"True" gaming laptops with dedicated GeForce or Radeon graphics under a thousand bucks are no longer a rarity.
But it's a tall order to produce one that can handle the latest triple-A games with bulletproof consistency.
Granted, we've seen some strong efforts: Dell has the Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming (starts at $799.99) while Lenovo uncovered its Legion Y520 (starts at $919.99) early last year, and companies such as MSI and Acer play in this market.
But few options come more affordable than the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G.
(The family starts at $699; our tester is $899.99.) This isn't a laptop for the graphics elitist; our test model has a workaday Intel 8th-generation Core i5 processor and, at best, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with 4GB of video memory.
But if you're on the prowl for a modest-price gaming laptop with a solid 1080p display, plenty of storage space, and a wide array of ports, the TUF Gaming FX504G stays in the game with competing machines.
Serious Gaming for Less Than a Grand?
With an angular, black-and-red design, the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G doesn't stray far from the gaming-laptop ordinary.
The color scheme is practically a uniform for machines like this, and the overall look telegraphs "typical gaming laptop" in its size and shape.
The all-plastic chassis is what's expected of a gaming laptop in this price range, as is the plastic touchpad.
Unlike on some gaming machines these days from Dell, Gigabyte, and others, the display is nowhere close to bezel-less.
It's bordered by wide, 1-inch-thick sections of the same plastic that envelops the rest of the machine.
The main bit of unique flair: The two forward corners of the chassis and lid are cut off at a diagonal, rather than the right angles or rounded corners you see on most laptops.
Measuring 0.98 by 15.12 by 10.31 inches (HWD), the TUF Gaming FX504G is about the same thickness as the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming 7000, but with a slightly smaller footprint.
It's lighter too, at 5.07 pounds versus the 5.84-pound Dell.
That's especially meaningful since the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming 7000 is already thin and light, at least as budget gaming laptops come.
To bear the same starting price as the Inspiron—and also be lighter—is a win for the Asus machine.
Keep in mind, though: Other gaming laptops beat them both on thickness and weight, albeit at significantly higher starting costs.
(The 15.6-inch Razer Blade ($1,999.11 at Amazon) , for example, measures just 0.68 inch thick and squeaks in under 5 pounds.)
Open the TUF Gaming FX504G's lid, and you'll see a speaker grille positioned forward of the key layout.
Boasting support for the DTS Virtual:X codec, the sound system here is touted to yield a home-theater-style sound experience with simulated-surround aspects.
But alas, the speakers on the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G don't quite sound as loud or clear as those on, for example, the MSI G65 Stealth Thin ($1,999.00 at Amazon) .
That said, this is only a minor ding for most users.
Chances are, you'll be using headphones or a gaming headset, anyway, and the sound experience through the audio jack was just fine.
Typing, Viewing, and Connecting
I wasn't overly enamored with the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G's touchpad, but touchpads on low-cost gaming laptops tend to be so-so.
Small and plain, this one stacks up to that expectation.
In my hands-on time, I found that the pad's tap-to-click function did not always register a click for me; you'll have to press all the way down for a reliable physical click.
The keyboard is a better performer.
I found the chiclet keyboard fast and quiet to type on, with good key springback and adequate spacing.
The WASD keys are outlined in red for better visibility, and the spacebar is shaped so that the left side protrudes outward, in case you need more room for your left thumb.
One place on which you shouldn't expect to speed-type is the numeric keypad.
The number pad's keys are notably narrower than those on the rest of the QWERTY layout.
The screen in this test model being an In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel, as opposed to a Twisted Nematic (TN) one, is a nice touch in a low-cost gaming machine.
IPS screens tend to have much better viewing angles off center.
One quibble we had with the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming 7000 was that the viewing angles were subpar in the first TN-screen-based test unit sent to us; we didn't receive Dell's pricier version sporting an IPS panel until much later.
The Asus TUF Gaming FX504G line, on the other hand, bears an IPS display down to its $799 version, dubbed model FX504GD-RS51.
(The $699 base model, designated FX504GD-ES51, does employ a TN panel.)
The TUF machines' 1,920-by-1,080-pixel resolution up and down the line and 60Hz refresh rate on most models are standard specs among budget and midrange gaming laptops.
