While the Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand of devices from ASUS was designed around creating the best possible gaming experiences for consumers, the TUF series is ASUS’s answer to budget focused consumers, who still want good gaming experiences. The ASUS TUF FX705DY is a huge 17-inch gaming laptop that is loaded with both an AMD Ryzen CPU and AMD Radeon GPU, for a relatively cheap price. Is its performance numbers justified by the low price or is it better to spend a little extra for a higher end model? Read on in my review of the ASUS TUF FX705DY.
Specifications of the Asus TUF FX705DY-AU027T
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3550H Processor, 2.1 GHz (6 M Cache, up to 3.7 GHz)
- Graphic: AMD Radeon RX 560X , with 4GB, GDDR5 VRAM
- Memory: 8 GB DDR4 2400MHz SDRAM, 2 x SO-DIMM socket for expansion
- Display: 43.94cm(17.3) (16:9) LED-backlit FHD (1920×1080) 60Hz Anti-Glare IPS-level Panel with 45% NTSC
- Storage: 1TB 5400 rpm SATA HDD
- Networking: Integrated Wi-Fi 5 (802.11 ac), Bluetooth 4.2
- Ports: 1 x COMBO audio jack, 1 x Type-A USB2.0, 2 x Type-A USB 3.1 (Gen 1), 1 x RJ45 LAN jack, 1 x HDMI
- Audio: Built-in 2 W Stereo Speakers with Array Microphone
- Battery: 4 -Cell 64 Wh Polymer Battery
- WebCam: HD 720p CMOS module
- Dimensions: 399.8 x 279.4 x 26.6 ~27.6 cm
- Weight: 2.6 kg
- Operating System: Windows 10 Home
Design and Build Quality
ASUS has gone with a classic gamer design language for the TUF FX705DY, with a red ASUS logo, red keyboard lighting and angles on the lid. In the past two years, the bezels on many ASUS gaming laptops have shrunk quite a bit and the same applies here. On the top, left and right edge, we have quite slim bezels with a sizeable chin (and an ASUS logo) in the bottom. The laptop’s chassis is made out of plastic, and it is good quality plastic. Keyboard flex is not noticeable, however the lid is little more flimsy than I would like and the hinge is not particularly confidence inspiring either.
Display
The FX705DY has a 17-inch, 60Hz, 1920 x 1080 panel with support for AMD’s Free Sync technology. The screen gets reasonably bright and has an anti-glare matte finish, which is a nice touch. Viewing angles are also acceptable, thanks to its IPS panel technology.
Being a gaming laptop, having a 60Hz panel can feel a bit underwhelming, but considering the laptop is using a Radeon RX 560, most games won’t run past 60fps anyway. Some higher end models in the TUF FX series offer the option of a 120Hz screen along with a better GPU. If that is available, I would recommend upgrading.
Performance and thermals
Powering the laptop is an AMD Ryzen 5 3550H Processor that can boost up to 3.7GHz and an AMD Radeon RX 560X with 4GB of vRAM, both of which can be considered as entry level for gaming. As expected, the performance is also entry level, with e-sports titles crossing well above 60fps on high settings and older AAA titles reaching 60fps with medium-low at 1080p.
Keeping thermals under control is very important for gaming laptops and ASUS has done a good job with this laptop. The fans kept the thermals in check and definitely did become loud, but not annoying. At no point did either the CPU or GPU throttle, however during gaming I noticed that the CPU was almost always at 100%, clearly indicating that CPU is the bottleneck.
Check out some benchmarks below:
The huge issue I had with the performance of this laptop was the fact that it was using a slow 5400rpm mechanical hard drive with no SSD. This massively slowed down the system snappiness that I would have otherwise expected from a Ryzen. Starting up windows was quite a slow process and game loading times were worse. It is 2020 and gaming laptops should absolutely come with a SSD.
Keyboard and trackpad
The keyboard on the ASUS TUF FX705DY is good for the most part. The keys feel very soft and a little mushy feedback. It does not feel great for typing long articles but for gaming its good enough. The layout is good overall, although if I had to nitpick, I am not fond the function keys being a bit offset with respect the number row on the top and the positioning of the arrow keys feels weird when using the right shift in combinations.
The keyboard back-lighting is a bright classic gamer red and I have no complaints there. It has a single zone red light and it has 4 levels of backlight brightness control, with a keyboard shortcut to cycle between them. The keyboard legend is also clear and visible and the highlighted WASD keys is a nice touch for gamers.
The trackpad, as expected, is not great. It has a plastic top, which contributes to its poor tracking performance There are no dedicated mouse buttons, and the clicking mechanism along with the overall build quality feels sub par. Since this is a gaming focused laptop, most people would have a mouse when using the laptop, so the poor trackpad is not too big of an issue.
Ports and Connectivity
The ports on this laptop can all be found on the left side, which is a good design choice when you plan to use a mouse on the right side. There are three USB Type A ports, of which one is a USB 2.0 and the other two are USB 3.1 (Gen 1), 1 combo headphone jack, 1 RJ45 LAN port and 1 HDMI 2.0 port. On the right edge of the laptop there is a Kensington lock.
The laptop supports dual band Wi-Fi, thanks to its Integrated Wi-Fi 5 chip along with Bluetooth v4.2. When gaming, I did not experience any network drops when gaming and downloading games from Steam and the Epic Games Store worked perfectly well.
Battery
The battery in this laptop is another weak point, which is common in gaming laptops. The FX705DY has a 64Wh polymer battery that lasts about 3-4 hours with light usage. While that does seem like a really low value, at the end of the day, it is a gaming laptop with power hungry internals. The battery life should not be of concern anyway, considering that you’ll need to connect the power adapter to get maximum performance.
Conclusion
Overall, Asus has delivered the performance we expected from an all-AMD, budget 17-inch laptop. The thermals are under control, the screen is decent and the keyboard is good for gaming. However, not having a SSD seriously limits the daily user experience of this laptop and the arrival of AMD’s Ryzen mobile 4000 series is leaps and bounds more powerful than the Ryzen mobile 3000 series.
There are not many laptops that offer a Radeon RX 500 series GPU these days, and for good reason — the budget NVIDIA cards are simply better for a similar price. It is hard to recommend the TUF FX705DY now when there are so many better options for its price, even within Asus’s own TUF series laptops.
Availability
Priced at an MRP of Rs. 69,990, the 17.3-inch model is available on Flipkart, Amazon and should be available on offline stores as well.
Pros
- Good thermals and performance
- Decent keyboard for gaming
- Well-built chassis
Cons
- Sub-par mousepad
- Extremely slow hard drive
- Poor battery life