Newly updated for 2022, the Asus TUF Gaming F15 is a no-frills performance laptop and all the better for it. It’s solidly built and yet quite slim and portable for a 15.6-inch machine.
Inside, you get powerful components including Intel’s latest 12th Gen processor and Nvidia RTX 30-series graphics, while up front the 15.6-inch display offers both full resolution 1440p and 165Hz refresh. The 165Hz refresh in particular makes this a gaming-centric laptop. But the screen also offers 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut. This bodes well for content creation.
Technical sheet
CPU: Intel Core i9-12700H (14 cores)
Chart: Intel Iris Xe, Nvidia RTX 3060
RAM: 16 GB
Filter: 15.6-inch, 2560 x 1440, 165Hz, IPS LCD
Storage: 512 GB SSD
Ports: 1x USB Type-C, 1x USB Type-C with Thunderbolt, 2x USB-A, HDMI 2.0, Ethernet, 3.5mm audio jack
Cut: 35.4 x 25.1 x 2.49 cm (W x H x D)
Mass: 2.2kg
Moreover, not only high-performance components promise to facilitate all kinds of productivity tasks. Features like excellent connectivity, including Thunderbolt 4, add to the TUF’s all-around appeal.
It even promises decent battery life with up to 90 Wh batteries available. On paper, the TUF Gaming F15 looks like a very solid prospect for everything from gaming to content creation, and a worthwhile addition to our best gaming laptops roundup. And it does all that while reducing considerably higher-end competition from Dell Alienware, Razer and Asus’ own high-end options in terms of price.
Asus TUF Gaming F15 (2022) review: specs and design
The Asus TUF Gaming F15 is a largely conventional performance laptop with a 15.6-inch form factor. The screen is based on IPS technology for improved viewing angles and color accuracy. In terms of resolution, we are talking about 1440p and therefore 2560 by 1440 pixels. It’s a decent compromise between visual detail and not overloading the graphics subsystem for gaming.
Speaking of gaming, the panel is good for a full 165Hz refresh, so response and latency promise to be quite punchy. However, Asus also claims a very impressive 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 digital cinema color space, which also means excellent color accuracy. An affordable laptop for gaming and content creation? It certainly looks like it.
Thin bezels on three sides of the screen, meanwhile, control the width of the chassis, but a big, chunky chin extends the depth of the laptop’s body. Still, at least it makes room for a generously proportioned trackpad, which is always welcome.
That aside, design details worth noting start with the webcam protruding from the top of the display. It’s actually just a 720p element, so we’d have preferred to see it more tightly integrated and without the need for a bezel bump.
The full keyboard with numeric keypad is more successful without ambiguity. It makes for a nice solid foundation for typing, though the color-contrasting “WASD” keys and RGB backlighting are gaming gimmicks of limited real-world use. We also like the sturdy metal rear screen cover. The rest of the chassis is plastic, but it is very stiff and sturdy. You can drive this laptop daily with confidence that minor bumps and bumps won’t cause lasting damage.
Connectivity is another strong point. On the left of the chassis are a pair of USB-like sockets, one of which is the true Thunderbolt 4 deal with 40 Gbps of bandwidth. It’s great for plugging in something like an external SSD and shooting high-speed images and videos. This side of the laptop also has an Ethernet port for wired networking (wireless connectivity is covered by WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2), as well as a USB-A jack and headphone jack .
On the right you’ll find a single USB-A port, which is slightly suboptimal considering the power port is on the busier left side of the chassis and can interfere with connecting various peripherals and devices .
Of course, it’s inside that the real action takes place. Asus opted for the Intel Core i7-12700H. It has the same cutting-edge 12th-gen architecture as the more expensive 12900H, including six high-performance cores and eight efficiency cores, but runs at slightly lower clocks. The graphics are handled by an Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU. This is a mid to upper-tier mobile graphics chip that offers way, way more performance than any integrated graphics core.
