so this is the asus rog ga502 that was a mouthful but I'm gonna refer to
this as the 502d for the rest of the video now it's really interesting about
this particular laptop is that it features AMD's Ryzen 7 mobile processor
and an NVIDIA GTX 1660 TI max-q graphics card that's right
an AMD CPU with an NVIDIA GPU on a notebook in 2090 what a great time to be
alive this notebook starts at $1,100 but the model that I have costs $1,200 and
the difference in specs is that I'm getting a high refresh rate display and
more memory so 16 gigabytes vs. 8 gigabytes and I'll get to the rest
suspects a little bit later in the video now I do want to make something very
clear this is our first AMD notebook video and one of the reasons for that is
simply because finding a AMD notebook that was being sold wasn't that easy
a lot of them were announced but trying to get hold of one was pretty difficult
and back at CES Asus announced a tough series notebook featuring a Rison
processor and rx 560 graphics but that no book felt downright cheap so if
you're interested in a first look I'll actually leave a video or link to that
video right over here you see there's a stigma about AMD processors running too
hot and consuming too much battery life on a notebook and I think that's about
to change with the 502D so let's find out what the deal is about this guy
right after a quick word from our sponsor
well hello there where'd you come from it don't matter it's a back where I'm
going well I don't really need a new Mouse right now sure we'll see everybody
loves a 4-way hidden d-pad and a cool OLED display plus I'm quite sensitive at
24,000 dpi Plus RGB you got a try what was I thinking saying no to you the MM
830 by Cooler Master the mouse you didn't see coming
check it out below all right so let's dive into the specs and as you can see
the only difference between the base model and the model that I have is that
you're getting more memory and a faster display now in terms of CPU you're
getting a Ryzen 7 3750H it is a quad core eight third processor comes at the
base clock of 2.3 gigahertz but it boosts up to 4 gigahertz
according to AMD it also has the Vega 10 graphics integrated which switches
between the 1660 TI and itself depending on the workload which is
pretty nice there are 16 gigs of ram and dual
channel mode running at 26 66 megahertz a 512 gigabyte nvme SSD that has some
solid read by performance and the star of the shows of course the gtx 1660 TI
max q graphics card ok so let's kick things off with the
design and honestly I have mixed feelings about this one I mean there are
some aggressive elements throughout the body like the two-tone brushed metal
finish at the top that is a serious fingerprint magnet you've also got the
ROG logo that lights up in a dim red color that's barely noticeable in
well-lit environments it's a pointless implementation in the first place taking
a look on the inside it looks ok I've seen better design gaming notebooks in
the past I will admit the sandstone finish on the interior of the 502D is
actually very comfortable to place your palms on honestly I would have preferred
the front portion of the display or the front portion of the laptop to feature
the exact same finish but it is Asus so that's what we're dealing with
also don't confuse yourself thinking that there are front-facing speakers on
this laptop because it doesn't in fact that's just an air vent the speakers
however actually placed at the bottom and it isn't ideal for the best audio
projection they sound ok I'm gonna say that they're more emphasized on the base
it completely just obliterates the troubles so it's not really ideal for
listening to music but you know for notebook especially
this price point it's passable oh and this laptop does not have a webcam which
seems normal right I mean they had to cut some corners and that's exactly what
they did they just took out one of the main features that a lot of people value
now partially speaking for myself I don't use webcams on a notebook and a
desktop like I don't even have one on my desktop PC because if I want to get on a
video conference call I would just use my smart phone because it has a
front-facing camera so that's the convenience but I want to know your
thoughts about this it is an interesting off topic conversation but do you guys
actually use webcams on you know no but PC or desktop PC curious to know now in
terms of build quality I'm really happy that Asus hasn't cut any corners with
the 502d because the chassis feels robust it's not an all aluminum unibody
design but the hard plastic materials used here are pretty solid the keyboard
layout is compact and the keys are sized perfectly except for the arrows they're
just way too tiny and I had a difficult time getting through Excel files and
some other tasks I really wish if they were the same size as the rest of the
keys I mean continuities a thing asus the
keys themselves feature a shorter travel distance and they do feel shallow I'm
not gonna say it's the best out there but it's very similar to my Razer blade
15 it is backlit in white but not RGB so keep that in mind the trackpad is not
the best at first when I started using this laptop I had a difficult time
gliding my finger through the surface because of its high resistance but over
time with the help of my finger grease it slowly started to become smooth it's
gross I know but it is a fact now I also noticed that it wasn't as responsive
because I noticed you know the cursor skipping here and there at times but on
the positive side it does feature Windows position drivers but I think I'm
just spoiled by the glass surface on my blade 15 I just I just really AM port
selection is pretty good on the 502D so on the left hand side you have your
power in rj45 jack HDMI 2.0 USB 3.1 gen2 type a and the
type C port that also acts as a DisplayPort 1.4 port and a headphone /
mic jack switching to the right you get a Kensington lock and two more USB 3.1
one type 8 ports unfortunately no SD card reader the display is good but not
great you see it's a 15.6 inch 1080p 120 arts i PS like panel notice that i
mentioned it like because it isn't true IPS it lacks contrast and a bit of
saturation the best way that i can describe this panel is when an IPS and a
