5.0 out of 5 stars

Great buy

This thing is a beast! Very powerful and easy to use. I did upgrade the ram and the SSD which I would recommend. I have played baldurs gate 3 and throne and liberty with no problems what so ever. The price is pretty great would highly recommend

4.0 out of 5 stars

Powerful but hot and expensive

So far so good. It’s fast and has a ton of cores. I mainly use it for software development and no gaming (I was really trying to find a laptop with this 16 core processor and no other gpu but they don’t seem to exist). Will be using it for virtualization k8s etc so more cores the better.There was some screen flickering. Indicators were it was because the laptop used intgrated graphics by default. Lots of misleading documentatio on how to fix that. You must use nvidia control panel to change to gpu 100% of the time and not armory crate. Its maybe a problem if you will use it much on battery power. I’m always plugged in though so meh. When I “let windows decide gpu vs igpu” I get random (bearable but annoying) flickers. Anyway set to gpu 100% of the time and the flicker issue is solved. There is an Optimus mode i don’t really understand but may try. I read it causes many of its own issues.Ok so yes to confirm, this thing gets hot. While not gaming or having any apps open at all I can feel the case and it’s hotter than I feel comfortable with. Don’t need to check temps to know it’s hot but will do it next time I use it maybe and post back. I thought of disabling the gpu and just running off integrated graphics but it seems hot either way. Time will tell how long this laptop lasts.

One person found this helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars

very satisfied

This is amazing, im on it all the time, already upgraded the ram and ssd and this thing is an absolute beast.

5.0 out of 5 stars

Solid option!

I will prefix this review by saying that I have been a life-long Intel fan, so writing a review acclaiming the virtues of an AMD system requires a system that delivers, and this is something that ASUS has done for those looking for a reasonably-portable gaming desktop replacement in 2024.Let’s start with the physical build quality. The outer shell is premium, as is the finish on the the palm rests and what little bezel there is. The keyboard is soft-touch with fast actuation, as you would expect on a gaming laptop.Expandability is good. The unit ships with a Western Digital SN740 512GB SSD, and an empty M.2 bay, which I populated with a 4TB Samsung 980 PRO (ASIN: B0CHGT1KFJ) before even powering the system on. System ships with 2x8GB SODIMMs, which I immediately replaced with 2x32GB Kingston Fury Impact CL40 (ASIN: B0BRTJT5P2).Performance is good overall. Here’s the breakdown per component:- The WD SSD performs well. I haven’t seen the 5200MB/s that WD claims, but I also haven’t noticed any SSD-related delays while starting the system or opening programs.- The Realtek GbE Ethernet adapter was able to pull 987Mbps from Steam.- The MediaTek WiFi 6 MT7921 wireless module performed acceptably, achieving ~500Mbps in a real use case scenario (~20ft away from a WiFi 6 AP in WPA3/PSK) mode.- The built-in iGPU shows up as an AMD Radeon 610M, which drives the display at the advertised 165Hz with one simple to resolve caveat: The screen has a random flicker that occurs until you install the latest AMD Adenalin Drivers. I can confirm this no longer happens with version 24.9.1 from AMD’s website.- The NVIDIA 4060 GPU performs well, and if you keep the GPU strategy in the NVIDIA control panel set to either “Optimus” or “Automatic”, you end up with a reasonable balance of battery life, quiet and performance, as needed.Thermal management. ASUS did a decent job with the thermal management on this unit (see picture). As you would expect, if you stress both the CPU and NVIDIA dGPU, you’re going to end up with the fans at maximum load, which is going to be quite loud. Under moderate load, the fan is barely noticeable.Software. The unit ships with Windows 11 and includes McAfee, which I ended up uninstalling on first boot, as I have Windows Defender through my Microsoft 365 subscription.Nitpicks:- USB PD charging can only be performed using the USB-C port that is closest to the user. Attempting to use the other USB-C port that is immediately adjacent to power the laptop will not yield the desired results.- It would have been nice to have a MicroSD card reader on this system. Let’s face it, gamers are likely to have other gaming systems (such as a Nintendo Switch or Valve StreamDeck), and it would have been a nice touch to incorporate a means of interacting with these system’s storage cards without an external USB adapter.- Weight. It’s a gaming laptop and it’s going to be heavy. I knew this going into this, and wasn’t surprised here.I hope this review helps you make an informed purchasing decision!