Elsewhere there’s 16GB of RAM, which is enough for all but the most demanding workflows, and a 1TB Samsung SSD for storage. Put it all together and you have a very comprehensive complete package.
Asus TUF Gaming F15 (2022) review: price
With a fully configured price of $1,499 or around £1,299 in the UK, you get a lot of laptop for your money with the Asus TUF Gaming F15 in its revised 2022 configuration. It’s not quite as sleek than the Razer Blade 15 or as powerful as Dell’s Alienware X15 at its highest specification. But the core components from Asus are directly comparable, and the price clearly undercuts these high-end alternatives. Mid-range alternatives more similar to the TUF Gaming F15 include the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro.
Asus TUF Gaming F15 (2022) review: performance
Landmarks
3DMark: Night Raid: 45,628; Fire Strike: 20,218; Time Spy: 9,078
Cinebench R20 multi-core: 6,401 stitches
Geek Bench 5: 1769 (single-core); 12602 (multi-core)
PCMark 10 (Home Test): 5,837 stitches
Battery life (1080p movie test): 7 hours and 5 minutes
Total War: Three Kingdoms: (1080p, Ultra): 82 fps; (1080p, Low): 260 fps
Metro Exodus: (1080p, Ultra): 70 fps; (1080p, Low): 237 fps
Brand of the crystal disc: 3153MB/s read, 2055MB/s write, 4K read 30MB/s, 4K write 67MB/s
4K x265 (HEVC) encoding: 12fps
For the most part, the Asus TUF Gaming F15 works exactly as you expect and hope. The Intel Coere i7-12700H is a peach when it comes to CPU performance. The combination of six performance cores and eight efficiency cores means you have all the performance you need for virtually any type of application. Whether browsing through video encodings using the 20 available threads or extracting raw image files, this thing mostly flies.
As for the Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU with 6 GB of video memory, it is not quite in the same class as this Intel processor. It is clocked quite high at 1605 MHz. But it’s a mid-range rather than high-end GPU. Gamers will notice that it struggles to display frame rates to do justice to the 165Hz refresh of the 1440p display. However, for GPU-accelerated workloads in applications like Adobe’s Creative Cloud, it packs a lot of punch.
The only exception in terms of wide-platform performance is the Samsung 1TB SSD. At around 3GB/s read and 2GB/s write, it’s not really outdone. However, the relatively late 30MB/s read and 67MB/s write in 4K random access storage workloads are disappointing. It will not slow down large file transfers. But it’s important for day-to-day responsiveness, which relies on lots of small data transfers.
Another slightly disappointing performance aspect is that 15.6-inch 1440p display. On paper, the 165Hz refresh and 100% DCI-P3 digital cinema space coverage looks like the perfect combination of fun and precision. In practice, despite being a fast panel, it lacks dynamism and visual sparkle. Forget using this laptop outdoors, it’s not even bright enough. There is also a bit of backlighting around the edges of the panel.
While we cover the major disappointments, the built-in speakers aren’t great either. Both muddy and thin, they don’t even come close to Apple’s entry-level MacBook Air, let alone the MacBook Pro models. Really, PC laptops are miles behind when it comes to audio quality.
Finally, battery life is relatively good for this size, class and price of laptop at around seven hours of 1080p video playback. This number will inevitably be much smaller under heavier workloads. But for light tasks, including web browsing, it will survive most of the day without being tethered to a power outlet.
Should you buy the Asus TUF Gaming F15 (2022)?
The Asus TUF Gaming F15 has a lot to offer. There’s CPU performance to spare enough graphical grunt for all but the most demanding content creation and productivity needs. It’s also a solidly built beast, and the battery life of around seven hours isn’t too shabby for this class of laptop.
The fact that you get all of these benefits for a relatively modest price makes this a remarkably good deal. At least it would be without a disappointing display. Technically, it performs very well with 165Hz refresh and wide color coverage. But the subjective experience lacks visual punch.
Read more: The Best Laptops for Graphic Design
