Asus TUF Gaming A17 FA707XI laptop review: 140 W GeForce RTX 4070 for $1400

The Asus TUF Gaming A17 FA707 is the AMD version of the Intel based TUF Gaming F17 FX707. The TUF series consists of midrange gaming laptops to contrast the pricier and higher end ROG series. Our configuration is the latest SKU with the Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7940HS CPU, 140 W GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, and 1080p 144 Hz IPS display for approximately $1400 USD retail.

Other SKUs of this model ship with the slower Ryzen 7 7735HS, GeForce RTX 4050 or 4060, or higher resolution 1440p display with even faster 240 Hz or 360 Hz refresh rates. Alternatives to the TUF Gaming A17 include other midrange gaming laptops like the MSI Pulse 17 , HP Pavilion Gaming 17 , Lenovo Legion 5 series , or the Acer Nitro 17 series .

More Asus reviews: The chassis is largely identical to the TUF Gaming F17 FX707 including the positioning of the ports and the metal and plastic materials for the outer lid and base, respectively. Nonetheless, there are small superficial differences on the outer lid to help visually distinguish the TUF Gaming A17 from the TUF Gaming F17.

The corner circles on the F17, for example, are now diagonal lines. There are also additional marks along the bottom edge of the lid whereas these are completely absent on the F17. If flipped upside down, the rubber triangle on the bottom of the chassis is now orange instead of red. Our impressions on the build quality of the Intel based F17 apply here for the AMD based A17.

Despite its unexciting visual design, the TUF Gaming A17 is still thinner and lighter than many other midrange 17.3 inch gaming laptops like the HP Pavilion Gaming 17 , Acer Nitro 17, or MSI Pulse 17 by 200 to 500 grams each depending on the model. The differences are wide enough to be noticeable when traveling and so the relatively small size of the Asus can be a distinct advantage.

Our model retains all the ports as found on the F17 FX707 but with one minor exception: the Thunderbolt 4 port has been swapped with USB C 4. Most Thunderbolt devices are nonetheless compatible with USB4 and so this small difference should not impact the vast majority of users. Note that while there are two USB C ports on the system, only the one closest to the front edge is compatible with USB C AC adapters.

For example, our 135 W USB C Lenovo adapter could recharge the Asus via one USB C port but not the other. The system must also be on dGPU mode to support external USB C monitors. Interestingly, our external monitor would only work with one of the two USB C ports even though Asus claims that both ports should be compatible.

A Realtek RTL8852BE comes standard for Wi Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. There are no configurations with Wi Fi 6E or the Intel AX series likely to save on costs. We nonetheless experienced no connectivity issues when paired to our Wi Fi 6 network even though throughout is slower than expected.

The model integrates a 1 MP or 720p webcam whereas most other gaming laptops have already moved on to 2 MP or 1080p. While better than nothing, it's clear that the TUF Gaming A17 wasn't designed for Zoom calls. The bottom panel pops off relatively easily after removing its 12 Phillips screws.

There are no major internal differences between the Intel and AMD versions and so users are still getting two M.2 SSD slots and two SODIMM slots. RAM is limited to 4800 MHz. There are no extras in the box other than the AC adapter and paperwork. The usual one year limited warranty applies if purchased in the US.

The tri zone RGB keyboard provides 1.7 mm of key travel to be slightly deeper than the keys on most Ultrabooks. The typing experience is pleasant for a gaming laptop so long as you can forgive the cramped arrow keys and numpad. Key visibility is not great as the dark gray font contrasts poorly with the black key caps.

It's a bizarre decision by Asus to highlight only the WASD letters in white while all other symbols are much darker. This forces the user to enable the keyboard backlight for easier readability even when under bright conditions or if battery life is a concern. At 13 x 7.7 cm, the clickpad remains the same as on the TUF Gaming F17.

However, we can notice no issues on our clickpad here whereas the one on our Intel version had a "dead spot" near the bottom right corner. Feedback is decent if not slightly on the soft side when pressed. Our 1080p AU Optronics B173HAN04.9 IPS panel is an entry level display found on many other gaming laptops including the MSI Pulse 17 or Katana 17 .

