GX700VO Gaming System Overview

This review is dedicated to a very unusual device. More precisely, a system consisting of two devices: a gaming laptop with a full-fledged “desktop” NVidia GeForce GTX 980 graphics card (without the M index), and a docking station with an external liquid (!) Cooling system for the laptop. As they say, for the first time in world practice. And to finally intrigue you: the standard packaging of this system is a full-fledged branded suitcase on wheels.

Specifications

Processor : Intel Core i7 6820HK
Operating system :
Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 Pro
RAM : DDR4 2800 (OC), 2133 MHz, SDRAM, up to 64 GB
Display : 17.3 ", 16: 9, Full HD (1920x1080)
Video card : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, GDDR5 VRAM, 8 GB
Data Store :
RAID0 support
PCIE x 4 256/512 GB
Card reader : 2-in-1 (SD / MMC)
Camera : HD
Network : 802.11 ac
Connectors :
1 x microphone jack
1 x headphone jack
3 x USB 3.0 ports
1 x USB 3.1 TYPE C port (s)
1 x RJ-45
1 x HDMI
1 x min Display
1 x Thunderbolt
Battery : 6 cells, 93 Wh
Power Supplies :
Output:
19 V, 9.5 A, 180 W
19.5 V, 16.9 A, 330 W
Entrance:
100 -240 V, 50/60 Hz
Dimensions :
Laptop: 429 x 309 x 33 ~ 35 mm (L x W x H)
Docking station: 417 x 368 x 114 mm (L x W x H)
Weight :
Laptop: 3.6 kg
Docking station: 4.8 kg

Appearance

So, the ASUS GX700VO system includes:

• A laptop
• Docking station with integrated liquid cooling system
• Two power supplies: for laptop and docking station
• Wired Mouse

All this beauty is delivered in a full-fledged suitcase, weighty enough and empty.



The test copy was delivered not in such an elegant suitcase, but in already seen views. But the "fighting" marks on it once again testify to the good strength and reliable protection of very expensive contents.



The inner space is filled with very dense damping material. Each component is in its own compartment, nothing dangles. Laptop and docking station are additionally tightened with straps.



A wired gaming mouse comes with the laptop:







Also included are two power supplies. Smaller - for a laptop, more - for the docking station.



The laptop case consists of aluminum and plastic panels. At the rear end there are various openings and connectors, as well as grilles of the cooling system radiators:





External extremely - nests for the pins fixing the laptop in a docking station. Then there are the connectors of the circuit CBO. Small flat slots are designed for locks that prevent abnormal disconnection of the laptop from the docking station. And in the center is the power connector.



On the right side are:

• USB 3.0
• HDMI
• Mini dispay port
• USB 3.1 Type C / Thunderbolt
• USB 3.1 Type C
• Rj45
• Grid of the right stereo speakers

On the left side are:

• Kensington lock
• Grid left stereo speakers
• USB 3.0 (2 pcs.)
• Microphone jack
• Audio jack
• Card reader

Recently, we wrote about a new flagship ASUS gaming laptop - G752VY . The hero of this review, although it has an even more powerful video card, turned out to be 10 mm thinner, which indirectly indicates a more compact cooling system. The covers on both laptops are decorated in the same way, highlighted by slots and the logo of the ROG line.





Unlike the G752VY, the GX700VO does not have a separate removable panel covering the RAM and drives. If you want to upgrade, you have to remove the entire bottom cover as a whole.

Behind a translucent dark window you can see the cooling system tubes.







Also on the bottom there are two holes for locking pins and two holes for the docking station’s locks.





Inside, the laptop looks almost the same as the G752VY. The frame around the display is silver and slightly different configuration, a different arrangement of rubber bumpers around the screen, a different arrangement of LED indicators.





Indicators are duplicated on the front end of the case:



The keyboard is identical to the one used on the G752VY, including error-free handling of up to 30 simultaneous keystrokes.









We turn to the most interesting, to the docking station. At first glance, it looks like some small music center with an incomprehensible platform.







On the left is a round connector for connecting the power supply. When the laptop is connected to the docking station, it receives power from it and does not consume battery power.





The lock entering the bottom of the laptop:



Locking pin:





Under the grille there are massive radiators, a waterblock, a pump and pipes of the water supply system.



Given the location of the radiators, this must be one of the supply channels:



The large curved plate behind the docking station is the lever responsible for connecting the laptop to the docking station. To connect the laptop you need to install it on the platform and press the lever. It will fall and lock in this position.









Pushing the lever actuates the locks entering the bottom and rear end of the laptop. At the same time, locking pins, a power connector and CBO nozzles are inserted into the laptop. As a result, the internal water contour of the laptop is combined with the contour of the docking station into a single closed system.



To remove the laptop, you need to press a small black button that releases the locks. Outside the window visible elements of CBO.





The manufacturer claims that the composition of the refrigerant circulating in the NWO, is an anti-corrosion additive that allows less maintenance of the system.

Refrigerant circulation pattern:

Display

Here the same display is used as in the G752VY and G751JY: 17.3 diagonal, resolution 1920 * 1080, matte finish. Image quality is not inferior to the previous two models.





The GX700VO also uses NVidia G-Sync technology, which we mentioned in previous reviews . It seems that it has become a tradition for ASUS gaming laptops.

Software

The same software is installed on the laptop as on the G752VY , so we will not repeat it. The only difference that caught my eye is a slightly different set of available settings in the ROG Gaming Center: you can separately control the speed of the laptop fans and the docking station, activate the headphone amplifier, and disable the touchpad and the ROG key.









