ASUS ROG G56JR Notebook PC



Introduction

ASUS expands its ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) series family further with the introduction of the new ROG G56JR gaming notebook. Packed with a 15.6-inch display, the ROG G56JR filling the gap in the gaming notebook which was previously held by the ROG G55VW. The ROG G56JR delivers a desktop-like performance with 4th generation Intel Core i7 “Haswell” processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760M graphics, 12 GB of DDR3 RAM, and 1 TB of storage. It is targeted for gamers who are looking for a glare-free 15.6” Full HD IPS display, which should produce some awesome picture quality and colour reproduction. With all the interesting features in mind, is it powerful enough to give its desktop rivals a threat? Let’s find out together in our review.

Product Link: http://www.asus.com/sg/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/G56JR/

Suggested Retail Price: RM 4,199


Specifications




CPU-Z and GPU-Z Information


The ASUS ROG G56JR notebook we have in our test lab, specifically the G56JR-CN183H, comes with a powerful Intel Core i7-4700HQ “Haswell” mobile processor. It features four cores and eight threads and comes clocked at 2.4 GHz with TurboBoost 2.0 up to 3.4 GHz. The included 12 GB of Dual-channel 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM should be plenty for any modern memory intensive application and game.


The ASUS ROG G56JR features Optimus technology, meaning that the notebook includes both an integrated Intel HD4600 iGPU for normal tasks and while the notebook is running on battery and a dedicated GPU powered by NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760M for more demanding applications such as games. The dedicated GPU is a mid-end chip, working with a base clock speed of 628 MHz and a Turbo boost clock of 719 MHz.

Unboxing


The front of the packaging looks very elegant with a picture showing the product in the middle. However there is not much information you can get from the front and back sides of the box, other than a white ASUS logo on the bottom right corner and the “G Series Gaming Series” wording to the right of the notebook picture.


One side of the box describes the specifications of the gaming notebook.


Moving to the notebook itself, the ROG G56JR comes with an all-black body, with the exception of the red ASUS logo that lights up, giving the notebook a touch of class.


The exterior of the chassis is made of two clearly distinct materials. The lid is made of a smooth and cool brushed hairline-finish aluminium and the palm rest area comes with a sandblasted finish.


The ROG G56JR's keyboard and touchpad features red backlit. The flat black keys have longer travel than usual, making commands all the more precise and less typos. The brightness of the red backlight is adjustable through the keyboard. The touchpad is comfortable to use, sensitive and spacious. An external mouse is certainly preferable for gaming, but the touchpad works well for web browsing and productivity. You can either use the left- and right-click buttons or simply tap on the touchpad. There is a set of status indicators located below the touchpad showing power status, battery charging status, drive activity, Bluetooth/ wireless LAN status, and capital lock status.


The ROG G56JR has all the connectivity that you may need. One the left side houses a subwoofer jack, a VGA D-sub output, an RJ-45 LAN port, a HDMI output port, and a pair of USB 3.0 ports. The notebook manages its heat well in which the air vents allow cool air to enter and warm air to exit the notebook.

This post has been edited by owikh84: Apr 28 2014, 09:23 PM

One the right side of the notebook we have a headphone audio jack, SPDIF output jack, microphone input jack, another pair of USB 3.0 ports and a Kensington lock port. The output audio quality is excellent. The volume is so nice to listen without any interference and unwanted noise.


Also spotted, a Blu-ray DVD combo drive that allows you to burn your valuable data into a Blu-ray disc.


The front side of the ROG56JR packs a 3-in-1 card reader that can read SD, MS, MS Pro, and MMC cards.


The rear side of the ROG56JR features a six-cell battery pack rated at 5200 mAh and 56 Whrs. The battery pack is automatically charged when the notebook is connected to an AC power source and maintains the power to the notebook when the AC power is not connected.


The power switch is located at the upper right corner of the keyboard compartment whereas the Instant Key button is on the upper side of the other corner. The Instant Key is a unique button in which you can configure various functions including volume fader, countdown timer, touchpad lock, output display selector and many more.


The Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS screen is lined with a matte surface that reduces glare. The screen is bright enough to make gaming experience more comfortable especially in the dark scenes. Somehow the display is not a touchscreen, which makes some of Windows 8’s tablet functions underutilized. Above the screen panel there is a HD camera that captures stills and video in 720p using the built-in Windows 8 webcam application.


