ASUS ROG Strix G18 (2023) G814 Review

The ASUS ROG Strix G18 (2023) G814 is ASUS’s high-end gaming laptop sporting an RTX 40 series graphics card paired with Intel’s 13th generation i9-13980HX CPU for exceptionally good performance. The laptop features some sleek ROG looks and is something any self-respecting gamer would be happy to have in their possession.

Before diving into the performance aspects of the device, let’s take a look at its key specifications. Check them out below:

• Intel Core i9-13980HX 24-Core (36MB Smart Cache)
• Up to 5.6GHz Boost Clock
• 24 Cores, 32 Threads
• 18.0″ WQXGA(2560×1600) 240Hz ROG Nebula Diplay
• Pantone Validated
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 8GB GDDR6 Graphics
• 32GB(2x16GB) DDR5-4800MHz Memory
• 1x 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD
• 1x Thunderbolt 4 (Supports DisplayPort)
• 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (Supports DisplayPort, Power Delivery, Gsync)
• 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL
• 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack
• Gigabit Ethernet Port
• WiFI 6E (802.11ax) Adapter
• Bluetooth v5.2
• HD 720P Webcam
• Smart Amp Technology
• NVIDIA Advanced Optimus
• ROG Intelligent Cooling
• 90Whr Battery
• Windows 11 Home
• 2 Year Warranty

Now that that’s out of the way, you can clearly see that the ROG Strix G18 G814 is a powerful gaming device. The first thing you’ll notice upon unboxing the laptop is how big it is. The 18 inch WQXGA 240Hz ROG Nebula Display means that the laptop is a lot larger than some more traditional gaming laptops with lower specifications. This isn’t gonna fit in a standard sized 15 inch laptop bag, that’s for sure. If you’re planning on taking this laptop to work or university daily though, you’ll be glad to know that ASUS thought about this ahead of time. The laptop ships with an ASUS backpack that’s perfectly suited for it so you don’t need to worry about buying another separate bag down the line.

What’s very surprising about the laptop is that despite its larger size, more akin to 17.3 inch laptops, it only weighs 3kg. And because this is spread over a larger surface area, it doesn’t feel as heavy in your hands as some more compact laptops do. The larger size does mean it’s a bit unwieldy to hold one-handed and you’ll definitely need to grip it with both hands or risk dropping it.

Upon booting up the device, you’ll be treated to the ASUS ROG logo slicing its way in. Thankfully, you can disable the accompanying sound effect by using ASUS’s Armoury Crate software. This is definitely something you should do because it’s quite loud. The Armoury Crate software suite lets you monitor numerous performance metrics on the device and also allows you to enable or disable the RGB lighting. It’s one of the better software suites out there and is easily accessible to even less tech savvy people.

The ASUS ROG Strix G18 G814 has a lightbar in the front which is similar to what we’ve seen with competing MSI laptops and honestly, while this is great for show, it’s just a needless distraction for everyone else that wants to conserve battery power. The RGB lighting on the keyboard itself is far more important as this has a use case of allowing you to see the keys that you’re pressing.

Speaking of the keyboard, it’s quite comfortable to type on and there’s very little to no flex when pressing down on the keys. The trackpad size is also adequate so there’s no real complaints to be had here. Gaming with a trackpad however is not something that’s advisable so be sure to have a mouse on hand if you’re planning on using this laptop as a desktop replacement.

The underside of the ASUS ROG Strix G18 G814 features a lot of vents and surprisingly has a solid section with no ventilation. While this does make you wonder about the cooling, the laptop managed to keep itself from getting too hot by simply spinning up its fans when under load.

To benchmark the laptop’s performance, I ran Cinebench R23 and obtained the following scores. These scores indicate just how insanely powerful the Intel 13th generation CPU is in the laptop. If you have any CPU intensive tasks to perform, this laptop will chew right through them.

After the Cinebench tests, I booted up Shadow of the Tomb Raider and ran the built-in benchmark on both high and custom settings (Maxed-out). On the High preset, I obtained around 131 FPS at the 2560 x 1600 resolution.

On the maxed-out settings, I obtained 81 FPS. Both of these benchmarks indicate that the RTX 4070 in the laptop combined with the ridiculously powerful 13th gen i9 and 32GB of DDR5 RAM means that the ASUS ROG Strix G18 G814 can play pretty much every single modern game at well over 60 FPS quite easily. If you want to replace an aging desktop with this laptop, you can go right ahead and not have to worry about struggling to play any of the latest games out there.

The laptop’s “Nebula” Pantone verified display has a 240Hz mode so if you drop the resolution down to 1080p, chances are you’ll easily generate enough frames in games to go well over that and have super fluid video output. Games like Destiny 2, Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Apex Legends will run incredibly smoothly and benefit from the higher frame rates. What’s also notable is that everything is colour accurate and looks so crisp and beautiful on this display.

I also decided to run another graphics intensive game to test the laptop’s limits further. Marvel’s Spider-Man on Steam ran with well over 100 FPS with all settings maxed out.

Being able to play Marvel’s Spider-Man at full graphics with a super smooth framerate on a 240hz screen was amazing to say the least.

The ASUS ROG Strix G18 G814’s battery life came in at around 8 hours or so on the lowest brightness setting and with not much else running. Of course if you decide to run some games, graphics or CPU intensive programs, this will drastically be reduced. What is amazing though is that the laptop is able to charge up to 50% within 30 minutes of being plugged in. The charger that comes with the laptop isn’t excessively large either and can easily be carried around in the backpack that ships with the laptop. It’s not too heavy too and that’s always a plus point.

I ran CrystalDisk Mark’s benchmark test too to check the speeds of the the NVME in the laptop and they yielded the following results:

To round off my testing of the laptop, I ran the 3D Mark Timespy, Timespy Extreme, DLSS 3, Port Royal and Raytracing benchmarks and obtained the following results:

Notably, from these results it could be seen that the laptop would be able to run modern games at high frame rates at high resolutions. It might not be 4K but it really doesn’t need to be given that 4K game is not only very graphics intensive but also such a massive power drain on laptop batteries.

Overall, the ASUS ROG Strix G18 G814 is an extremely powerful laptop that can easily replace most desktops from recent years thanks to its incredibly line up of components contained within. It does heat up a bit when under load but the cooling system kicks in, spins up the fans and normalises the temperatures really quickly. The RTX 4070 in the laptop isn’t the highest-end laptop GPU right now but it is clearly capable of running games with no problems at the laptop’s maximum resolution. If you’re in the market to replace your desktop with a laptop, this is a solid product to consider. Just do take note of the price point (around $2299.99) because it might be a tad high for most gamer’s budgets, at which point you need to weigh up the pros and cons of investing in a mobile device over a desktop.