ASUS Strix G15 Advantage Review - AMD Brings Competition! - YouTube

The ASUS Strix G15 Advantage Edition is the  first gaming laptop to feature AMD’s new Radeon  

RX 6800M graphics - their new top end option  to compete with Nvidia’s RTX 3070 and 3080,  

so let’s find out what an all AMD  system has for us in this review!

My G15 has an 8 core Ryzen 9 5900HX processor,  

Radeon RX 6800M graphics, 16 gigs  of memory and a 1080p 300Hz screen,  

but there are other configurations available  too such as 1440p. You can check out other  

configurations of the G15 as well as updated  prices with those links down in the description.

The G15 has an all black design with metal  lid, while the interior is all plastic.  

Build quality feels decent and there  aren’t any sharp corners or edges.

The laptop alone weighs about 2.4kg or 5.2lb,  

then we’re looking at almost 3.4kg or 7.5lb with  the fairly large 280 watt power brick and cables.

Width and depth are similar to  many other 15” gaming laptops.  

It’s a little thicker, but  not huge and still portable.

The 15.6” 1080p screen has acceptable  color gamut and contrast ratio,  

there’s no MUX switch but it does have FreeSync  with a fairly large range. Brightness is able to  

get above 300 nits at maximum, but expect  different results with the 1440p option.

The ASUS armoury crate software,  the control panel for the laptop,  

lets us control panel overdrive mode,  which affects screen response time.

With overdrive disabled we’re looking at a  7.9ms average grey-to-grey response time,  

but we can lower this down to around 5.6ms  with overdrive enabled, which is the default,  

though this does add a bit of overshoot.

Although it’s not the slowest 300Hz screen  I’ve tested, looking at you MSI GE66,  

it’s not below the 3.33ms needed  for transitions to occur within the  

refresh window, in any case not too bad  compared to others, but could be better.

No obvious backlight bleed in my unit, but  this will vary between laptops and panels.

Unfortunately, like some others  from ASUS, there’s no camera here.

Although there’s no camera it does still have  microphones, and this is what they sound like.

The ASUS website notes that a 1080p  60 FPS camera is included in the box,  

I guess this varies by models or  by region as mine didn’t have one.

The chiclet keyboard has 4 zones of RGB  backlighting, and all keys and secondary  

functions are lit up, though I thought some of  the lighting on the F keys was a little patchy.

There’s also a light bar that runs along some  of the left and right as well as the front.

It’s got 3 levels of lighting brightness  which can be adjusted with the function  

plus F2 and F3 shortcuts, while F4 can be  used to cycle through the different effects,  

and the keyboard shortcuts control both  the light bar and keyboard together,  

but you can control them independently  through the Aura Creator software instead.

Personally I liked typing on it, the layout  felt nice as it’s not cramped with a numpad.

It’s got some media control  buttons on the right hand side,  

and extra buttons above the keyboard  on the left to change volume,  

mute the mic, change the performance  mode or open the armoury crate software.

The power button is separate to the keyboard,  so no need to worry about an accidental press,  

and there appears to be some  air vents below the screen.

The precision touchpad clicks down anywhere  and works well, it’s on the larger side but  

I had no problems with it getting in  the way while typing or playing games.

The left has an air exhaust vent, two USB 3.2  Gen1 Type-A ports, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack,  

while the right just has an air exhaust vent,  

presumably so no cables get in the way of your  mouse hand as most people are right handers.

The rest of the I/O is on the back  between two corner air exhausts.  

From left to right we’ve got a  third USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A port,  

USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port, HDMI 2.0b output,  gigabit ethernet facing the preferred way so  

you don’t have to lift the machine up when  removing the cable, and the power input.

That Type-C port on the back can be used to  charge the laptop, and it connects directly  

to the RX 6800M graphics, meaning if we connect  an external screen it will bypass the integrated  

graphics and offer us a speed boost in games,  which I’ll show you later. The HDMI port  

on the other hand connects to the integrated  graphics, so that won’t give you a speed boost.

The front sticks out a little in the middle so you  can get your finger in and open the lid easily.

There’s more lid flex than I was  expecting considering the metal exterior,  

but the screen doesn’t wobble when  typing, as was the case with the  

cheaper TUF A15. There’s some flex to  the plastic interior when pushing hard,  

but again I’d say it’s less so compared to the  A15, and I never noticed it during regular use.

