Few tech companies take risks as easily as Asus, and the ROG Flow X16 is another example of the company’s pioneering spirit. This is a gaming laptop with a large screen and a 360-degree rotatable display. At first, such a design choice may seem strange, after all, it is a type of movement that is commonly found in ultraportable devices and laptops for creativity.
Ultimately, however, it makes an amazing difference to a gaming device. Of course, you can use Flow like a regular laptop, but it can also turn into a tent position and work like a small TV, so you can play titles using the control panel or watch movies. Move it to the tablet position and it will be perfect for creative work or touch screen games. If you can digest its size, it will even be suitable for reading.
The structure is reinforced with strong internal elements. Gaming capabilities and computing power are provided by the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti in combination with AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS. In this review, we can also see what’s good here and consider what’s next, because Asus has announced an update to the same laptop model in 2023 with several tweaks and improvements.
Apart from the specific components, the display provides more versatility than the average gaming laptop, but hence the Asus ROG Flow X16 is generally more expensive than some competitors. We reviewed the ROG Flow X16 GV601RW-M5110X model, which costs $2,499. That’s $100 less than the equivalent Razer Blade 15, but more expensive than the MSI Raider GE77, which costs $2,199 with the RTX 3070 Ti.
Look beyond these installations and you’ll find plenty of other regular laptops with RTX 3070 Ti at prices that approach the $2,000 mark.
Features and design
The transformable mechanism means that the ROG Flow X16 is more adaptable than most gaming laptops, and Asus works well when it comes to movement — the hinges rotate smoothly and have enough resistance to keep the screen in place after it is installed.
This build quality is visible throughout the laptop. The chassis is made of durable aluminum-magnesium alloy, and the display almost does not bend. The laptop looks stylish thanks to the design, which uses a more subtle industrial feel instead of the RGB LED backlight.
This is undoubtedly impressive, but the transformable design is not perfect. Since Flow is 355 mm wide and 19.4mm thick, it will prove cumbersome for many people who want to use tablet mode for gaming, browsing or reading. And at 4.6 pounds on the scale, it’s not particularly light—you might feel your arms getting tired sooner rather than later. Also consider 1.2 pounds for the power supply.
Flow’s size is certainly not ruinous, and its hybrid hinge adds versatility, but it’s not perfect, and don’t think you’re getting a slim and lightweight laptop just because it’s a transformer.
Inside you will find two PCI-E 4.0 2280 M.2 connectors for solid-state drives and two slots for RAM, so updates are possible. The battery is also easily removable, and a wireless card is available. At the same time, it is difficult to get inside — the base panel is fixed with thirteen Philips screws and plastic latches.
Display
Asus says that the Flow X16 works well in any position, so a lot depends on the quality of the screen. Fortunately, the specs don’t disappoint: this 16-inch panel has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and an aspect ratio of 16:10, which provides a clear image and additional vertical space. It’s also a Mini LED screen, so it should easily outperform IPS hardware when it comes to contrast performance.
The 3ms response time is great for most gaming situations, except for the most demanding esports games, and this panel is equipped with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro with a clock frequency of 165 Hz — a figure that will work well in single-player games and popular esports games.
Asus claims that this mini LED display has a peak brightness of 1100 cd/m2, and when testing Flow achieved this high goal. The peak brightness in SDR mode of 543 cd/m2 is excellent, and in combination with a black point of 0.13 cd/m2, a fantastic contrast ratio of 4176 is achieved:1. It’s much better than any IPS display, and your games and movies are incredibly sharp, deep and bright.
The Mini LED hardware has a whopping 512 dimming zones, so you get full control and nuance in HDR media. This is one of the few gaming laptops capable of transmitting HDR games and movies, and this makes the X16 an enticing option for an exciting gaming experience.
Delta E 3.06 is suitable for gaming and you won’t notice any significant accuracy issues, but this metric is not enough for color-sensitive workloads such as design and photo editing tasks.
