interface, so if you have the correct connector, you can use this jack as a digital output source to a desktop amplifier/DAC or speakers.
Sonic Studio II is an app that lets users manage their audio preferences.
The built-in speakers are above average insofar as notebook speakers are concerned. The sound is surprisingly full-bodied for a notebook and doesn’t sound thin like most other notebooks do. It’s also fairly loud and showed little signs of distortion even at maximum volume. That said, it does sound muffled and unbalanced, and though the Sonic Studio II audio management application does help somewhat, it never did sound right to us. Like many other notebooks, we would recommend sticking to a pair of decent headphones or proper speakers.
This concludes our first-looks of the ROG GX700. Now we know you are all excited to know about the results, but we are saving the best for last. Stay tuned for the full review and results when it's officially launched!
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