The first AMD Ryzen 7 4800H-powered gaming laptops, Asus TUF Gaming A15 and A17, gets listed online. The Asus TUF Gaming A15/A17 is just one series in a family of Asus gaming laptops that will be powered by AMD’s latest Ryzen 4800 or 4900 mobile APUs. The company also has the ROG Zephyrus G15 and G14 lineup; and perhaps may be by now you have read or watched a review of the ROG Zephyrus G14 already. The TUF Gaming A15 and A17 are a bit larger in size, has a gamer-vibe to it, and it’s relatively cheaper than the ROG Zephyrus line up. If you are in the market for the latest gaming laptop, check out more details below and where you can get one.
Asus TUF Gaming A15 and A17 Specs and Features
The Asus TUF Gaming A15 and A17 are just one lineup in a family of gaming laptops. As of today, there are three variants listed online under this lineup: the ASUS TUF Gaming A15 TUF506IV-AS76, ASUS TUF Gaming A15 TUF506IU-ES74 and ASUS TUF Gaming A17 TUF706IU-AS76. All three variants or configuration basically shares the same set of features and aesthetics, but they differ in some areas. Let’s talk about their differences.
The Asus TUF Gaming A15 TUF506IV-AS76 and TUF506IU-ES74 features a 15.6” full HD display with a resolution of 1920×1080. It has an “IPS-level” panel with up to 144Hz refresh rate thanks to AMD FreeSync. The cheaper TUF506IU-ES74 will have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti for its discrete GPU; while the TUF506IV-AS76 will have a more powerful GeForce RTX 2060 instead. I’m just not sure if it’s the RTX 2060 Max-Q variant or not.
Also, the cheaper TUF506IU-ES74 will only have 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD storage; while the TUF506IV-AS76 has 1TB of storage. There is an extra M.2 slot so you can install another M.2 drive later if you need more storage space. Both TUF Gaming A15 comes with 16GB DDR4-3200MHz memory, which is an ideal capacity and speed specially for a gaming machine.
On the other hand, the Asus TUF Gaming A17 features a 17.3” full HD display, also with an “IPS-level” panel. But the display will only have a refresh rate of up to 120Hz, also with AMD FreeSync. The specific model TUF706IU-AS76 will have a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti for its discrete GPU. It also comes with 16GB DDR4-3200MHz memory and a 1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD for storage.
Both the Asus TUF Gaming A15 and A17 gaming laptops will be powered by AMD’s latest Ryzen 7 4800H; a very impressive CPU that basically blows away Intel’s 9th Gen mobile CPU that we see on most gaming laptops today. The Ryzen 7 4800H is an APU based on a TSMC 7nm FinFET fab process. It is an 8 core, 16 thread CPU with 7 GPU cores. It has a base clock speed of 2.9GHz, with a maximum boost clock speed of up to 4.2GHz. It also has a total cache of 4MB+8MB for L2 and L3 respectively, and a TDP of 45W.
The Ryzen 7 4800H isn’t the best that AMD has to offer. There is still the Ryzen 9 4900H / 4900HS that will be powering higher-end gaming / productivity laptops; like the Asus RUG Zephyrus G14/G15. And based on the early reviews of the Ryzen 9 4900HS, it is faster than Intel’s 90W Core i9-9880H by a significant margin. The leap from the previous Ryzen 3000 series mobile APUs is simply significant that it out performed Intel’s current mobile CPU both in single and multi-threaded work load.
Source: Hardware Unboxed’s AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS Review
Both gaming laptops have a full-sized keyboard layout with numeric keypads. The keys are (RGB) backlit with a gamer-feel to it and a decent-sized trackpad with physical left and right buttons. The body itself is made of “durable MIL-STD-810 military standard construction” material and it is powered by a 90Whr battery. Although, based on experience, it is best to plug this machine on wall power when you are gaming whenever possible.
As for connectivity options, both the Asus TUF Gaming A15 and A17 features Intel Wi-Fi 5 802.11 ac with Bluetooth 5.0, and a number of wired connections such as: RJ45, HDMI 2.0b, 2x USB 3.2 Type A, USB 3.2 Type C / DP1.4, USB 2.0 Gen1, 3.5mm audio jack and a Kensington lock.
According to Asus, they also upgraded the built-in speakers in these gaming laptops; offering 1.8x louder sound and 2.7x deeper bass compared to the previous generation. It also has DTS:X Ultra technology that delivers high fidelity 7.1-channel virtual surround sound with stereo headsets. It also features a dual fan design with self-cleaning feature, paired with multiple heatpipes and three heatsinks to draw the heat away from the core components.
Asus TUF506IV-AS76 Price and Availability
Amazon has already listed the Asus TUF Gaming A15 and A17; but these gaming laptops will become available or will be released sometime in April 2020. The price varies depending on the specs or configuration, but I think the starting price is at $999.99 USD. Prices are subject to change though, so for latest pricing and availability kindly check out the links below.
- ASUS TUF Gaming A15 TUF506IU-ES74 (15.6″ FHD 144Hz with GTX 1660 Ti) available at Amazon.com here or Newegg.com here
- ASUS TUF Gaming A15 TUF506IV-AS76 (15.6″ FHD 144Hz with RTX 2060) available at Amazon.com here or Newegg.com here
- ASUS TUF Gaming A17 TUF706IU-AS76 (17.3″ FHD 120Hz with GTX 1660 Ti) available at Amazon.com here or Newegg.com here
