The Asus ROG G750JZ-XS72 ($2,999.99 as tested) is a gaming laptop that earns every penny of its high-end price. It's outfitted with the latest Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia's latest GeForce GTX 880M graphics card, and a wealth of features and ports. But at this price, there are plenty of powerful systems to choose from, and the G750JZ-XS72 fails to distinguish itself as anything more than an equal to other powerful systems, such as the Digital Storm Krypton, our Editors' Choice for midrange gaming laptops, or the Editors' Choice for high-end gaming laptops, the Origin EON17-SLX.
Design
The ROG G750JZ will look familiar to anyone who has seen Asus's gaming lineup in the last year or two. On the outside, the design has hardly changed. The biggest difference—externally, at least—between this model and the last Asus gaming rig we reviewed, the G75VW-DH72( at Amazon), is the palm rest and keyboard deck. Where before there was a brushed aluminum surface framing the keyboard keys and matte-black plastic across the palm rest, the new design combines the two, and covers both with a single sheet of brushed aluminum. The rest of the chassis is covered in matte-black plastic.
The system measures 2 by 16.1 by 12.5
inches (HWD) and weighs 9.9 pounds. The chassis has a distinct wedge shape, with the back end sporting two stylized exhaust ports. Inside, there's an updated cooling system that adds copper tubing and heatsinks to the twin fans already used in previous models, like the Asus G75VW-DH72.
The 17.3-inch display has 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, and while you will see a few higher-than-HD screens out there for premium laptops, it's still rare on gaming systems, even at this price range. The screen has pretty good viewing angles and color quality, with an anti-glare finish that eliminates any unwanted reflections.
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The stereo speakers produced easy to understand dialogue, crystal clear music and sound effects, and an integrated subwoofer enhanced the sound effects, adding heft to every gunshot, car crash, and explosion when I played Watch Dogs. Amplified audio is also available for headsets, offering better sound quality with less distortion and interference. Asus includes its own optimization software, called ROG AudioWizard, which lets you use presets, named Action, Battlefield, Soundscape, and War Room, for action/adventure games, shooters, sports and racing, and role-playing games (RPGs), respectively. A fifth multimedia preset lets you optimize for other entertainment options.
The keyboard is full size, with a numeric 10-key pad and backlit, chiclet-style keys, but unlike recent competitors, like the Editors' Choice Digital Storm Krypton or the MSI GT70 2PC Dominator( at Amazon), it only glows with standard white backlighting; no rainbow hues or customizable colors here. The keyboard has a standard layout, so there's no need to relearn all of your in-game actions due to a misplaced Alt key, and the key travel is pretty good.
The accompanying touchpad is just a little too sensitive, registering every stray touch. In regular desktop use, this meant it triggered the occasional app switch or pulled up the Charms bar when it wasn't wanted. In games, it meant popping off gunfire when all I wanted to do was sneak along quietly. This is easily solved by turning off the touchpad and using a peripheral mouse, which many gamers will do as a matter of course. Sensitivity aside, the touch pad is very responsive, and the two mouse buttons below it are easy to distinguish by touch, and strike a comfortable balance between easy to click and firm enough to prevent accidental button presses.
Features
The large dimensions of the chassis provide room for all manner of ports, and Asus doesn't shy away from including plenty of connections and features. On the left is a Blu-ray optical drive, along with two USB 3.0 ports and an SD card reader. On the right, you'll find two more USB 3.0 ports, connectors for headphones, a microphone, and Gigabit Ethernet, and both VGA and HDMI outputs for external displays, including 4K screens with that HDMI port. There's also a Thunderbolt port, which is still something of a rarity on any non-Apple product; it can be used both as a mini DisplayPort for external displays, or as a connector for other peripherals. For wireless connectivity, the system boasts Killer Wireless, which prioritizes latency-sensitive network traffic for better performance in gaming and media streaming, with both dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0+HS.
You get a ton of storage space, with two 256GB solid-state drives (SSDs) in RAID 0, and a 1TB hard drive. This edges this past the likes of the Digital Storm Krypton, which offers only a 250GB SSD and a 750GB, 7,200rpm hard drive, but it also contributes to the $700 price difference between the two.
Software and Performance
While most gaming systems come with almost nothing preinstalled, Asus does load the machine with a few apps: Amazon Kindle Reader, Music Maker Jam, Netflix, and a trial offer for Microsoft Office 365. The system also comes with Nvidia's GeForce Experience, which offers management for settings and drivers, along with ShadowPlay, for recording and sharing video during gameplay, GameStream, for use with the Nvidia Shield, and Battery Boost, which offers optimum gameplay and battery life for on the go gaming.
Asus includes 32GB of Asus WebStorage (free for three years), and covers the system with a one-year warranty that includes both the usual parts and labor, but also covers the system for accidental damage. The display also comes with its own 30-day Zero Bright Dot warranty, offering a guarantee against dead pixels in the new display.
Performance
The G750JZ-XS72 is outfitted with an Intel Core i7-4700HQ processor, a 2.4GHz quad-core CPU, bolstered with 32GB of RAM. That extra RAM helps a lot when it comes to speedy performance. It scored 5,234 points in PCMark 8, topping the leading high-end gaming system, the Origin EON17-SLX (2014)(2,177.00 Base Configuration at ORIGIN PC), which scored 4,700 points. Results in other general processing and performance tests were closer to the middle of the pack. It completed Handbrake in 1 minute 15 seconds and scored 636 points in CineBench R15. In Photoshop, it finished in a respectable 3 minutes 27 seconds.
But the real test of a gaming laptop is in graphics and gaming performance. The system completed 3DMark with 18,630 points in CloudGate (our medium settings test) and 2,782 points in FireStrike Extreme (our high-performance test). In Heaven 4.0, the G750JZ pumped out 96 frames per second (fps) at low resolution and detail, but only 35fps when the resolution and detail settings were dialed up. It did a bit better in Valley, with 90fps at lower resolution, and 46fps when upped to 1,080p and high details. While this is good enough to enjoy current AAA games at full resolution—and on par with the latest-version Alienware 17($849.90 at Newegg) and the Digital Storm Krypton—it's a far cry from the performance you'll get when running two GPUs in tandem, as on the Origin EON17-SLX.
Where the system has an unquestionable lead, however, is in battery life. On our battery rundown test, it lasted 5 hours 32 minutes, which was significantly longer than either the Digital Storm Krypton (4:07) or the Origin EON17-S (3:19), its two closest competitors. While that won't necessarily translate into five hours of game time (the test is based on video playback), you will still be able to squeeze in an hour or two of play should you find yourself stuck in a blackout.
Conclusion
The ROG G750JZ-XS72 is a fine edition to Asus's reliably high-quality Republic of Gamers line, thanks to its quality construction, long battery life, and strong performance. But shoppers willing to spend $3,000 on a gaming laptop have plenty of options to choose from, from the more affordable Digital Storm Krypton, our Editors' Choice for midrange gaming laptops, to the powerhouse that is the Editors' Choice for high-end gaming laptops, the Origin EON17-SLX. All of these options mean that the Asus ROG G750JZ-XS72 is a very good gaming laptop, but it's one of many, failing to really distinguish itself, despite a generous feature set and solid performance.
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