Asus TUF FX505DU mini review

I have 1x16GB single channel, so these Unigen Heaven benchmark results are not the best the machine can do:

Silent:
FPS: 74.4
Score: 1873
Max GPU Temp: 74C

Performance:
FPS: 105.1
Score: 2649
Max GPU Temp: 78C

Turbo:
FPS: 105.3
Score: 2651
Max GPU Temp: 72C

Silent mode also had occassional stutters, but these did not happen in Performace or Turbo. CPU and GPU temperatures were pretty similar. The CPU sat at 1400MHz in Slient mode, then sat on 3900 MHz, or occassionally 25-50 MHz below that in Performance and Turbo.

Image and motion was beautifully smooth with FreeSync on.

 

Your temps are pretty good. Mine definitely needs another repaste as I think I messed mine up. With dual channel (2 x 8gb), I get

FPS: 121
Score: 3048
and very high temps. I hit 102 degrees in seige today...with the rear end of the laptop lifted up a little off the ground.

But its a great little machine.

 

I forgot to mention: those were on a cooling pad ... that was not turned on. So probably a similar thermal situation to your elevated rear.

Oh, and on the Silent profile the CPU was stuck at 1400 MHz ... but on Performance and Turbo it hit 3800 MHz without any throttling.

I did read the Amazon reviews of this (and related FX505 models), and it seemed as though about 10%-20% had real thermal issues. Looks like I got lucky and you did not - but a good paste job should fix that.

 

Yup. I got super annoyed by the horrendous temps. Did a proper repaste, and happy to report that temps are pretty decent, and in line with reviews. Tried my hand at undervolting but these newfangled GPUs have me confused so will do that at a later point. Loving the machine though.Pity that many will be (rightfully) annoyed by the terrible paste job and return the machine.

 

Undervolting ... how ?

I've tried Overdrive and Ryzen Master, but both report that this CPU (3750H) is not supported.

 

I'm sorry for the confusion. I meant the GPU (1660ti)

Btw, I just got a new BIOS update.

 

Ah, OK. Undervolted my GPU too.

Thanks for the heads up about the BIOS.

 

WARNING:

If you run MSI Afterburner, you may be halving your battery life.

Afterburner allows you to select either the Vega 10 iGPU, or the GTX 1660ti, as the "Master" GPU. If you select the 1660ti, Afterburner will wake it up every few seconds to check it's stats. On my FX505DU that gave a battery life of 3 hours or less.

Switching the "Master" to the Vega 10 gave a battery life of 6 hours, with no apparent impact on gaming.

 

Thanks for the heads up. It did worry me when afterburner kept turning the gpu on and off.

Btw, could you also please point me to which guide you used for undervolting the nvidia GPU?

Thanks in advance!

 

The basic process is:

1. start Afterburner, then click on "Settings"
2. make the 1660ti the "Master Graphics", for the moment
3. check "Start with Windows" and "Start minimized"
4. check "Enable Hardware control ..." "Enable low-level IO driver" "Enable low-level hardware ..." and "Restore settings ..." if not already checked
5. check "Unlock Voltage Control"
6. then OK
   
   
7. then hit Ctrl and f at the same time
   
   
8. you should now see the "Voltage Frequency Curve Editor"
9. Click and drag the voltage points as in this video:
   
   
10. I'd suggest that you start at high frequencies and move left, rather than low frequencies and move right as in the video, as in this image.
11. After you've dropped the max voltage by 100 mV or so, "Apply" these settings, and save them to a slot.
12. Then run Unigen Heaven. This pushes the video card pretty hard: if successful, you should see a small temperature drop, and if not, Windows will crash.
13. If unsuccessful, reduce your undervolt and test again. If successful, you may want to try a bigger undervolt. Remember to save your changes to a new slot.
14. When you are happy with your undervolt of the max frequency, try to make your curve smooth for the lower frequencies.
15. Finally, make the Vega 10 the "Master" GPU again

Good luck !