2 people found this helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars

High performance laptop

I am not really a gamer these days, but as an IT professional and power user I am still interested in a high performance computer.The ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Laptop is an impressive machine.After letting the computer download all updates for drivers, OS, and other installed utilities so that all software was up to date,I installed Steam and downloaded some games and the 3DMark Demo for benchmark tests to get a sense of the performance of the computer, “new and unmodified”.Cinebench 2024 Score:GPU: 8823 ptsCPU (multicore): 1496 ptsCPU (singlecore): 111 ptsMP ratio: 13.45x—Fire Strike (DirectX 11) v1.1 Score: 24 081Graphics score: 25 309Physics score: 38 318Combined score: 12 536—Time Spy (DirectX 12) v1.2 Score: 9 666Graphics score: 9 300CPU score: 12 447—Steel Nomad (DirectX 12) v1.0 Score: 2 133Graphics test: 21.34 FPSThese are provided for a baseline “out of the box” reference, but I’m not an overclocker and won’t be fussing about any of these details.The preinstalled software includes a MyASUS system maintenance and management utility, for update & driver management,and the ARMORY CRATE utility which seems to facilitate system settings and profiles oriented towards gaming features in particular.Notably, this is the utility wherein you can manage the RGB effects (such as in the keyboard backlighting).One issue I still haven’t worked out is something in a power management setting somewhere. When I wake the laptop up from sleep, the keyboard doesn’t illuminate. I have to launch ARMORY CRATE to hit a switch to re-iterate the current setting of “this light should be on”. That’s annoying, but I expect it’s due to some power management setting elsewhere that I haven’t found yet.Speaking of power, if I’m gaming “on battery”, I’ll burn through the battery in an hour and a half, or an hour and fifteen maybe if I’m really cooking. If you’re going to be gaming, you’re going to want to be plugged in.When not gaming, but just doing general browsing, YouTube, Photoshop, etc. I’ll get a good five or five and a half hours of battery life.Recharging from about 4% back up to 100% full took an hour and twenty minutes.This is a nice full size laptop – a little larger and heavier than my Lenovo ThinkPad laptop from work (but a good deal more powerful).The screen is expansive, with a minimal bezel, and the hinge system for the lid & screen feels very sturdy and smooth.The corners of the laptop are slightly rounded, but still rather ‘acute’ when handling the device. I wish I could find a laptop cover/bumper/shell that was made for this model, to give it a little more ruggedness and bump-defense, and to cushion the angular edges of the metal lid.The fan system seems to be robust, and really moves a lot of air when it’s cranking under load. The fan noise is quite noticeable in these cases, but under non-load use (general browsing) it’s silent.It has an Ethernet port, HDMI out, headset jack, two USB-C and two USB-A ports.A “travel style” USB hub providing additional ports and maybe a card reader slot would be a good accessory to have.

5.0 out of 5 stars

even more than what I needed in a notebook

My notebook died the day before I saw this available so great timing! It arrived extremely fast at my house which was definitely helpful.This is an extreme upgrade to the basic notebook I had before. Much faster processor! The dimensions are right about what I had before too so I’m not fumbling trying to get used to a new keyboard size. I have found that it does tend to get a bit warm so I have it on a flat tray when I’m using it directly on my lap.

5.0 out of 5 stars

My son loves this powerhouse

I’m a Mac girl myself, so when the opportunity to review this came up, I was hesitant. However, my son likes to use a lot of process-heavy apps to do animation, gaming and videos. I got this for him to do that on and he has been absolutely THRILLED. It does get much hotter than my MacBook Pro but I imagine that is due to the power this has.I love the colors on the keyboard and the size of this screen. I have found myself using it more often than I would admit (sorry, Mac!!).

5.0 out of 5 stars

Fantastic Laptop

This arrived in perfect condition and looks just like the pictures. I’ve never seen a package shipped more safely. There were multiple layers of cardboard lining the laptop to create incredibly sturdy crush resistant packaging, not only secure, but the box was pretty darn neat. The laptop is definitely more rugged than my previous computer, the top feels like a lightweight metal and the body is made of a heavy duty plastic. The screen is very sharp and the colors look great. The RAM is a little low for a gaming laptop in 2024, but it can be expanded easily enough. Set up was simple and the management apps included are very intuitive and easy to use.

