Asus RoG Strix GL702ZC Review and Ratings

Asus RoG Strix GL702ZC Review

Introduction, Design & Features

It's not hard to find a 17.3-inch gaming laptop in today's market. There's one for almost every budget, from the entry-level Asus RoG Strix GL753VEBest Price at Amazon to the bleeding-edge Aorus X9$3,649.00 at Amazon with dual graphics cards, with an ample selection of other models in between. For vendors, that means it's hard to make a name for yourself unless your product is really something else.

The Asus Republic of Gamers Strix GL702ZC we're reviewing here didn't strike us as a particularly unique product when we opened the box. But after looking at the hardware specs, we very quickly changed our minds. What you're looking at is the first notebook to house an eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 processor. This is a full-on 65-watt desktop chip, not a reduced-power mobile version. Other hardware features that make this model unique are its AMD Radeon RX 580 4GB$296.28 at Jet.com and AMD FreeSync-enabled 1080p display. This is the first time we've seen this trio used in a notebook. 

The GL702ZC specifically uses the Ryzen 7 1700$294.00 at Amazon CPU, which runs at 3GHz and can "Turbo Core" up to 3.7GHz. With eight processing cores and the ability to process 16 threads simultaneously, it's a beast of a processor for almost any conceivable task, as the benchmarks section of this review will demonstrate rather plainly. At present, we aren't aware of another notebook that offers as much brute CPU power as this one does.

The retail price for the GL702ZC-WB74 configuration we were loaned for review is $1,499. In addition to the mentioned CPU and graphics card, our system included 16GB of memory, a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) for the Windows 10 operating system, and a 1TB hard drive for secondary storage. We priced out an Alienware 17 R4$2,949.00 at Dell for $1,599 with comparable specs; they included a GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, which is in the same performance tier as the Asus' Radeon RX 580, and an Intel Core i7-7700HQ quad-core CPU, the fastest Intel chip you’re likely to find in this price range. We configured an HP Omen 17t with specs similar to the Alienware's for $1,419.

In short, the GL702ZC appears to offer a tantalizing value proposition. This is a machine that offers a lot more processing muscle than any other laptop we could find in its price range, and has the feature set to stand up to its competition. It has shortcomings, but that’s true even of an elite machine like the 4K-screened Razer Blade Pro (2017)$3,599.99 at Amazon. That said, performance isn’t everything, so let's take a look at the outside of this monster before spilling the benchmark beans.

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Design

The exterior of the GL720ZC shares a similar look and feel with other Strix-branded notebooks from Asus. The Strix series focus on performance and gamer-inspired designs.

With the exception of the brushed aluminum lid backing, the construction of the GL702ZC is mostly plastic. The chassis has a hollow feel, but it's sturdy enough: the surfaces exhibit no visible flex.

This notebook is about average size for a notebook with a 17.3-inch screen, measuring 16.3 by 11 inches. Height-wise, the GL702ZC is rather chunky at 1.3 inches thick. That's a far cry from the 0.8-inch thickness of the Razer Blade Pro, but this Asus packs a far more powerful CPU. We suspect part of the reason for its thickness is the need to fit in a heavy-duty cooling system. The 6.6-pound curb weight of this laptop isn't bad, though; we've tested plenty of heavier 17.3-inchers, such as the MSI GT73VR Titan ProBest Price at Amazon.

The gamer-themed chassis has numerous red accents, including the speaker grilles on either side of the palm rest, the Asus RoG logo above the keyboard, and the backlit logo and flanking stripes on the back of the lid. The backlighting comes from the display panel, and thus can't be controlled directly. It's a visual attraction, but not a particularly bright one. That could be a good or bad thing, depending on your preference.

The full-size keyboard on the GL702ZC has a light feel. Some might call it overly light, but we’d describe it as responsive for quick typing. The three-stage backlighting is available only in red. We liked the futuristic-looking text on the keys, and the fact that the secondary symbols on the keys were backlit.

The layout of this keyboard could be improved. The main keyboard area is normal, but the number pad has two-thirds-sized keys. The arrow key cluster shoves its way into the main keyboard area, reducing the size of the right Shift and the number pad '0' keys; the latter is sure to slow down your rapid numeric entry. Last, we continue to dislike the trend of using a keyboard key as the system's power button, as the GL702ZC does at the top right corner. It's far enough out of the way to make it unlikely to accidentally press, but it just looks like a cost-cutting move. Put a dedicated button on the chassis, please.

The buttonless touch pad is a pleasure to use. The pad is slightly recessed into the palm rest, giving it a beveled edge that's easy to find by feel. The clicking action is consistent and accurate. Multi-finger gestures in Windows 10 are supported.

Port selection is a strong point for the GL702ZC. The left side of the chassis has the AC power jack, the Ethernet jack, mini-DisplayPort and full-size HDMI video outputs, a Type-C USB 3.1 port, a Type-A USB 3.0 port, and a headphone/microphone combination jack. The Type-C port doesn't support Thunderbolt 3.

The right edge has the remainder of the physical ports. These include a full-size SD card reader, a pair of Type-A USB 3.0 ports, and the Kensington-style cable lock slot.

Inside the chassis, the GL702ZC has a Realtek 802.11ac wireless card and Bluetooth 4.2.

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Features

The GL702ZC comes with one choice of display, a 17.3-inch panel with 1,920x1,080 resolution and an anti-glare surface...

Games, movies, and multimedia content looked fantastic, with crisp whites, deep blacks, and ample color. The IPS panel technology certainly helped with the image quality, not to mention its wide viewing angles.

