ASUS ROG G752VT Gaming Laptop Review: G-Sync And Skylake United
Performance Summary & Conclusion
Performance Summary: ASUS keeps banging out laptops that support NVIDIA's buttery smooth G-Sync technology, this being our third one we've had in for a formal review. The G752VT-DH72 also brings Intel's Skylake architecture to the party, though compared to the G751JY-DB72 we recently evaluated, upgrading to a 6th generation Core processor doesn't yield big performance gains. To be fair, the G752VT-DH72 sports a more subdued spec sheet (there are more muscular configurations available), and as such, it typically lagged behind the previous generation G751JY-DB72. It wasn't always by a lot, and in some cases, not at all. For example, in Futuremark's PCMark 7 benchmark, the G752VT-DH72 scored 6,348, just two meaningless points below its predecessor. And in Cinebench, both its OpenGL score (63.25 frames per second) and CPU core (7.27 points) were within striking distance of the G751JY-DB72, which posted 65.41 fps and 7.46 points, respectively.
ASUS decided to change things up a bit with its newest generation ROG G-Sync laptops, both on the inside and out. Starting with the exterior, ASUS refreshed the design of its gaming laptop lineup with a new brushed copper color scheme and additional LED lighting on the lid. Orange accents round out the look, and whether the design is a visual upgrade over its predecessor is something to be determined by the eye of the beholder.
On the inside, ASUS upgraded its laptop line with Intel's Skylake architecture. In the G752VT-DH72, that means a Core i7-6700HQ processor (2.6GHz to 3.5GHz, 6MB cache) paired with 16GB of DDR4-2133 memory. It also has an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M GPU with 3GB of GDDR5 memory, 128GB PCIe SSD, and 1TB HDD. It's a solid collection of parts, though not the best the refreshed G Series has to offer. There are higher end configurations available, though of course they come at a price premium. As configured, our setup runs $1,739 (at the time of this writing).
We didn't see a huge gain in performance in jumping from Haswell (G751JY) to Skylake (G752VT). It's not an apples to apples comparison in the overall setups of both machines, but even so, Skylake more or less holds the fort rather than taking it to new heights. Skylake does introduce a more efficient design that should yield longer battery life, though any gains to be had from the architecture are negated by the LED lighting on the G752VT-DH72's lid. We actually saw worse battery life out of the newer laptop compared to its higher spec'd predecessor because of the lighting, which can't be turned off.
That said, you shouldn't expect stellar battery life from a gaming laptop, here or otherwise. What you should expect is strong overall performance, particularly in gaming, and the G752VT-DH72 delivers that at a reasonable price. At the this machine's native 1920x1080 resolution, there's plenty of power underneath the hood to game comfortably, and enabling NVIDIA's G-Sync really adds an element of fidelity to the experience that you have to see live to appreciate. It's that smooth and impressive.
At $1,698, the G752VT-DH72 is a solid contender for a gaming laptop and easy to recommend. The caveat is if you can find a previous generation laptop on discount as vendors look to clear their inventories for these new models. If you can save a few hundred bucks for a comparable configuration, you might find it makes more sense to go that route but if not, the ASUS ROG G752 is one pretty fantastic machine.
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