Asus’ TUF gaming laptops are priced and positioned below its elite Republic of Gamers (ROG) models, but the TUF Gaming A17 gives you more than you might expect for $1,099.99. It combines a beefy eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 4800H “Renoir” processor with a very ample 16GB of RAM and a positively generous 1TB solid-state drive. It backs its 17.3-inch full HD display with a capable Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU. It offers longer battery life and tougher construction than many competitors, passing MIL-STD 810H tests against shock, vibration, and environmental extremes. The GTX 1660 Ti won’t max out the system’s 120Hz-refresh-rate screen—and the screen isn’t the most gorgeous thing you’ve seen—but the A17 is a good option for plus-size gaming on a budget.
TUF-Guy Credentials
Available in Fortress Gray or Bonfire Black (my test model TUF706IU-AS76 was the former), the A17 combines an aluminum lid with a plastic keyboard deck and underside. The lid is decorated by four faux corner screws and an ungainly winged-shield logo that (sort of) spells “TUF” if you squint at it sideways. The rear edge of the lid is sliced away to reveal a strip of the deck with “TUF GAMING” lettering.
Medium-thin bezels surround the 1080p non-touch screen, and a slight bump in the top bezel accommodates the webcam. The camera lacks IR face recognition capability and there is no fingerprint reader, so you can’t use Windows Hello to bypass typing passwords. Chiseled lines bracket the keyboard, which features translucent W, A, S, and D keys. A hexagonal power button occupies the top right corner.
Though ponderous next to a 15.6-inch system, the Asus is not too big and heavy for a 17.3-inch gaming rig, measuring 1.0 by 15.7 by 10.6 inches and weighing 5.7 pounds. That undercuts the HP Omen 17 (1.6 by 15.8 by 11 inches, 7 pounds). There’s little flex if you grasp the screen corners, though some is noticeable if you press the keyboard deck.
The only ports on the notebook’s right side are a USB 2.0 port and a Kensington lock slot. On the left, you’ll find Ethernet and HDMI ports, two USB 3.2 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Type-C port, an audio jack, and the connector for the AC power brick. Asus forgot an SD or a microSD card slot.
Colorful, Comfortable Keys
Pricier gaming laptops tend to divide their RGB keyboard backlighting into multiple zones or allow for the programming of individual keys, but the A17 shows just one color at a time. Using the Fn and cursor arrow keys, however, you can adjust the ample brightness of the key lights, or choose among color cycling, breathing, or strobing effects.
There’s a Home/End key at the far top right of the layout, but you’re most likely to access Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down via the numeric keypad, which will mean awkward toggling of Num Lock as you switch from data entry to navigating a spreadsheet. The typing feel is pretty good, a little shallow and plasticky, but fairly snappy and firm. The good-size touchpad has two rubbery buttons. It glides and taps smoothly.
As for the TUF Gaming’s biggest asset—the 17.3-inch screen—it offers support for adaptive sync and a 120Hz refresh rate for games. (Asus says the TUF works with G-Sync monitors plugged into the USB-C port via a DisplayPort adapter.) Alas, though, the native display is the least-appealing feature of the TUF Gaming A17. It’s dim even at the top backlight setting, making white backgrounds look dingy, and colors appear muddy and muted. Viewing angles are broad, and the contrast and detail are decent, but overall the screen is no better than bearable.
The 720p webcam captures adequately bright and colorful but rather soft-focus and noisy images. Sound from the bottom-firing speakers isn’t very loud, even cranked to the max, but it isn’t bad—short on bass, but clear and able to distinguish overlapping tracks. DTS:X Ultra software lets you make a minimal difference in the audio’s character by choosing among music, movie, RPG, shooter, strategy, and voice presets, or playing with an equalizer. A free 14-day trial of DTS headphone software is included.
High Marks in Performance Testing
We’ve tested 17-inch gaming rigs that cost three times as much as the TUF Gaming A17 (Asus’ own ROG Strix Scar 17 comes to mind), but for our benchmark comparisons here I chose four more or less affordable gamers. Two are 17.3-inch machines, the Aorus 7 SA and HP Omen 17—which stretches the definition of “affordable” by some $500 over the TUF, splurging on a GeForce RTX 2070 GPU that makes it the favorite in our graphics tests. Two are 15.6-inch systems, the Dell G5 15 SE and our $999 Editors’ Choice winner, the MSI Bravo 15. You can see the contenders’ basic specs in the table below.
