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And now for – quite literally – the elephant in the room: this particular gaming laptop weighs in at an incredibly hefty 4.4kg (or 9.7 pounds), and has a mammoth footprint, measuring 42.8 x 33.3 x 5.1cm (W x D x H).
It shouldn't be that surprising that this laptop weighs quite so much. Asus is pushing the boundaries of portability, and this unit seems fully intended for mainly desktop use – rather than your lap. Plus, Asus likely needed that room to achieve the level of performance on display here.
The most notable upgrade to the Asus ROG G752 is Intel's latest Skylake processors, leaving the Haswell generation behind. There are only two options, but the chips are both high-performance choices: the 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ and 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-6820HK.
On the graphics end, this 17-inch gaming laptop can be configured with Nvidia GTX 965M, 970M or 980M graphics chips. If you so choose, you can bump up the specs even further, with up to 64GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD space or a 1TB hard drive.
Spec sheet
Here is the spec sheet of the Asus ROG G752 provided to techradar:
- CPU: 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ (quad-core, up to 3.5GHz with Turbo Boost)
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M (3GB GDDR5); Intel HD Graphics 530
- RAM: 16GB DDR4
- Screen: 17.3-inch, full HD 1,920 x 1,080, IPS LCD
- Storage: 128GB SSD; 1TB HDD (7,200rpm)
- Optical Drive: 6x Blu-ray/DVD combo drive
- Ports: 4 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C, HDMI, mini DisplayPort, 1 x RJ-45 LAN, 1 x SD card reader, 1 x mic in, 1 x audio out, 1 x combo audio jack with SPDIF
- Connectivity: 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
- Camera: HD webcam
- Audio: Stereo speakers; built-in sub-woofer
- Battery: 8-cell; 6,000mAh (88Whrs)
- Weight: 4.4kg (9.7 pounds)
- Dimensions: 463 x 333 x 23 41mm (W x D x H)
Aside from the new silicon, the Asus ROG G752 features a vapor chamber cooling system rather than traditional heat pipes. This system introduces a larger chamber that acts as a reservoir for cooling the liquid that passes through the heat pipes. In short, the technology is more efficient at dispersing heat than the systems commonly found inside most gaming laptops.
Thus far, only Nvidia Titan cards and other high-end GPUs have had vapor chambers because the chambers are expensive to produce. As Intel's new Skylake processors are always overclocked to some extent, this should help the G752 run more efficiently and at higher performance levels for longer without cooking.
Equally impressive was how noticeably quiet the cooling system is. Even when playing games or running intensive benchmarks, the fans did not drown out the speakers or cause annoying vibrations.
While the larger chassis might not be to everyone's taste, it's difficult to fault the G752, as it combines plenty of power, solid build quality and dashing looks into an package that is cheaper than similarly-specified rivals, such as the latest Alienware 17.
For alternatives, consider the Origin EVO15-S or the MSI G60 Ghost Pro. The EVO15-S is available for $2,294 (about £1,614, AU$3,278) and has a more compact 15-inch chassis that features some even more beefy specifications, including a 970M with 6GB of DDR5 video memory. On the other hand, the 15.6-inch G60 Ghost Pro is an almost identical machine on most other fronts, but is both slimmer and lighter.