A
sus’ TUF hardware usually tries to balance
performance with value, and the Dash F15 is no
different – this laptop costs £1,299 inc VAT, but it
includes an RTX 3070 and a new Core i7-11370H processor.
This 11th-gen Intel CPU has four Hyper-Threaded cores,
alongside base and boost speeds of 3.3GHz and 4.8GHz,
and a maximum TDP of 35W – that’s 10W lower than the
chips usually used in gaming laptops. Intel wants this CPU
to find a home inside slimmer, lighter laptops, but Asus has
redressed the balance by deploying performance modes
that sometimes push the chip back up to 45W with higher
clock speeds.
There are power considerations with the
RTX 3070 8GB too. In this machine, it runs
at 1290MHz with a boost peak of 1390MHz,
thanks to its low TDP of 85W. That will restrict
performance – the Aorus 15G XC (see Issue
213, p30) is pricier than the Asus, but it deploys
the same GPU at 105W for faster clock
speeds. The rest of the F15’s specification is
solid, if unspectacular – it has 16GB of dual-
channel 3200MHz DDR4 memory, a 512GB
SSD, Gigabit Ethernet and dual-band Wi-Fi 6.
The F15’s affordability means there’s not
much to shout about on the outside. The
chassis combines plastic and metal, mostly
in black, and it looks underwhelming and
feels cheap in some areas. Build quality is
good enough to ensure that this machine
will survive frequent transport, though, and
the weight and thickness of 2kg and 19.9mm
are fine.
The left-hand side has a USB Type-C/
Thunderbolt 4 port that supports up to 100W
of power delivery. Elsewhere, the Asus has
three USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and an HDMI 2 port.REVIEWS / LAPTOPS
SPEC
CPU
3.3GHz Intel Core i7-11370H
Memory
16GB 3200MHz DDR4
Graphics
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070
Screen
15.6in 1,920 x 1,080 IPS 144Hz
Storage
512GB SK Hynix
HFM512GD3JX013N M.2 SSD
Networking
Dual-band 802.11ax Wi-Fi,
Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 5
Weight
2kg
Ports
3 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x Thunderbolt
4/USB Type-C, 1 x audio, 1 x HDMI
Dimensions (mm)
360 x 252 x 19.9 (W x D x H)
Operating system
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Warranty
One year parts and
labour return to baseGAMING LAPTOP
ASUS TUF DASH
F15 /£ 1,299 inc VAT
SUPPLIER scan.co.ukStill, the absence of a webcam, card reader, or fingerprint
reader mean the Asus is limited compared with many
competing laptops.
The keyboard has no numberpad either, and its turquoise
backlight can’t be changed. It’s fast, consistent and
comfortable, so it’s fine for mainstream gaming, but it lacks
crispness. The trackpad buttons are also soft, so you’ll want
to use a USB mouse if possible. Then there are the speakers:
the top-end is tinny, the mid-range is muffled, and the bass
is overwhelming and lacks detail – you’ll want a headset or
external speakers for this machine.Performance
In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077, the Asus
returned 99th percentile minimums of 39fps and 36fps.
Those frame rates are playable, even if you won’t always hit
a 60fps average. In Doom Eternal, the F15 managed a 99th
percentile result of 95fps, so esports games at high frame
rates are unlikely to be an issue. However, the Dash F15 also
has a Turbo mode option, which ups the GPU boost clock by
100MHz over the standard Performance mode, and resulted
in the Assassin’s Creed and Cyberpunk 99th percentile
results rising to 46fps and 39fps. This is well worth having,
although it also resulted in louder fan noise.
Meanwhile, the processor scored 59,780 in our single-
threaded image editing benchmark, and that’s superb- better than the Aorus’ 52,183, and faster than Core i9
CPUs. That bodes well for games, where you won’t find
bottlenecks, and the F15 handles web browsing, office apps
and photo editing without issues.
With just four cores, the Core i7-11370H is ordinary in
our multi-threaded video encoding benchmark though –
it falls behind the older Intel Core i7 chip and further behind
AMD’s Zen 3-based laptop silicon, so it’s not the best
option for content creation. The SSD is only middling too,
with read and write speeds of 1,413MB/sec and 834MB/