PRICE £1,166 (£1,400 inc VAT) from uk.store.asus.com (estimated price)
Over the past three months I've reviewed numerous Asus gaming laptops, including the gorgeous ROG Zephyrus M16 (see issue 331, p59). Where that cost £2,600 and included all the gaming mod cons, this 2022 update to the TUF Gaming F15 is focused on value.
That means the F15 won't include top-end components. For example, the Core i7-12700H here is as fast as the TUF Gaming series gets, while the graphics card peaks with the RTX 3070. Compare that to the Core 19-12900H and RTX 3070 Ti of the M16.
My test F15 featured an RTX 3060 mobile graphics chip, and together with that Core i7 processor and 16GB of DDR5 RAM it returned strong figures in our gaming tests. At the panel's native resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 we saw 99fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 58fps in Metro: Exodus and 77fps in Dirt 5. Those are all with High settings and DLSS/ray tracing where offered.
The screen goes up to 165Hz but you'll need to upgrade to an RTX 3070 (the top chip in this range) to see such returns in most games. Even at 1080p, its best result was 156fps in Metro: Exodus with Low settings, with 138fps in Dirt 5 and 152fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
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