They work in this laptop's favor because, given the equipment inside it, gaming at resolutions above 1080p is out of the question, anyway.
The top model in the line, the coming-soon FX504GM-ES74 ($1,299), does employ a high-refresh (120Hz) "IPS-like" panel along with the same GTX 1050 Ti chip.
This model, clearly, is meant for esports players who want the screen-smoothness potential of running undemanding games at very high refresh rates for a competitive advantage.
(Or, possibly demanding games at lower detail settings.)
The port mix on the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G is ample, and concentrated all on one side.
On the left side, you get two USB 3.0 Type-A ports in addition to a single USB 2.0 Type-A port, an HDMI output, an Ethernet jack, and an audio port that you can use for either microphone input or headphone/speaker output...
On the right side is a Kensington lock notch for tying down the machine with a security cable.
It does strike me as odd that, unlike on most laptops, the ports are all on one side, though it does make sense: If you want to cut down on clutter, one way to accomplish that is to keep all your cables away from the right, where a mouse pad might typically rest.
Missing, though, is an SD card reader, as well as any USB Type-C ports (the ordinary kind, or one with Thunderbolt 3 support), indicating that you may have to buy an adapter or two if these are crucial to your work (or play) flow.
Storage on the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G is plentiful for a budget machine.
You can bank on a 1TB Seagate FireCuda solid-state hybrid drive (SSHD).
The FireCuda isn't as common as an ordinary hard drive or solid-state drive (SSD); it's a laptop hard drive with some flash memory cache onboard to speed it up.
It's a shame that you have to go to the next step up for a true solid-state drive (SSD) in this laptop family, if only to store the operating system for faster boot times and a few key games.
(The $999 FX504GE-ES72 model, meant for Newegg, packs a Core i7 CPU and a 256GB SATA SSD, while the upcoming $1,299 FX504GM-ES74 I mentioned earlier, with the high-refresh screen, gets you an 256GB PCI Express/NVMe SSD and a 1TB hard drive.)
But at least the SSHD does give you a bit of a boost, under some circumstances.
In my experience testing, after a series of reboots, the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G's SSHD eventually took just 16 seconds to boot into Windows 10, as the drive caching kicked in and stashed some of the key parts of the OS in the flash cache.
(A standard hard drive-equipped Acer Nitro 5 took over a minute.) In PCMark 8's Storage test, a measure of overall storage performance, the TUF Gaming FX504G's drive scored around 10 percent faster than the Nitro 5's.
Synthetic storage benchmarks, on the other hand, were more of a mixed bag.
You're likely to see a moderate speedup under some situations, and not others.
The Asus TUF Gaming FX504G also supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, and is covered by a one-year warranty.
Most Tests: On the Mark
For benchmark testing, I pitted the Asus machine against the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming (7567), the Lenovo Legion Y520 ($1,271.99 at Amazon) , the Razer Blade, and the recently reviewed Acer Nitro 5 ($899.99 at Amazon) .
The TUF Gaming FX504G ran par for the course as a GTX 1050 Ti laptop, scoring close to the Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming and the Acer Nitro 5 across both productivity and graphics testing.
Of the 15-inch gaming laptops in this test group, the 2018 Razer Blade is obviously going to give you the best performance, given its $1,899 starting price.
The rest of these machines are budget models, while the Razer Blade is there only for reference; it's in an otherwise different price range from the rest of this lot.
First, let's take a look at the productivity-oriented testing and our battery rundown...
In our productivity testing, the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G's scores were in line with other gaming laptop offerings in its price range.
Specific to the Cinebench R15 CPU test, the TUF Gaming scored higher than the Acer Nitro 5 and Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming (at 668 points, compared with the Nitro 5 and Inspiron 15 7000's respective 511- and 502-point results), which makes sense considering the Nitro 5 and Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming both sport last-generation Intel Core i5-7300HQ processors while the TUF Gaming FX504G wields a current-gen "Coffee Lake" i5-8300H.
In all but the Photoshop test, the Lenovo Legion Y520 topped the Asus, due to its higher-clocked i7-7700HQ processor; nevertheless, it is impressive that the TUF Gaming FX504G was able to execute our Photoshop trial in just under 3 minutes.