Inside the accessory box, ASUS has provided the usual complement which includes power adapter, user manual, quick installation guide, safety precaution guide, microfiber cloth, cable tie, and game coupon. There's an external subwoofer included in the package. The subwoofer features ASUS SonicMaster Premium audio that produces a rich and clear sound with incredible bass response which is perfect for any genre of game.


Testing Methodology

The power management of the system was set to “High Performance” power plan during benchmarking, whereas the “Balanced" power plan was used for battery life test.


The game settings were set to default or left untouched right after installations, except for the Crysis 3 which was set to “High” details.


Software & Tools


ROG Audio Wizard - offers controls for essential functions such as turning MaxxAudio on or off and choosing operating modes including “War Room”, “Soundscape”, “Battlefield”, “Action”, and “Multimedia” mode.

MaxxAudio Advanced View - unlocks the full power of MaxxAudio, enabling precision EQ control, processor modifications, dynamic adjustments and much more. Advanced View controls the means to in-depth, ‘surgical’ adjustments to all MaxxAudio processor parameters.

ASUS Power4Gear Hybrid - allows user to control the power scheme and power setting.

ASUS USB Charger+ - helps charge your USB devices quicker.

ASUSDVD - plays your movie, video and music with the latest media formats.

ASUS Video Magic - converts movies to full HD resolution in real time, enhances DVD image quality, brightens and enhances color, and increases movie frame-rates.

ASUS Splendid Technology - takes PC graphics capabilities to the next level by enhancing depth and color intensity in real time.



ASUS Smart Gesture - allows user to configure the touchpad including a setting to prevent accidental clicking, to manage touchpad buttons, and to change the mouse direction.

ASUS WebStorage - a Cloud Storage Service that helps user backup data, sync file between devices and share data to friends.

ASUS Instant Key - to configure the function for Instant Key.

System Performance

The notebook run smoothly without any noticeable lags. The PCMark benchmark results can be better by replacing the 5400 rpm hard disk drive (HDD) with a blazing fast solid state drive (SSD). The SSD will give a faster-booting and loading, and eventually make the overall system performance more responsive.

Graphics Performance

The latest edition of 3DMark is a full benchmark suite that includes benchmarks for the DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 feature sets. Additionally, reference points are provided for the DX11 benchmark, so you can see how your system compares with other notebooks. The Ice Storm benchmark tests DX9 performance while the Cloud Gate benchmark tests DX10 performance. We have also conducted the 3DMark 11 and 3DMark Vantage benchmarks, as well as the Unigine Heaven and Valley tests.

Storage Performance

The ASUS ROG G56JR ships with a HDD made by Seagate. It offers a capacity of 1 TB and spins with 5400 rpm. CrystalDiskMark yields a read speed of 105.7 MB/s while HD Tune measures an average data transfer rate of 88.4 MB/s. The AIDA64 DiskBench gives an average read access of 17.22 ms. BootRacer is used to measure how long it takes the notebook to boot up. We managed to clock at 57.328 seconds which is average value for a 5400 rpm HDD.




Gaming Performance

The combination between a fast quad-core i7 “Haswell” processor and a powerful graphics will ensure that any game can be played smoothly in high resolution and with high quality details. Our benchmark tests showed that ROG G56JR has a mixed gaming performance. Some games were playable (> 30 FPS) at default settings, some games were unplayable. You have to tune down the detail settings to get the frame rates back up. We expect a more powerful and newer GPU such as the “Maxwell” GTX 860M or GTX 870M to be chosen in the next G56 series.




Battery Life Performance



PCMark 8’s built-in battery life test is used to measure battery life of the system. This test simulates common home computing tests including web browsing, writing, photo editing, video encoding, and casual gaming. The ASUS ROG G56JR lasted one hour and 59 minutes during the battery life test which is actually reasonable for a device with such specifications.

Thoughts & Verdicts

Equipped with a powerful Intel Core i7 mobile processor, the ASUS ROG G56JR offers great application performance levels. With its sturdy and premium-looking chassis, the ROG G56JR is no doubt a gorgeous gaming arsenal. The notebook doesn't get exceedingly hot. Even the noise level remain very decent, at least while idle.

Thanks to 1 TB of storage, space shouldn't be an issue. Somehow, the absence of a solid-state drive (SSD) in this notebook is the sole bottleneck that is causing the slow boot time and sluggish application loading. The loss is strongly felt.

