ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701: At First Glance
The ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 is the successor to the 15-inch ROG Zephyrus GX501VI. Despite having a very similar design pattern as its predecessor, this new model contains the RTX-20 GPU series.
At the time of its release in 2019, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 was selling at $3300. Such a high price made me refer to it as a “luxury gaming machine”.
Now in September 2021, this gaming laptop sells for less with its starting price of $1999.99. This pops questions in your head if this gaming laptop is really worth the price.
Well, you can only find out by reading this review!
ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701: Design, Dimensions, and Weight
This design section is longer than normal. This is because we had to cover all the features this unique gaming laptop has to offer. I assure you that you will not regret reading it.
The design of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 was created to make a statement of EXTRAORDINARY! To start with, a matte black magnesium alloy chassis with a brush metal finish is what welcomes you at first sight.
This gaming laptop has a durable, sleek, smooth, and sophisticated look and feel. Also, the ROG Zephyrus GX701 comes in only one color variant – Black.
If you’re like me who’s not a fan of black-colored laptops because they seem boring – trust me, you’ll fall in love with the only black color variant of this gaming laptop.
As for branding, you can tell that this is an ASUS ROG product with the usual triangular split pattern on the lid. Not forgetting, of course, the ASUS ROG bird-like logo in red.
Following that is the “Zephyrus” text logo in black and highlighted in orange behind the hinges of the laptop. Also, this branding rests on a fairly compact gaming machine.
In the aspect of weight and dimension, ASUS refers to this laptop as a “Go Big. Stay Slim” gaming laptop. More precisely, this gaming laptop has a dimension of 399 x 272 x 18.7 mm and weighs 2600g.
Comparatively, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 weighs the same as the Alienware M17 R2. While the Lenovo Legion Y740 weighs more at 2902g and has dimensions of 412.6 x 304.9 x 23 mm.
However, the MSI GS75 17 weighs less than all with 2086g and 396.1 x 259.4 x 20.25 mm in its dimension. Apparently, the ROG S17 GX701 isn’t the slimmest 17-inch gaming laptop but it’s definitely not the heaviest
In finding out what’s under the laptop’s lid, you can open the laptop with one finger using the little indent. This doesn’t mean the hinges are feeble – instead, it explains how the deck contains more weight than the laptop’s lid.
As for the hinges, it has a similar feature to the ErgoLift we see regularly on ASUS notebooks. More precisely, when the laptop’s lid is open, the hinges of the ROG S17 GX701 pushes the laptop slightly up.
When this lid opens, instead of the screen catching your attention, you’ll be drawn by the laptop’s deck instead. This is because the deck of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 has an interesting design that you can’t ignore.
To be precise, ASUS intentionally left a big plain space at the upper part of the deck. This area which is where the keyboard layout should have been is often referred to as the “Zephyrus forehead”.
The Zephyrus forehead actually contains the cooling system of this laptop. There’s also an illuminating RGB ASUS ROG animal-like logo at the center
Now you’re probably wondering where the keyboard layout is located. Well, ASUS moved the keyboard layout to the lower deck of the laptop.
Furthermore, ASUS placed a small touchpad on the right corner of the keyboard layout. Yes! This is a complicated design pattern but hold on to know why ASUS did what they did.
The design pattern according to ASUS is aimed at cooling the laptop during high-performance tasks. This is possible because dual cooling fans are located underneath this Zephyrus forehead.
Additionally, this also helps keep your hand away from those hot surfaces when using the laptop’s keyboard area.
Despite ASUS’s intentions on this design, it’s not exactly flawless. This design pattern makes an armrest absent.
How can I possibly be typing on this laptop without a surface to rest my arm – especially when I’m supposed to use this device on my lap.
What I can tell you for sure is that typing with this laptop will take some time to get used to. Speaking of typing, let’s talk about the keyboard, touchpad, and everything around it.
To start with, the ASUS ROG S17 GX701 has an RGB backlit keyboard. The keys on this keyboard are fast and respond accurately.
By the top right corner above the keyboard layout is the popping red color power button of this laptop. Still above the keyboard towards the left is a volume wheel.
This is not your typical volume rocker and that’s why it’s called a volume wheel instead. As the name implies, you can scroll it up or down like a wheel to adjust the laptop’s volume.
Furthermore, this volume wheel also has a red light indicator. This indicator gets active when the laptop is unmuted, and pressing down the volume wheel mutes the laptop.
Speaking of volume, this laptop produces great audio quality with two upward-facing speakers on both sides of the keyboard. The good audio quality means you won’t need headphones when gaming.
Also, on the right corner of the keyboard layout, you’ll see the touchpad. The unsatisfying feature of this touchpad is its position and size.