5.0 out of 5 stars

Great laptop

This ASUS TUF Gaming A16 should last me a long time. This is a beast of a laptop but not too heavy. I am still reading through all of the features but so far, I am loving it. Very geeked about this laptop.

4.0 out of 5 stars

Powerful, easily upgradeable mid-range gaming laptop

This is an excellent laptop for gaming, with a powerful combo of a 16-core (32-thread) Ryzen 9 processor, and a mobile RTX 4070 GPU. Overall I really, really like it, and there’s just a few things I think should be changed.Pros:- Excellent 165 Hz screen with G-Sync- Very smooth and responsive touchpad- RAM comes installed in 2 sticks, so it benefits from dual-channel performance- Extra m.2 slot for storage expansion- Fan noise is inoffensive, and heat management seems good- Can be powered by USB-C- Backlit keyboard- Nicely and securely packaged in lots of cardboard, I don’t remember seeing any styrofoam or plastics during unboxingCons:- Windows 11 setup tries to push a ton of Microsoft services on you- Comes with McAfee preinstalled- Comes with various ASUS bloatware, and requires agreeing to some sketchy-looking terms of use with no option to decline- Only 512 GB of storage, which feels small for a near-$1400 laptop- Only 16 GB of memory, which should be generally fine, but it would have been nice to see 32 GB at this price. To upgrade to 32 GB, you have to replace both 8 GB sticks. Either that or replace just one stick and have a mismatched set, which isn’t ideal- The power brick is the size of an actual brick, but it’s a gaming laptop after all so that’s not too surprising- Cringe gamer aesthetic, though I’ve definitely seen much worse. It’s mostly just the weird “gamer” font on the keyboard, and the RGB backlightingThe software-related complaints can all be resolved pretty easily by doing a clean install of Windows, which should be fine since the Windows license is tied to the hardware and should be accepted during the reinstall.Although more memory and storage would have been nice, it’s pretty easy to upgrade those yourself. There’s a lot of screws to remove, and one of them is unexpectedly a captive screw (which I didn’t realize until after forcibly prying it out), but otherwise getting it opened up isn’t too tricky. After removing the screws, you have to use something flat like a spudger to pry the bottom off, which is always a little nerve-wracking on such an expensive device. Also, there’s multiple different lengths of screws, which I didn’t realize until it was too late…. I think I got them back in the right places afterwards, but it took some trial-and-error. Overall not too bad, and as you can see from my picture, the interior seems well thought-out and easy to work in. There’s a black plastic cover over the RAM and the SSDs, that’s what you can see peeled back in my picture.All-in-all, this is a really thoughtfully designed gaming laptop, at a competitive price. More storage and memory would be nice, but the CPU, GPU and screen (which matter more, since they can’t be upgraded) are all really excellent.

5.0 out of 5 stars

Great desktop replacement

I want to start off by saying that this is an awesome laptop and it’s great as a desktop replacement but be mindful of the price because it does fluctuate a lot.Screen:I love the screen. It reminds me of my 38-inch IPS ultrawide gaming monitor from LG that retailed for $1,800. It has the same visuals and the same antiglare found on the most expensive monitors. It’s an IPS with 1920×1200 pixels at 16 inches so the pixels per inch comes out to about 141ppi which is great. Anything above 110ppi is good to me because, at this point, it’s hard to notice the pixels. I can’t see any graininess or pixels at this pixel density so I don’t see any reason to go higher and have to use a stronger video card. Text clarity is great. The 165hz refresh rate is great. Picture clarity is great. No haziness you would find on cheaper monitors.Keyboard and Trackpad:Has all the keys I need including a designated number pad which is great for productivity. The keystrokes feel nice for such a compact keyboard. It’s quiet and has nice feedback. It’s not hard to press. Just smooth. The backlit keys are nice and a huge plus for me when using it in a dark environment. The trackpad is nice and smooth too. Feels good to use. Reminds me of the trackpads on MacBooks but it is plastic so can get a smoothed-out surface over time so it’s recommended to get a cover for it.Gaming:I play World of Warcraft on max ultra settings and I get great fps. Idiling in the main city, I get about 90 fps. In arena and 15 man battlegrounds I get over 100fps during team fights. In Epic bgs like Southshore vs Tauren Mill, I get 20fps during the massive 40 vs 40 team fights but this is normal even for the best-equipped pcs. Southshore vs Taurenmill is the most taxing content for your PC in the game. I run tons of addons so it lowers fps a lot too.Miscellaneous:I get about 1.5 to 2 hours playing games unplugged and about 5 hours if I’m just watching YouTube and coding. I could probably go further if I set everything on power saving. The speakers are okay. Podcasts sound good and it doesn’t sound tinny but the music doesn’t sound great. Sounds like speakers from a high-end smartphone. I wish it had more RAM because it does cap out pretty quickly if you have multiple apps running while gaming but the RAM is easily upgradeable to 32 GB. Wifi is really fast. It does get a bit hot while gaming.Overall I do recommend this laptop. It’s a beast but I would probably upgrade the RAM to 32 GB and wait for the price to be on the low end of the spectrum.