It’s a shame, because the color temperature of 6422K at Flow is excellent, and the screen copes well with color schemes. Its 100% sRGB coverage level at 165.7% volume provides tremendous performance in mainstream games, and the screen reproduces 99.7% of the DCI-P3 space at 117.4%, so every shade of HDR will display well.
In the Adobe RGB space, Asus reproduced 91.1% of the required shades at 114.2%. This number is not enough to handle demanding color—sensitive workloads-as is the Delta E result. It can be a great screen for games and multimedia thanks to Mini LED technology, but it’s not exactly suitable for creative tasks.
Your games and movies will also sound great thanks to the four speakers. They are loud, bold, punchy and bright, with decent bass that does not suppress detailed midrange frequencies. They are quite enough for games and multimedia viewing.
This screen is superior to dimmer displays, it’s better than any IPS panel, but it’s worth remembering that competitors are also available with higher refresh rate OLED options, and that the upcoming Razer Blade 16 will also be equipped with Mini LED displays.
It’s also worth delaying the 2023 model if you want to update the screen in Flow. The new machine retains a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and a Mini LED design, but now Asus says that the panel can rise above 1200 cd/m2 with 1024 dimming zones, so expect more nuances and power — and the updated 240 Hz refresh rate will be better for esports. too much.
Login and communication
We noted that Flow’s exterior design is a bit contradictory, and this persists in other places as well. On the right edge of the Flow, you’ll find two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a microSD slot, and a power button, but the button is annoyingly small, and all the ports are located at the front of the setup, so they may get in the way of your mouse if you’re right-handed.
On the left edge there are two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C connectors that support DisplayPort and power supply, but the XG Mobile dock connector takes up a lot of space – although this device is not sold in Russia. many markets, and none of the 2022 models are superior to the RTX 3070 Ti. It’s a waste of space, at least until XG Mobile 2023 arrives with its RTX 4090.
The Asus ROG Flow X16 has a webcam with Windows Hello support, but does not have a fingerprint scanner. Inside it has dual-band 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, but no wired internet. There is an HDMI 2.1 output for 4K/120 Hz and 8K/60 Hz games, but there is no Thunderbolt 4. And if you need a laptop for creative work along with games, a full-size SD slot would be better.
Fortunately, the 2023 update fixes some of them. Switching to Intel hardware means that one Thunderbolt 4 port will be enabled, and the webcam resolution will be updated from 720p to 1080p.
However, in the updated model, you still don’t get wired internet access, and the fingerprint scanner is still missing. Some rivals will still be better: the hefty MSI Raider GE77 has an SD card slot, more USB and 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports, and Razer also has an additional full-size USB port and an SD card slot.
The keyboard could have been a little better. The Flow buttons have a large stroke of 1.7 mm, and the keys are really impressive — they are fast, stable and reliable, even when you get into the gameplay.
Negatively, however, Flow has only a single-zone RGB LED backlight and does not have a digital panel. And although the trackpad is suitable for everyday use, the buttons are pressed too hard — and if you are serious about games, you should still connect a USB mouse.
Performance
The ROG Flow X16 is the most powerful laptop in this line, and it uses Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti with a peak power limit of 125 watts, so its 5888 stream processors and 8 GB of memory can reach their full potential. If you want to dive deeper into this GPU, go here for our full review.
AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS is an equally ambitious model with eight multithreaded cores, as well as with base and elevated frequencies of 3.3 GHz and 4.9 GHz. Our review is available here. Otherwise, there are no surprises. There is 32 GB of dual-channel DDR5 memory with a clock speed of 4800 MHz and a Micron 3400 PCIe 4.0 solid-state drive with a solid read and write speed of 6549 MB/s and 4479 MB/s. Our only complaint is that the SSD is not bigger.
