the asus tough a15 gaming laptop has
received some updates over last year's
model that lots of people trashed on so
let's check it out in this review and
see what the differences are and find
out if this version is worth considering
this year's version is available with
the latest specs my model has amd's
ryzen 7 5800 h processor nvidia rtx 3070
graphics 16 gigs of memory and a 1080p
240hz screen but there are other cheaper
configurations available too you can
check out some examples as well as
current prices of the a15 with those
links down in the description i've got
the eclipse gray finish which has a
metal lid while the interior is a
plastic with a grouped texture the
laptop alone weighs about 2.2 kilos or
4.9 pounds then we're looking at 2.8
kilos or 6.3 pounds with the 200 watt
power brick and cables it's not too big
for a 15-inch laptop a little thicker
compared to the tough dash f-15 i
recently covered but still quite
portable the 15.6 inch 1080p screen has
acceptable color gamut and contrast
ratio there's no mux switch so no g-sync
but it does have freesync with a fairly
large range brightness is able to get
above 300 nits at maximum but these
results are just for the 240hz panel
expect different results with other
options unlike other asus laptops
there's no option to enable an overdrive
mode i was getting a 7.2 millisecond
average greater grade response time
there's a link in the description if you
need an explanation on what these
numbers mean it's not the worst 240hz
screen when compared to others but also
not amazing either considering we're
looking for 4.16 milliseconds for
transitions to occur within the refresh
window backlight bleed was fine a tiny
imperfection down the bottom left on
mine that i never noticed during regular
use but this will vary between laptops
there's a 720p camera above the screen
in the middle no windows hello support
though this is what the camera and
microphone look and sound like and this
is what it sounds like while i'm typing
on the keyboard if i type a little
aggressively you can see that the screen
does seem to be wobbling a little bit
the keyboard has a single zone of rgb
backlighting it's got three levels of
key brightness and all keys and
secondary functions are illuminated and
you can quickly change between a few
effects with the function plus left and
right arrow keys personally i liked
typing on it the layout just felt nice
though i'm not personally a fan of the
smaller arrow keys
the power button is separate to the
keyboard so no need to worry about an
accidental press and there appears to be
some events above the keyboard the
precision touchpad doesn't click down as
it's got physical left and right click
buttons the clicks weren't loud and it's
a bit smaller than some other laptops
but didn't feel small when using it
there's no air exhaust on the left as
it's got most of the i o from the back
we've got the power input gigabit
ethernet hdmi 2.0 b output two usb 3.2
gen1 type-a ports a usb 3.2 gen 2 type c
port and a 3.5 millimeter audio combo
jack the right just has a third usb 3.2
gen1 type a port an air exhaust vent and
a kensington lock unfortunately the type
c port can not be used to charge the
laptop but it does at least offer
displayport 1.4 support and that
connects directly to the nvidia graphics
by passing optimus while the hdmi port
unfortunately connects to the radio and
integrated graphics the back just has
two air exhaust fans towards the corners
and you can see the status leds on the
back with the lid closed too the front
sticks out a little in the middle so you
can get your finger in to open the lid
easily there was more flex to the lid
than i expected given the metal exterior
and as you saw in the camera demo
there's a little screen wobble when
typing there's also some flex to the
plastic interior when you look for it
that's not unexpected but it felt fine
during regular use maybe these things
don't matter much as it's apparently
being drop tested and more the bottom
panel is plastic too and the a15 has
been updated this year to have some air
vents directly above the intake fans
there's not a whole lot of them but this
is more compared to last year's model
we'll check out thermal soon getting
inside requires removing 11 phillips
head screws there are three different
sizes so keep track of them and the one
down the front right doesn't come out
and instead helps you open the laptop i
found it challenging to open even with
the pry tools linked in the description
two of the small plastic clips broke off
inside we've got the battery down the
front two memory slots in the middle
just above m.2 ssd on the left and a
spare secondary m.2 slot on the right
and the wi-fi 6 card is hiding under the
ssd mine is using x16 micron memory and
the timings aren't looking as low as the
sticks found in the strix g15 advantage