Because of ASUS’s design pattern to enhance the cooling system of this laptop, they sacrificed a spacious touchpad for a very small one.
On a positive note, ASUS included their signature NumPad on this touchpad like the one on the ASUS VivoBook Flip 14. This NumPad is simply the combination of a numeric keypad and a touchpad.
This all-red NumPad makes number-crunching tasks less boring. Furthermore, this Numpad can be activated with a press of the first key above the touchpad.
With that being said, this touchpad is capable of doing the job right. However, it’ll be a bit uncomfortable because of its size, and for that, you’ll most likely end up using an external mouse.
Notably, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 doesn’t have air vents at the laptop’s base. More explicitly, the cooling fans are located at the Zephyrus forehead with air vents by the hinges.
Moving away from the laptop’s deck, let’s talk about the display. On powering this laptop, you have a 17.3 inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) display resolution.
Surrounding this display is 6.9mm slim bezels on the side and slightly thick lower bezels that carry the “ROG ZEPHYRUS” text logo. These slim bezels produce an 81% screen-to-body ratio which ASUS claims are 23% smaller than a conventional 17-inch laptop.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen an 84% screen-to-body ratio of 17-inch laptops like the LG Gram 17. There’s also an 83% screen-to-body ratio on the Dell Inspiron 17 7000, and 90% on the Dell XPS 17.
For clarity, the screen-to-body ratio tells you how much of the surface the screen represents when compared to the whole device.
Nonetheless, the ROG S17 GX701 has an impressive near-bezel-less display for a 17-inch gaming laptop.
Interestingly, on the top bezel, you’ll notice that something is missing – the camera. That’s right! There’s no in-built camera in this gaming laptop, instead, what you have is a 1080p 60fps webcam in the box.
It appears that ASUS didn’t want to force in a low-quality camera and produce thick bezels. Instead, they decided to provide an external camera in the box of the ROG GX701 gaming laptop.
This camera comes with a Micro USB cable that connects the camera to the laptop. Furthermore, this camera has a little stand that can be mounted on any edge of the laptop to hold it in place and in any direction you’ll prefer.
As much as ASUS intentions are understandable, not having an in-built camera has its downside. Firstly, it means that this gaming laptop does not support Windows Hello for signing in.
Secondly, whenever you’re stepping out with this laptop, you’ll have to make sure you carry the camera along.
As I earlier stated, the laptop does not support Windows Hello for signing in, and there’s also no fingerprint sensor. Not having any security sign-in features is disappointing for a laptop that costs this much.
Focusing on the display, the ASUS Zephyrus S17 GX701 is an IPS panel display with G-sync. The In-plane switching (IPS) panel is responsible for good viewing angles while the G-sync enhances the graphics display.
In case you’re wondering, G-sync is a type of technology display created by NVIDIA to solve the problem of screen tearing. G-sync display is only compatible with laptops and monitors that have NVIDIA graphics cards in them – which I’ll simplify in the graphics section of this review.
Meanwhile, screen tearing occurs when the display shows two different frames on a single screen. This mostly occurs during gaming which can disrupt your gaming experience.
ASUS aims to solve screen-tearing by including the NVIDIA technology in the display of this gaming laptop. Furthermore, it promises a smooth gaming experience without crack or tear.
In addition to that, this display has a 96% sRGB and a 300Hz Refresh Rate. The 96% sRGB is responsible for producing more color accuracy to images.
While the 300Hz refresh rate functions by quickly refreshing an image within 3.3ms (milliseconds). The refresh rate also works together with the G-sync for an all-around visual experience.
Still on its display, the brightness of this laptop is 290 nits which is above average. The nits of brightness is responsible for how bright the screen gets.
Back to the laptop’s exterior, there are a good number of ports to satisfy your needs. On the left, there’s the power in port, HDMI 2.0 port, USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A, USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, and an audio jack.
While on the right, there are two 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C port, and Kensington lock.
Furthermore, these ports are surrounded by air vents to further enhance the cooling system of the laptop. These air vents are at the back of the hinges and also by the left and right edges of the laptop.
Also, these air vents also have the RGB lighting feature that makes them come on when in use.
Overall, ASUS presents an impressive design that makes it stand out from most gaming laptops. ASUS’s design choices of this laptop however come with some limitations.
For that reason, I will be rating this design section of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 a nine out of ten.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701: Processor (CPU) Performance
ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 is powered by the 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10875H processor. This is an 8 core processor with a 16 MB cache.
Furthermore, this processor has 2.30 GHz as its base frequency and 5.10 GHz as its boost frequency. Knowing what the features are without knowing its performance is half-baked information, right?