The back red corner can also be customized,  you can remove it and replace it with the  

two other options that come with the  laptop if you prefer a different look.

Otherwise the laptop has all sorts of subtle  parts in the design so that you know it’s an  

all AMD laptop. The ROG logo on the lid is  subtly lit up by the screen’s backlight too.

The bottom panel is plastic too with holes  for air intake directly above the fans.

Getting inside requires removing 11 Philips head  screws, and the ones down the front are shorter  

than the rest while the front right one doesn’t  come out and instead helps you pry it open.  

I found this easy to do this using the  tools linked in the description below,  

but you’ve got to watch out for the  two ribbon cables that are connecting  

the light bar to the motherboard,  so don’t just rip the bottom off.

Inside we’ve got the vapor  chamber cooler at the back,  

battery down the front, two memory  slots just above in the middle,  

two M.2 storage slots to the left of that, and  the Wi-Fi 6 card is hiding underneath the SSD.

The memory that this laptop ships with can  lower performance of the laptop in games,  

I’ve got a dedicated video explaining this linked  in the description if you want more information.

The speakers are underneath on the left and  right sides towards the front. I thought they  

sounded above average, definitely better than  say the TUF A15 I’ve got here at the moment.  

There’s some bass and they can get quite loud,  and the latencymon results were alright too.

Speaking of sounds, it plays  this one by default on boot.

Fortunately you can disable it through  the Armoury crate software or BIOS,  

but according to my recent poll more of  you than I expected enjoy boot sounds.

The Strix G15 Advantage has a 4-Cell 90Wh battery.  In the gaming test by default the frame rate would  

just run as high as it could. Nvidia laptops  cap frame rate to 30 FPS by default with battery  

boost, so to mirror this I capped frame rate to  30 with the Radeon Chill settings in the Radeon  

software. The battery lasted for more than 9  hours in my YouTube playback test, a great result  

compared to others, in fact I’ve noticed many  of the top results are all ASUS gaming laptops.

This is because of the panel power saver  option in the Armoury Crate software,  

which is enabled by default, it automatically  disables panel overdrive and lowers the refresh  

rate down to 60Hz which saves battery life,  though you can turn it off if you prefer.

Let’s check out thermals next.

The Armoury Crate software lets us change between  different performance profiles, which from lowest  

to highest are silent, performance, turbo and  manual. Manual mode gives us some control over  

power sliders and fan customization. I also  want to note that while you can set the fans  

to max speed here, when the laptop isn’t actively  doing work they would slow down and speed up once  

you start doing stuff, they don’t just stay  at maximum as specified like most others do.

The Strix G15 Advantage also uses thermal  grizzly liquid metal on both the CPU and GPU.  

In the past I believe ASUS has only done this  on the CPU, my understanding is that it hasn’t  

really offered much improvement with Nvidia  graphics, but as the die size of RDNA 2 is  

smaller the heat is coming from a smaller space,  so that might be why liquid metal was used there.

The idle results down the bottom were  fine. I’ve run stress tests with both the  

CPU and GPU loaded up to represent a worst  case, as well as playing an actual game.

Worst case we’re seeing 95 degrees Celsius  on the CPU, which is pretty standard in this  

workload when compared to most other laptops  I test. The GPU appears a little warm at 88,  

but I’m just used to testing Nvidia laptops  where 87 degrees is generally the thermal  

throttle limit. This is my first time with  the 6800M so I don’t know what to expect,  

and for all I know it might not even be fair  to compare the two as the sensors probably  

differ. Anyway manual mode was running  cooler as it lets us max the fans out,  

then the cooling pad that I use, linked down  in the description, didn’t really improve this.

These are the clock speeds from these same tests.  Above 4GHz in the stress test is a good result for  

an 8 core laptop. The GPU speeds in the game  test were lower compared to the stress test,  

but this will depend on how smartshift decides to  allocate power between them. Perhaps if I had the  

1440p model of the Strix G15 we’d see higher  GPU speeds running at that higher resolution.