An interesting aspect of this display is its support for AMD FreeSync, a technology that keeps the framerates produced by the graphics card in sync with the monitor's refresh rate. This is a boon for gamers as it smooths out the way games look. It's the same overall idea as Nvidia's G-Sync, but the technologies aren't compatible, and go about accomplishing their end goal in a different way. (Take a look at our comparison article for the nitty-gritty.) The refresh rate of the 1080p display on the GL702ZC is just 60Hz; that’s typical for a notebook. We’d like to see a 120Hz display, as the Radeon RX 580 GPU is capable of driving higher than 60fps in some of today’s games.

The GL702ZC's speakers face upward from either side of the palm rest. We thought they sounded a bit muffled, especially for vocals, but they had good bass for notebook speakers and ample volume for personal listening. The speakers' upward-firing location is also advantageous, as your wrists won't block the sound while your hands are on the keyboard.

We've seen better picture quality from notebook Webcams than the 720p/30fps one in the GL702ZC. The picture looked pixelated and fuzzy even in good lighting conditions. That said, it's definitely usable for short stints.

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Components

The biggest news with the Asus RoG Strix GL702ZC is its eight-core AMD Ryzen processor. The fact that it uses AMD Radeon graphics is also noteworthy, as Nvidia has been the dominant dedicated GPU vendor in the gaming notebook market over the past several years.

The AMD Ryzen 7 1700 processor in the Strix is powerful enough to make high-end desktops proud, let alone a notebook. As you’ll soon see in our benchmarks, this CPU has tremendous performance potential, especially for multi-threaded apps. The most powerful Intel chip you’ll find in notebooks around the GL702ZC’s price point is the Core i7-7700HQ, which can process eight threads at once via its Hyper-Threading technology. The AMD Ryzen 7 1700 can also process two threads on each core, making for a total of 16 threads. In the Cinebench R15 benchmark we run, the Ryzen 7 1700 was about twice as fast as the Core i7-7700HQ. If that’s not fast enough for you, you’ll need to spend some serious cash on a desktop tower.

Our only caveat with the AMD Radeon RX 580 GPU inside the GL702ZC is that it has “only” 4GB of dedicated memory. The competing Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 can be configured as a 3GB or 6GB card, usually the latter in notebooks in this price range. You’ll have no trouble playing the latest games with 4GB of graphics memory, but more is better with a powerful card like this; some games, such as Rise of the Tomb Raider, recommend more than 4GB for their high texture settings.

The GL702ZC-WB74 SKU that we’re reviewing was the only variant we could find for sale in the United States as of this writing. It included an ample 16GB of DDR4-2400 RAM configured as a single 16GB DIMM. That leaves your upgrade paths open for adding another 16GB stick later on to reach the maximum of 32GB.

Storage-wise, the GL702ZC-WB74 has a 256GB M.2 SATA SSD for the Windows 10 operating system and a 1TB hard drive for secondary storage. Having secondary storage is something we look for on a gaming notebook, as modern AAA-rated games can take up a lot of space.

Cracking open the GL702ZC involves flipping it on its lid and undoing all of the Phillips-head screws in the base. You’ll need strong fingernails or a thin plastic instrument to get in between the top and bottom halves of the chassis to gently pry it apart. Be careful with the screws; they’re not all the same length, so make sure you put them back in the right places.

Behold the mass of heatsinks and components. Toward the front of the chassis is the 2.5-inch bay, while the M.2 Type-2280 (80mm) slot for solid-state storage resides just in front of it. The two DIMM slots for memory are towards the center.

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Thermals

In our photo above, you can see that the GL702ZC is cooled by two fans. The black heatpipes are shared between the processor and GPU, as is usually the case in modern gaming notebooks. The fans seemed to be always running in our review unit, even when the notebook was idling. They weren’t quiet, either; we could easily pick them out in the absence of significant background noise. Gaming and other intense workloads only increased the noise level. The notebook’s speakers were able to overpower the fan noise while gaming, but we still wished for quieter fans.

The outside of the GL702ZC became warmer than we expected. During a 30-minute gaming session in an AAA-rated title, the highest temperature we recorded on the top of the chassis was 127 degrees F just above the keyboard. That’s objectively too hot to touch for any length of time. Here’s a look under the infrared vision of our FLIR One Pro, a thermal imaging attachment for iOS and Android devices...

Take a closer look at the keyboard area...

Note how the heat is concentrated towards the center of the keyboard and back, where the AMD processor and GPU are located on the motherboard. Last, here’s the underside...

Observe the interesting curve where the heatpipes are located, and the hotspots where the exhaust air exits out the back of the chassis. The highest temperature we recorded under here was 107 degrees F, with most of the surfaces staying just under 100 degrees F. Unlike the topside surface temperatures we recorded, those are acceptable.

During our gaming session, we recorded the GPU performance with GPU-Z. We do this to see if the GPU can maintain consistent performance over time.

The core clock (blue line) of the AMD Radeon RX 580 graphics card is 1,077MHz in this notebook, and it maintained almost exactly that during our entire gaming session.  The memory clock, not shown in these charts, also maintained its 2,000MHz rating without any drops. The GPU topped out at 79 degrees C, a fair temperature for a high-performance graphics chip inside a notebook chassis. The CPU temperature (not shown in this chart) reached 77 degrees C, well below its maximum rated temperature of 95 degrees C.

Functionally speaking, the cooling system in the GL702ZC appeared to do its job just fine; practically speaking, we wish the fans were a bit quieter. Overall, though, we’re willing to tolerate a bit of fan noise in exchange for effective cooling.

credit: computershopper.com