With that said, I carried out a Cinebench test to analyze the CPU performance. The Cinebench is a benchmark test tool that evaluates a device’s CPU to know its capability at the very maximum workload.
At the end of this Cinebench test, ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 did well with a score of 1,238 points. This 17-inch model scored 500 points better than its predecessor – the ASUS GX501 which scored 738 points in the same test.
When compared with two other laptops, the ASUS GX701 outperformed them both. First, the MSI GS75 which is also a gaming laptop scored 1,238 points.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus GX701 also outperformed the Core i9 of the MacBook Pro with a score of 1068 points. The new 17-inch model of the ASUS ROG GX701 is a higher performer than its competitors and even its predecessor.
It is worth mentioning that while running the benchmark test, I noticed that the fans got pretty loud during high performance. This was so loud that you’ll probably have to use headphones while gaming.
Despite this noise, the laptop doesn’t really heat up and we have the cooling system to thank for that. The air vents around the laptop also suck in enough air for the laptop to stay cool.
Notably, ASUS stated that the illuminated RGB lighting of the “ Zephyrus forehead” may lead to a 3°c increase. This increase in heat is very understandable considering the fact that there is lighting in that area.
With that information, it’s advisable you turn off the RGB lighting feature to reduce the heat. The RGB lighting can be controlled or turned off completely with the use of the ASUS software already on the laptop.
In brief, the fan noise does not prevent me from rating the CPU performance review section of the ASUS GX701 a nine.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701: Memory (RAM) Performance
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 comes with 16GB RAM which is soldered to the motherboard of this gaming laptop. This soldered RAM means that the 16 GB cannot be upgraded.
You shouldn’t be worried about the non-upgradable feature of the memory because 16 GB is enough for a gaming laptop.
However, this laptop still supports a maximum memory of 32 GB and that’s possible with the extra memory slot called the SO-DIMM. The SO-DIMM stands for – small outline dual in-line memory module.
In detail, SO-DIMM memory slots are about half the length of regular-sized DIMMs in average laptops. SO-DIMM was created to make memory slots smaller and able to fit into compact and slimmer laptops.
With that being said, you may be wondering if the SO-DIMM is upgradable – well, yes it is. This means you can go ahead and add an additional 16 GB of RAM to the SO-DIMM slot.
To learn about the memory performance of this gaming laptop, I made use of the PC Mark tool. This PC Mark is a benchmark test tool that measures complete system performance for modern office activities.
In the PC Mark 10 test, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 scored 5634 points. This score is higher than that of the Alienware 17 R5 which scored 5524.
However, the MSI GT75 Titan did better than both ASUS and Alienware with a score of 6349.
In a word, the memory performance section of this ASUS Zephyrus S17 GX701 review deserves a nine. My reason for giving that rating is because of its performance on the benchmark test and the memory’s size itself.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701: Storage Options & Performance
The storage type of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus GX701 S17 is an M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 RAID 0 SSD. Furthermore, this is a 1 TB single storage slot.
Unfortunately, there is no additional storage option to support this 1 TB SSD storage. This means there is no SD card reader or an additional storage slot.
Being stuck with only 1 TB storage is somewhat limiting for a gaming laptop at this price point. Regardless, it’s important to know just how this storage performs and the Crystaldiskmark benchmark test did the trick.
The Crystaldiskmark is a benchmark test tool that analyses the read and write speed of a storage drive. The read and write speed test score tells how fast or slow files can be sent and received on a storage drive.
At the end of this test, the ASUS GX701 resulted in a read speed of 3445MB/s. As for the write speed, this laptop arrived at a write speed of 3015MB/s.
When compared with other gaming laptops, this ASUS gaming laptop outperformed two of its competitors. The MSI GS75 had a read and write speed of 3387MB/s and 2703MB/s respectively.
Still in comparison, the Alienware M17 had a read and write speed of 3206MB/s and 2735MB/s respectively. The 1 TB storage of the ASUS GX701 is definitely not a slow one when compared to its competitors.
In brief, I will be rating the storage performance and options section of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 an eight. It deserves this rating because it doesn’t have more storage options but has great performance.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701: Graphic Card Performance
The graphics card options on the ASUS ROG GX701 is one thing to love about this laptop. To be more precise, this laptop offers three graphics card options to choose from.
First, there’s the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 with its dedicated VRAM of 6 GB GDDR6. This graphics card also has a base frequency of 1365 MHz and a boost frequency of 1680 MHz.
Secondly, there’s the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER with its 8 GB GDDR6 dedicated VRAM. This GPU has a 1605 MHz and 1770 MHz base and boost frequency respectively.
