ASUS TUF Gaming FX505DV Review

ASUS released a new Ryzen 7-based laptop last year called the TUF Gaming FX505DV. It’s packed with a 3rd gen AMD Ryzen chip, 8GB of RAM, and a combination of SSD and HDD inside. It’s also one of the most affordable gaming laptops around with an NVIDIA RTX2060 GPU on board. Here’s what we had experienced in the past few weeks we’ve been using this laptop.

ASUS TUF Gaming FX505DV-AL127T specs:

• 15.-inch LED-backlit FHD IPS-level display
  120Hz, Anti-Glare, 1920×1080 px, 45% NTSC
• 2.3GHz (up to 4.0GHz) AMD Ryzen 7 3750H Processor
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPU
• 8GB DDR4 RAM
• 1TB HDD
  512GB SSD
• RGB backlit keyboard
• Wi-Fi Integrated 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, Kennington Lock
• Built-in 2 W Stereo Speakers with Array Microphone
• 1 x COMBO audio jack, 1 x RJ45 LAN Jack for LAN insert
• 1 x USB2.0 Type-A , 2 x USB 3.1 Type-A
• 1 x HDMI, HDMI support 2.0
• HD 720p CMOS WebCam
• Windows 10 Pro
• 48Wh battery

Before everything else, I would like to shout a disclaimer here: I’m no hardcore gamer, so let’s leave a lot of the technical stuff to our gaming media friends. ASUS sent us the package and used it for two weeks for both work and play to see what it has to offer.

Undeniably tough and premium looking

One thing I really like about the TUF series of laptops is the fact that it’s a tough-looking device without looking too flashy or something that screams too much of RGB gaming. Here’s the exterior, with an aluminum finish. That ASUS logo in the middle lights up when you power on the device in gold color. Those corner designs subtly remind you that it’s a gaming laptop despite its business-looking feel.

Most of this laptop’s ports are all on the left side. I find this really useful since it lessens all the dangling cables messing around the table, and I’m able to know which side has what I need. On the other side of the laptop has the Kennington lock and a small exhaust.

Speaking of exhausts, we’re seeing lots of them here. under the laptop are lots of small vents underneath, and two big ones at the hinge side of the laptop for more internal air circulation.

Once you flip the laptop open, you have a nearly full-sized keyboard with enough armrest for conducive typing and gaming. The trackpad presents itself with a rubber finish and provides enough control when scrolling. What I just noticed here are the number keys and directional keys — they’re more cramped than the usual ones we’re accustomed to, especially those three buttons that are placed the lowest. While I find the placement just right for gaming use, I find my fingers scrambling for the proper directional button when typing.

These keys also light up once you open the laptop. By default, you’d have a nice array of colors rotating every now and then, but you can always adjust this to your preferences. More of that later. Those WASD keys? They just subtly remind you to play harder after you work hard.

For a laptop that’s been advertised for gaming and has an RTX series GPU, this is one tough, light, not-so-bulky piece of tech. I also appreciate the fact that the components are well-tested and passed military-grade standards, which make me feel more at ease.

An almost-perfect display

ASUS opted for a 15-inch IPS-level Nanoedge display on this laptop, with an HD camera just above it. It’s also one of the most affordable gaming laptops around to sport a 120HZ display. True enough, movements in games are buttery smooth with that kind of refresh rate. I never got used to my own PC’s display after that.

My main concern in this laptop, surprisingly, is also its display. When I compared it to other screens we’re using at home, it looked a little dim and washed out. There’s also that issue with brightness as well. I took the laptop out for photos under the golden hour, and I can hardly see what’s on the display even when set at 100%. The screen also suffers even in indoor settings with high amounts of natural or artificial light.

The camera offers decent photos and videos, suitable enough for casual conferencing. It isn’t that great with colors or low-light sensitivity, but it simply gets the job done. The DTS audio that sits just on top of the keyboard offers a decent experience, averaging 76dB when we tested with an audio track. There’s not much bass, but the trebles, mids, and highs hit the right spots.

Upgrading parts is quite the norm, as opening the case under reveals slots for a 2.5-inch storage drive, M.2 storage, and two for DIMM.

Good performance for a Ryzen 7-RTX 2060 combo

This laptop, as mentioned earlier, sports a third-generation Ryzen and the NVIDIA RTX2060 GPU which subtly welcomes us in the world of next-generation visuals (i.e ray tracing).

Before we get to the benchmarks, we also had to check out what additional settings are in it to help us with this. ASUS has a preinstalled software called Armory Crate, which is your control dock for everything performance-related. By default, the laptop stays on performance mode, where it pushes the laptop to work well without sacrificing noise levels.

You can also set it to Silent, where the decreased performance will help lengthen the battery life. There’s also a Turbo Mode, which unlocks the full potential of your hardware by focusing more on CPU and GPU performance, as well as cooling capacity. Here are the scores we got from Tomb Raider’s built-in benchmark tool, as well as other benchmarking tools:

Using the laptop these past few days has been a breeze. It only has 8GB of RAM on board, but multitasking so far has been really decent. We, though, still recommend upgrading that part to maximize the gaming experience as we did experience some hiccups in some AAA games in their highest settings.

A battery life to watch out for

A key reason why this laptop is quite a lightweight is the battery it has at 46Wh. By average, we get around 3-4 hours during casual use, but intense gaming performance takes a toll really hard and drains the battery faster at 1 hour and 18 minutes. You’ll probably end up being stuck with the included charger if you plan to play for longer periods of hours.