ASUS ROG G20AJ: Boutique performance gaming PC

(Pre)Built for Gamers

The ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand wears its heart on its sleeve. From motherboards and graphics cards to gaming laptops and desktop systems, the design, features and hardware found in ROG products are catered exclusively for those among you who would rather spend the day wrecking mayhem on the streets of Los Santos in Grand Theft Auto V than soak up the sun on the beach.

The ASUS ROG G20 is no exception. It is marketed as a high-performance gaming system fitted in a small form factor (SFF) 12.5L chassis. Measuring just 10.4 x 35.8 x 34cm, the ROG G20 won’t take up a lot of room on your desk. First launched last June as a SteamOS box and equipped with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780, ASUS has since updated it with the latest Maxwell-based NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970.

If you’re a gamer looking for a desktop gaming system, you’re probably deciding between a pre-built boutique system and a DIY PC which allows you to pick out the individual parts, all the way down to the RAM modules. Ultimately, it all comes down to a few key factors: performance, price, ease of installation and looks.

So how does the ASUS ROG G20 measure up as a gaming system? Should you choose this over a fully custom DIY PC? We decided to take the updated model for a spin to deliver you our verdict.

The Hardware

In addition to the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, the ASUS ROG G20 features the high speed quad-core Intel Core i7-4790. Overclockers will probably notice the lack of the "K" suffix - no, this is not an omission on our part as the ROG G20 is not overclockable.

The system is also fitted with a H97-class motherboard, which is pretty much expected given the non-K CPU. Clearly, ASUS is angling the ROG G20 at gamers who simply want to be able to push the power button to power up the PC for a fuss-free and fluid gaming experience.

The ROG G20 also has a rather unique internal layout, with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 lying flat against the motherboard, as opposed to interfacing with it at right angles as you would expect in a typical desktop system. Closer inspection reveals that it does so via an additional connecting bridge sticking out from the motherboard below, and ASUS has clearly gone to lengths to tweak the internal layout to maintain the ROG G20's slim form. Key to this are the cooling systems for the motherboard, RAM and CPU, aided by the blower style fans. It's a combination of good design and careful design that ASUS can boldly sandwich so many high performance components right next to each other to deliver a powerful gaming machine in as small a form factor as possible. 

In the memory and storage department, the ROG G20 is fitted with 16GB (2 x 8GB) of DDR3 RAM, a 128GB SSD and a 2TB 7,200rpm hard drive. We found the 128GB OS drive to be painfully limited. You really only have about 100GB to work with after formatting the drive, and about half of this is taken up by the OS and assorted bundled software, which leaves scarce room for modern games like GTA V and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (GTA V alone requires just over 60GB of free storage!).

Fortunately, gamers have the option to install up to a 1TB SSD when they purchase the system, and we’d advise users who have the budget for it to go with a larger capacity drive - at least 256GB - if they wish to install a few more games on the OS drive rather than on the slower hard drive.

Powering this compact desktop are not one, but two surprisingly hefty 230W and 180W power bricks in an ROG-branded holding bracket. The lower-spec G20 configurations only ship with a single power adapter, but we have the higher-spec model here with us so we get the full package. According to ASUS, it has opted to go with two separate power adapters to deliver power separately to the CPU and GPU. This helps the desktop to operate more efficiently and save power as power delivery to the GPU can be turned down when the system is idle or handling low loads.

However, it does mean that you’ll find yourself needing an extra power point to plug in both adapters. Combined with your display, you will need a total of three power outlets to operate the system, which means you may even find yourself in need of a power strip since other peripherals like speakers and NAS units will require more power points. For a system designed to have a small footprint, it seems a little odd to expect space-constrained users to hunt for ways to accommodate the extra adapter and the bulky bracket. Nevertheless, we think that’s a minor niggle we can live with.

ASUS completes the package with a bundled keyboard and optical mouse. It is a fairly basic package that nonetheless performs its intended function well. We’re noticing a trend here – ASUS has worked to ensure that you have everything you need to run the system straight out of the box with almost no tweaking.

Design and Features

When it comes to design and styling, the ROG G20 clearly distinguishes itself as a member of the ROG family. It boasts the signature ROG red-and-black color scheme with matte black side panels and a striking red I/O front panel that sits in a narrow crevice down the front. The optical drive bay, USB 3.0 front ports, and headphone and microphone jacks have all been colored red to fit in with the overall design aesthetic.