Thirdly, there’s the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Max-Q which also has 8 GB GDDR6 dedicated VRAM. Furthermore, its base frequency is 1650 MHz and 1815 MHz is its boost frequency.
Notably, all the graphics cards I highlighted above are dedicated graphics cards. This means that they have a dedicated VRAM (memory) that handles the graphics tasks of this laptop.
Interestingly, ASUS included two different performance modes on this laptop. The first is called Optimus mode and the other is the G-sync mode.
More precisely, the Optimus mode is a performance mode you should activate when you’re not gaming. This Optimus mode should be off for regular computing tasks so the laptop doesn’t overperform when it’s not necessary.
The “g-sync” mode, on the other hand, is activated when it’s time for gaming. This mode makes sure all the components of the graphics card are at work to offer high gaming performance.
Impressively, this laptop is one of the few to implement both Optimus and G-Sync mode. It is worth noting that both performance modes don’t work at the same time.
This means you have to switch between the two modes with a single click in the Armoury Crate App on the laptop. After making the switch on this app, you’ll have to restart the laptop.
Speaking of performance, I used the 3D Mark benchmark test tool to analyze the 3D graphics performance of this graphics card. Notably, our review unit has the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Max-Q graphics card.
This graphics card performed well in the 3D Mark test with a score of 38122 points. The Alienware M17 almost came close with its score of 36845.
However, two MSI products with the same graphics card scored higher than the ASUS ROG GX701. To be precise, the MSI GS75 and MSI GT75 Titan scored 38945 and 44321 in the same 3D Mark test.
These are pretty high scores but just how well does the ASUS ROG GX701 perform in real-life gaming. To find out, I played some games.
To start with, Fortnite and battlefield 5 did so well and were playable at 100fps on ultra settings. The Shadow of the tomb raider also played at 108 fps on ultra settings of 1080p.
Also in ultra settings, Far Cry 5 and Civilization VI played at a little over 60fps. Apparently, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Max-Q graphics card on this gaming laptop has no difficulty in delivering great gaming.
In brief, the graphics card performance section of this ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 review deserves a nine. I am giving this rating because of the multiple graphics option ASUS offers and its great performance.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701: Battery Life & Performance
This 17-inch gaming machine has a 4-cell Li-ion, 76WHrs battery. ASUS didn’t provide the overall battery life of this laptop.
However, they stated that the laptop lasts 4 hours 35 minutes for web browsing. They also stated that this battery lasts 5 hours 28 minutes when watching YouTube in Optimus mode.
I had to see the battery performance for myself and to do that, I put the battery to test. Before the start of this battery test, I turned off the RGB lighting feature and activated Optimus mode.
Also, I charged the laptop fully and set the brightness at 70% and volume at 100%.
With all that settings done, I started a YouTube video playback test and the laptop lasted 5 hours 17 minutes. This means ASUS was right about the battery life.
This video playback test on the ASUS ROG GX701 did better than its previous model which survived 3 hours on the same test. In comparison, the Alienware 17 survived 4 hours while the MSI GS75 did better with its 6 hours runtime.
As for gaming, the ASUS ROG GX701 survived 1 hour 42 minutes when I played Fortnite in G-sync mode.
Interestingly, the USB Type C ports I mentioned in the design section of this laptop review have an extra function aside from data transfer. This USB port is an optional method of charging the laptop with the use of a 45 watts power bank.
ASUS offers a 45 watts power bank which you can purchase from ASUS at an extra cost. Even though the speed of this power bank will be a lot slower than its ideal laptop charger, it’s a great alternative for portable power.
In brief, ASUS features good battery life especially with the general fact that gaming laptops aren’t the best when it comes to battery. Another thing to love about this laptop is the alternative option for power.
All these are great features in this battery section of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus review and for that, I will be rating it a nine.
Frequently Asked Questions
At the time of writing this review in September 2021, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus GX701 has a starting price of $1999.99
This gaming laptop comes with 16GB of RAM and an additional SO-DIMM empty slot. The SO-DIMM slot can take additional 16GB of RAM
No. This gaming laptop does not have a thunderbolt port
Yes. The NVIDIA 2080 Max-Q is one of the graphic cards ASUS offers on this laptop.
Yes. Although there is no in-built webcam, there is however a detachable webcam that comes in the box
Conclusion
In summary, ASUS definitely aimed to please game lovers with its impressive cooling system and undeniably gaming performance. Not forgetting its better battery life (which is rare for a gaming laptop), and interesting design, and build quality.
Despite the limitations of its design, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 GX701 has one of the best gaming performances out there. Its cooling system also makes it enjoyable.
Even though it’s expensive with almost a $2000 price tag, it’s worth it if you want a gaming laptop that checks all the boxes.
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