Alright, treat this graph as essentially  a rough estimate. The CPU power levels at  

the very least are basically my best guess,  because SmartShift laptops seem to show CPU  

plus GPU power combined under CPU package  power in hardware info. I subtracted the  

GPU TGP reported by software from that  combined value to get this rough guess,  

so this probably isn’t super accurate,  as that might contain other stuff too.  

In any case the 6800M could run up to 150  watts in a GPU only stress test when the CPU  

isn’t under load. Note that turbo mode seems  to boost the GPU higher than manual mode.

Here’s how an actual game performs with these  different modes in use. Turbo mode was slightly  

ahead of manual mode, though it’s just a couple of  FPS. This test at max settings is more GPU heavy  

than CPU, so that matches what we just saw in the  stress tests because the GPU power limit in turbo  

mode seems to be higher than manual mode because  manual mode seems to favor processor performance.

There’s not really a way to control this  and ultimately it’s up to SmartShift,  

but the settings for manual mode let us  control the CPU plus GPU up to 190 watts  

combined and that’s how I tested it, maxed out.

Here’s how the different modes perform in  Cinebench R23, a cpu only workload with the  

gpu now idle, and honestly even silent mode is  killing it here, still over 12,000 for multicore.

Here’s how the G15 compares to  others in this CPU workload,  

it’s the best Ryzen 9 5900HX result  I’ve ever recorded for multicore,  

just a hundred points behind the desktop  11900K in a much thicker machine.

On battery power the strix G15 is now performing  the best out of any laptop I’ve ever tested,  

at least for multicore, it’s only just beaten  

by the TUF Dash F15 with 10nm quad  core CPU in single core performance.

The keyboard sits in the low 30s when idle,  the same as most gaming laptops I test.  

With the stress tests running it's now in  the low 40s in the middle, so just a bit warm  

feeling. Performance mode is similar and hotter  up the back, but you don’t need to touch there.  

Turbo mode is similar, still only warm worst case  on the keyboard and not a problem at all. Manual  

mode was cooler now, but the fans were also maxed  out here so it’s louder too, let’s have a listen.

I couldn’t hear it when idling  in silent mode, and it’s still  

relatively quiet once the stress tests are  running. Performance mode is a bit louder,  

turbo mode is then similar to many  other gaming laptops I’ve tested,  

then maximum fan speed in manual mode is a fair  bit louder, I’d want to stick to headphones.

Even though it can get fairly loud, personally  I much prefer this compared to a laptop like  

the Legion 5 Pro or Legion 7 that doesn’t  let you have any fan control. I think user  

choice is always best, so if I want to  max it out then I should be able to.

Now let’s find out how well the Strix G15  Advantage Edition compares against other  

laptops in games. As I’ve covered in this  dedicated video over here, it is possible  

to boost gaming performance by changing the  memory, so I’ve included these results here too.

This is the difference in memory that  I’m testing with, and the kit I’ve tested  

with is linked in the description.  The new kit is x8 instead of x16  

and it has lower secondary timings, again refer  to the dedicated video for all the details.

I’ve tested Battlefield 5 in  campaign mode at ultra settings,  

and the Strix G15 is highlighted in red. I’ve got  both the stock memory and the new memory results,  

which in this case offers a 9% boost to average  FPS. The 6800M can beat the lower power limit  

3070 in the Omen 15 with the memory upgrade and  is close to 2080 Max-Q options, though the 1%  

lows with the Radeon GPU seem lower compared to  most others whether or not we change the memory.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the  games benchmark with the highest setting preset.  

This game had one of the biggest differences out  of all titles tested with the memory upgrade,  

almost a 19% boost to average FPS. The  Strix G15 can compete with RTX 3070 and  

3080 machines with the new memory  like AMD was claiming at launch,  

while the stock memory puts it closer to the 3060  and under the power limited 3070 in the omen 15

Far Cry 5 was also tested with the games benchmark  at max settings, and this test typically depends  

more on processor performance. The new memory  was offering an 11% boost to average FPS here,  

again moving the Strix G15 closer to some of  the Ryzen plus Nvidia 3070 and 3080 options,  

such as the ASUS Scar 15 which is right above  it with the same processor, but RTX 3080 GPU.

As mentioned there’s no way of disabling  the integrated graphics for a speed boost,  

but we can connect an external screen  to that Type-C port on the back  

because this connects directly  to the 6800M, bypassing the iGPU.