The RTX 3070 Ti will smoothly play most single-player games with native resolution and good quality settings, including DLSS and ray tracing. In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and the settings enabled, Ultra Flow averaged 59 frames per second, and in Borderlands 3 it reached 64.9 frames per second. In Horizon Zero Dawn, Asus returned 69 frames per second at maximum settings, and in Far Cry New Dawn it reached a maximum. at 76 frames per second.
Go to Rainbow Six Siege and you’ll find an average of 201 frames per second at 2560 x 1600 resolution and Ultra settings, so there’s also enough pace for esports games here.
However, the RTX 3070 Ti is not infallible. In Red Dead Redemption 2, Asus had an average of only 49 frames per second with all settings increased to 2560 x 1600. This indicates that the RTX 3070 Ti lacks stock in really demanding games. And while 49 frames per second can still be played, you’ll have to compromise if you want to run the world’s most demanding games at speeds above 60 frames per second.
This may mean lowering the resolution — Asus thundered in the Red Dead 1080p Ultra test at a speed of 63 frames per second — or lowering the graphics settings. But the RTX 3070 Ti can’t compete with GPUs like the RTX 3080 Ti, and can’t handle any situation without breaking a sweat.
Similarly, you will have to think twice if you want to use this laptop for some external scenarios. It will cope with esports games on displays with a resolution of 1080p/360 Hz, but may have problems with a frequency of 480 Hz. Widescreen and 4K panels will have problems if you don’t reduce the quality settings.
As usual, Asus adds additional performance modes through its Armoury Crate app, and switching from the default performance mode to the Turbo option is an effective way to squeeze a little more out of this portable device.
In Far Cry: New Dawn, the original X16 result with 76 frames per second improved to 82 frames per second in Turbo mode, and its result in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla also increased by 6 frames. This Turbo mode added a whopping 9 frames to Horizon’s score.
That’s great, but it’s also the only way this GPU could sometimes match the performance we saw with the RTX 3070 Ti in our review, where it was next to the Intel Core i7-12700H. For example, Asus showed itself a little faster than our test chip in Red Dead 2, but still a little slower in Horizon and Rainbow Six.
This is not surprising, given that Intel has long been a better option for gaming on laptops than AMD, and this may partly explain why Asus switched to Intel for the 2023 X16 update.
Other performance modes are impressive. The Windows option reduces GPU speed and fan noise, but still shows that the X16 delivers an average of 77 frames per second and 59 frames per second in Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed at a resolution of 2560 x 1600. In silent mode, the X16 still runs in these games at 59 frames per second and 54 frames per second.
These performance modes had a big impact on gaming, but they failed to help the Ryzen 9 6900HS reach its full potential.
In Cinebench, R23 X16 showed single and multithreaded results of 1575 and 13830. These are excellent results, but both of them are inferior to the indicators obtained from the chip in our review, and both lag behind the Intel Core i7-12700H.
The X16 result in Matlab R2020, equal to 1,506, was about half a second slower than Intel’s, and the X16 result in PCMark 10 Applications, equal to 13,237, is slightly behind other chips. The Asus laptop could only process 7-Zip compression and decompression results at 51.4 MB/s and 666.97 MB/s, both figures being much less than what this chip can achieve.
The only bright spark came from the Excel test. In this benchmark, the Ryzen 9 6900HS was ahead of the stock chip thanks to a result of 8.5 seconds, although Intel silicon was still better.
Switching to Turbo mode showed that the multi—core result of the Cinebench R23 X16 improved to 14,257, but this is hardly an innovative pace – it just brings Asus into line with how the 6900HS worked in our review, and it still can’t rebuild Intel. Its revised 7Zip figures of 54.6 MB/s and 730.5 MB/s are better, but still not impressive.
On the other hand, the Windows and Silent parameters do not greatly affect the processor performance.
