Hands On: AMD Ryzen, Nvidia 1660 Ti Land in New Asus Tuf Gaming Laptops

Intel’s CPU supply issues continue to be a boon for AMD. Asus today announced a trio of Ryen-powered gaming laptops. Alongside the higher-end AMD-powered Zephyrus GA502, the company also revealed a 15-inch Tuf Gaming FX505 and 17-inch FX705. Asus says the 15-inch model will start at $999, while the 17-inch FX705 will start at $1,099.

Both laptops sport graphics powered by Nvidia’s capable GTX 1660 Ti. But the FX505 will be offered with either an AMD Ryzen 5 3550H or Ryzen 7 3750H, while the 17-inch Tuf FX705 will ship solely with the 3750H. Both models feature an optional Aura RGB keyboard (depending on region and configuration), and Asus says the laptops will be offered either in a “Gold Steel” shell or “Stealth Black.”

The company only had the Gold Steel model available at its unveiling event. Asus said its AMD / Nvidia-powered Tuf laptops will be available sometime in the second quarter, with exact dates depending on region.

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In our brief hands-on time at a recent Asus ROG press event, we didn’t get the chance to test the performance or battery life of these laptops, but we did come away mostly impressed about the hardware that Asus has managed to include here. The company is labeling the displays as “value IPS,” but they didn’t appear to be low-quality displays. Resolution on both models is stuck at 1080p, but on the smaller FX505, there will be a 120Hz option, while Asus said the FX705 will only be offered with a 60Hz display. RAM and storage will vary by region and model, although up to 32GB is supported, and PCIe SSDs up to 512GB will be offered, alongside a spinning-platter hard drive.

We’ll have to spend more quality time with the keyboard to pass final judgement, but we like that Asus has included RGB on a more value-oriented line. The only obviously cost-cutting measure we saw in our time with the laptops was that all of the ports run along the left edge, leaving only the lock slot on the right.

For those who often plug in lots of peripherals (including a wired mouse), this could be annoying. But it shouldn’t be a major inconvenience for most users. The left edge houses a trio of USB Type-A ports, along with Ethernet, audio and an HDMI 2.0 port. 

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And lest you think that Asus just slapped on the Tuf brand without actually doing anything to make them actually tough the company says the laptops meet military grade MIL-STD-810G standards to help with the minor bumps and dings of everyday use. And “anti-dust tunnels” near the fan housings are designed to stop particles from entering sensitive internal areas and help direct them out of the laptops. We’ll have to see how well this works--and how well AMD’s Ryzen APUs stand up against Intel’s offerings, when we get our hands on a review unit.

Here is the full list of specs for the Tuf Gaming FX505 and FX705, direct from Asus.

FX505 Specifications

 FX705 Specifications

Image credits: Tom's Hardware