A few words about the headphone amplifier. For serious gamers, sound quality is important. Thanks to the high-quality and detailed sound picture, you can detect the enemy in time or dodge the attack. Not to mention the fact that from such a clever notebook you expect not only an appropriate level of performance, but also sound quality. After all, not only the same games live a hardcore gamer, there is still music and movies. Therefore, the ESS Saber digital-to-analog converter and a built-in headphone amplifier are used to enhance the sound reproduction of the GX700VO. The operation of this amplifier and can be controlled from the ROG Gaming Center.

Performance and work experience

The laptop is equipped with the sixth generation Intel's most powerful Intel processor (Skylake), the Intel Core i7 6820HK with 8 MB of third-level cache. The amount of RAM 64 GB, as in the G752VY. This is really a lot, and it will take many more years before there will be games with similar requirements, not to mention more voracious.

The video card used is not a mobile GeForce GTX 980M, but an honest GTX 980 with 8 GB of memory.



Innovation did not bypass the disk subsystem: the GX700VO instead of traditional SSDs and hard drives uses two SSD drives connected via a PCIe x4 bus ( NVM Express protocol) and combined into a RAID0 array. The total capacity of the resulting array is 1 TB. Such a solution has significantly increased the performance of the data storage system (to call it “disk” is somehow awkward).



The use of such hot components as the top-end processor and video card affected the operation mode of the built-in, own cooling system. When the laptop is working without a docking station, the fans from time to time start to work at higher revs, and the air flow on the radiators creates a noticeable aerodynamic noise. It should be noted that the default processor operates at a clock frequency of 2.7 GHz, (as the load increases, it rises to 3.6), and the operational memory - 2133 MHz. The rest of the time, the laptop is quite quiet, at the level of the G752VY.

With the connection of the docking station - and NWO - everything changes. The processor automatically accelerates to 4 GHz, RAM - up to 2800 MHz. Also accelerates the video card. In other words, the laptop starts to work at its maximum capacity. And very impressive features!

Benchmark results (points):

Benchmark	Without docking station	With dock
Unigine Heaven 4.0	1788	2461
Unigine Valley 1.0	2934	3815
Cinebench R15
OpenGL (FPS)	85	114
CPU	713	856
3DMark Advanced Edition 1.3.708 (1920 * 1080 resolution, FXAA anisotropic filtering, anti-aliasing 2x)
Fire strike	10,710	14,883
Sky diver	16 411	22,775
Cloud gate	17 230	25,756
Ice storm	17,219	29,815

When the docking station is connected, both cooling systems work at the same time - built-in and external. As the load grows, the noise from NWO begins to dominate.

I must say that the docking station itself does not work so quietly. With the normal background noise of the office space, this is not so noticeable, and in a quiet room you can clearly hear the measured buzz of the pump. When radiator fans come into play, you forget about the pump - in order to cool a powerful processor and video card, the fans have to work at fairly high speeds. So the noise from the docking station and the integrated cooling system merge together, and this duet turns out pretty loud. Well, this is the inevitable fee for using top-end overclocked (!) Iron in a compact notebook case.

By the way, overclocking the GX700VO when you connect the docking station is possible not only automatically but also manually. To do this, both hardware and software features are provided, for example, the Turbo Gear tab in the ROG Gaming Center application. Here you can independently set the multipliers and frequencies of the processor and video card. Such a “loyalty” of the system to overclocking will interest not only hardcore gamers, but also fans to squeeze the last megahertz from the hardware.

It is curious that in some games the cumulative noise from the cooling systems was lower than the benchmarks. This is probably due to the artificial nature of the load in the tests, which leads to a more rapid heating of both the processor and the video card.

If you disconnect the laptop from the docking station, the overclocking is turned off and the processor, memory and video card return to standard operation. Note that the “standard” mode is at the level of the most powerful gaming notebook with GTX 980M video card.

The battery life is short, in the surfing mode the laptop lasted about 2.5 hours, and when playing shooters - a little less than 1.5 hours. Well, the power consumption of the “filling” is matched by its heat release. GX700VO sharpened for maximum performance, without any compromises. And reducing the frequencies when you turn off the docking station is a forced step, without which the heating level would be unacceptable. Yes, and the very NWO is not easy, judging by the size of radiators and noise level.

Conclusion

As you already understood, GX700VO is a special, almost niche product. The emergence of this system has given new meaning to the term “uncompromising laptop”. Honestly, not every desktop computer with it will measure on equal terms. For the sake of curiosity, I drove a couple of benchmarks on my home computer with Core i5 and GTX 970. Of course, I understood that the results would be worse, but I didn’t expect 4-5 times (FPS). At the same time, I am quite comfortable playing modern “heavy” games. And the GX700VO, even without a docking station, turned out to be a head taller, if not two. So it is possible with a certain degree of confidence to assume that the performance of this laptop will be relevant much longer than my computer. Especially considering the greatly reduced rates of increase in power in new processors and video cards.

GX700VO - the product is not for everyone. The real hi-end world of laptops. This is a system for real gamers, enthusiasts who are ready not only to carry it in a suitcase, but also to pay an inordinate amount. But the owner of this more than uncommon system will receive a device that will not become obsolete for many years. And what can we say about the effect that your appearance with this laptop will have on friends and rivals? This is not just the most powerful laptop to date (with a connected docking station), but also a status thing. And in the world of professional gamers, this is an expensive article about IT.

Recommended retail price: 399 900 rub.