If you’re looking for a gaming laptop with a screen larger than the standard 15.6-inch display, you no longer have to settle for huge, ugly behemoths. The Asus ROG GL753 (GL753VE-DS74) is one of the first gaming notebooks in the market to take advantage of Nvidia’s GTX 10 Series graphics cards to deliver purely portable gaming machines, that again, don’t cost thousands of dollars but deliver on the promise of decent gaming performance.
While not totally comparable to their full desktop equivalents, the GTX 10 series have sought to deliver more gaming pep for gamers on tight budgets, but can’t afford the most powerful gaming laptops out there. In the case of the ROG GL753, it’s a great example of how the latest tech can be leveraged into a gaming laptop.
It’s a 17-inch machine with decent gaming power, a 7th-generation Intel processor, a beautiful design, and tons of storage at a price that won’t break the bank. In fact, it’s one of the first notebooks on the market with Nvidia’s GTX 1050 Ti GPU, along with Asus’ first RGB-backlit keyboard to add some color to the overall styling. This 17.3-incher sits pretty at the entry-level end of gaming laptops, but we’re glad they are no longer the heavy boxes they used to be.
This is a decent laptop, for sure. But it’s not without flaws, of course, but if you’re in the market for a decent performer on a budget, this might be the machine for you. It’s a solid, big-screen gaming laptop, but other systems are on the way with similar (or better specs) for under $1,000.
Sure, that was in 2017 and since then we’ve seen better 17.3-inch machines but the Asus ROG line has remained among our favorite picks in the gaming category. We generally don’t recommend laptops that are older than 2 years, so you can check out our best gaming laptops lists for the latest gaming machines across all price points.
Asus ROG GL753 Specs
- 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ Quad-Core
- 16GB DDR4 RAM | 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD
- 17.3″ 1920 x 1080 Anti-Glare Display
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX1050Ti (4GB GDDR5)
- SuperMulti DVD Drive | SD Card Reader
- 802.11ac Wi-Fi | Bluetooth 4.0
- USB 3.0 | USB Type-C | HDMI | Mini-DP
- Windows 10 Home (64-Bit)
Design and Features
To some degree, I just feel that Asus just picked the gorgeous design of its premium ROG machines and plastered it on its budget models. Or, how else do we explain an affordable gaming beast with a plastic exterior that looks good but lacks the sleek feel of the company’s top-tier models? The lid is made of plastic that mimics an aluminum pattern, and unlike the high-end ROGs with glowing lights on the sides of the logo, Asus opted for orange neon on the logo of the Strix, giving it a muted gamer aesthetic.
We applauded Asus for dropping the optical drive on the ROG GL702, but we’re surprised that it has made a comeback in 2017 – not a good thing at all. But hey, some folks are still using optical drives, and they’d really appreciate this gesture.
At 6.6 pounds and 16.3 x 11 x 0.94 inches, the GL753 is light for a 17-inch gaming notebook. However, some recent models are even lighter, take for instance, the 17.3-inch Asus TUF F17 that weighs only 5.73 pounds and is just under an inch thick. The lightness once again comes from the use of plastic over metal, but it doesn’t feel cheap.
Generally, it has the looks of a gaming laptop thanks to a black ROG metallic profile that has red accents, including the Republic of Gamers logo on its lid as well as the palm rest. The sides of the laptop are filled with ports for connecting your peripherals and external displays.
Here you’ll find an Ethernet jack, HDMI, and Mini Display on the left side, along with two USB 3.0 ports, a single USB 3.1 Type-C, and a headphone/microphone jack. On the right side, there’s a Blu-ray drive, another USB 3.0 port, and a USB 2.0 port as well as a lock slot. There’s also an SD card reader, only that it’s hidden just beneath the palm rest.
On the GL753VE, you have a chiclet-style keyboard with a numeric keypad, which offers some decent key travel, at least for gaming standards. To that, add a responsive touchpad with two touch areas; the same we’ve seen in previous modes in the ROG line. Similarly, it maintains the familiar ROG logo on the lid and the curves and corners give the system a rugged look that is acceptable among most gamers.
Display
The 17.3-inch FHD (1,920-by-1,080) resolution panel offers wide viewing angles of up to 160 degrees, but it still keeps the colors vibrant, and the images are sharp. The panel is very bright at up to 349 nits in the center, and the average luminance of the Asus GL753 is not much lower at 337 nits. The jump to 3K and 4K resolution in the gaming category is reserved for other systems like the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K (2,880 by 1,620) and the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 4K-238 (3,860 by 2,160).
In fact, such high resolutions have remained a compromise for gaming systems, since these displays are much more demanding, and the performance is further held down by mobile graphics cards, so you’ll have to choose between size, resolution, or performance, but the most important is to choose the best mix. Nvidia’s G-Sync technology isn’t supported here.
