ASUS ROG Strix G531 Review: Built For Balance

There’s a current trend that’s very apparent in gaming laptop nowadays: better displays. Before, if you said or talked about any gaming laptops, people would usually go like: “what’re the specs?” But now, we also have to factor in displays as having beastly hardware meant that the laptop should also have the capabilities to show for it. ASUS ROG can be considered as a market leader with its plethora of highly capable gaming laptops. One of which is the ASUS ROG Strix G531.

The latest generation of ASUS laptops can be classified into three variants: the über expensive ones (like the ROG Mothership), the thin ones (like the Zephyrus M), or slightly heavier and beefier ones like the ASUS Strix G531. It can be said that each one has their own strengths and some compromises were made to attain what they are. In the laptop that we have now for review, the ASUS Strix G531 (specifically the G531GV-AL184T), we can see a balance of both performance, features, and more importantly price.

ASUS Strix G531GV-AL184T Specs

ASUS Strix G531 – 17″ vs 15″

The two different models can be identified by their names: G531 if for the 15″ variant while G731 is for the 17″ ones. Both models also have different setups and hardware. Prices also differ between these models with hardware being the largest factor.

ASUS ROG G531 Up Close

Looks & Design

Sides & Rear

The ROG Strix G531 is comes with 3 USB 3.1’s Type A’s at its left side, and a USB Type C located at its rear. It also comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI port, and an RJ45 port for wired connections.

The HDMI, RJ45, and USB Type C ports are located at the back, together with the port for the charger. This might be a point of contention to some as these ports can easily be placed at the featureless right side of the G531.

TKL Chiclet Keyboard That Glows

As with most laptops released in recent years, the “gaming” monicker comes with RGB lights that, well, make things faster if you believe it enough (it doesn’t). The chiclet keyboard glows, together with the base of the laptop, and the lighting styles can easily be controlled with a button combination.

If you’re more into customizing the lights on this gaming laptop, you can check out the ASUS ROG Armoury Crate for more options. If used together with compatible ASUS peripherals, you can make everything glow into the color that you want– together! Sad thing is that the power button is permanently red, thereby destroying any prospect of fully customizing the color of this device.

For those lamenting about the absence of a NumPad, hovering a finger over the upper right side of the track pad toggles it into a makeshift numpad. Very useful if you’re inputting lots of numbers. Annoying if you’re using the touchpad for non-gaming reasons.

ASUS ROG Strix G531 Performance

Gaming Performance

I used preset settings for each game as I tried finding the sweet spot that would enable the hardware to play above or somewhat at 60 FPS. All of the above tests were done while the ROG Strix G531 was in Turbo Mode.

Can Run The Latest Games

Despite being a laptop, or as seen from the spectacles of a desktop PC gamer, the Strix GU531 performs well and can run even the most recent games at acceptable frames. Unsurprisingly, the mobile RTX 2060 can run most, if not all, at “High” presets with results exceeding the standard 60 FPS, something the mobile GTX 1660Ti struggles to achieve.

Go Low Or Med For Competitive Play

The 120Hz display offers great response times, making it perfect for competitive games such as CS:GO, R6:Siege, Overwatch, and COD:MW to name a few. You can lower the settings of these games to push the frame rates further.

Synthetic Benchmarks

These benchmarks are meant to measure the device’s performance relative to other people’s machine. We plugged in a mix of CPU & GPU-intensive tests and other ones that measure the performance of both at the same time.

The numbers below will be quantified into an easy to read chart once we have compiled results from previous reviews. Please do check them out after some time.

3DMark Firestrike Extreme

3DMark Fire Strike Extreme is designed for multi-GPU systems and future hardware generations. In addition to raising the rendering resolution, additional visual quality improvements increase the rendering load to ensure accurate performance measurements for truly extreme hardware setups.

3DMark Time Spy

3DMark Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for Windows 10 gaming PCs. Time Spy is one of the first DirectX 12 apps to be built the right way from the ground up to fully realize the performance gains that the new API offers.

Cinebench (Release 20)

Benchmark Score: 2944

Cinebench leverages the same powerful 3D engine found in the award-winning animation software Cinema 4D Release 20 to accurately evaluate CPU rendering performance capabilities across various systems and platforms.

Novabench

Novabench is a free benchmark tool that allows you to see your computer’s overall performance. Its tests CPU, GPU, RAM, and Storage speeds, and gives you an aggregate score that you can use for comparison with other similar setups.

PassMark

PassMark measures CPU, 2D & 3D GPU, Memory, and Disk speeds. Similar to Novabench, it gives you an aggregate score, giving you an idea on how your PC performs and how it ranks when compared to other computers around the world.

Unigine Superposition

Extreme performance and stability test for PC hardware: video card, power supply, cooling system.

ASUS ROG Strix G531 – Verdict & Final Thoughts

Balanced With Great Performance

After my experience with the ASUS Zephyrus M GU502, the one with a 144Hz and a GTX 1660Ti, I’d definitely say that the ROG Strix G531 is miles better in terms of both performance and price. While it doesn’t have the sleek and stylish design of the Zephyrus Ms, this one takes the cake with its balance of performance and speed. It’s chunkier, but does have better temperature and noise control.

The 120Hz monitor paired with an Nvidia RTX 2060 is also more feasible and better tandem. Although the latest games cannot, in any way, perform way over 120Hz with Max Settings using this laptop, toning them down to medium or low might do the trick. If you’re a competitive gamer, graphics usually don’t matter and the 120Hz certainly helps in ensuring faster response times.

Personally, the combination of both a 9th-gen i7, an Nvidia RTX 2060, 120Hz display, and an NVMe SSD is more than enough to woo me and get my attention. Gaming is smooth and the keyboard and the included ROG Impact (though old), plus the laptop bag, can be considered a great bargain.

The only thing that I find annoying with this gaming laptop is its touchpad. Leaving your finger to rest on the upper right corner of it brings up the Numpad, thereby making it necessary for you to softly press it to toggle it off. Quite annoying if you’re used to leaving a finger on the touchpad while you peruse something. But again, this is something minor and does not have a huge impact on the general feel or overall satisfaction provided by the device.

With all things considered, the ASUS ROG Strix G531 rightfully gets our seal of approval. It’s a very capable gaming laptop that can play modern games without breaking a sweat.

In the Philippines, all of the variants of the ASUS ROG Strix G531 & G731 come with an ROG Impact  Gaming Mouse (check out our Impact II review here) and an ROG Laptop Bag. The ROG Strix G531GV-AL184T is priced at PhP 99,995.