2 people found this helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars

In-depth benchmarks, power draw, and more

UPDATE:So I’ve been able to improve my performance. I’ve included a couple of new 3D Mark Timespy benches.Here’s what I’ve done since the initial review: I added a nice laptop cooling stand, I’ve updated the Nvidia drivers (which were very old), and I’ve played around with the Asus Armoury Crate software.With the drivers updated and the laptop cooling stand running at 2000 RPM (which is actually quieter than having the laptop fans screaming), I was able to score: 10,004 (overall), 9660 (Graphics), and 12,540 (CPU) on the Timespy benchmark. The driver update added about 500 to the GPU score. The rest was the result of the laptop cooling stand. This was running with the default performance mode enabled.With all of the above, plus the Asus software set to “Turbo”, I was able to score an excellent 11, 217 (overall), 10,976 (graphics), and 12, 818 (CPU) on the Timespy benchmark. It should be said, however, that the laptop fans are really loud in Turbo mode. Even with the cooling stand running at max.I’ve included two screenshots of these updated results.Original review below:———————————————————————————————————————-This review will probably wander a bit. So let me start with the CPU on this. It’s an absolute beast for a laptop. My desktop is an overclocked Ryzen 5600 (with an RTX 4070ti for the GPU). For things that want lots of threads, this thing is insane. As you can see in the one photo, it scored a 30,500 on the multi-threading portion of Cinebench R23. That’s crazy. I’ve never seen Cinebench crushed like this before. My desktop Ryzen 5600 beat my old Ryzen 2700 (8c/16t) and this thing laughs at both of them.For power draw figures, I had the laptop charged to 100% and had the power plugged into a meter that measured power draw from the wall. During Cinebench, power draw started out at 150 watts, but eventually dropped to 125 watts as it settled in with thermal throttling.One last thing about Cinebench, I have no idea why it lists Windows 10. I guess because R23 is an older version? This test was done with the very latest updates for Windows 11.For the 3DMark benchmarks, all of these benchmarks were running with the GPU pegged at 100% utilization. I think the photos are pretty self-explanatory beyond that.I did the most recent Steel Nomad bench and the more familiar (at least to me) Time Spy bench. The little demo scene on Time Spy (before the actual benchmarks) looked great. And from a power draw point of view, was the highest I saw. It peaked at 190 watts during this scene. During the actual Time Spy benchmarks, it tended to float more around 140 watts power draw.I threw in a photo of Panzer Dragoon: Remake. I just had an itch to play it again. It looked stunning on this screen and is ridiculously smooth. With the settings maxed out and at native resolution, power draw numbers tended to float between 70 and 90 watts. The low 80s often being where it stood.To the hardware itself, the track pad feels very nice. Couple that with the 165hz refresh rate and it just feels really good. I prefer a mouse, but as track pads go, it’s the nicest and most responsive one I’ve used.The screen is a very flat matte. It’s native resolution is 1920*1200. So between the matte finish and middle of the road resolution, it’s not going to super pop, but it’s nice. The colors seem right to me and the 165hz is very responsive. It also has pretty good viewing angles. The resolution also means it’s easier to drive games at their native resolution (versus 1440p or higher).This laptop has two GPUs in it. It has the Radeon iGPU and the discreet Nvidia GPU. The software is supposed to switch between modes depending on needs. Obviously using the Nvidia GPU for the more demanding stuff. Even though I had the settings set to auto, there were a number of different scenarios where the title would only see/use the AMD iGPU. So I just went into the BIOS (hold F2 while powering up), enabled advanced mode, and set the Nvidia GPU to be the only GPU used. This allowed those troublesome programs to now access the Nvidia GPU.To be honest, I didn’t see any real power draw difference between using the AMD iGPU or the Nvidia GPU in normal desktop activities. Maybe I just wasn’t getting enough data, but from what I could see, power draw numbers were essentially identical when browsing the internet. So it seemed a bit pointless to me to even have hybrid mode enabled. If it’s not saving me power for light-weight tasks, why do I have it enabled? The one thing (and it could be a major thing for some) is that the fan noise was lower in hybrid mode. The Nvidia GPU seems to have the fan running no matter how idle it is. Hybrid mode eliminates that.That’s pretty much all I can think of right now (looks at the novel of text above). But it’s a really nice looking laptop. The keyboard LEDs are good looking and practical. And for a “gaming” laptop, it’s not garish looking at all. Aside from the LED lights on the keyboard, it has none of the “Gamer” aesthetic that would make some people cringe.