Performance
As a gaming machine, the Asus ROG GL753 holds its own well against some expensive machines. Well, the GL753 will play intense games thanks to its Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU with 4GB VRAM, but that’s just an entry-level GPU and it will have some trouble loading intense titles at their native resolutions and highest settings. And while it can’t compete with beasts like the HP Omen with Nvidia’s GTX 1070, the 1050 Ti still has plenty of muscle to get the job done.
It will have no problem running modern games, and you can go ahead and max out the settings on some older games, as well.
On Hitman (1080p, Ultra settings) the Asus ROG GL753 hits 29 fps, which is way below the 88-fps average, and the Stealth Pro’s 49 fps. On the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark at medium settings, the ROG peaks at 31, falling just short of the average as well.
Since the ROG GL753 is powered by a GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, don’t expect to connect a VR headset like HTC Vive or Oculus Rift as it will not work. While Nvidia’s newer GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti GPUs are designed to offer better performance than the company’s previous generation of GPUs, neither is considered to be VR-ready.
The next faster models the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 present an impressive experience of NVidia’s high-end chips that are bringing desktop performance to mobile devices. For gaming, you expect some solid frame rates per second, thanks to a combination of a strong CPU and equally potent GPU. The GTX 1050 totes some solid frame rates per second (FPS) on most modern titles in high settings including The Witcher-43FPS, Fallout 4-56 FPS, and Battlefield 1-57 FPS.
Alongside the brand new 4GB Nvidia GTX 1050Ti graphics card, the Asus ASUS GL753VE is equipped with a similarly new Intel Core i7-7700HQ chip, a quad-core CPU based on the latest Kaby Lake generation. For storage, you have a hybrid configuration consisting of 256GB SATA SSD + 1TB HDD (in our review unit), although we get that Asus will offer different memory and storage configurations over time for the different variants of the same base model.
Battery Life
As expected for a large gaming laptop, the Asus ROG GL753 gaming laptop’s battery life is nothing to write home about. The much we got in our testing from the 4-cell battery is 4 hours 28 minutes —although Asus claims up to 5 hours; just drop the hype, it’s a gaming laptop.
The demanding hardware in gaming laptops generally drains the battery quickly, but you shouldn’t expect full gaming performance if the system is on battery power since it can only use a fraction of its potential without a socket.
Should you buy the Asus ROG GL753?
Yes, with the Asus ROG GL753 you’re getting a capable gaming machine that will run most AAA titles at very good frame rates per second.
For a very reasonable price for the Kaby Lake processor and GTX 1050Ti, the ASUS GL753V is an attractive proposition. Its performance is at par with or better than you’ll see from a midrange gaming laptop that comes in for far much more, many of which can’t match its performance. Here you get more than what you pay for, and it’s just hard to argue against performance that rivals what you get from even some latest gaming desktops.
It’s also true that there’s not much competition out there—yet. In the coming months, there are sure to be less expensive and thinner laptops with the same –or even better– Pascal graphics cards alongside the latest Kaby Lake processors, as we’ve seen in the 12-inch Razer Blade Stealth.
The only real concession is the plastic body, especially if an aluminum build is important to you, but the design is pleasant and it doesn’t feel cheap. The Asus ROG Strix GL702VM-DB74 is also powerful, and equally affordable but adds features like Nvidia’s G-Sync and is VR Ready. but more expensive, and the screen is smaller and only 1080p. At the midrange price tier, where bang for your buck plays a pivotal role, the Asus ROG GL753 is a superior option that effectively demonstrates the power of Nvidia’s new Pascal notebook cards.
For 2022, Asus released the ROG Strix Scar 17 SE as its flagship machine with its roots in the original ROG GL753 that was first launched in 2017. The latest iteration costs almost thrice as much as the first model, but it’s a top-tier powerhouse that packs the latest hardware to run 4K games at the highest settings.
We’re talking of an Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE (G733CX-XS97 model) that boasts a 17.3 inch 240Hz IPS QHD screen, Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti GPU, a 12th generation Core i9 CPU, 32GB DDR5 RAM and 2TB storage. If you like the Asus ROG vibe and money isn’t an issue, this is the badass machine for you, although it’s still available in other iterations for less money, too.
Recommended Configuration
ASUS ROG Strix Scar Edition 17.3” 120Hz 3ms Gaming Laptop, 8th-Gen Intel Core i7-8750H Processor (up to 3.9GHz), GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, 16GB DDR4, 128GB PCIe SSD + 1TB Hybrid HDD, Windows 10 - GL703GE-ES73
The Review
ASUS GL753VE-DS74
Among the affordable gaming laptops that combine Nvidia’s Pascal graphics technology with Kaby Lake processor, the ASUS GL753VE-DS74 offers superb performance, tons of storage and strong build–all at a fair price.
PROS
- Reasonably priced
- Top-notch gaming performance
- Plentiful storage
CONS
- Ports aren’t well marked
Review Breakdown
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EDITORS RATING
