The Asus TUF has been around the market for quite a while as their mid-range performance lineup for both desktop components and laptops. Today, we received the 2024 model of Asus TUF Gaming A16 from Asus for us to review and see its performance. One thing is for sure, the specs and build for the top-of-the-line TUF laptop is overwhelming for its price.
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Asus TUF Gaming A16 Specifications
The Asus TUF Gaming A16 is so far, this is the only TUF laptop that boasts a Ryzen 9 series processor paired with an RTX 4070. To match the power, this laptop also has a 2560x1440p display with 165Hz refresh rate, 16GB of DDR5-5000 memory, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. Full specifications are listed below:
| Model Name | TUF Gaming A16 (Mecha Gray) |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX |
| Graphics | Nvidia RTX 4070 8GB DDR6 |
| Display | 16″ WQXGA 165Hz, 2560x1440p |
| RAM | 16GB |
| Storage/s | 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD |
Unboxing and Overview
The Asus TUF Gaming A16 laptop comes with an eco-friendly brown box with TUF logo on the front, and a mech-themed graphics on the back, highlighting its features of impact resistance, different colored WASD keycaps, and the thermal vents on the back and underneath the laptop. Opening the box reveals the laptop covered in the microfiber cloth, with its accessories and charging cables inside the side flaps. Stickers, warranty guide, and user guide are directly underneath the laptop.
Located on the left side of the keyboard are the DC power port, a 10GB LAN port, 1 HDMI port, 2 USB Type-C ports (1 can be used for the 100W PD charging), 1 USB Type A, and audio/mic port. On the right-hand side is only 1 USB Type A port and the Kensington slot.
Opening the lid greets you a massive 16-inch display with thin bezels to maximize the 2k resolution. Display vibrancy settings are available on the Asus Armory Crate’s GameVisual settings with options of Default, Racing, Scenery, RPG, FPS, Cinema, Eyecare, and Vivid.
The full-size keyboard in the laptop is an all-black keycap design with transparent lettering to feature its RGB illumination, bleeding in both the letters and under the keycaps. This makes typing easier especially for users who prefer lights out while either gaming, working, or studying. Keyboard lighting and macros can be fine-tuned using the Asus Armory Crate. There are several macro keys for volume up/down, mute, and a quick-access button for the Armory Crate. Power button is located on the top right side of the numpad keys.
The laptop weighs around 2.2kg while the 280W power brick is around 760g. At the 16″ screen category, a 3kg total weight is decent to consider, provided by the 5 heatsinks in the laptop to cool both the CPU and the GPU.
After removing 11 Philips head screws on the rugged-design shell of the Asus TUF Gaming A16, reveals the massive 5-pipe heatsink cooling both the CPU and the GPU. Underneath the foil tape lies 2 slots for the RAM, with one occupied by the 16GB DDR5-5000MHz. A second NVMe slot is also available on the adjacent side where the included 1TB NVMe SSD is installed. Lastly, the battery is a 90Wh brick and an available external display connector on the right.
Benchmarks
Battery Performance
Battery performance is one of the things I check on any given laptop, whether it is meant for gaming activities or work-related tasks. On the Asus TUF Gaming A16, the average wattage consumption for idle tasks hangs between 40W and 60W on performance mode, and 15W to 20W on standard mode. On battery, the laptop lasted for almost 2 hours on Ultimate settings, and almost 4 hours on Standard settings. With a bulky 280W power adapter, the charge time from 2% to 100% is only 1 hour 10 minutes long. Although not included in the box, a 100W PD type-C cable can be used as a second-option charger.
Synthetic Benchmarks
As measures before benchmarking, McAfee antivirus is uninstalled, and any other unnecessary background apps are closed. Armory Crate GPU Mode is set tested between Standard and Ultimate mode. There were no changes in CPU and GPU clocks to prevent misaligned results between the same laptop units.
Our synthetic tests are Cinebench R23, 3DMark Fire Strike, Fire Strike Extreme, and Fire Strike Ultra for DX11 tests, 3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme for DX12 tests. We also used CrystalDiskMark to test the storage performance.
| Cinebench R23 | Single Core (Standard) | Multi-Core (Standard) | Single Core (Ultimate) | Multi-Core (Ultimate) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run 1 | 123 | 123 | 1,841 | 24,109 |
| Run 2 | 123 | 123 | 1,834 | 24,220 |
| Run 3 | 123 | 123 | 1,822 | 24,055 |
| Averages | 123 | 123 | 1,832.33 | 24,128 |
| Fire Strike | Fire Strike Extreme | Fire Strike Ultra | Time Spy | Time Spy Extreme | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run 1 | 25,603 | 13,002 | 6,627 | 11,463 | 5,537 |
| Run 2 | 25,770 | 13,080 | 6,651 | 11,495 | 5,527 |
| Run 3 | 25,698 | 13,089 | 6,653 | 11,391 | 5,565 |
| Averages | 25,690.33 | 13,057 | 6,643.67 | 11,449.67 | 5,543 |
| Fire Strike | Fire Strike Extreme | Fire Strike Ultra | Time Spy | Time Spy Extreme | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run 1 | 26,443 | 13,204 | 6,688 | 11,562 | 5,583 |
| Run 2 | 26,603 | 13,207 | 6,714 | 11,550 | 5,584 |
| Run 3 | 26,671 | 13,176 | 6,685 | 11,619 | 5,589 |
| Averages | 26,562.33 | 13,195.67 | 6,695.67 | 11,577 | 5,585.33 |
Gaming Benchmarks
The games tested on the Asus TUF Gaming A16 are Dota2, Counter Strike 2, VALORANT, GTA V, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. The in-game settings are set to the highest possible (with the exception of Nvidia RTX DLSS where it was only set to Quality, the 2nd highest). Nvidia GeForce graphics driver were at v560.94 during the benchmarking. All games were tested with GPU optimization assistance from Asus Armory Crate, with having benchmarks from both Standard and Ultimate options.
Graphic settings from each game are provided below:
Both GTA V and MSFS 2020 are CPU-heavy titles, that is why they didn’t have any significant FPS boost in between testing. Although setting the preset to Ultimate will bring additional frames, the laptop needs to be connected to power at all times. This is recommended when playing at home where there’s little to no option of moving the laptop around.
Conclusion
The Asus TUF Gaming A16 is a great mid-to-high-end gaming laptop that could last you at least 5 years and still give good performance for gaming. Although there are lots of ventilation holes beneath the laptop, as well as underneath the laptop screen, there is a noticeable warmth on the right-hand side of the keyboard during gaming sessions. This is well compensated when the load lightens up and the 5-pipe heatsink of both CPU and GPU gets utilized, it reaches comfortable temperatures within seconds.
Aside from gaming, this laptop is also great for productivity use like photo and video rendering using NVENC encoder. Office use is definitely a benefit as well since it has numpad keys to help punching in those numbers in spreadsheet. External display up to 3 monitors are possible in the laptop with 1 using the HDMI slot, and the other 2 will use the Type-C ports.
Although the TUF series lineup is known for their entry level gaming laptops with Intel i5s and Ryzen 5s, 8GB of RAM, usual 1080p display, and sufficient graphics card to handle 1080p gameplay, this A16 is a beast providing the latest Ryzen 9 processor and an RTX 4070 graphics card that anything you throw at it, including the kitchen sink.
The exact model of this laptop review is FA. You can order it at the Asus webstore for ₱117,995. It also comes with the TUF Gaming Backpack, Asus’ service warranty of 2 years including a one-time preventive maintenance and a one-time accidental damage protection for a year, and free 3-months of Xbox Game Pass.
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