Having alreadyreviewed the RTX 2060 in detail, today we’re focusing on what the overall laptop package provides.
Our review unit is the GL504GV that packs the RTX 2060priced at $1,700.
Other hardware is largely unchanged from the previous generation.
Our review unit, and the main option available onNeweggandAmazon, comes with a 512GB PCIe SSD.
This soft touch area has a carbon fiber design with half of it getting a camo print.
We’d probably prefer if the camo wasn’t there but Asus loves to do this sort of thing.
Yes, there’s RGB, too.
The trackpad is great and we love the inclusion of two separate click buttons.
I/O is very solid.
Internal connectivity comes in the form of an Intel 802.11ac 2x2 Wi-Fi plus Bluetooth 5.0 combo solution.
Before talking about performance, there are a few notes to be made.
The first is relating to Asus' software suite, the Armoury Crate.
This laptop can sustain higher clocks for longer.
That includes 7-Zip compression, MATLAB and Adobe Photoshop Iris Blur.
As usual here’s our comparison between the Core i7-8750H and the last-gen quad-core Core i7-7700HQ.
Check that out in our RTX 2060 (laptop) GPU review.
On average, the single-channel configuration of this GPU is 13 percent slower than the dual-channel config.
That’s a significant difference simply from not having that second stick of memory in there.
Some games are barely impacted, such as Dirt 4, Watch Dogs 2 and Wolfenstein II.
There is no doubt that dual-channel memory is significantly better for gaming at 1080p.
In Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, a 60 FPS experience is cut down to just 45 FPS.
It’s not a good performance loss.
This also impacts the margins between this RTX 2060 laptop, and other GPUs.
We have to wonder how many people actually open up their system and chuck in that extra stick.
Surely the number isn’t high enough to justify cutting performance for most others.
Not huge, but something you might want to factor in.
We reckon some manual fan tuning would go a long way to balancing out temperatures and noise.
Clocking in below 40 dBA is a good result.
While gaming the fans really crank up, so I don’t recommend it.
For storage, we received a 512GB Kingston M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.
Internally there’s also a free 2.5-inch drive bay for more storage.
The laptop’s display is good.
Our main concern was with the incorrect white point.
This leads to average deltaEs between 3.0 and 4.0 which isn’t accurate but isn’t hugely inaccurate either.
It’s not overly portable, it’s not overly chunky.
Our only major concern has to do with the single-channel memory out of the box.
It doesn’t impact productivity workloads heavily, but it does shave ~10% off the gaming performance.
It’s also not competitive with outgoing GTX 1070 laptops.
The predecessor to this system,the GL504GS, isonly $1,500in certain stores, including Newegg.
That gets you a very similar laptop that is faster for less money.
Even if for a limited time while supplies last, RTX laptops at launch do not offer great value.
We’re honestly not sure who is responsible for setting these prices.
