Very impressed - Asus G14 for CAD/Electronics/SW engineering

jfinnie

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Just picked up a G14 Asus ROG Zephyrus 14" laptop in Cyber Monday deals. Not for gaming, but for engineering, as my existing machine doesn't really cut it with heavy workloads, and I didn't fancy spending thousands on a big workstation machine - 13-14" has always been my preferred size for laptop machines.

I must say I'm very impressed. It was £1230 inc VAT (Laptops Direct) with 16GB onboard RAM, Ryzen 5900HS and Geforce 3050TI, 14" QHD antiglare screen with close to P3 gamut. 2 year warranty too, when seller was only advertising 12 months. Exact model is GA401QE-K2002T.

It has a great battery when being used for less intense tasks like file editing, browsing, etc - looks like you could get a whole day out of it - but can boost up in performance to what seem like insane levels of performance for a 14" laptop when required - eg FPGA synthesis or SW compilation. At max power it is a bit loud, but it's nice to have the option. At the moment I'm using it in Silent mode though, which is still much, much faster than my previous machines.

An extra 16GB of RAM has cost £45, with no warranty labels to remove to fit it, and a simple installation. That upgrade unlocked dual channel operation for me. Handily all the 16GB is onboard on the model I got, so with the 16GB extra I end up with 32GB - instead of some systems which would have 8GB onboard and 8GB module and only take you to 24GB. That does mean that out of box performance is slightly limited on this model by running in single channel until the extra RAM is installed (looks to make around a 10% difference in many benchmarks). So I'd really recommend the upgrade.

Build quality is better I'd say than many other major Business laptop brands at this price. Style wise, the look is pretty serious in dark grey, with subtle branding, not very obviously something that looks like it is marketed as a gaming machine. The Animatrix display on the back of the lid can be turned off thankfully.

Only real downsides I can see; the only "productivity" gotcha I guess is the lack of a webcam - though ASUS bundle SW to allow you to use the camera on your phone as a webcam - not tried it yet. And the keyboard very slightly annoys me in only having a single row Enter key, and a slightly "gamey" font used for the legends, thought he keyboard feel is nice enough. Both the above seem like small niggles, considering the overall package.

Anyone else using gaming machines for non-gaming workloads? How have you found it over the longer term?
 
I have the ROG G15 bought in the summer on an an Amazon warehouse deal - its not as recent spec as yours (Ryzen 4800 / 1660ti) but so far its been excellent - I use it for video & audio work with some gaming also.

Ive had a few Asus gaming laptops before that & all have been of solid build quality & have performed really well.
 
I have the ROG G15 bought in the summer on an an Amazon warehouse deal - its not as recent spec as yours (Ryzen 4800 / 1660ti) but so far its been excellent - I use it for video & audio work with some gaming also.
The 5900HS is blisteringly quick. I've got a Ryzen 9 3900 in my desktop machine and it's almost nipping at its heels, which is remarkable.
Ive had a few Asus gaming laptops before that & all have been of solid build quality & have performed really well.
That's really good to hear. Certainly there doesn't seem anything to grumble about on this build quality wise whatsoever.
 

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