Asus TUF Gaming FX504G Review - Review 2022

"True" gaming laptops with dedicated GeForce or Radeon graphics under a thousand bucks are no longer a rarity. But it'due south a tall order to produce one that can handle the latest triple-A games with impenetrable consistency. Granted, nosotros've seen some strong efforts: Dell has the Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming (starts at $799.99) while Lenovo uncovered its Legion Y520 (starts at $919.99) early last year, and companies such every bit MSI and Acer play in this market place. But few options come more affordable than the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G. (The family starts at $699; our tester is $899.99.) This isn't a laptop for the graphics elitist; our test model has a workaday Intel 8th-generation Core i5 processor and, at best, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with 4GB of video memory. But if you're on the prowl for a small-price gaming laptop with a solid 1080p display, plenty of storage space, and a wide array of ports, the TUF Gaming FX504G stays in the game with competing machines.

Serious Gaming for Less Than a Chiliad?

With an angular, blackness-and-red blueprint, the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G doesn't devious far from the gaming-laptop ordinary. The color scheme is practically a uniform for machines similar this, and the overall look telegraphs "typical gaming laptop" in its size and shape.

The all-plastic chassis is what's expected of a gaming laptop in this price range, as is the plastic touchpad. Dissimilar on some gaming machines these days from Dell, Gigabyte, and others, the display is nowhere close to bezel-less. It's bordered past broad, 1-inch-thick sections of the aforementioned plastic that envelops the balance of the automobile. The main fleck of unique flair: The ii forward corners of the chassis and lid are cut off at a diagonal, rather than the right angles or rounded corners you see on nigh laptops.

Measuring 0.98 past 15.12 by 10.31 inches (HWD), the TUF Gaming FX504G is about the same thickness as the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming 7000, simply with a slightly smaller footprint. It's lighter as well, at 5.07 pounds versus the 5.84-pound Dell. That's peculiarly meaningful since the Dell Inspiron xv Gaming 7000 is already thin and light, at to the lowest degree as upkeep gaming laptops come. To carry the same starting cost as the Inspiron—and also be lighter—is a win for the Asus automobile. Proceed in mind, though: Other gaming laptops shell them both on thickness and weight, admitting at significantly college starting costs. (The xv.6-inch Razer Bract ($one,445.00 at Amazon) , for example, measures just 0.68 inch thick and squeaks in under 5 pounds.)

Open the TUF Gaming FX504G'due south lid, and you lot'll encounter a speaker grille positioned forward of the cardinal layout. Boasting support for the DTS Virtual:X codec, the audio organisation here is touted to yield a domicile-theater-style audio experience with false-surround aspects. But alas, the speakers on the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G don't quite audio as loud or articulate equally those on, for case, the MSI G65 Stealth Thin ($1,999.00 at Amazon) . That said, this is only a minor ding for nearly users. Chances are, you'll be using headphones or a gaming headset, anyway, and the sound experience through the audio jack was just fine.

Typing, Viewing, and Connecting

I wasn't overly enamored with the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G's touchpad, but touchpads on low-cost gaming laptops tend to be then-so. Small and patently, this one stacks up to that expectation. In my easily-on time, I found that the pad's tap-to-click role did non always register a click for me; you'll have to printing all the style downwardly for a reliable physical click.

The keyboard is a ameliorate performer. I institute the chiclet keyboard fast and placidity to type on, with skillful key springback and adequate spacing. The WASD keys are outlined in ruby-red for better visibility, and the spacebar is shaped and then that the left side protrudes outward, in example you need more room for your left thumb. One identify on which you shouldn't look to speed-type is the numeric keypad. The number pad'south keys are notably narrower than those on the residuum of the QWERTY layout.

The screen in this test model beingness an In-Airplane Switching (IPS) panel, as opposed to a Twisted Nematic (TN) one, is a nice touch in a low-cost gaming machine. IPS screens tend to accept much improve viewing angles off center. One quibble we had with the Dell Inspiron xv Gaming 7000 was that the viewing angles were subpar in the first TN-screen-based test unit of measurement sent to us; nosotros didn't receive Dell's pricier version sporting an IPS console until much later. The Asus TUF Gaming FX504G line, on the other hand, bears an IPS display down to its $799 version, dubbed model FX504GD-RS51. (The $699 base model, designated FX504GD-ES51, does use a TN panel.)

