Asus ROG G752 Review: A Pascal Packing Mobile Powerhouse

Asus is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand this year. The manufacturer launched its ROG line in 2006 and has since developed a wide range of gaming products under the brand, including some monstrous gaming notebooks like the one we'll be showing you here. With the arrival of NVIDIA’s Pascal architecture this summer, the hulking systems are getting a shot in the arm, so we brought Asus’ flagship mobile gaming machine, the ROG G752VS XB78K, in house to see what you get when you go big.

The efficiency of the Pascal architecture has made for mobile GPUs that are very similar to their desktop counterparts. In fact, NVIDIA has dropped the “M” from the product names for its latest mobile GPUs, including the GeForce GTX 1070 that appears in the ROG G752 we have here. That’s also true of the mobile GeForce GTX 1060 that appears in the MSI GE62VR 6RF Apache Pro we recently reviewed.


But that MSI Apache Pro is a smaller notebook that packs different hardware and a lighter price tag than this system from Asus. With the ROG G752, everything is top-end, from its hefty $2,999 price tag, to its massive 17.3-inch display. And if that doesn’t evoke an image of a desktop-replacement-sized laptop, consider that the ROG G752 weighs in at nearly 10 pounds. The only reason to sink this kind of cash into a laptop this big is to get absolutely killer gaming performance and functionality, so the ROG G752 is facing a high bar.

Asus ROG G752 Specifications & Features

One of the chief benefits of a large laptop is extra screen real estate. As we mentioned earlier, the ROG G752 has a very wide, 17.3-inch, 1920x1080 resolution, 75Hz display that can fill your field of vision. The Advanced Hyper-Viewing Angle (AHVA) panel has viewing angle up to 178 degrees. The display also features G-SYNC technology to minimize tearing and lag in games. Of course, G-SYNC requires Geforce GTX graphics, and that comes in the form of the GeForce GTX 1070 in the ROG G752, complete with 8GB of GDDR5 memory. Asus paired the new Pascal graphics chip with an Intel Core i7-6820HK processor. The quad-core Skylake CPU runs at 2.7GHz by default, but can turbo up to 3.6GHz. Asus backs the CPU up with four 16GB DDR4-2400 memory modules, for a total of 64GB in the machine.

As for storage, the ROG G752 is well-equipped. Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) resides on a speedy 512GB SSD and a 1TB hard drive handles the bulk of the data storage duties. The SSD features a PCIe Gen 3 interface and support Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), which is much faster than the typical SATA connection. The SSD should bring some serious game to benchmarks that weigh heavily on storage performance, including PCMark 8. It’s also worth mentioning that the 1TB hard drive spins at 7200RPM, as opposed to the typical 5400RPM mobile hard drive. Asus also took advantage of the laptop’s size by including a dual layer DVD+/-RW drive.

The system is also in good shape for connectivity, with dual-band 802.11ac 2x2 wireless connectivity and a Gigabit LAN port. Bluetooth 4.1 is also on-board, for your peripherals.


Laptop warranties are usually pretty basic, short-term affairs, but when you’re thinking about sinking nearly $3,000 into a gaming laptop, the typical parts and labor warranty sounds just plain weak. Asus kicks things up a notch for the ROG G752 by offering one year of accidental damage protection. Scratches won’t trigger the warranty, and neither does having your laptop stolen, but should you spill liquid on your laptop – or even drop it – Asus will repair the system.
 
Altogether, the hardware makes for an impressive package. Let’s take a closer look…