ASUS ROG Strix G17 17.3" G713QR-ES96 Eclipse Cinza 2021

A big, brutally fast gaming laptop with a glorious 300Hz screen and desktop-grade RTX 3070 power. Just don't overpay for a 2021 relic that's been playing hide-and-seek with inventory since launch.

What surprised us most is how well the cooling holds up under load. The Ryzen 9 and RTX 3070 combo chews through Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing and DLSS without turning into a lap-scorching jet engine, though the fans definitely make themselves known when they spin up. The 300Hz panel is buttery smooth for esports titles, and the 3ms response time keeps motion blur to a minimum. The lack of a MUX switch stings a bit since you're forced to route through the iGPU unless you hook up an external monitor via USB-C, which can shave off some frames in CPU-heavy games.

The Lenovo Legion 5i is the most direct rival and honestly the smarter buy for most people in 2025. It offers newer hardware, a MUX switch, and better availability without the ASUS tax. The HP OMEN Transcend 14 is a completely different animal, way more portable with an OLED screen, but its lower-wattage GPU can't hang with this Strix in raw frame rates. If you're considering the MacBook Pro M4 Max, you're in the wrong aisle, that machine is for creators who occasionally game, not gamers who occasionally create.

Pricing is all over the map, ranging from $1699 to $2568 across vendors, and that spread tells you everything about availability. At the low end, this config is a solid deal for the raw CPU and GPU power you're getting. At the high end, you're getting scalped. If you can snag it near $1700, it's a strong buy. If you're staring down a $2500 price tag, walk away and look at a current-gen Lenovo Legion instead.

The ASUS ROG Strix G17 G713QR-ES96 is a beast of a 17-inch gaming laptop that pairs AMD's monster Ryzen 9 5900HX with a full-power RTX 3070. It's built for people who want desktop-caliber frame rates on a big, ridiculously fast 300Hz screen and don't mind hauling around a nearly six-pound machine. The one thing to know? This thing absolutely rips through games, but it's a 2021 model that's been notoriously hard to find in stock, and ASUS made some weird config choices elsewhere in the lineup that left buyers scratching their heads.

If you need something portable or you're a creator who values color accuracy over refresh rate, this isn't your machine. It's heavy, the 300-nit screen is fine for gaming but not stunning for content work, and battery life won't get you through a workday. Go grab a MacBook Pro or a Dell XPS instead.

The ROG Strix G17 G713QR is a fantastic gaming laptop from 2021 that still holds up if you can find it at a fair price. The CPU and GPU pairing is excellent, the upgradeability is a rare treat, and the cooling solution is genuinely impressive. But the stock shortages, missing MUX switch, and mediocre speakers keep it from being an unconditional recommendation. If you spot one under $1800 and don't mind the heft, grab it. Otherwise, there are newer, easier-to-find options that make more sense.