The TUF machines' 1,920-by-ane,080-pixel resolution up and down the line and 60Hz refresh charge per unit on almost models are standard specs amongst budget and midrange gaming laptops. They work in this laptop's favor because, given the equipment inside information technology, gaming at resolutions in a higher place 1080p is out of the question, anyway. The meridian model in the line, the coming-soon FX504GM-ES74 ($one,299), does employ a high-refresh (120Hz) "IPS-similar" console along with the same GTX 1050 Ti chip. This model, clearly, is meant for esports players who want the screen-smoothness potential of running undemanding games at very loftier refresh rates for a competitive advantage. (Or, possibly demanding games at lower detail settings.)

The port mix on the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G is aplenty, and concentrated all on one side. On the left side, you become two USB 3.0 Type-A ports in addition to a unmarried USB 2.0 Type-A port, an HDMI output, an Ethernet jack, and an audio port that yous can use for either microphone input or headphone/speaker output...

On the right side is a Kensington lock notch for tying downward the car with a security cable. It does strike me as odd that, dissimilar on most laptops, the ports are all on one side, though it does brand sense: If you want to cut down on clutter, i mode to attain that is to keep all your cables away from the right, where a mouse pad might typically rest. Missing, though, is an SD carte du jour reader, too as whatever USB Blazon-C ports (the ordinary kind, or one with Thunderbolt iii support), indicating that you may have to buy an adapter or ii if these are crucial to your work (or play) flow.

Storage on the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G is plentiful for a budget automobile. You can banking company on a 1TB Seagate FireCuda solid-state hybrid drive (SSHD). The FireCuda isn't as common as an ordinary difficult drive or solid-country drive (SSD); it'southward a laptop hard drive with some flash memory cache onboard to speed information technology up. It's a shame that y'all have to get to the next step up for a true solid-state bulldoze (SSD) in this laptop family unit, if just to store the operating system for faster boot times and a few cardinal games. (The $999 FX504GE-ES72 model, meant for Newegg, packs a Cadre i7 CPU and a 256GB SATA SSD, while the upcoming $1,299 FX504GM-ES74 I mentioned earlier, with the high-refresh screen, gets you an 256GB PCI Express/NVMe SSD and a 1TB difficult bulldoze.)

But at least the SSHD does give you a bit of a boost, under some circumstances. In my experience testing, afterward a series of reboots, the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G's SSHD eventually took just 16 seconds to boot into Windows 10, as the drive caching kicked in and stashed some of the central parts of the Os in the wink cache. (A standard hard drive-equipped Acer Nitro 5 took over a minute.) In PCMark 8'due south Storage test, a measure of overall storage operation, the TUF Gaming FX504G'southward drive scored effectually 10 percentage faster than the Nitro five's. Synthetic storage benchmarks, on the other hand, were more than of a mixed bag. Yous're likely to see a moderate speedup under some situations, and not others.

The Asus TUF Gaming FX504G likewise supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, and is covered by a one-year warranty.

About Tests: On the Marking

For benchmark testing, I pitted the Asus machine against the Dell Inspiron fifteen 7000 Gaming (7567), the Lenovo Legion Y520 ($899.95 at Amazon) , the Razer Blade, and the recently reviewed Acer Nitro 5 ( at Amazon) . The TUF Gaming FX504G ran par for the course equally a GTX 1050 Ti laptop, scoring close to the Inspiron fifteen 7000 Gaming and the Acer Nitro 5 across both productivity and graphics testing. Of the 15-inch gaming laptops in this exam group, the 2022 Razer Blade is plain going to requite y'all the all-time performance, given its $1,899 starting toll. The rest of these machines are upkeep models, while the Razer Bract is there only for reference; it's in an otherwise different price range from the rest of this lot.

Start, let's take a expect at the productivity-oriented testing and our battery rundown...

In our productivity testing, the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G's scores were in line with other gaming laptop offerings in its price range. Specific to the Cinebench R15 CPU exam, the TUF Gaming scored higher than the Acer Nitro v and Dell Inspiron fifteen 7000 Gaming (at 668 points, compared with the Nitro v and Inspiron fifteen 7000's respective 511- and 502-betoken results), which makes sense because the Nitro 5 and Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming both sport last-generation Intel Core i5-7300HQ processors while the TUF Gaming FX504G wields a current-gen "Coffee Lake" i5-8300H. In all but the Photoshop test, the Lenovo Legion Y520 topped the Asus, due to its higher-clocked i7-7700HQ processor; yet, it is impressive that the TUF Gaming FX504G was able to execute our Photoshop trial in simply under 3 minutes.

See How We Test Laptops

As for the battery life, the longevity of the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G is disappointing off the charger; 4 hours and 20 minutes is far afield of the 11-hour-and-one-minute battery life of the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming. Seeing as gaming laptops are used as desktop replacements generally, running plugged-in, I tin can cut it some slack. It's also worth noting that gaming on a battery often throttles performance. Fifty-fifty so, a iv-hour battery life is simply short when the thinner and more powerful Razer Blade tin survive 7 hours and 36 minutes. Thus, if y'all're going to use the TUF Gaming FX504G off the plug often, you may want to think twice.