It is typically the cheapest and lowest end option distinguished by its poor ~60% sRGB color reproduction and slow black white response times. Thankfully, Asus offers a total of three displays to choose from for its FA707 series: While there are no OLED or mini LED options, we highly recommend any of the two 1440p panels as they each offer significantly better colors than the base 1080p panel while maintaining both adaptive sync and Advanced Optimus.

The display does not come calibrated with its average grayscale and color deltaE values of 3.2 and 4.51, respectively. Calibrating the display ourselves with an X Rite colorimeter would improve these respective averages down to just 0.3 and 1.82. However, colors still become increasingly inaccurate at higher saturation levels due to the limited color space mentioned above.

Blue, for example, suffers from a very high deltaE of 20.94 even after calibration. Our calibrated ICM profile is available to download above for free. Outdoor visibility is relatively poor despite the matte panel to reduce glare. Maximum brightness is only around 250 to 300 nits compared to almost twice that on laptops like the MacBook Pro 16 or the competing Lenovo Legion Slim 7 16.

We set Asus Armoury Crate to Turbo mode and Ultimate GPU mode prior to running the benchmarks below. Changing the Armoury Crate power profiles automatically changes the Windows power profiles as well. Note that Performance mode is not the fastest power profile available; that title instead goes to Turbo mode.

Meanwhile, the four GPU modes are tied to MUX and Advanced Optimus as follows: The Ryzen 9 7940HS competes directly with the common Core i7 13700H . Raw performance is within just a few percentage points of its Intel counterpart in both single and multi threaded loads. We can observe no major throttling issues as well unlike on the TUF Gaming F17 FX707Z with the older 12th gen Core i7 12700H.

Downgrading to the Ryzen 7 7735HS from our Ryzen 9 7940HS will impact processor performance by about 15 to 20 percent. The Ryzen 7 option is still plenty fast for gaming especially at our midrange level where the GPU is almost always the bottleneck, but gamers looking to squeeze every last frame from the high refresh rate panel should consider the Ryzen 9.

PCMark scores are some of the highest of any 13th gen Core i7 powered gaming laptop due to the fast Zen 4 Ryzen 7 CPU and GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. We didn't experience any crashes during testing, but the display would sometimes have wake from sleep issues possibly due to the automatic GPU switching.

LatencyMon reveals DPC issues when opening multiple browser tabs of our homepage. 4K video playback at 60 FPS is otherwise perfect with no dropped frames recorded. Our test unit ships with the WD SN560 which is a midrange PCIe4 x4 NVMe SSD in contrast to the higher end WDC SN850X series. Transfer rates top out at around 5000 MB/s instead of 7000+ MB/s on the aforementioned SN850X.

For a midrange gaming laptop, however, the WD SN560 is more than sufficient. We can record no performance throttling issues on our drive as shown by our DiskSpd stress test results below. Overall graphics performance is roughly 25 to 30 percent slower than the desktop version of the GeForce RTX 4070 .

Users upgrading from an older RTX 3060 laptop will still see notable boosts in performance of up to 50 percent before accounting for any DLSS enabled features. The relatively high 140 W TGP target allows our TUF Gaming A17 to outperform the average laptop in our database with the same RTX 4070 GPU by about 5 to 15 percent.

Downgrading to the RTX 4060 or RTX 4050 configuration will impact performance by about 20 percent and 35 percent, respectively. The performance delta is more or less a straight line when jumping between the RTX 4050, RTX 4060, and RTX 4070 options. The faster RTX 4080 or 4090 are only available on Asus' higher end ROG models.

Running on the slower Performance or Balanced power profiles impacts system performance just slightly as shown by our Fire Strike results table above. The most significant impact comes from running on battery power as to be expected. Not only is fan noise generally louder than what we recorded on the Intel model, it is also much louder if set to Turbo mode.

Running Witcher 3 on Performance mode would result in a fan noise of just 41 dB(A) compared to 57 dB(A) when on Turbo mode. Since Turbo mode is only slightly faster than Performance mode, users may want to consider gaming on Performance mode instead of Turbo mode for its much quieter fans. Otherwise, we generally recommend headphones whenever gaming laptops reach 50 dB(A) or louder.