Productivity and Media Tests
PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark 10 test we run simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet jockeying, web browsing, and videoconferencing. PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a storage subtest that we use to assess the speed of the system’s boot drive. Both yield a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better. (See more about how we test laptops.)
Like its rivals, the A17 blew past the 4,000-point mark that indicates excellent productivity in PCMark 10. Like nearly all modern laptops with PCI Express-based solid-state drives, all five contestants aced PCMark 8’s storage subtest.
Next is Maxon’s CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads.
Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video editing benchmark, in which we put a stopwatch on systems as they transcode a brief movie from 4K resolution down to 1080p. It, too, is a tough test for multi-core, multi-threaded CPUs; lower times are better.
The eight-core, 2.9GHz (4.2GHz turbo) AMD Ryzen 7 4800H is one potent processor (in the 45-watt desktop replacement and gaming rather than 15-watt ultraportable class), and it gave the Asus, Dell, and MSI superb results in these tests.
We also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing benchmark. Using an early 2018 release of the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image. We time each operation and add up the total. (Lower times are better.) The Photoshop test stresses the CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, but it can also take advantage of most GPUs to speed up the process of applying filters.
The MSI and Dell slipped a bit in this exercise, but the TUF posted a first-rate time, even if its ho-hum screen and lack of an SD card slot make it an unlikely choice for avid photo editors.
Graphics Tests
3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Fire Strike. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more demanding and lets high-end PCs and gaming rigs strut their stuff.
As expected, the Omen 17’s GeForce RTX 2070 graphics claimed first place, but the Asus delivered a creditable performance, a notch above low-cost gamers with GeForce GTX 1650 GPUs.
Next up is another synthetic graphics test, this time from Unigine Corp. Like 3DMark, the Superposition test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene, this one rendered in the eponymous Unigine engine for a second opinion on the machine’s graphical prowess.
The Asus, Dell, and Aorus essentially tied for second place behind the HP. Spending more will get you higher frame rates, but these are more-than-acceptable results.
Real-World Gaming Tests
The synthetic tests above are helpful for measuring general 3D aptitude, but it’s hard to beat full retail video games for judging gaming performance. Far Cry 5 and Rise of the Tomb Raider are both modern AAA titles with built-in benchmark routines. We run these tests at 1080p resolution using both moderate and maximum graphics-quality presets—Normal and Ultra for Far Cry 5 under DirectX 11, Medium and Very High for Rise of the Tomb Raider under DirectX 12.
Once again, it trailed the Omen 17, but the A17 posted very satisfactory results for its price, easily surpassing the desirable 60-frame-per-second mark even at the games’ finest image quality settings. We’ve tested many budget gaming laptops that wish they could do this well.
Battery Rundown Test
After fully recharging the laptop, we set up the machine in power-save mode (as opposed to balanced or high-performance mode) where available and make a few other battery-conserving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video rundown test. (We also turn Wi-Fi off, putting the laptop into airplane mode.) In this test, we loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the Blender Foundation short film Tears of SteelTears of Steel—with screen brightness set at 50 percent and volume at 100 percent until the system quits.
We like to see at least four hours of battery life from a gaming notebook. The Asus more than doubled that, winning this event. Actual gaming will, of course, drain the battery faster than mere video viewing, but with the A17 it’s at least possible.
One of the Better Deals in a 17-Inch Gamer
With its 1TB SSD—and a second M.2 slot accessible by unscrewing the bottom panel—the Asus TUF Gaming A17 is a welcome change from low-cost gaming laptops with a skimpy 256GB of storage, and its Ryzen 7 processor is a real powerhouse. But while you can live with the screen, you won’t be thrilled with it; I waffled between giving the laptop three-and-a-half and four stars on our rating scale, and the display narrowly tipped me to the lower score.
Still, its less-than-dazzling display doesn’t negate the TUF Gaming A17’s above-average value when you tally up the rest of the components. Good 17.3-inch budget gaming rigs are scarcer than their 15.6-inch counterparts, and if you desire a big screen but lack a big checkbook, this sturdy performer deserves consideration.