The IPS display is quite bright and offers great viewing angles and good contrast ratio. The audio system is decent that produces a good sound quality. The battery life could be improved with a longer lasting battery pack.

Overall, we were only disappointed with the included GTX 760M, which is quite an old GPU and will bottleneck the system in some modern games at full HD resolution (1920 X 1080) at higher detail settings. We would like to see ASUS cram a “Maxwell” GTX 870M into their G56 refresh in the future. Of course, that means you have to pay more for it.

The Optimus technology might cause a little bit of problems with benchmarking. It will mess a bunch of things up if you try to get an accurate reading on the discrete graphics performance. To solve this, you have to set the preference for the discrete GTX 760M GPU in NVIDIA Control Panel 3D settings to run graphics-intensive applications instead of the integrated HD 4600 graphics.

Last but not least, we would like to thank ASUS Malaysia for making this review possible.

Performance: 4/5
Materials: 5/5
Specifications: 4/5
Appearance: 5/5
Performance/Price Value: 4/5

Pros:

+ Good application performance
+ Elegant and stylish ROG design
+ Backlit keyboard is comfortable to use
+ Includes an external subwoofer
+ Decent sound quality
+ IPS panel offers good screen brightness, great viewing angles and contrast ratio
+ Cool and quiet thanks to good ventilation system


Cons:

- Expensive
- GTX 760M is quite old, should have come with a GTX 860M
- Mixed gaming performance
- SSD is not included, not even a 7200 rpm HDD thus bottlenecking the overall performance
- Slow boot time
- Optimus technology might be messing between the discrete and integrated graphics
- User manual misses a lot of details especially regarding the software
- Windows 7 is preferable
- Includes Windows 8.1 but no touchscreen
- ROG gaming mouse, headset, and backpack are not included

too thick for me to like...

Hi, what is the weight of this notebook? Tq

Finally an in-depth awesome review... the GPU kepler's one izzit??..

G550JK comes with the 800 series.. when will it come to asia.. haha

It's 2.7 kg with the 6-cell battery.

Yes, GTX 760M is Kepler.

Hi there,

Do you reccomend this for rendering, modelling and photoshop user?

How is the performance while connecting to a external monitor?

Thanks

This ROG laptop is meant for gaming. For rendering & CAD, the best solution is to go for a workstation based laptop. Workstation mobile GPU such as Quadro, FirePro or a mobile Radeon is a better balance between gaming and rendering. They are coded to do well with CUDA and OpenGL instructions. This ASUS ROG is a no go for that kind of job. Aim for a Dell Precision, HP EliteBook or Lenovo Thinkpad workstations series. You will get a better performance for professional applications, maybe not for gaming though.

I didn't try to connect it to an external monitor, so no idea on how does it perform.

Do you know retailer sale for laptop workstation?

Malaysia doesnt seem to these kind of laptop? :/

Do let me know if you know any

Thanks
Chang

MSI Malaysia have a Workstation laptop in their latest gaming series Brochure.
you could ask some of them reseller if they got take in that model.

my friend purchased this model recently

love the build quality

it's thick and bucky! 1st i thought it was slim gaming notebook from asus but.. lol.. btw TS, gtx 760m is better compare to gtx 860m?

I wished they had plonked in a 860m to the G56JR, then it would be perfect! But just the 760m is not enough to term it a 'proper gaming notebook' which was just released within the past few months. 860m performance is slightly better than a 770m, but slightly slower in certain games as well. I have a feeling Asus will release an update G56JR spec soon, or maybe they will leave the G56JR in the dust and just focus on the upcoming SLIM & SEXY GX500 with 860m which is due to be out later this year!

yup! i heard of that gx500... design quite similar to this model but its slimmer.. wouldnt gtx 870m better? why they always choose gtc 860m i don get it hahaha.....

eh usually Mobile Gamer like the Smooth Looking Notebook will go for this... hmm i dunno still think MSI GS series beat this one.. but hey! what i know.. lolx wow the External Bass speaker remind me of my OLD Asus N45SF.. eh good old days of student... hmm

x
OH Awesome Review ! thx for 3Dmark score.. wow my MSI GT70 got double in Firestrike,,, hehe but gtx 760m cant compare to GTX780m

This post has been edited by Unseen83: Jul 23 2014, 10:10 AM