Surface temperatures are cooler than on most other gaming laptops due largely to the plastic materials of the base and ample ventilation grilles. For example, the average surface temperature of our Asus when gaming would reach just 29 C compared to 39 C on the Razer Blade 17 which is comparatively thinner, incorporates fewer ventilation grilles, and is mostly metal alloy.

The hot spots on our Asus are also further toward the rear where fingers are less likely to touch. When stressed under Prime95, the CPU would boost to 4.8 GHz before falling just slightly and stabilizing at 4.5 GHz, 80 W, and 82 C. The GPU would stabilize at 2505 MHz core, 2025 MHz RAM, and 106 W when running Witcher 3 on Turbo mode whereas running on Performance mode would lower all of these values to 2325 MHz, 2000 MHz, and 95 W, respectively.

Performance mode subsequently entails a slight hit to graphics as mentioned in the GPU Performance section above. Note that both the GPU and especially CPU run noticeably warmer when on Turbo mode despite the higher fan ceiling on Turbo mode. Power consumption can be as low as 6 W when running on Power Saver mode with the dGPU disabled.

If set to maximum brightness with the dGPU enabled, consumption can be as high as 22 W which is two times more demanding than the TUF Gaming F17 or Pulse 17 under similar conditions. It's therefore important to set the system to iGPU mode if battery life is of utmost importance. Running Witcher 3 on Turbo mode would consume as much as 190 W or almost 60 W more than the MSI Pulse 17 with the same GeForce RTX 4070 GPU.

Consumption would drop to 150 W if running on Performance mode instead. Though generally more demanding than gaming laptops with the older RTX 3060, the performance gains more than make up for it. We're able to measure a maximum draw of 248 W from the medium sized (~16.5 x 7.6 x 2.5 cm) 240 W AC adapter when the CPU and GPU are each at 100 percent utilization.

This rate only lasts for about 30 seconds as shown by the screenshot below due to thermal limitations. Runtimes are essentially identical to the TUF Gaming F17 despite our faster CPU and GPU. WLAN browsing in particular can last for just over 9 hours to be very impressive for a large 17.3 inch gaming laptop.

Of course, users must remember to run on iGPU mode in order to reach such long runtimes. Charging from empty to full capacity takes just under 90 minutes with the included proprietary AC adapter. Charging with third party USB C adapters is slower but nonetheless supported. The TUF Gaming A17 FA707 is one of the least expensive 17.3 inch gaming laptops with the GeForce RTX 4070.

It's especially impressive that the system comes with a Zen 4 Ryzen 9 CPU meaning you don't have to sacrifice processor performance for the low price. The strong CPU and GPU combination makes this model easy to recommend for gamers who want to maximize performance per dollar. The cut corners instead revolve around the rest of the laptop surrounding the processors.

More specifically, the narrow color gamut and average response times of the display pale in comparison to the displays on higher end gaming laptops like those in the ROG series . Thankfully, Asus offers multiple display options for the TUF Gaming A17 with much better colors and attributes than our review configuration.

If possible, we recommend trading the Ryzen 9 CPU and poor 1080p panel of our review configuration for a unit with the Ryzen 7 CPU and 1440p panel. The CPU may be a bit slower, but the improvements to display quality will be much more noticeable and well worth the trade off. The Asus TUF Gaming A17 balances price, performance, and form factor very well so long as you can find the right configuration.

SKUs with the 1080p panel have noticeably worse colors than the 1440p options. Other disadvantages include Wi Fi 6 connectivity instead of Wi Fi 6E, a low resolution 720p webcam, and no per key RGB lighting. However, these drawbacks don't directly impact the gaming experience. The system retains most core features that are arguably more desirable such as the thin profile, long battery life, and accessible internals for upgrades.

Newegg has the Asus TUF Gaming A17 as reviewed on sale for $1400 to $1500. Other SKUs with different AMD CPUs and GeForce RTX GPUs can also be found on Amazon ..