TN panel had a baby that's basically it it has good viewing angles but if you're
thinking of doing color work this isn't for you
not being sent it is an amazing screen for gaming that 120 hertz refresh rate
comes in clutch for fast-paced titles and i have nothing to complain here in
terms of upgradability you have instant access to the memory storage and Wi-Fi
card the main SSD has thermal pads on top it's a great design by issues for
heat dissipation there's an extra m2 slot but it's pci gen3 by 2 instead of
by 4 so keep that in mind now with regards to ram you only have access to a
single dim slot since the other 8 gigabyte module is soldered on to the
mainboard now one of the biggest highlights of this laptop is the battery
life because it has a 76 watt hour unit and i was easily able to get over nine
hours of use by just refreshing a webpage for 15 seconds in chrome and
that is just insane I did notice that the clock speeds on the Ryzen CPU was
hovering from 1.4 to like 1.8 gigahertz during those tasks so optimization is
actually really well done on the g502 moving on to performance and as I
mentioned earlier the Ryzen 7 3750h is a decent performer because it has four
cores on a threads now do keep in mind that this CPU is not based off the SEM
nanometer Zen 2 architecture because it's still the Zen plus so that's
something to keep note of and it also has some ups and downs depending on the
type of work you do so let's start off with some synthetic tests in Cinebench
r15 v 3750h scored 774 in the multi-core test and to give you a little
bit of context the blade 15 base featuring the core i7
8750h which is a 6 chord 12 terre processor
spit it out 983 and what's really interesting is that both of these
processors have the same amount of TP now that there was something really
interesting into this mix i decided to throw in the i7 8565 you
keely processor this is a 15 watt TDP chip and it was able to dish out 692
into the Mensch part 15 so the point that I'm trying to make is AMD is still
a generation behind when it comes to designing a high-performance power
efficient mobile processor because in that area Intel still takes the edge
moving on to blender running the BMW benchmark the 37:58 completed that task
in less than 10 minutes compared to 7 minutes and 33 seconds on the 87 th
again this is all thanks to the two extra cores on the Intel CPU Premiere
Pro does not favor the 3750 H because I took this 12 minute 4k project and I
exported it to the YouTube 4k preset and as you can see there is a significant
difference between the Intel CPU and Rison and that's obviously thanks to
Intel Quick Sync on Intel but I wouldn't try editing a video on this notebook in
the first place because I noticed drop frames and consistently in the timeline
so like I said for content creators this notebook is not ideal I do want to
quickly touch base on clock speeds for the 3758 so according to AMD the CPU is
supposed to hit 4 gigahertz on boost but I never saw it hit that frequency the
max I saw was like 3.8 3.9 gigahertz but that was just like you know very rare
instances and this is under full 100% load rendering this 4k project switching
over to gaming and the 1660 TI max-q is a terrific performer you can comfortably
play most triple-a titles well over 60 frames per second and be high settings
including battlefield 1 overwatch and apex legends far cry 5 and shout out the
Tomb Raider we're a bit demanding so I had to tone down the settings to get
over 60 frames per second now if I were to compare this to the blade 15 based
from last year featuring the 8750H and a 1060 max q they're relatively close
but keep in mind that the higher CPU frequencies favored the 1060 max Q in
battlefield 1 we're asked for the restless has they were pretty behind now
I'm only showing two tests for the blade 15 base model in gaming since I'm
updating my notebook testing and back when I tested the blade I didn't have
those games in the benchmarks taking a look at temperatures they're pretty good
but there's a major downside you see under heavy load scenarios the CPU did
settle around 89 c and the gee you peaked at 80 but it's the
cooling solution that they've implemented on the 502D the fans are
just way too aggressive this thing is a jet fan when you're
gaming or even trying to do something creative now on the positive side under
idle scenarios it's completely dead silent so that's nice so to conclude the
GA502D you from Asus has certainly earned my respect for what it is you see
the Ryzen 7 3750H is a solid performer for a casual task as well as gaming and
the numbers really do speak for themselves
plus the battery life is just insane I mean overnight hours of use on a light
load test from an indie notebook guys just think about that now my biggest
problem is that AMD isn't quite set to compete with Intel yet especially on the
notebook space because they are still a generation behind so we're just going to
wait and see what they have to offer in you know the next few years because
right now they are slowly capturing the desktop market and we would love to see
the same thing on the notebook space it's just a matter of time but the noble
by itself also has some major downsides it does not have a webcam the display is
not the best especially if you plan on doing content creation most importantly
the fans are just way too loud under gaming scenarios now at $1,200 a lot of
you might think that this efforts G is a great value but personally speaking if
you look at something like the Acer Helios 300 you know that notebooks gets
you a faster and nitrogen Intel CPU a better display and more flexible specs
so it's just difficult for me to recommend this over the competition
in its current state so that's my verdict on the ROG GA502d you man these
names this is just insane but I'm gonna be your thoughts about this particularly
you know with AMD's implementation of the 3750H what do you guys think about
it in general specifically are you impressed with the performance I love to
know in the comments down below I'm Eber with Hardware Canucks thank you so much
for watching and we'll see you in the next one a display is not the best
especially if people Oh