It sounds like a pretty bad indication of the health of the X16 processor, but it’s not quite true. While it’s true that the Ryzen 9 6900HS doesn’t reach its full potential here, and the chip can’t compete with the Intel Core i7-12700H, it’s still fast enough for any computing, Office tools, core content creation, and streaming. You’ll only need more power if you need a laptop for 4K video editing and other resource-intensive tasks.
If you are in this position, it’s worth looking — for example, MSI Raider GE77 used Core i9-12900HX — or wait for the X16 2023 update.
If you decide to stay on the updated model, you will get a huge increase in performance thanks to the transition to Intel Core i9-13900H. The updated GV601VI will also replace the RTX 3070 Ti with the RTX 4070, but don’t expect a huge gaming boost from it — the new chip is based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, but this model will have fewer stream processors than the old chip.
Thermal performance and battery life
In its normal performance mode, the X16 shows decent thermal characteristics — there is fan noise, but the Asus audio signal has never exceeded 47 dB, and you simply won’t notice the noise if you wear a headset or if you have headphones. the laptop speakers have risen to a healthy volume.
During game tests in Performance mode, the underside and the metal around the keyboard were heated, but never too hot.
In Turbo mode, the noise level increased to about 50 dB, and the metal became warmer, but noise and heating never bothered — the X16 is still manageable, which cannot be said about many other gaming laptops.
Noise levels in Windows mode were also moderate, and in silent mode, the X16 was very quiet — not as quiet as the name suggests, but quiet enough for low-key, casual games.
When processing tasks, the X16 has always been quiet, which is good for creating content on this laptop. However, in single-core tests, the processor reached a maximum frequency of 4.7 GHz, not 4.9 GHz, with which the chip can work on paper. In multicore tests, the frequency never exceeded 4.4 GHz. These results are not terrible, especially for a relatively thin and quiet installation, but they explain the unstable 6900HS test results.
The performance of the X16 battery was slightly better. In a daily working test with a display at full brightness, Asus lasted four hours, and this figure increased to 5 hours 35 minutes with a display at 50% brightness — enough to spend the morning in the office.
Even more impressive, Asus played multimedia for more than eight hours with the display at half brightness, which means that you will be able to work with this laptop not only during lunch, if you pay attention to how you use the components.
This is great, but in a game test, this is a common thing. The X16 has a 90 Wh power supply, which was only enough for an hour during the game. This is normal for a gaming laptop, so you should stay connected to the network if you want to enjoy the full performance of the installation.
Wrap
Asus took a risk with the ROG Flow X16, and in some cases it paid off. The durable and beautiful appearance of the ROG Flow X16 is well suited for both a laptop and for use as an awning. Switch to tablet mode and it can be used for creative work and even as a device for reading and browsing the web, if you can stomach its size.
The RTX 3070 Ti graphics core in X16 does an excellent job with a resolution of 2560 x 1600, and the mini-LED display provides incredible SDR and HDR performance, thanks to which games and movies literally fly out of the screen.
This Asus ROG laptop suffers a bit when it comes to cost. Its $2,499 price isn’t terrible, but if you’re willing to give up the transformable design and mini LED display, you’ll find this speed for about $2,000 elsewhere. You’ll even find RTX 3080 Ti laptops for less than $2,750. Asus also ships with the RTX 3060, but it’s still quite expensive considering its internal components.
The future also undermines X16. If you’re willing to wait a few months, the 2023 version of Flow will ship with RTX 4070 graphics cores and faster Intel processors. Razer also produces 15.6-inch and 16-inch laptops with updated internal components. All of these installations will probably be more expensive than the $2,500 ROG Flow X16, but you will get more return on the money spent.
No matter what year of release you choose, the Asus ROG Flow X16 offers a stunning screen, an impressive form factor and good gaming performance. the devices offer.
Trade Labels:
Asus ROG Flow X16 (RTX 3070 Ti/Ryzen 9 6900HS) in Asus
Asus ROG Flow X16 (RTX 3060/Ryzen 9 6900HS) at Best Buy
