I wrote a review of this laptop on Amazon and I thought it was worth sharing.
Here is the link the Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07F6K21HJ?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
I got this laptop shortly after my older model, the Asus TUF FX504 fried it's motherboard. I had spilled liquid on it, and negligently did not remove the battery or leave it disassembled to dry out. That was the older model with the Intel i5 Processor and the 3gb Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU. Also with the whopping 8GB of DDR4 RAM and a 256GB M.2 SSD.
Not as good of specs as this newer model FX504gm laptop, with it's 8th gen Intel i7 CPU, it's 6 core processor, 16gb of DDR4 RAM and the ever so gratifying GTX 1060. The 1060 is a performance and VR ready gaming card that would be good for those who enjoy the occasional battles on Fortnite, or even run some more recent titles. Games like Battlefield V and Shadow of the Tomb Raider run pretty seamlessly at near ultra settings at 1080p with no texture upscaling. The fan speed adjustment on this laptop is easy( an F key secondary function), and the fans are a little loud in a quiet room, but it’s rather ignorable, especially while wearing headphones or listening through a sound system. You will need to over-boost the fan speeds to get good FPS in more modern games. The fans have a special anti-dust technology that relies on specially designed wind tunnels to push out the dust.
This was already a decent setup for the price I received it at when I took a shot at the used $900 version, as opposed to the near $1200 "fresh out of the box" version. This was a gamble that I was willing to take, based on Amazon having a good return policy if I had received a defunct laptop.
It has a pretty decent i/o for a laptop of this price. It has 2 Usb 3..1 gen 1 ports, a Usb 2.0 port, an HDMI output, a gigabit ethernet port and a mic/headphone jack.
The internal speakers are forgivable, considering the majority of gamers use headsets that play the game audio through them. They are actually quite nice if it is all you have, especially paired with an equalizer app.
The build quality is very nice and the screen does not flex very much at all and the laptop is about 4.5 pounds total.
The keyboard is also very nice, with minimal flex and a 20 million key stroke durability rating. It has red RGB backlight which has a brightness control on the keyboard when you hold shift plus either the up and down arrow keys.
It also has a 120hz screen, which really is an obvious improvement over the previous model’s 60hz display.
So, after taking it apart(removing the battery cable first), I installed 8 more gigabytes of DDR4 RAM. This will hopefully keep memory speeds much more relevant for years to come. Also an important thing to do would be to ditch that 1tb HDD and replace it with a MUCH faster SSD with the same, or even more storage. I have yet to do this myself to witness the benefits, but trust me, there will be tons. You may also be looking to take that 256gb M.2 SSD and replace it with something more powerful and spacious. If you do, that will help the laptop seem faster in the future when it may seem like your machine is lagging behind.
This IS NOT a laptop that has an up-gradable GPU or CPU, as they are soldered to the motherboard itself. Keep that in mind if you are looking for that sort of upgradeability. This would be the time to go more towards the Desktop route or a more expensive laptop with more upgradable parts.
But hey, if you are a person who just wants to get their game on and not worry about excessive lagging and poor quality graphics, this is a great laptop for you at this price point.
Only real downer to this laptop is the battery life, so keeping it plugged in will probably be necessary to run games that are more demanding, especially on high performance mode.
The dim display can also be a common issue, especially when in bright rooms and trying to play dark scenes in a movie or game. Boost those fan speeds to get yourself higher FPS in games that seem to be needing more performance and are struggling. Overall, great laptop, all considering its flaws. Asus is a considerably solid company who makes some good products.
