ASUS GA502DU Review

Welcome to this ASUS GA502DU review. In this review, we are going to take a good look at this gaming laptop from ASUS that comes with a reasonable price tag. The laptop claims to be an upper mid-range gaming laptop and has the spec to justify that claim.

The ASUS GA502DU model is targeted at gamers who want to play games without spending a fortune for it. The GPU in this laptop is a pretty good one and allows you to achieve that. But it is okay to question the gaming capability of this machine. How much gaming is too much for the ASUS GA502DU? Is it worth the money? Let’s find out.

Design

The ASUS GA502DU comes with clean design and looks fantastic in black. ASUS has gone with complete black on the outside which makes this laptop look more premium. Gaming laptops stress a lot when it comes to their design but this one here plays the minimalism card and that works as well.

Any gaming machine must have a decent cooling system in place and the ASUS GA502DU has one too. The fan is good enough to keep the laptop cool during gaming marathons. The fan does get a bit loud when turned on but that’s something you should get used to. There are vents on the sides and on the bottom for letting hot air out.

This ASUS laptop does well when it comes to portability. It weighs only 4.83 pounds which is at least 20% less than other laptops in the same category. You can take this laptop with you when you go outside as you’re not going to feel heavy baggage.

The keyboard we have in here is a nice one. Typing on the keyboard is a very good experience, thanks to the generous key travel. You don’t find this level of key travel in any gaming machine. The white backlighting adds a bit of character to the keyboard. Also, you get a full keyboard with a dedicated number pad and with extra keys that are customized for gaming. The touchpad is a precision touchpad and supports all the gestures in the Windows operating system.

ASUS GA502DU Specs

The ASUS GA502DU comes with a 15.6″ display that has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. A laptop with an FHD screen is not news these days, but this display outperforms others without lifting a finger. The color accuracy is impressive for the price we are paying.

The viewing angles on the display are pretty decent, to say the least. You don’t have to be right in front of the display to get the best results. The screen is great for enjoying your favorite TV series and movies. Playing games on this display is also a delightful experience.

The audio output is neither bad nor great. The laptop can get loud enough to fill a small room. But the sound does get weird when you increase the volume beyond a certain point. Getting a good pair of gaming headphones is definitely recommended.

Raw Performance

The ASUS GA502DU is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H processor. This is a quad-core processor that a base clock speed of 2.3GHz. The processor support clock boost and can achieve a maximum clock speed of 4.0GHz which could be pretty handy.

The processor can be classified as a mid-range processor at best. When compared to its predecessor, the processor doesn’t improve a lot on the performance side of things. It does fairly well on benchmarks. The Ryzen 7 3750H gets a 9006 on the CPUMark benchmark which clearly confirms the mid-range behavior of this processor.

The processor’s everyday performance is more than satisfactory. You can run all your everyday applications without any hiccups. In fact, this AMD chip has the legs to run even some high-end applications without getting tired. Applications like video editors, simulators (MATLAB, etc,.), and IDEs run well without making a fuss.

There are 16 gigs of DDR4 RAM that help a great deal in this laptop. When it comes to running a complex application, having a lot of memory is essential. This memory here comes in handy when running some resource-hungry applications. Also, if you’re a multitasker, you’ll find this RAM very useful.

The 512GB solid-state drive is also a valuable addition to the hardware lineup. An SSD is multiple times better than any mechanical drive. Having a 512GB SSD gives you not only the storage space you need but also the speed you need on a daily basis. The operating system is pre-installed in the SSD, and as a result, the OS boots up just a few seconds.

Gaming on the ASUS GA502DU

The GPU we have here is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti which is comparable to the RTX 2000s series. This graphics card is based on the Turing architecture and is considered an improvement over the previous generations of GPUs. In fact, the GPU here is 40% more efficient than the ones based on Pascal architecture.

The GPU comes with a discrete video RAM of 6GB which is a pretty good amount. You can run most of the mid-range games with high settings. If you want to run some of the AAA titles then you’ll have to reduce the settings to get a playable frame rate. The graphics card is not a great one for high-end gaming but is definitely a good fit when it comes to gaming on a budget.

Battery Life and Connectivity

The battery life is decent on the ASUS GA502DU model. With simple tasks like web browsing, you should get around 5 to 8 hours of battery life which is not that shabby. But when you’re gaming, expect that number to go way down. With a session of serious gaming, you are most likely to get 2 hours of battery life. So be sure to be plugged in when you’re getting ready for a gaming marathon.

You get a decent number of ports on the ASUS GA502DU gaming laptop. There are three USB 3.0 ports, a USB type C port, an HDMI port, a headphone jack, and also an Ethernet port. The laptop also comes with support for both Bluetooth and WiFi which is something you find in all laptops these days.

Bottomline

Many people like to game on a budget. The ASUS GA502DU gaming laptop offers you just that. It comes with an impressive spec sheet that is well suited not only for gamers but also for people who need a little bit of power for their everyday work. If you’re a mid-range gamer who wants to play most games without burning a hole in your wallet, then this one is a pretty good choice.