The ASUS ROG Mothership has some extremely powerful hardware inside, including 8 core
i9-9980HK overclockable CPU and Nvidia RTX 2080 graphics, so let’s find out how well
it performs in games at 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions.
Let’s start off with the specs. There’s an 8 core 16 thread overclockable i9-9980HK
CPU, RTX 2080 graphics, definitely no Max-Q here, 64gb of memory in dual channel, and
a 17.3” 4K 60Hz screen with G-Sync. You can find examples of other configurations
and updated prices linked in the description.
What makes the Mothership different is that the heat generating components are behind
the screen, so it should be able to get plenty of air no problem. This design does mean that
it needs a stand to sit up, and can’t really be used as a traditional laptop, it’s more
of an all-in-one- desktop replacement.
The ASUS Armoury crate software allows us to disable Nvidia Optimus for G-Sync, which
will boost performance in some games so I’ve used this. I’ve also performed all tests
in turbo mode for best performance, and this overclocks the processor and graphics to these
levels.
We’re only covering gaming performance here, so if you’re new to the channel you’ll
definitely want to get subscribed for the thermal testing and full review videos where
I’ll push the overclocks even further. We’ll start off by going through all games at all
setting levels at three resolutions, then afterwards see how the ASUS Mothership compares
with some other gaming laptops.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode. At 1080p even RTX was playing alright, with
60 FPS averages still reached at ultra settings, while RTX off, shown by the purple bars, was
getting much higher performance, 130 FPS at ultra is pretty crazy stuff. Stepping up to
1440p and we’re still getting results better than what most other gaming laptops are able
to provide at 1080p, though the RTX results are now about inline with 1080p results from
those other machines. RTX on was still playable at all settings, though much better at medium,
and 100 FPS at ultra with RTX off at this resolution is quite impressive. At 4K RTX
on is pretty much a write off at all but the lower setting levels making it kind of pointless
in my opinion, however we were still almost able to average 60 FPS even at ultra 4K with
RTX off.
Control was tested by running through the start of the game, and again I’ve tested
both RTX on in green, and RTX off in purple. RTX on played fine even at max settings, though
like Battlefield 5 we could get much higher FPS with RTX off. At 1440p RTX off still played
perfectly fine for me, averaging above 60 FPS at max settings, though RTX on was starting
to get a little slower at medium and high settings but was usable. At 4K RTX is pretty
much a no go, however with ray tracing off it was still playable at low settings and
didn’t look too bad, the game looks quite decent even with the low preset.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, and these are some
of the best results I’ve ever seen from a laptop, well I guess it’s not really a
laptop if you can’t use it on your lap, plus it’d crush you. Anyway for reference
at max settings the Mothership is even beating the Alienware 51m with 9900K, we’ll look
at how these compare soon. At 1440p the frame rates are still good even at higher settings,
still excellent performance here. At 4K the results drop back significantly, however 60
FPS was still achieved with the second highest setting preset, with almost 100 FPS still
from lowest settings.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint was also tested using the built in benchmark. Starting out with
1080p ultra settings was still averaging above 100 FPS, again extremely impressive results
compared to the other laptops I’ve tested this game on so far. At 1440p the frame rates
drop back a little, but 100 FPS averages were still possible at very high settings, and
above 60 was still coming out of ultimate settings. 4K is pretty rough on this resource
heavy game, but the Mothership is handling it pretty well, with 60 FPS still possible
at very high settings.
Borderlands 3 was again tested using the built in benchmark, so the exact same test was done
at all setting levels and all resolutions, and above 100 FPS was still possible with
high settings in this test. At 1440p there’s minimal change at the lower setting levels
and more of a difference at the higher presets which are more resource intensive, though
even at max settings above 60 FPS averages were still being reached. At 4K the frame
rate at max settings almost drops in half, with medium settings are now required to maintain
above 60 FPS averages in this test.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and while this game runs fine on pretty much
any modern machine, I was interested to see how high it would go on the Mothership, and
it was almost possible to get to 500 FPS at low settings 1080p, with 200 being hit maxed
out. Even at 1440p the frame rates are still quite high, maxed out with epic settings was
around 100 even for the 1% low, well above the refresh rate of my display. When running
at the native 4K resolution of the display my unit has, 60 FPS was still being reached
at epic settings, so definitely still usable, and much higher frame rates were still possible
at lower settings.
