The ASUS X13 is the smallest gaming laptop with 8 core Ryzen processor that I’ve ever tested,
so let’s find out just what this 13” machine can do in this detailed review.
My configuration has the 8 core Ryzen 7 5800HS
processor and Nvidia GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics with 16 gigs of memory in dual channel. It’s
available with either 1080p 120Hz or 4K 60Hz screens, and I’ve tested both options.
What makes the X13 unique is that you can connect an external GPU with direct PCIe
connection to boost gaming performance, and I’ll be testing out the RTX 3080 model in this video.
Let’s start out with the laptop first. It’s got an all black design,
and honestly I couldn’t tell you what materials it’s using, it felt like plastic.
The touchscreen can be flipped completely back, in most regions it’s bundled with a stylus,
but that’s not the case in Australia so I didn’t have it to test with.
This allows you to use it in regular laptop mode, tablet mode, stand mode, or tent mode.
Now I initially thought that only laptop and tablet modes would be of any practical use,
but in tent mode like this it can actually run a fair bit cooler because it’s easier for air
to get in underneath, though of course doing this does prevent access to the touchpad and
keyboard on the back, so to use it like this you would need and extra keyboard or mouse,
or otherwise a controller while playing a game.
The laptop alone weighs under 1.4kg or 3lb,
then under 1.8kg or 3.9lb with the 100 watt Type-C charger and cables.
It’s quite small, as you’d expect from a 13” machine,
so quite portable considering the hardware inside.
The X13 has a glossy glass 16:10 touchscreen, so a little more vertical space compared to
your traditional 16:9 options. As is typically the case, the 4K option had better colour gamut
on offer compared to the 1080p panel, and both have FreeSync support. Likewise the
4K panel also got brighter than the 1080p one, though the 1080p one had better contrast ratio.
Unfortunately the screen response times weren’t great from either panel, the 4K 60Hz screen
was actually slightly better on average than the 1080p 120Hz one. There’s a link in the description
explaining what all these numbers mean. Here’s how both panels compare against other laptops,
despite the results not being impressive, to be fair they are both still faster than
the Razer Blade Stealth 13, the only other 13” gaming laptop I’ve tested.
Mine didn’t really have any bleed, just some subtle glow at the corners that I never noticed,
but this will vary between laptops and panels.
Unlike other ASUS models, there’s a 720p camera above the screen in the middle,
but there’s no IR for Windows Hello.
This is what the camera and microphone look and sound like, this is what it sounds like
to type on the keyboard, and this is what it sounds like with the fan at full speed,
so you can still hear me ok over the fan noise.
The chiclet keyboard has white backlighting and can be adjusted between three levels.
All keys and secondary functions are illuminated and I liked using it, with the exception of the
small arrow keys, but hey it’s a smaller 13” laptop so I get it. Typing has a subtle clicky
feel with 1.7mm of key travel, here’s how it sounds to give you an idea of what to expect.
There are some extra buttons above the keyboard on the left, including volume adjust, microphone
mute, and a shortcut to open the ASUS armoury crate software, the control panel for the x13.
The precision touchpad clicks down anywhere and isn’t too big as there’s just not a
whole lot of space, but I liked how it felt and never had any problems with it.
Fingerprints show up pretty easily on the black finish,
and despite the grooved texture it was still easy to clean with a microfiber cloth.
On the left from the back there’s a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port inside the XG Mobile PCIe port,
more on that later, HDMI 2.0b output, 3.5mm audio combo jack and status LEDs.
The right has the power button, USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port,
USB 3.2 gen2 Type-C port, and air exhaust vent.
That power button also doubles as a fingerprint scanner, and I found it
to work very fast and accurately. It also caches your fingerprint
when you power it on and will log you straight into windows with one press.
There’s no Thunderbolt, but both Type-C ports on either
side can be used to charge the laptop. As we’ve got lower powered specs inside,
the small 100 watt brick can fully power the laptop over Type-C only without performance loss.
Both Type-C ports offer DisplayPort out, and those plus the HDMI port
all connect to the Radeon integrated graphics, there’s no bypassing optimus,
unless of course you use the XG Mobile and connect a monitor to that directly - more on that soon.
The back has a couple of air exhaust vents out towards the corners,
however with the lid open they blow out onto the screen. The front has a
groove in the center for getting your finger in to open the lid.
Despite its smaller size and lighter weight, it opens up easily with one finger and feels
well balanced. The touchscreen can of course go the full way back,
because it can flip completely around by 360 degrees and be used in tablet mode.
The back of the laptop raises up ever so slightly with the screen back far enough which means air
can better get in underneath to help with cooling, plus you get a slightly better typing angle.
