Asus TUF Gaming A15 review: a smooth evolution

We no longer present the TUF Gaming laptops from Asus, models with a particularly interesting price/performance ratio, which ignore the superfluous and the latest innovations reserved for Republic of Gamers models. This year, the TUF Gaming A15 is back with AMD Ryzen 7000 processors and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060.

Unlike 2022, no 1600p screen at 165 Hz here, but a simple Full HD panel at 144 Hz and G-Sync compatible. The starting price approaches €1300 with the GeForce RTX 4060, but it is possible to acquire this PC with a GeForce RTX 4050 for just over €1100. Finally, those who prefer Intel processors will turn to the Asus TUF Gaming F15.

Construction

The chassis of the TUF A15 has changed very little for two years now. Asus allows itself to slightly modify the cover with different screen printing or specific embossing as on our test model, but the chassis itself is unchanged, still all plastic. This material also tends to mark hands very easily, even freshly washed hands.

The deployment of the screen is no surprise, except for the abundance of stickers. The edges are made of grainy plastic to avoid reflections and the piano of the keyboard returns to a smoother material with a matte finish.

The keyboard benefits from general RGB backlighting; no wave effect, therefore, but some basic configurable lighting in Armory Crate — our settings were never taken into account, however. Note that some keys are not very visible due to their transparency and the scissor mechanism which shades them. Typing is however pleasant and we appreciate the four macro keys above the keyboard.

The touchpad, of comfortable size, offers an appreciable glide and all Windows gestures are perfectly taken into account. On the other hand, play is present at the level of the two clickable zones and the pad sinks a lot.

Connectivity is concentrated on the left side of the TUF A15, with an HDMI 2.1 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a USB 4 port (40 Gb/s), a USB-C 3.2 port (10 Gb/s) and a USB port 5 Gbps. The latter is also split on the right side of the machine.

For wireless connectivity, the manufacturer has integrated the MediaTek MT7921 chip, which manages wifi 6 up to 1800 Mb / s, as well as Bluetooth 5.3. A webcam with a 720p sensor takes place above the screen, with a very banal rendering. So don’t hesitate to install Nvidia Broadcast to try to improve all this.

On the cooling side, Asus has taken over exactly the same configuration as the previous year with two fans blowing in four radiators linked together by five heat pipes. In Turbo mode and after about thirty minutes of play, the maximum temperature recorded above the keyboard is 47.8 ° C. The ZQSD and arrow keys remain under a temperature of 36°C and the touchpad does not overheat.

Noise pollution is measured at 49.3 dB in Turbo mode, 40.2 dB in Performance mode and 37.7 dB in Quiet mode. Performance mode offers the best capacity/noise nuisance ratio since in Assassin’s Creed ValhallaTHE frame rate is 93 fps on average, compared to 81 fps in Silent mode and 102 fps in Turbo mode.

Access to the components is achieved after the removal of 12 Phillips screws. Care should be taken to note their location, as they are of different lengths. The removal of the hull is done at the level of the lower right screw, which remains in its housing to separate the hull from the rest of the chassis.

The RAM and the SSD are removable, as is the battery. A second M.2 slot is free to the right of the RAM modules. Convenient to expand storage capacity or clone original SSD quickly. Asus also announces a repairability index of 8.2/10.

Advertisement

Performance

The TUF Gaming A15 on loan from Asus is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS (8C/16T) processor accompanied by 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. Note that the Ryzen 7 7735HS is a renamed version of the Ryzen 7 6800HS released in 2022 however it offers the advantage of having contained consumption.

The TUF Gaming A15 obtains an index of 143 with its Ryzen 7 7735HS, it is thus 3% less efficient than the TUF A15 of last year in Ryzen 7 6800H. However, it is 13% more efficient than the Lenovo Legion 5 equipped with a Ryzen 7 5800H.
The TUF Gaming A15 does not have the most powerful processor, but it is more than enough for gaming and it has the advantage of being rather economical thanks to its TDP set at 45 Watts.

The on-board Micron 2400 SSD obtains the speeds announced by the manufacturer: 4.3 GB/s in reading and 1.8 GB/s in writing. However, if you make large file transfers, its speeds collapse after a few gigabytes moved.

Games

The graphics part has been entrusted to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060 in its most powerful version: 140 W, even if in fact the GPU rarely consumes more than 110 W.

With this RTX 4060, the Asus TUF Gaming A15 obtains an index of 220 on our gaming panel. It is thus 22% more efficient than the A15 of the previous year and its GeForce RTX 3060. Better still, the GeForce RTX 4060 is not much less efficient than the GeForce RTX 4070 of the Acer Predator Helios (245) giving it only 10% performance. Overall, the GeForce RTX 4060 fits between the Radeon RX 6800M of the Corsair Voyager a1600 and the GeForce RTX 3070 TI of the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro.

On our panel of games, the graphics card allows you to play comfortably in 1080p, exceeding 60 fps in the latest AAA with rasterized rendering. The activation of raytracing will still require the use of DLSS. Better still, the GeForce RTX 4060 allows the use of DLSS3 frame generation, and therefore to reach 87 fps on CyberPunk 2077 with all settings at their maximum.

Advertisement

Screen

The Asus TUF Gaming A15 is adorned with an IPS panel displaying 1920 x 1080 pixels at 144 Hz, G-Sync compatible. A 2560 x 1440 pixel IPS panel at 165 Hz is also available for this model, but the manufacturer does not seem to offer this configuration in France.

Under our probe, the panel turns out to be correctly calibrated with a delta E of 1.5, well below the threshold of 3 beyond which colorimetric drifts are visible to the naked eye. The contrast of 1700:1 is one of the best we have measured on an IPS panel, although far from the infinite contrast in mini-LED or Oled. The color temperature is 6777K, slightly above the video standard (6500K), but it is possible to adjust this detail in Armory Crate.

The remanence measured is 12 ms, a value lower than that of office PC panels (>20 ms), but not at the level of the best PCs for gamers (7ms).

The only downside, a weak brightness of 264 cd / m², the union minimum in 2023. Fortunately, the matte treatment of the screen avoids reflections since the percentage of reflected light is only 19.7 %.

Audio

The audio capacity of the Asus TUF Gaming A15 does not seem to have evolved since 2022. The two speakers are literally under the PC, hidden by the non-slip pads. We have seen better to enjoy his music…

When listening, the rendering is mediocre with an absence of bass and a concentration of the mids. The sound seems straight out of a low-end Bluetooth speaker.

The headphone output fortunately saves the day with low distortion, high dynamic range and controlled crosstalk for marked stereo. The output level is up from last year and will eventually be able to handle high impedance headphones well.

Mobility / Autonomy

The Asus TUF Gaming A15 has quite classic measurements for a PC gamer 15.6 inches (35 x 25 x 2.5 cm). Its weight is also contained at 2.2 kg, to which must be added the 735 g of the 240 W charger. The machine therefore easily found its place in the dedicated location of our 28 l backpack.

The autonomy of the A15 is a small surprise. We must admit that lately, AMD’s HX series processors have left us wanting more. Thus, with its Ryzen 7 7735HS and the GeForce RTX 4060 equipped with Nvidia’s Optimus (automatic GPU deactivation), the A15 lasted nearly 8 h 13 min with its screen set to 200 cd / m² under Chrome with Netflix in loop.

Advertisement