Asus ROG GX700 vs ROG Strix GL502: Australian price and specs

Asus released ROG GX700, the world’s first liquid cooled laptop, in India. The laptop comes with a fairly large detachable Hydro Overclocking System cooling module. The ROG GX700 itself is a powerful laptop. ROG GX700 features a 17-inch 4k UHD monitor running on a Core i7-6820HK CPU and a 8GB GDDR5 VRAM GTX980 Nvidia video card. The 16GB DDR4 RAM is expandable up to 64GB. The reported price for the liquid cooled gaming laptop is a hefty $8000 in Australia.

ROG GX700 large liquid cooling system, although detachable, can prove to be a nuisance when moving the laptop around. GX700 is promoted as a luxury laptop for the select hardcore gaming audience. The overclocking system can raise up to 48 percent boosting the 3.2GHz CPU to 4GHz.

The ROG Strix GL502 was released alongside GX700 as the mid-range price and compact gaming laptop entry. The Strix GL502 comes in either a high end or lower end variant. The higher end variant sports a 15.6in 4K UHD monitor with i7 6700HQ, Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M, 8GB of DDR4 RAM and pricing at around $3000. The lower end comes with an i5 6300HQ and 1080p monitor instead. The unit costs around $2300.

ROG Strix GL502 embraced its identity as a gaming laptop with higlighted WASD keys. The remaining keys were backlit by red LEDs. The 4K resolution reportedly worked amazingly.

However, the Strix GL502 contained multiple installed programs that quickly diminishes available RAM. ASUS utility programs, app demos and an antivirus program took up too much space for something usually not used. Users have advised future owners that a clean install is required to rid of the unwanted programs.

Gamers have pointed out that for the same price, a desktop would outperform the GX700. The price to efficiency of the laptop was undesirable. The ASUS Strix Gl502 was criticised to be the better choice as it remained as a gaming laptop without sacrificing the portability and price tag.