Asus ROG GX700 Watercooled Laptop Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging and Bundle3. Asus ROG GX7004. Testing Methodology and Configuration5. SiSoft Sandra6. CinebenchR157. Handbrake video encoding8. SSD Performance9. USB 3.0 Bandwidth Testing10. 3DMark1111. 3DMark12. Tomb Raider13. Grid Autosport14. Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor15. Grand Theft Auto V16. Thermal Dynamics and Acoustics Performance17. Power Consumption18. Closing Thoughts19. View All Pages

The Asus ROG GX700 is undoubtedly one beast of a gaming laptop.

Starting first with its design, it is a lovely, subtle rose gold colour – and brushed aluminium, too. It looks so sleek and classy, you really would be the envy of others on appearances alone.

But the good things about the GX700 do not stop at appearances. It is a beastly performer at stock speeds – as you would expect for a system with a quad-core Core i7-6820HK and desktop-grade GTX 980.

However, what sets this apart from other laptops we have seen with similar desktop GTX 980s is, of course, overclocking. Connect the GX700 to its watercooling dock and you can overclock the system manually. I detailed my configuration earlier in the review, but I was able to reach 4GHz on the CPU, 2800MHz for the DDR4 and +112MHz on the GPU core with ease.

This saw huge leaps in performance over stock speeds – over 30% in some tests, such as 3DMark Fire Strike.

Games, too, run absolutely butter-smooth. Even when the frame rates are lower than you might like (which happens in some games no matter what hardware you have), the G-sync panel keeps things smooth and tear-free.

Aside from the main talking-points of the system, it has essentially everything you could need or want in terms of features. Two USB 3.1 Type C ports are present as well as three USB 3.0 Type A ports. 32GB of RAM is more than enough for simple gaming, and the Samsung SM951s in RAID0 thunder along at a great pace.

So by now I am running out of superlatives to describe the GX700. It really is the ultimate gaming laptop – powerful when you are on the go and cannot access the watercooling dock. Bring it home, engage with the dock – and you have just netted yourself up to 35% more performance from overclocking.

Of course it does come at a cost – and a pretty big one. A penny under £3500 in the UK, you have to be a pretty serious gamer to drop this amount of cash on a laptop.

Still, if you want the best – it is definitely the Asus ROG GX700. You can pick one up from OverclockersUK for £3499.99 HERE.

Pros

• It's a very good-looking laptop.
• Packed with all the features you could need now or in the future.
• Stock speeds are pretty fast.
• Overclocked speeds are incredible.
• The idea of a watercooled laptop by itself is pretty awesome.

Cons

• Costs a lot of money.
• Portability is perhaps not the GX700's strongest suit.

KitGuru says: If you want a ridiculously fast, watercooled, premium-grade laptop – there is only one place to look. The GX700 is a top-class piece of kit, if you can afford it.

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