5.0 out of 5 stars

16 Processors Run Laps Around Every Other Computer in the House!

This is a Vine review, meaning the product was provided to be reviewed.This product is a gaming laptop, with a 16” 165Hz Display, AMD Ryzen™ 9 7940HX with 16 processors (!), NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4060 video card, 16GB DDR5 RAM, 512GB PCIe Gen4 SSD, Wi-Fi 6, and is preloaded with Windows 11. The laptop has a thick polymer case and is rated MIL-STD-810H. A corded external power supply and instruction booklet are included. The product is packaged in a heavy duty decorated cardboard case with carrying handle and lift-up lid, and is suitable for gifting if wrapped.This laptop is amazing. The display is sharp and the processor speed and computing capacity is staggering. With 16 processors and 16Gb of on-board RAM, coupled with a high speed 512 Gb SSD, this laptop is actually a mobile workstation, suitable for high definition video editing and other applications that put high demands on computing power, quick RAM and SSD access times, and superior screen display.The laptop has two USB-C and one USB-A ports, one HDMI port, Ethernet socket, as well as headphone/mic ports. A standard lock socket is also included for tying the laptop down in dorm rooms. A full keyboard with multiple backlit colors is included with a decent tactile feel. The touch pad is reasonable size and allowed for precise cursor movement, although I prefer a mouse. The display is 16″ and has a non-glare finish. Color rendition and sharpness are very good, though I plan to calibrate the display with my Datacolor Spyder external sensor and software for video and photo editing.I had no issues installing Norton 360 anti-virus protection. The Windows 11 operating system includes basic Office productivity software (Excel, Word, etc).In summary, this gaming laptop is really a mobile workstation capable of very serious and fast computing. So far it works excellently, and I am pleased I ordered it.

5.0 out of 5 stars

Nice laptop with decent specs

This gaming laptop is very nice and is great if you want to play even demanding games with moderate specs. First off the unboxing experience is very nice and makes you feel like you are opening a high tech item. The design of the laptop is also cool, kind gives military tech vibes. The laptop is mostly made of plastic, so it’s fairly light, though the top is aluminum, making it feel cold to the touch and making it not feel as cheap (though I don’t think the plastic feels cheap anyways). The keyboard uses scissors keys, not mechanical keys, but they are some of the nice scissor keys I have used. I love that the keys are backlit and can even change color based on settings. One of my favorite things is the trackpad, it has a super satisfying click to it, and is super smooth to touch.As far as actual gaming experience goes, this laptop did well at every game I threw at it using default settings. Most notably I was able to play Warzone and it played smoothly. The settings weren’t turned up very high, and so the quality wasn’t amazing, but it stayed above 60fps and was very playable. I also was able to use CEMU, a WiiU emulator, and play Mario kart at 2K quality with no issues. It’s important to note that I had to leave this laptop plugged in or else the computer start slowing down performance significantly, though this might be able to be changed in settings.Overall this is a really great gaming laptop if you want to play almost any game but don’t quite care so much about using the best graphics settings all the time.