This means these little rubber feet at the back on the bottom of the lid are the only contact point
between the table, which allows for more slip compared to having the screen forward. I suspect
this is also contributing to the more than average keyboard flex, as there are just fewer contact
points to support it, but that said this was not something I ever noticed during normal use.
There’s some lid flex, but it’s not too bad, and to be fair it is on the thinner side.
Underneath there are just air vents directly above the intake fans at the back.
Getting inside was easy, there’s just not much reason to. Just take out 11 phillips head screws,
the 4 down the front are shorter than the rest so keep track of them to make putting it back easier.
Inside we’ve got the battery down the front taking up around half of the available space.
WiFi 6 is soldered to the board just above it on the left, you can see it with the
black and white antenna cable. The 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD is on the right above the battery,
but it’s the smaller 2230 size. I’m not 100%, but I think this is the largest size you can
get for an SSD of this size at the moment, so storage upgrades may not be possible.
Memory is soldered to the board, which isn’t surprising for a smaller model like this,
so you’ll have to make sure you buy it with what you need. It still runs in dual channel,
and is available with up to 32 gig.
The speakers are towards the front on the left and right sides. I thought they sounded great
for a laptop of this size, possibly the best I’ve ever heard from a 13” machine, still clear
at max volume with a bit of bass present, and the latencymon results weren’t too bad.
By default it plays this sound on boot.
Fortunately you can disable it either through software or the BIOS.
Speaking of the BIOS, it’s the same as most other ASUS ROG laptops I’ve tested,
just the usual basic options available.
The X13 has a 4-Cell 62Wh battery inside. I’ve tested it with keyboard lighting off,
background apps disabled and screen set to 50% brightness.
The ASUS Armoury crate software gives you the option of enabling iGPU only mode.
This will disable the Nvidia discrete graphics to help improve battery life. You can manually
enable it through the software, or also choose for it to enable automatically when you unplug.
Additionally, the panel power saver option will automatically change
the 120Hz refresh rate in the 1080p model to 60Hz to help save battery,
and this results in the screen briefly flashing black when you unplug as it changes.
Despite the iGPU mode, I was getting pretty much the exact same run time with either mode in use,
so it would appear that I don’t have software or the operating system waking up the 1650 and
burning more power, but there could be more of a difference based on what you have installed.
It’s not doing too bad when compared against other laptops, 7 and a half hours is a decent result,
though there are other machines with smaller batteries that can do better.
That said, the X13 is ahead of its 13” competition, the razer blade stealth.
Before we get into thermal and gaming benchmarks,
I need to explain the XG Mobile. Basically this optional external box is an external gpu,
or eGPU, and it connects directly to the X13 with PCIe 3. At the moment, the X13 is the only ASUS
laptop that supports the XG Mobile, but ASUS do hope to add support to other models in future.
The XG Mobile is currently available with either RTX 3070 or 3080 laptop graphics inside,
and that’s the full wattage laptop GPU, not the desktop GPU, which is important to note as there
are differences in specs between them. My laptop 3080 in the XG mobile for example has more VRAM
than a desktop 3080, but it’s slower and it’s got fewer CUDA cores and a lower power limit.
I’ve actually compared the the 3080 in the XG Mobile against a desktop 3080 in a
Thunderbolt eGPU setup in this video over here if you want to see what the differences are.
The XG Mobile connects with the dedicated port on the left of the X13. This uses
8 PCIe 3.0 lanes and dedicates 63gbps of bandwidth to the external graphics,
which is 57% more bandwidth compared to Thunderbolt 4.
The rest is used for things like USB, as the XG Mobile also offers ethernet, USB,
display outputs and even an SD card slot.
Basically when you connect it, there’s a locking mechanism you need to slide,
then the ASUS software will ask if you want to swap over to the XG Mobile.
Before you unplug it, you need to go through software and safely remove it to avoid potential
issues, something tells me Windows probably won’t like it if you suddenly rip out its graphics!
You can’t even unplug the XG Mobile if you first turn off the X13. The next time
you boot it up it will ask you to connect the XG Mobile and disconnect it properly,
so it’s all got to be done through the software.
With the 3080 enabled, the GTX 1650 in the laptop disappears and is inactive,
allowing the CPU in the laptop to perform better, as there are less power and thermal constraints.
We get some options through software to customize the XG Mobile. We can see the
overclock applied by default and modify it, change the fan speed of the eGPU,
and most importantly of all, enable or disable its red lighting.
The XG Mobile also completely powers the X13 laptop while it’s connected,
so you don’t need its 100 watt Type-C charger. This is pretty cool because the XG Mobile is
so small that you can easily just pick it up and take it with you in your bag.
Alright so with all of that explained, let’s dive into thermals and gaming performance.
The X13 comes with thermal grizzly liquid metal applied to the processor by default,
while the XG Mobile is cooled with a vapor chamber.