I’ve got the results with an external  screen connected shown by the green bars,  

and I’ve tested it both with the stock memory  and with my memory. With the stock memory and  

external screen we’re just a couple FPS  behind the RAM upgrade plus laptop screen.  

If we both combine an external screen with the RAM  upgrade, the performance uplift is nothing short  

of astonishing. It’s just a few FPS behind MSI’s  larger and much more expensive GE76, though this  

is just a single game example, but gives you  an idea of what a 6800M with no limit can do.

Here are the results from 3DMark  for those that find them useful.

Now for some creator tests.

Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget  Systems benchmark. Generally all AMD machines  

do worse in this test compared to Nvidia  options, it seems like the software might  

not yet be optimized for Radeon, so the G15 is  being beaten by cheaper laptops from last gen.

Adobe Photoshop generally depends more on  processor performance, but this is still  

one of the lower results I’ve got for a Ryzen  9 5900HX, most of the others are closer to the  

top of the graph. Not sure if it’s the Radeon  graphics, or possibly the slower stock RAM.

DaVinci Resolve is more GPU heavy, and the  G15 Advantage is now in between a couple of  

2070 Super laptops, so not terrible, but again  also behind where we saw it in the game tests.

I’ve also tested SPECviewperf which tests  out various professional 3D workloads.  

Some workloads like energy are scoring  super low compared to Nvidia options,  

while other tests were much better.

The 512gb NVMe M.2 SSD was doing well for  the reads, but not so great on the writes.

The BIOS is pretty much the same  as all of the others from ASUS,  

just the usual basic options that  you’d expect to see. I didn’t see  

anything unique there that the Nvidia  plus Ryzen models don’t already have.

I booted an Ubuntu 21 live CD to test  Linux support. Out of the box the touchpad,  

ethernet, and speakers worked, but Wi-Fi wasn’t  recognized and although the keyboard worked,  

after any key press it kept  asking me if I wanted to shutdown.  

Otherwise screen and keyboard brightness and  volume shortcuts on the keyboard all worked.

Now let’s discuss pricing.  This will change over time,  

so refer to those links down  in the description for updates.

At the time of recording, the Strix  G15 Advantage Edition with the same  

specs I’ve tested here goes for $1650 USD,  a very competitive price, especially when  

you consider that it can take on Nvidia RTX  3070 and 3080 laptops that cost more money.

So all things considered, I think  the Strix G15 advantage edition  

is offering good value compared to other options.

AMD’s new Radeon RX 6800M graphics  are looking quite competitive  

against Nvidia’s higher end graphics which  generally appear in more expensive models,  

and this is the first time in  the last 6 years that I’ve been  

reviewing laptops that AMD have finally had  a competitive mobile option at the high end.

I do hope that we get more software optimizations  in future, as we saw some of those content creator  

workloads weren’t doing too well compared to other  laptops, and as we’ve seen it’s also possible to  

improve performance and unleash the 6800M by  using faster memory or an external screen.

It’s unfortunate that ASUS had to use  x16 memory with lower secondary timings,  

but apparently that’s just supply issues  which is the world we live in at the moment.  

A MUX switch would have been  good to improve performance,  

though I’ve been told by ASUS that  this would have also increased cost.

Based on the performance increase that  was possible with an external monitor,  

personally I’d be willing to  pay $100 more or so no problem,  

but that’s just me and I always prefer having  the choice of how I want to run my machine.

When the 6800M isn’t being limited by  memory or the iGPU, as Hardware Unboxed  

have shown in this video over here it can  compete with the Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics.

Anyway apart from that there wasn’t much  else to complain about. The only problems  

I had in terms of software experience or  drivers were that a couple of games opened  

up on the iGPU instead of the 6800M,  which is a pretty easy fix in Windows,  

but hopefully that sort of thing  improves with future updates.

Apart from those small hiccups, this laptop  rand perfectly fine for me, so apart from  

that there’s not much else to complain about,  this seems like a great laptop for the money,  

but I’m interested to hear what you think  so let me know down in the comments, and  

if you’re new to the channel then get subscribed  for future laptop reviews like this one. Come and  

join me in Discord and get behind the scenes  videos by supporting the channel on Patreon,  

and come and check out some of my other videos  over here, I’ll see you over in one of those next.