The Asus ROG G752VM is one of the first laptops to offer one of Nvidia’s new generation of graphics cards, which get much closer to offering desktop gaming performance in a normal laptop shell.
It’s the second in this new class we’ve reviewed, but this belongs in a class above the Gigabyte P57 we looked at a few months ago. While not cheap, The G752VM is a no-compromise machine that is worth saving up those pennies for.
You can buy the G752VM in the spec we’re reviewing for £1599 from Amazon. It has an Intel Core i7-6700HQ CPU, Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU, 16GB RAM, a 256GB SSD and a 1TB hard drive for all the files you don’t need to access at lightning speed. Right now this is the only spec widely available in the UK.
The Asus ROG G752VS has a GTX 1070 GPU and costs around £2299. If you’re after a machine with an even faster graphics card, the model number changes a bit. If you have money to burn or are obsessed about fps figures, the monster Asus ROG G701VI has the top-end Nvidia GTX 1080 card.
The Asus ROG FX502VM costs £1399, has a 3GB GTX 1060 card and some lesser components including a less adept cooling system. There’s also an option if all of these are far too expensive for your budget. However, it’s also a lot lighter and slimmer. But let’s get back to the laptop in front of us.
A new generation of graphics hardware makes the G752VM exciting, but this laptop’s design is much like the older G752 model we reviewed before Nvidia’s 10-series GPUs arrived. You wouldn’t mistake it for anything but a gaming machine.
The angular two-tone keyboard surround, Matrix-a-like keyboard font and moody red keyboard backlight tell you this isn’t a laptop designed to be used to check emails in Starbucks. It’s also far too big and heavy to be taken far comfortably.
The Asus ROG G752VM is 43mm thick and weighs 4.06kg. Just the 17-inch screen footprint alone is enough to make you want to groan every time you have to take it room to room. This isn’t a criticism as such, just a reminder of exactly the kind of laptop we’re looking at. If you want something to entertain during a horribly long work commute, consider getting something much smaller and lighter.
This is a performance machine foremost.
Like most gaming laptops, it’s largely made of high-quality plastic rather than the metal used in light lifestyle machines. However, it’s solid throughout and the lid is topped with brushed aluminium for a little show-off extra touch. The colour strips and logo on the lid also light-up, a classic gamer gear move, but you can switch these lights off if you like.
One of the main positives of such a large laptop like the Asus ROG G752VM is that it can easily replace a desktop. The screen is huge compared with most laptops and the large frame means Asus has been able to fit in many connections.
There are four USB 3.0 ports, two on each side, and a USB-C to let you plug in your peripherals past and future. In a couple of years we may wish Asus had sacrificed another USB for a second USB-C, but at the moment we just don’t know how much life is left in the full-fat plug.
Other connectors include a full-size HDMI, mini DisplayPort and a Gigabit Ethernet socket. There’s also an unusually good array of audio connectors, with separate mic and headphone 3.5mm jacks plus a SPDIF output to let you plug in a digital headset without using up a USB.
The Asus ROG G752VM has a tray-loader optical drive too, in this case a DVD multi-writer. Asus also offers a Blu-ray drive in other configs.