The ASUS Armoury Crate software lets you change between different performance profiles,
which from lowest to highest are silent, performance, turbo and manual.
Manual applies an overclock to the GPU by default, but you can modify it here,
and it also lets you modify fan speed. I've set mine to max speed when testing manual mode,
and I’ve also set the power limit sliders in manual mode to maximum for best results.
I’ve tested the laptop by itself, laptop plus eGPU,
and then the same again but with the laptop in tent mode, as this should improve airflow.
The idle results down the bottom were on the warmer side in my 21 degree Celsius room.
The rest of the results are stress tests with the Aida64 CPU stress test with stress
CPU only checked and the Heaven GPU benchmark run at the same time. These top three results
were done with the XG Mobile eGPU connected, the others were all just the laptop by itself.
With the laptop alone, silent and performance modes were about the same temperatures,
and turbo wasn’t much warmer. Manual mode with the fans maxed out was the hottest, as you’ll see soon
this boosts performance more. With the eGPU, the CPU was still thermal throttling at 95 degrees,
but it was possible to remove this simply by raising the fan speed, and if we flip
the laptop over into tent mode we’re able to improve cooling for the CPU significantly.
These are the clock speeds for the same tests just shown. Despite silent,
performance and turbo modes having similar temperatures, we can see that performance does
actually improve with the higher modes, it’s just that fan speed also increases at the same time,
as you’ll hear soon. Manual mode boosts performance of the processor, though I
found the GPU to lower a little here. The GPU speeds with the eGPU are of course much better,
it’s an external RTX 3080 and not exactly comparable. Despite the CPU thermal throttling
at 95 degrees in both of these modes, the CPU is reaching higher speeds with the eGPU,
because there’s more thermal headroom for the CPU, then it’s able to get higher as cooling improves.
The GTX 1650 graphics is able to run at its 35 watt limit regardless of the mode in use,
so it seems that these modes are only limiting the CPU power limit, and by extension processor
performance. With the eGPU we can see that the processor is now able to boost up to
45 watts with the 1650 now deactivated. The 3080 was averaging 110 watts in this test,
I was expecting closer to its 150 watt limit but that wasn’t the case here.
Here’s how CPU only performance looks in Cinebench with the GPU now idle. It’s able to
run consistently at 45 watts and even boost higher than this initially while the 1650 isn’t active.
This results in some extremely competitive scores when you remember that this is coming
from a 13 inch laptop. The single core score isn’t quite as good as some of the
Intel Tiger Lake options, but it’s not far behind. What I found most impressive
was that the multicore score was able to beat thicker Intel and AMD options.
We don’t lose too much performance running on battery either,
single core drops 7 points and the multicore score is still one of the
best while running on battery out of the same selection of laptops as the previous graph.
The X13 was warmer than most others I’ve tested when just idling. It peaks at around 50 degrees on
the keyboard with the stress tests going, so still warm but not bad. Performance mode was similar,
the fans are louder but it’s performing better too. Turbo mode was warmer, the keyboard was ok
but the back was hot, though you don’t need to touch there. Manual mode with the fan maxed out
was getting pretty toasty but not uncomfortable on the keyboard. With the eGPU in use it’s cooler
despite the processor running better, and this is because the graphics workload has been offloaded.
The eGPU box itself felt a little warm, but no problems there - let’s have a listen to fan noise.
The fans were still audible when idling in silent mode, probably because it’s still warm. Stress
tests in silent mode were louder, performance mode increased the fan speed a bit more, then more in
turbo mode. With fans set to full speed in manual mode it’s still quieter than most larger gaming
laptops I’ve tested. It was actually a little quieter in turbo mode with the eGPU in use,
though if we set the eGPU to max fan speed things do get quite loud, but that would be a worst case.
Now let’s find out how well both of these perform in games. I’ve tested the X13 with its 1650 only,
and also with the XG Mobile RTX 3080 to see what the differences are.
I’ve tested Battlefield 5 in campaign mode at ultra settings, and the X13 is highlighted in
red. I’ve got two results with it, the higher one is with the XG Mobile, and the lower one is
just with the laptop’s GTX 1650 only. In this game the X13 is ahead of most of the other 13” laptops
I’ve tested, though one of the blade stealths was ahead. The XG Mobile result was quite good,
it’s got the same 3080 laptop GPU as the GE76 above it, and while the 1% low was about the same,
average FPS was a fair bit different. Still an excellent result from a 13” laptop,
the GE76 either has an edge from a CPU with higher power limit or more PCIe bandwidth between the CPU
and GPU. Then again as we saw earlier, my 3080 didn’t exactly seem to run up to 150 watts.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the games benchmark tool with the highest
setting preset. The XG Mobile result was still one of the best results, though even a 3070
laptop was able to do better here, granted that machine does have a much higher power limit on
the processor which could be helping it out. Otherwise without the eGPU, the X13 was ahead
of all three other 13” blade stealths that I’ve tested, though the difference is small.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the games benchmark tool at max settings. This test
tends to depend more on the processor, and the X13 is down a few spots now. Other lower powered
GPU options are ahead of the XG Mobile now, likely a limit of the 45 watt 5800HS processor,
as many of those above it can go higher as they’re in larger laptops. Either way, still a big boost
compared to not using the XG Mobile at all. The X13 by itself was the lowest result in this
selection of laptops, though it’s only 1-2 FPS behind other 1650 Max-Q machines that I’ve tested.