See How We Test Laptops
As for the battery life, the longevity of the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G is disappointing off the charger; 4 hours and 20 minutes is far afield of the 11-hour-and-1-minute battery life of the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming.
Seeing as gaming laptops are used as desktop replacements more often than not, running plugged-in, I can cut it some slack.
It's also worth noting that gaming on a battery often throttles performance.
Even so, a 4-hour battery life is simply short when the thinner and more powerful Razer Blade can survive 7 hours and 36 minutes.
Thus, if you're going to use the TUF Gaming FX504G off the plug often, you may want to think twice.
Next, let's take a look at our synthetic graphics tests...
The TUF Gaming FX504G made an impression in the Valley graphics test at Medium settings, though we suspect this is an outlier; it didn't surprise in the Ultra quality Heaven and Valley tests, or in Heaven at Medium.
The difference at Ultra settings in frame rates between the TUF Gaming and the rest of the GTX 1050/GTX 1050 Ti pack would be marginal in real-world scenarios.
A Little Light Gaming...
I also ran the Asus machine through benchmark trials at its native 1080p resolution in the popular games Far Cry 5 (at the Normal and Ultra presets) and Rise of the Tomb Raider (at the DX12/Medium and DX12/Very High presets).
The machine hit 48 frames per second (Normal) and 41fps (Ultra) in Far Cry 5, and 56fps (DX12/Medium) and 43fps (DX12/Very High) in Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Since both of these games are locked at 30fps on consoles, you can expect in-game visual fluidity from the TUF Gaming FX504G that falls somewhere between the PS4/Xbox One and a more expensive gaming rig featuring a GTX 1060 or 1070 (like the Razer Blade) that can handle triple-A games at a consistent 60fps.
The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti that the TUF Gaming wields is a just-good-enough graphics chip for gaming at medium to high settings at 30 to 40 frames per second (fps), depending on the game.
You'll want at least a GeForce GTX 1060 for smooth gaming on top settings or for powering virtual reality.
Unfortunately, the graphics options are the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G family's biggest limitation.
You can opt for a Dell Inspiron 15 7000 with a more powerful GTX 1060, if you so desire.
The same goes for the Lenovo Legion Y520, which you can get with a 3GB GTX 1060 for a little over a grand.
Asus offers only two GPUs in the TUF Gaming FX504G, however: the GTX 1050 Ti, like in the model I reviewed here, and the GeForce GTX 1050 in the $699 unit that features the lesser TN display.
Even the $1,299 model of the TUF is a GTX 1050 Ti.
That said, while a GeForce GTX 1060 would elevate this laptop to frame rates approaching 60fps on Ultra settings, it would also cost at least $100 more.
A GTX 1060-equipped Dell Inspiron 15 7000, for instance, starts at $1,149 at this writing.
Another example is the Lenovo Legion Y520; $999.99 will net you a stacked configuration with an Intel Core i7-7700HQ, a GeForce GTX 1060, and 128GB worth of SSD storage to cushion the 1TB HDD.
If you're on a strict, not-going-to-pay-over-$900 budget, though, the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G is a reasonable option and a decent value considering what it's up against.
A Reasonable Stay-Put Budget Gamer
At $899.99, it's unrealistic to expect the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G to give you everything you need to play your favorite, brand-new games at maximum graphics settings.
That's not what this class of laptop is built to do.
What it will do is get you close.
This machine should get you medium-to-high-quality graphics performance at acceptable frame rates.
It's an especially good value for esports competitors and players of MOBAs who don't require a lot of graphics-processing oomph to fuel their daily drives.
It's not as thin or as light as some of the newer Nvidia Max-Q-based devices, such as the Razer Blade, and the battery life needs work.
Also, the economy-minded, plastic-heavy build merely treads water within its pool of competitors.
But it is a lower-cost alternative to some other GeForce GTX 1050 Ti-powered machines that performs well for a decent price.
The Bottom Line
The Asus TUF Gaming FX504G pairs a 1080p IPS display and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti power at an aggressive price.
It's a solid budget gaming laptop, but suffers from short battery life.