the speakers are underneath on the left
and right sides towards the front i
thought they sounded above average
there's not really any bass but they're
still clear enough at higher volumes and
the latency mode results were alright
the a15 has a four cell 76 watt hour
battery and the battery life was on
another level offering the best result
i've recorded so far for a gaming laptop
by far at almost 12 hours even the
result while gaming with battery boost
capping fps to 30 was more than 2 hours
the panel power saver option is enabled
in the armory crate software by default
and this automatically lowers the
screen's refresh rate down to 60 hertz
to save battery and then it changes back
to the higher refresh rate when you plug
in there's also the option to set igpu
mode to on which basically disables the
nvidia discrete graphics to help boost
battery life you don't have to do this
as optimus will generally take care of
you but this way random applications
can't attempt to call the rtx 3070 as
it's simply not available let's check
out thermals next the armory crate
software lets us change between
different performance profiles which
from lowest to highest a silent
performance and turbo there's no manual
mode for customizing fan speed and power
limits like the higher end rog models
though turbo mode does apply the
following overclock to the gpu the idle
results down the bottom were on the
warmer side considering it's doing
nothing i've run the stress tests with
both the cpu and gpu loaded up to
represent a worst case as well as
playing an actual game processor maxing
out at 95 degrees celsius under these
heavy loads in the highest performance
mode is pretty standard stuff however
the gpu seems to be thermal throttling
around 75 degrees celsius i'm not
exactly sure what the deal is but
hardware info was reporting the thermal
limit being triggered which i thought
was odd as for most nvidia laptops it's
higher at 87 degrees that said it did
seem to go higher than this for some
reason in the game test with performance
mode these are the clock speeds from the
same tests in the stress test with turbo
mode we can see the gpu clock speed
increase with the cooling pad but if you
recall in the last graph the
temperatures were the same so that seems
to confirm there's some kind of gpu
thermal throttling though that said the
cpu clock speed hardly changes and it's
the same deal there although the cpu
clock speed doesn't really change it is
using more power but check out the 3070
power in green it's boosting more than
10 watts higher with the cooling pad in
use sure the thermals are still the same
but i can only assume the cooling pad is
allowing the graphics to throttle less
in a gpu only stress test dynamic boost
could boost the gpu up to 95 watts and
with the cpu also loaded up it would run
at 90 watts so the fact that we're
seeing lower here in these extended
stress tests seems to be due to the
lower thermal throttle limit here's how
an actual game performs with these
different modes in use connecting an
external screen boosted average fps by
nine percent as this allows us to bypass
optimus while the lowest silent mode was
still close to 60 fps here's how the
different modes perform in cinebench r23
a cpu only workload with the gpu now
idle so better results in the higher
performance modes as you'd expect here's
how the a15 stacks up compared to others
in cpu performance so not the worst
result for a ryzen 7 5800h but also not
the best on battery power the a15 is now
one of the better options despite its
highest turbo mode not being available
on battery power actually the top four
spots are all asus machines so it seems
like they allow them to use more power
when running on battery which results in
increased performance but possibly less
battery life while actually under load
the keyboard sits in the low 40s when
idle higher than the regular 30 of most
others not hot just warm it's only a
little warmer with the stress test
running in the middle wasd is still cool
comparatively performance mode is
perhaps slightly cooler despite
performing better as the fans increase
turbo mode is similar just a bit warm
feeling in the middle the wrist rest and
wasd area are cool let's have a listen
to the fans
it was quiet when idling in silent mode
and still relatively quiet in this mode
even with the stress test running
performance mode was louder than turbo
was louder still again there are no user
fan controls with this model now let's
find out how well this configuration of
asus tough a15 compares against other
laptops in games but use these results
as a rough guide only as they were
tested at different times with different
drivers i've tested battlefield 5 and
campaign mode at ultra settings and the
a15 is highlighted in red it's doing
much better compared to the tough dash