I’ve compared the X13 and XG mobile in way more games at 4K,
1440p and 1080p resolutions in this video over here,
so check that one out if you want to get a better idea of how the XG Mobile performs in games.
Now let’s see how well the XG Mobile compares against a Thunderbolt setup. Again this is
another topic I’ve already covered in depth, you can find the video linked down in the description.
Basically in most cases, the XG Mobile performs better than a desktop RTX 3080 in a Thunderbolt
enclosure, and this is simply because it has more bandwidth. In many games the Thunderbolt setup
takes the lead at 4K as the bandwidth matters less and the higher specs of the desktop card
give it an edge. But in most games at 1080p and 1440p, the XG mobile does perform better.
Now let’s check out some content creator workloads.
Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark. Again I’ve got results
from the X13 both with and without the XG mobile highlighted in red. In this test the RTX 3080 is
boosting the score by 36%, the score from the 1650 only wasn’t actually too bad.
Adobe Photoshop generally depends more on processor performance,
which is why the difference with and without the eGPU was so small
here. The Ryzen 7 5800HS is doing quite well compared to other larger machines.
DaVinci Resolve is more GPU heavy, so there’s a fairly big gap between the two results now. The
1650 was better than Intel Xe graphics, but scoring a little below the same GPU
in the blade stealth, while the 3080 is able to get us one of the better scores.
I’ve also tested SPECviewperf which tests out various professional 3D workloads,
and as expected the 3080 eGPU demolishes the 1650 in the laptop.
The drive speed for the 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD was alright, but nothing super amazing compared
to others. I’ve also tested the SD card slot on the XG Mobile too, and it was basically
maxing out my card on the reads. It sticks out a bit, so make sure you don’t knock it.
I tried to boot an Ubuntu live CD to test Linux support,
but it didn’t boot at all, it just sat at a black screen.
Now for pricing, you can check the links in the description for updated prices,
as these will change over time. So far I’ve only seen it sold through ASUS directly, though it’s
been out of stock for a bit. We’re looking at $1500 USD for the laptop alone, though this is
one of the higher specced models, or you can get it bundled with the RTX 3080 eGPU for $2800 total.
It’s definitely not cheap, but that’s pretty much
always going to be the case if you want something that’s small and portable.
If ultimate portability is the goal but you still want some level of CPU and GPU performance on the
go, then look no further than the X13. The only other competition at this size is the Razer Blade
Stealth 13, but that falls short in most areas like CPU performance, screen response time and
battery life, plus the thunderbolt eGPU you’d have to use would be larger and not perform as well.
The thunderbolt eGPU would however let you upgrade the GPU,
for the XG Mobile you’d have to replace the whole unit, so that’s a trade off.
The X13’s screen looks nice and it has freesync,
but the response times aren’t as great compared to larger 15” models.
There just aren’t good options in terms of response time for 13” laptops at the moment.
It’s cool that you’ve got the option of using it as a Ryzen tablet, though it sucks that
mine didn’t come with the pen, but I was told that most regions should have that bundled in.
There’s not much I/O, but that’s kind of expected with a small 13” machine,
the XG Mobile can act as a dock and offer more though.
There’s quite a big lack of upgradability here. Pretty much nothing can be upgraded.
Along with CPU and graphics which are always soldered to the motherboard,
WiFi is soldered and so is RAM. The only thing you can change is the 1TB SSD, but at
the moment I don’t think you can actually get an SSD at this smaller size larger than 1TB anyway,
so those are just some more unfortunate trade offs with a smaller machine line like this.
Honestly, it’s probably cheaper to buy a slim laptop and a desktop. I think it really depends
on if you need just one system to do it all and need to take the GPU power with you.
For those people, ASUS are offering a unique portable eGPU solution, which I think is a
welcome addition to the eGPU space, given for the most part it outperforms Thunderbolt alternatives.
The X13 is the most interesting laptop I’ve tested this year so far,
it’s just so different compared to everything else. You can check out some of these other
videos if you want even more information on both the X13 and XG Mobile. This review video
is already long enough without going into more depth on what these two are capable of,
so yeah take a look at these if you want more information, and of course if you’re new to the
channel then make sure you get subscribed for future laptop reviews like this one.