[Review] TUF Gaming FX505 – Unrivaled Toughness And Power For Gamers

We’ve received the TUF Gaming FX505 earlier thanks to ASUS and we’ve taken a peek at its performance by playing all kinds of games that we can think of. Equipped with Intel’s i7-8750H and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with 6GB GDDR5 VRAM, we’ve pretty much enjoyed its company playing the latest games on it on its slim bezel 15.6 FHD screen at 144 Hz. This is one of ASUS’ affordable gaming laptops in the market and we’ve done one on its predecessor which is the FX504. So here’s our review of the TUF Gaming FX505!

Designed To Be TUFF!

The TUF Gaming FX505 is just like its predecessor, the FX504. It’s built to be tough to last long for gaming purposes. As this is the successor of the FX504, the design is quite the same with its signature Radiating-X design on the top panel. Instead of the Red Matter design, we got the Gold Steel design which has a smooth aluminium Gunmetal Grey on the top cover which gives it a premium look.

Once flipped up, we could see the beautiful glowing RGB keyboard with the WASD caps highlighted. Of course this could be handy for users who are shooter-games enthusiast, but the specifications are still great for MOBA games as well. As the keyboard is RGB-backlit and customizable via the TUF Aura Core, the ASUS logo at the front panel will also glow when you turn on your laptop.

As mentioned earlier, the screen is able to run up to 144Hz on the 15.6 FHD screen. Its slim bezel gives you the impression of a wide screen which provides less distraction while you’re gaming. With all the ports located on the left side; two USB 3.1 Gen 1, one USB 2.0, HDMI 2.0, 3.5mm audio jack, RJ-45 jack and power, there’s no worry of any cable disturbances at the general mouse area. Despite it being really slim with a carry weight of 2.2kg (which is 0.1kg lighter than the FX504), you can practically bring it around to game without breaking your back!

If you flip it to the backside, you can see two painted red grills where the fans are located. Those are ASUS’s signature Anti-Dust Cooling (ADC) equipped with Fan OverBoost technology that was also present in the FX504. It has a dual-fan cooling both CPU and GPU on both sides to keep them cool at all times even while gaming!

TUFF Performance

Now getting into its gaming performance, the FX505 has an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with a 6GB GDDR5 VRAM upgrade compared to the FX504 that has an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050/Ti with only either 2 or 4GB GDDR5 VRAM. With the extra VRAM, it enhances your gaming experience as it helps your GPU load your games faster! There’s a lot of games that can be played with the NVIDIA GTX 10-series like the popular and competitive PUBG, Overwatch, CS:GO, Dota 2, League of Legends and more! Of course, it can also run the latest games like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey capping at 60fps.

While we’re gaming or waiting for a match, tabbing out to your Google Chrome is not an issue as Intel’s 8th Gen i7-8750H with 8GB DDR4 RAM. So you can pretty much multitask or stream yourself gaming! As the storage also comes with a 1TB 7200 rpm SATA HDD and a 128GB/256GB PCIe Gen3 SSD, your Windows 10 will load up like within 5 seconds after you turn it on! It’s fast and less waiting time when booting your programs or games as well.

However, if you are thinking of bringing your laptop around either to work or to a LAN party, you’ll definitely need to bring your power brick along as it does not last as long depending on how intensive the programs you’ve loaded up. Because the FX505 only has a 48Wh battery, it only lasted about 4 hours with casual use like web surfing, working on Microsoft Office programs, streaming or movie watching. Gaming will of course, take more and will cut the battery life by half! Though, it’s also not advisable to game without the laptop plugged to a power source as it tends to clock down unless you’re playing on High Performance battery mode which will drain your battery down to about 1 hour of battery usage.

Verdict

Overall for a price of RM5,599, ASUS TUF Gaming FX505 is a great gaming laptop to have if you don’t mind the battery life. The specifications and features that comes with it are well worth the money if you are on a budget. There’s also a cheaper version which comes equipped with a lesser NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050/Ti/1060 with 4GB/6GB GDDR5 VRAM that starts from RM3,699, . Of course, you can even go lower to the FX504 that’s at RM3,299 with lower specifications but with the same NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 in it.

While the FX505 does have a better keyboard and it’s newer than the FX504, it all comes down to your budget. If you’re looking for a tough gaming laptop that can last you for the next couple of years and support the upcoming games, the FX505 is a good choice to get it. With all good things, it does come with some flaws but the FX505 has more pros than cons which is just the small battery of 48Wh in the gaming laptop.

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