We must say we quite like the design of the ROG G20, which departs from the traditional boxy outlines of most PC cases in favor of more unique geometries and bold angles. The front and top of the case feature a mesh design, which when complete with the default red lighting, looks like something straight out of some futuristic version of the Mayan civilization.

Going around the back of the case, we see the back of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 that has been rotated 90 degrees to fit into the compact case. It comes with the full complement of display outputs, namely, one HDMI port, one DVI-I and three DisplayPort connectors. We also see an additional HDMI port that is presumably connected to the motherboard and two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports. In addition, there is a single Gigabit Ethernet port to connect a LAN cable and six analog audio ports. Oddly, no optical or coaxial audio ports were available, though most people wouldn't be too concerned or affected by it.

The graphics card exhausts heat out of the back, but the chassis lacks any dedicated rear exhaust vents for the CPU, and ASUS has instead chosen to install vents below the mesh design at the top to take advantage of natural thermal convection (hot air rises!) and the internal blowers are also aligned to exhaust upwards. ASUS has placed quite a lot of emphasis on its thermal design, which it says has been specially engineered for silent operation. In fact, we found this to be quite true. Save for an audible whirr when you power the system up, the ROG G20 was quite quiet throughout all our tests.

On the software front, the system comes bundled with the ASUS Command utility, which comes with nifty features like the ability to customize the color and lighting effect of the three LED lighting zones from a palette of 8 million colors.

You can also access the Aegis performance monitoring app from the ASUS Command side menu, which brings up a hologram-inspired panel with vital system information, complete with a cool display of the world map and your location. You’ll be able to view information like CPU and memory usage, and set temperature and voltage thresholds by clicking on the relevant tab on the circular menu in the center.

But how does the ASUS ROG G20 really perform? Without further ado, let’s dive into the numbers on the next page.

Test Setup and Performance

To test the ASUS ROG G20, we’ll be putting it through a series of synthetic benchmarks and actual games to get a good measure of its performance both in the lab and the real world. 

The full specifications of the ROG G20 are as follow:

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Unfortunately, we don’t have any other similar gaming desktops to compare the results with, so we’ll instead see how it stacks up against high-end gaming notebooks from the likes of Aftershock, ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI. While it may seem counter-intuitive to compare desktops to notebooks (even if these notebooks are intended as desktop replacements), we do it while bearing in mind that these pre-built systems cater to the same group of gamers who are unwilling to go through the hassle of assembling their own PC. And if you’re considering a desktop replacement like the Aftershock W-15, a SFF PC like the ASUS ROG G20 could just as easily be on your list of considerations. We’ve also chosen notebooks with specifications that should offer comparable performance to the ROG G20.

This is the full list of benchmarks used:

• PCMark 8
• 3DMark 2013
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
• Tomb Raider
• Grand Theft Auto V

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PCMark 8

We ran PCMark 8 to test the system’s performance in a variety tasks like word processing, creative workloads and web browsing. The ROG G20 stood out in the Home, Creative and Work tests, topping the scores for the first two tests. These three tests involve tasks like web browsing, photo editing and media transcoding, the latter two of which can be quite taxing on the CPU and RAM. The desktop components on the ROG G20 help it stand above the other notebooks, which only have mobile CPU processors and 8GB of RAM. On the other  hand, the MSI GT72 2QE Dominator Pro also comes with 16GB of RAM and an Intel Core i7-4980HQ processor that can clock up to as high as 4.0GHz, which partly explains why it so closely rivals, and even inches out the ROG G20 in some tests.

3DMark 2013

3DMark 2013 is a synthetic graphics benchmark used to assess the performance of graphics cards. We ran both the Cloud Gate and Fire Strike benchmarks, which are used to gauge the graphical prowess of typical home PCs and high-performance single-GPU gaming PCs respectively. Fire Strike provides a better measure of the performance we can expect to see when running modern games on these systems, so we’ll concern ourselves primarily with that. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 on the ASUS ROG G20 fell short of the dual GeForce GTX 970M on the Gigabyte Aorus X7 Pro which topped the charts with a score of 13,201. However, the desktop GeForce GTX 970 did prevail over the other single-GPU mobile graphics configurations – it is a good 13% faster than its closest competitor, the MSI Dominator Pro.