f15 with the same rtx 3070 graphics
though with lower power limit and a quad
core cpu especially in terms of one
percent lower performance otherwise it's
being beaten by other 30-70 laptops that
either have the option of disabling
optimus for a speed boost or higher
power limits such as the omen 15 which
is eight percent ahead of the a15 shadow
of the tomb raider was tested with the
game's benchmark tool with the highest
setting preserve and the a15 is in about
the same spot again beating the tough
dash f15 however the 11th gen msi gs76
just above it with lower rtx 3060
graphics and a similar power limit is
ahead otherwise again our best case
3070s like the msi gp76 near the top are
able to do a fair bit better though
those sorts of models also cost more too
as we saw earlier we can boost the a15
result by 8 to 103 fps by connecting an
external monitor and bypassing optimus
far cry 5 was also tested with the
game's benchmark tool at max settings
and this is more of a cpu heavy game
compared to the other two this test
seems to favor intel systems which are
at the top of the graph now and again
the a15 is behind others with the 3070
like the lenovo legion 5 pro or hp omen
15. here are the results from 3dmark for
those that find them useful now for some
creator tests adobe premiere was tested
with the puget system's benchmark again
the a15 isn't doing as well as others
with similar specs that have higher
power limits like the legion 5 pro and
it's only just a little above the last
gen ryzen 4800h and gtx 1660 ti in last
year's legion 5. adobe photoshop
generally depends more on processor
performance and the 5800h moves up a
little here though again other laptops
with the same cpu but higher power limit
gpu are ahead davinci resolve is more
gpu heavy at least it's beating the 3060
in the gs76 this time around that wasn't
the case in some earlier tests and it's
actually very close to other 3070
laptops with higher power limits now
i've also tested spec view perf which
tests out various professional 3d
workloads the one terabyte nvme m.2 ssd
was doing well for both reads and writes
the bios is pretty much the same as all
the others from asus just the usual
basic options that you'd expect to see i
booted an ubuntu 21 live cd to test
linux support pretty much everything
worked out of the box including ethernet
wi-fi speakers keyboard touchpad and the
keyboard shortcuts for adjusting screen
brightness volume and keyboard
brightness work too the left and right
arrow keys for changing lighting effect
didn't work so that presumably requires
the software in windows the camera
worked but took a long time to open now
let's discuss pricing this will change
over time so again refer to those links
down below for updates i had a tough
time finding anywhere actually selling
it the best i could find was this
listing for 1200 us dollars for the 3060
model with a 144hz screen so reasonable
pricing for a 360 laptop compared to
others with more features there are some
welcome improvements compared to last
year's version of the a15 the screen is
much better here though this is the
240hz option based on the asus product
page the 144hz panel has lower color
gamut so might still be that lower 20
millisecond response time screen i can't
say without testing there are some more
events on the bottom panel directly
above the fans compared to last year too
but it's difficult to directly compare
thermals as this one has much higher
specs compared to the configurations i
tested last year i thought it was
strange that the rtx 3070 graphics
appear to be thermal throttling at
around 75 degrees celsius this is lower
than most other laptops and when i used
a cooling pad we did see improvements to
the gpu performance so it appears that
that thermal throttling is actually
happening it's not just software
misreporting gaming performance was
alright but on the lower side for an rtx
3070 laptop at least out of the options
i've tested it could be beaten by a 3060
laptop with a mock switch but it is
worth considering that that would add
extra cost and the tough series is meant
to be a budget-friendly option battery
life from this year's a15 was on another
planet almost lasting for 12 hours in my
youtube playback test it just kept going
and going overall though this year's a15
is an improvement over last year's
version and i always welcome
improvements i think it's worth keeping
in mind that the tough series is meant
to be asus's more budget-friendly gaming
range so we are expecting some
compromises it all comes down to price
though it'll probably be cheaper
compared to many other rtx 30 laptops
like say the lenovo legion 5 pro but
that also has more features it's a
trade-off let me know what you thought
of the asus tough a15 gaming laptop down
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