Gaming Laptop Analysis

Is the ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz good as a gaming laptop? Excellent

Processor - With the Ryzen 5 5600H 6-Core 3.3GHz processor in this laptop its excellent for 2021 gaming, capable of running today’s game processor system requirements. The processor in this laptop has 8 cores, which makes it excellent for modern gamers, minimising the risk of throttling game processes due to a lack of available cores.

Graphics Card - An excellent graphics card for running AAA titles during the 2021 gaming year. This GPU comes with 8GB, which is excellent and plenty powerful to meet the VRAM requirements of modern games.

System Memory - Today’s AAA 2021 gaming is easily covered by the 32GB RAM in this machine, making this an excellent gaming laptop choice.

Screen Size - Our review laptop has what we would consider, an excellent laptop panel size for 2021 games. It will help the gamer see in-game menus and be able to see some of the detail offered in game, without having to squint. Having at least a 17.3" panel seems to be the right way to go for gaming at the moment.

Refresh Rate - Look for higher refresh rate hertz for a gaming laptop. Ideally around 120Hz or more refresh rate on a gaming laptop screen. The laptop can only deliver FPS(frames per second) up to the listed refresh rate. So if you have hardware in your laptop that can turn out awesome frame rates on all the latest AAA titles, but a 60hz refresh rate, your laptop will be stuck at a maximum of 60FPS in all games. Ok so after that refresh rate recap we can see that this laptop can be found with the excellent gaming refresh rate of 144Hz. However, you can always look for others, but try to find something with more than 60Hz.

GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q graphics card gaming performance in the ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz laptop

A key choice in any gaming laptop is making sure we identify the right graphics card in the laptop and know what it is capable of in today's gaming landscape. With this laptop we are taking a closer look at how its total laptop value compares to its capability when it comes to running modern demanding games. Also lets take a look at it when running modern popular games like, Back 4 Blood or Grand Theft Auto VI in ultra graphics settings on its native screen resolution of 1080p. The GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q in this machine is currently capable of running 499 games at minimum system requirements of the 500 most demanding games available today. Where as it is capable of running 477 games of the top 500 most demanding recommended system requirements.

Comparing ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz to today’s best price to performance laptop ranges

We really want to see how the ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz will compare across all permutations of the TUF A17 (2021) model range. This will give us a good sense of how well it sits in terms of cost to performance within its own lineup, and will better help us decide if this laptop represents good value to us today.

A 0 P2P score rating out of 10 has been allocated today to the ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz. This value will adjust automatically as hardware and modern performance requirements from laptops improve over time. This version of the TUF A17 (2021) laptop is currently positioned at 5th when ordered in the range lineup for Price to Performance value rating. The closer to 1st place the better gaming performance it deliver for its price.

Now let's look at where this laptop sits compared to all other laptops, including those outside of the TUF A17 (2021) range. It currently offers % rating when comparing its price to performance rating against the best laptop available today for price to performance, which is the ASUS TUF A15 R7 4800H GTX 1660 Ti 16GB RAM 512GB M.2, which currently costs $999. The next best model is MSI Bravo 15 R7 4800H RX 5500M 16GB RAM 512GB M.2, which costs $1049. Our TUF A17 (2021) review laptop is % when comparing Price/Performance against the next top P2P laptop. Again this is purely a value for performance comparison, and many things go into helping us choose the right laptop for us. This is a good indicator but it's certainly then worth looking through the range for other configurations of a laptop you are interested in to find the right price point for you.

How does the ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz laptop compare to the best CPU performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

You might be considering a CPU heavy laptop and wondering how this TUF A17 (2021) laptop does in the grand scheme of CPU focused laptops. Let's compare this laptop with a top CPU performance laptop available today and see how its CPU performance stacks up. So the laptop we have chosen for its CPU performance is the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R9 4900HS RTX 2060 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2, which comes with a Ryzen 9 4900HS 8-Core 3.0GHz processor. That processor performs 22% better compared to our review laptop’s Ryzen 5 5600H 6-Core 3.3GHz.

Our laptop CPU beats 476 games recommended system requirements when looking at today’s top 500 most demanding games. This number changes to 500 games if we compare to the top 500 most demanding games for minimum system requirements.

How about we compare our laptop processor performance against Grand Theft Auto VI recommended processor requirement? Our laptop gets 21% better performance. Next let's check the top game of the moment, Back 4 Blood, which shows the review laptop’s cpu against that game’s system specs gets 5% better performance. We also see the 13% worse performance from our laptop cpu when looking at the game Battlefield 2042 for it’s processor requirements.

How does the ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz laptop compare to the best graphics card performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

We may well be looking for a GPU centric laptop, and if that’s the case then let's see how this TUF A17 (2021) mobile pc competes with a top GPU performance laptop that is available today. We have the MSI GT76 Titan i9-10900K RTX 2080 Super 64GB RAM 2.0TB M.2 4K as one of today’s best graphics crunching laptop. It comes with a GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8GB video card in it, which currently has 23% better performance compared to our laptop’s GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q.

The GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q Graphics Card found in this machine can currently run 477 games of the top 500 most demanding games right now. This is basically how many recommended game system requirements our laptop GPU beats in performance today, but we will update this figure as new games come out. This is 499 games when looking at beating minimum system requirements.

A game’s listed recommended GPU requirements are a good way to compare the performance of our laptop graphics card. Lets see today's popular titles up against our laptop graphics. First off let's look at Battlefield 2042 which shows our laptop video card has 7% better performance than it. How about Grand Theft Auto VI, where we see our GPU is 7% better. Then there is 70% better performance when compared against today’s most popular title, Back 4 Blood.

The ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz has a 1080p screen resolution, should I get a 4K resolution gaming laptop instead?

With a 1080p native screen panel our ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz has a 17.3" physical screen size. This inch panel size is measured starting in one corner, say the top corner and then across the middle of the screen down to the bottom corner on the other side. And in our case it has a fixed number of pixels in that screen that are 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall, or 1080p resolution. The refresh rate of a 4K laptop panel is often 60Hz. This figure sets a 60 frames per second cap that locks a game to no matter the capability of the hardware in the 4K laptop. However, today’s AAA games, when running at Ultra graphics settings and 4K resolution, usually require hardware that we don't see in laptops or desktops to even reach that 60FPS cap. This review laptop has 144Hz refresh rate versions available.

So more likely, you will have to lower the screen resolution on your 4K laptop to 1080p or 1440p to run modern AAA games at a frame rate that doesnt stutter. By lowering the pixel count, your game will start to look blurry, as you move away from your laptop monitor’s native resolution in order to get more frames per second. Which immediately defeats the purpose of getting a 4K laptop monitor for gaming. If your 1080p laptop has the hardware to run today’s AAA games comfortably at 4K, then plug your laptop into your desktop 4K monitor, when you are at home for some serious gaming sessions. As that desktop monitor probably isn't 60Hz restricted and is physically larger than the relatively small 17inch laptop screen size. We do just that here, with a 27inch 144Hz Nvidia GSync 1440p desktop monitor and an Alienware 51M laptop sporting a desktop RTX 2080.

If you stream 4K content, films, services like Netflix then perhaps the quality of 4K resolution on a 17inch panel would be better than the 1080p alternative that the majority of laptops provide.

As you can probably gather from the information above, its probably not worth the extra cash for a 4K laptop if gaming is your Laptop purpose. 1080p is likely plenty and has enough alternative gaming options for when you want better resolution. It feels like you might not get what you were after if you picked up a shiny new 4K laptop, then was needing to lower game resolution, while getting blurry in-game experience and achieving a max 60FPS when you could push the hardware into better frame rates.

Today’s best 1440p desktop monitor for a laptop is - ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS

The 1440p gaming monitor that has a great price today and should be a nice accompaniment to the ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz laptop is the ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS. Its current price is $311.99 and it has a 75Hz refresh rate. The suggested 1440p monitor price tracker recorded on 9th Mar 2021, where it reached the low cost price of $229.99.

Today’s best 4K desktop monitor for a laptop is - Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz

Here is a 4K monitor to compliment any laptop - Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz. We watch a handful and it is currently the best priced at $618. It has a 144Hz refresh rate as well. We have noticed that this 4K monitor has raised its price by $618 recently. And while it is a good 4K monitor even at this current price, it could probably be found for a bit cheaper. To give a bit more info about this monitor we saw it cost its lowest of $549.99, which we recorded on 13th Nov 2020.

[Note - check that monitor display connectors are compatible between a monitor and a laptop before purchase]

So why would you get a 4K capable laptop? If you enjoy movies or Netflix at 4K and have access to 4K content via those types of services then perhaps the quality of 4K resolution on a 17inch panel would be a great experience, but we still think you wouldn't miss that 4K.

We still feel it's not the time to spend extra cash for the 4K gaming laptop due to the limitations laid out above. It would surely feel somewhat disappointing to boot up your new 4K laptop, only to then realise you have to drop down the resolution on modern titles to get them to run smoothly. And then see that anything you play is somewhat less sharp than you have seen on your older PC and capped at a maximum of 60FPS due to the usual 60Hz 4K screen tech.

Today's Best Priced Mouse and Headset for ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz laptop

Incidentally our price track research shows us that a good gaming mouse is the Kayinuo M738 Gaming Mouse 3200DPI wired 6 Buttons. Its price tag today is $12.99 and is topping our price tracking charts as a best value mouse. Price watching this mouse shows that it has had a price drop by $32.26 during the past couple of weeks, which gives us more reason to select it to go with today’s laptop. Reviewing all our records the lowest tracked price we have for this mouse was recorded on 15th Aug 2020, where it was priced at $11.99.

The gaming headset with today’s best price to value that would go well with the ASUS TUF A17 (2021) R5 5600H RTX 3070 Max-Q 32GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 1080p 144Hz laptop is the Corsair HS45-7.1 Surround. Its current price is $36.99. For reference, the lowest price recorded by us so far for the headset is $34.99 on 28th Nov 2019.