Tomb Raider

Following that, we ran Tomb Raider, which provides a good estimation of how gaming systems will perform on slightly older games. Here, the results follow a similar pattern to what we observed with 3DMark 2013, where the ASUS ROG G20 is beaten handily by the dual GeForce GTX 970M GPUs on the Gigabyte Aorus X7 Pro. But mobile dual graphics solutions aside, the ROG G20 again surpasses the other single-GPU notebooks by a considerable margin on both Normal and High settings. 

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Shadow of Mordor is a far more demanding game than Tomb Raider, and the desktop graphics card on the ASUS ROG G20 finally manages to best the Gigabyte Aorus X7 Pro here, albeit by a tiny margin. The MSI Dominator Pro isn’t far behind at 95fps compared to the 105fps on the ROG G20, and it’s so far proven to be a highly viable alternative to the ASUS desktop system. And as we noted in our review on the Aftershock W-15, the fact that it’s equipped with a desktop CPU part, the Intel Core i7-4790K, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M doesn’t always show in the benchmarks (without overclocking). This is actually the same CPU on the ASUS ROG G20 – it simply allows overclocking – and the Aftershock isn’t proving itself to be the desktop replacement that it looks on paper. The graphical power of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 desktop graphics card shows here, and we would be disappointed if it didn't. 

Grand Theft Auto V

Finally, we included Grand Theft Auto V as a new benchmark to see how the ASUS ROG G20 performs with one of the latest PC games. Unfortunately, we don’t have any scores from other systems to compare it with, so we’ll just have to let the results stand alone for now. The ROG G20 posted a very decent average of 77fps with at High settings. But with all the settings cranked to the highest, this fell to 42fps, which is actually still very playable.

 A Good Proposition

The ASUS ROG G20-AJ is a capable system for the lazy gamer. Everything comes pre-configured out of the box, and you simply have to plug in the keyboard and mouse (if you don’t have your own), hook it up to a display (you'll have to get your own) and power it up. While the ROG G20’s design is rather striking, it stops short of being excessively gaudy or flashy and should appeal to most gamers looking for a boutique system.

Performance-wise, the ASUS ROG G20-AJ acquits itself quite respectably in our synthetic and gaming benchmarks. Most modern games should run fine on it, courtesy of the Intel Core i7-4790 CPU and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 GPU.

And now on to the question on most of your minds: should you get this instead of a gaming notebook or DIY PC? Ultimately, it all comes down to your personal preferences and priorities. If you want gaming performance that approaches that of a desktop but still want to have the freedom to occasionally port your system around, one of the gaming notebooks we've reviewed previously is probably a good bet. But if you’re sure you won’t need the extra mobility and have a cramped desk, the small space footprint of the ROG G20 and its desktop components should serve you well.

It’s slightly trickier to assess the value of the ROG G20 vis-à-vis a DIY PC. They appeal to overlapping but not entirely similar audiences, so you can be excused for flip-flopping between the two. Our review unit retails for S$2,699 with a 2TB hard drive - a large part of the cost of which no doubt comes from the custom design and pre-assembly of such a system in an eye-catching design. The same amount of money can probably net you a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 on a DIY system, but you’d have to go through the hassle of picking out the parts yourself, assembling it and then dealing with any issues you encounter on your own.

Simply put, the ASUS ROG G20 is expensive, but then again, why would a system targeted at the niche audience cost any less? Excellent design, small and attractive, quiet and powerful processing, customized lighting control, pre-built with warranty and support, and it comes with everything but a monitor. If you wanted something similar with a DIY PC, you’d probably have to spend more time sourcing for LED strips or controllers, and spend yet more time installing them. For a slightly higher price tag of S$2,699, the ASUS ROG G20 offers you the chance to do away with the hassles of installation and troubleshooting, and the peace of mind knowing that you can simply take it to the service center if you run into any problems. In fact, if you start peering at the details and what the system packs and match it up against an custom DIY PC with ASUS components, you're not really far off from the asking price of the ROG G20. Lesser talked about niceties include Wireless 802.11ac support built-in, a Blu-ray combo drive and decent set of input devices, so don't forget to factor their cost in as well.

To fully appreciate the ASUS ROG G20 gaming system, we would also recommend pairing it with an awesome gaming monitor such as the ASUS ROG Swift PG278 G-Sync monitor that we've reviewed.

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