Next, permit's take a look at our constructed graphics tests...

The TUF Gaming FX504G fabricated an impression in the Valley graphics test at Medium settings, though nosotros suspect this is an outlier; information technology didn't surprise in the Ultra quality Heaven and Valley tests, or in Sky at Medium. The difference at Ultra settings in frame rates between the TUF Gaming and the rest of the GTX 1050/GTX 1050 Ti pack would be marginal in real-world scenarios.

A Little Light Gaming...

I likewise ran the Asus machine through benchmark trials at its native 1080p resolution in the popular games Far Weep 5 (at the Normal and Ultra presets) and Ascension of the Tomb Raider (at the DX12/Medium and DX12/Very High presets).

The machine hit 48 frames per second (Normal) and 41fps (Ultra) in Far Cry 5, and 56fps (DX12/Medium) and 43fps (DX12/Very Loftier) in Ascent of the Tomb Raider. Since both of these games are locked at 30fps on consoles, you lot tin await in-game visual fluidity from the TUF Gaming FX504G that falls somewhere between the PS4/Xbox One and a more than expensive gaming rig featuring a GTX 1060 or 1070 (like the Razer Blade) that can handle triple-A games at a consistent 60fps.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti that the TUF Gaming wields is a just-good-enough graphics chip for gaming at medium to high settings at 30 to forty frames per 2nd (fps), depending on the game. You'll want at least a GeForce GTX 1060 for smooth gaming on pinnacle settings or for powering virtual reality. Unfortunately, the graphics options are the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G family'south biggest limitation. Yous can opt for a Dell Inspiron xv 7000 with a more than powerful GTX 1060, if you and so desire. The same goes for the Lenovo Legion Y520, which yous tin can get with a 3GB GTX 1060 for a little over a m. Asus offers just two GPUs in the TUF Gaming FX504G, however: the GTX 1050 Ti, like in the model I reviewed here, and the GeForce GTX 1050 in the $699 unit that features the lesser TN brandish. Even the $1,299 model of the TUF is a GTX 1050 Ti.

That said, while a GeForce GTX 1060 would elevate this laptop to frame rates budgeted 60fps on Ultra settings, it would also cost at least $100 more than. A GTX 1060-equipped Dell Inspiron 15 7000, for instance, starts at $1,149 at this writing. Another example is the Lenovo Legion Y520; $999.99 volition net you a stacked configuration with an Intel Core i7-7700HQ, a GeForce GTX 1060, and 128GB worth of SSD storage to cushion the 1TB HDD. If yous're on a strict, not-going-to-pay-over-$900 budget, though, the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G is a reasonable option and a decent value considering what it'due south up against.

A Reasonable Stay-Put Budget Gamer

At $899.99, it'due south unrealistic to expect the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G to give you everything you lot demand to play your favorite, brand-new games at maximum graphics settings. That'southward non what this grade of laptop is built to do. What it will do is go you lot close.

This motorcar should get you medium-to-high-quality graphics performance at acceptable frame rates. It'southward an especially good value for esports competitors and players of MOBAs who don't require a lot of graphics-processing oomph to fuel their daily drives.

It'southward not every bit thin or as light equally some of the newer Nvidia Max-Q-based devices, such as the Razer Bract, and the battery life needs piece of work. Also, the economy-minded, plastic-heavy build just treads h2o within its pool of competitors. But it is a lower-cost alternative to some other GeForce GTX 1050 Ti-powered machines that performs well for a decent price.

Asus TUF Gaming FX504G Specs

Laptop Form	Gaming
Processor	Intel Core i5-8300H
Processor Speed	two.3 GHz
RAM (as Tested)	8 GB
Boot Drive Blazon	Hard Drive
Boot Drive Chapters (as Tested)	1 TB
Screen Size	15.six inches
Native Display Resolution	1920 by 1080
Touch Screen	No
Console Technology	IPS
Variable Refresh Support	None
Screen Refresh Rate	threescore Hz
Graphics Processor	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
Graphics Retention	four GB
Wireless Networking	802.11ac, Bluetooth
Dimensions (HWD)	0.98 by fifteen.1 past 10.iii inches
Weight	5.1 lbs
Operating System	Windows 10 Home
Tested Bombardment Life (Hours:Minutes)	4:20

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/netbooks-products/28394/asus-tuf-gaming-fx504g-review

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