The Division 2 was tested with the built in benchmark, and as a game that seems to be
on the resource heavy side these results are much better compared to most machines I usually
test at 1080p. At 1440p high settings was still able to average above 100 FPS and above
200 was possible at low settings, pretty impressive stuff. At 4K high settings is still averaging
around 60 FPS, and the 1% low performance isn’t too far below the averages either
so the performance was quite consistent.
PUBG was tested with the replay feature, just like Fortnite. I know we’re dealing with
some powerful hardware here, but this game has really come a long way compared to last
year, there have definitely been some optimizations to help it out. Anyway 200 FPS could be achieved
with medium settings at 1080p. At 1440p even ultra settings is still able to average 120
FPS, with above 200 FPS still possible at minimum settings. 4K was still able to offer
60 FPS averages at ultra settings, granted I doubt many people would play competitively
at this resolution and frame rate, but it still worked fine with minimal dips in performance,
as shown by the 1% low which wasn’t too far behind the average.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark, and as a CPU heavy
test seems to benefit well from the overclocked 8 core CPU. The game doesn’t need a super
high frame rate to play, so at 1080p this should be just fine even with the ultra high
preset. At 1440p the results don’t change that much, ultra high settings is still averaging
above 60 FPS in this test which is still better than most other machines I’ve tested at
1080p. The 4K results actually look closer to what I typically see at 1080p with most
other machines, so it should still go alright with around high settings, while medium was
needed to average 60 FPS in this test.
The Witcher 3 is another game that doesn’t really benefit from super high FPS, but at
1080p we’re still able to hit 140 FPS even with the ultra preset, which is outstanding
performance. At 1440p ultra settings was still sitting around the 100 FPS mark, which I still
think is plenty for this game for most people. At 4K I thought it was still ok at ultra settings,
but I did find high and medium settings to feel a bit better.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the game’s built in benchmark, and even with a 100% render
scale well above 200 FPS was being hit in this test with the highest ultra setting preset.
At 1440p ultra settings was still giving great performance, around the 150 FPS mark, though
more than double this was still coming out of the low preset. At 4K the results drop
back a fair bit comparatively, with high settings around the 100 FPS mark, which I think is
still a good result for this test.
Metro Exodus was tested using the game’s built in benchmark too, however this one is
more of a worst case and doesn’t represent performance throughout the entire game. Despite
this ultra settings was still giving above 60 FPS averages at 1080p. At 1440p ultra settings
is now on 60 FPS, and like most other games these results are better than most other laptops
I test with 1080p, just for rough comparison. The 4K results look like what I generally
see from many mid range laptops at 1080p, so it just goes to show how much power the
Mothership is packing.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the built in benchmark, and as a CPU heavy test we’re
seeing nice results here with that overclocked 8 core i9 CPU. At 1440p the results are still
excellent and easily above 100 FPS, then at 4K, like many other games, the numbers do
drop back quite a bit, however despite this drop, ultra settings was still around 60 FPS.
Let’s also take a look at how this config of the ASUS Mothership compares with other
laptops, use these results as a rough guide only as they were tested at different times
with different drivers.
I’ve tested Battlefield 5 with ultra settings and I’ve got the Mothership highlighted
in red. This is the best result I’ve ever recorded for a machine like this, it was actually
ahead of the Alienware 51m with desktop 9900K, most likely as I found the 2080 would run
at 200 watts, so it had more GPU power.
Here are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings in the built in benchmark. This time
the 51m was slightly ahead in terms of average FPS, but it was only a couple of frames, while
the 1% low from the mothership was ahead. Either way both machines are clearly on a
completely different level from what I usually test.
These are the results from Shadow of the Tomb raider with the built in benchmark at highest
settings, and again the Mothership was out ahead here. This was expected given the GPU
power limit differences between the two, and that this test at max settings is fairly GPU
heavy.
As we’ve seen the ASUS Mothership is offering serious levels of performance, which is to
be expected, it’s a thick machine with an overclocked 8 core CPU and overclocked RTX
2080 graphics capable of running up to 200 watts. 1080p and 1440p gaming was no problem
at all, while many titles at 4K ran alright too depending on setting level.
There are definitely some compromises to be made with a machine like this, mainly in terms
of size, battery life, portability and price. It’s more of a desktop replacement that
can still be moved rather than a gaming laptop. Especially due to the unique design of the
Mothership, the way it opens kind of prevents you actually using this thing on your lap,
but we’ll look at that more in the upcoming detailed review.
I’ll be testing thermal performance in the next detailed video, so if you’re new to
the channel consider getting subscribed for that as well as for future tech videos like
this one.