The ASUS K501UW-AB78 is one of the latest releases by the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer for 2016, but is it a good gaming laptop? Let’s find out on this review
After the great success of the ASUS K501UX, which you can check on this review, the Taiwanese laptop manufacturer came with a new, enhanced version with interesting hardware improvements, so let’s find out what are these improvements and whether this laptop can meet your requirements.
ASUS K501UW-AB78 Overview
The ASUS K501UW-AB78 is a good blend between lightweight laptops, with a metallic design similar to those of the MacBook air and the LG Gram, with a good selection of components and especially a powerful GPU to process graphics that most games require nowadays. It has a weight slightly above 4 pounds, which is good, but heavier than other options on the market, but it’s gaming vocation make up for that and might attract some users expecting a powerful video card on their laptops.
Just like the K501UX, the K501UW is powered by the i7-6500u, which is a dual core processor from the latest generation of Intel processors, focused on optimizing energy consumption while delivering high performance. In terms of video processing the K501UW has a more powerful video card, as it comes with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M, a slightly better version compared to the 950M which powers the K501UX.
ASUS K501UW-AB78: Is it a Good Gaming Laptop?
Even if this laptop has an excellent video card, which is often seen in expensive, high-end gaming laptops, the i7-6500u processor is a dual core, while gaming laptops mostly have quad core processors. This represents a huge difference in terms of benchmark, even if you compare the i5-6300HQ, which is a quad core, it has a better performance than the i7-6500u, which is a dual core (and both are from the same generation of processors).
The excellent NVIDIA video card on this laptop and the good performance of the i7-6500u allow this laptop to run a number of games with mid to high settings, but if you are a fan of the most demanding games in terms of processing speed, like Fallout 4 or the Witcher 3, you should probably opt for a laptop with a quad core processor.
The ASUS K501UW-AB78 is however a well rounded, laptop that can used for work and play. It’s beautiful design and great versatility is ideal for casual gamers, academic students, and young professionals that need to balance portability and performance.
ASUS K501UW-AB78 15.6-inch Full-HD Gaming Laptop (Intel Core i7, GTX 960M, 8GB DDR3, 512GB SSD) Glacier Grey
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Powerful 6th-generation Intel Core i7-6500U 2.5GHz (Turbo up to 3.1GHz). Skylake
15.6 inches Matte FHD display. 1920 by 1080 resolution. Windows 10 Operating System.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M gaming graphic card; 8GB RAM; 512GB SSD Storage. Backlit keyboard.
Gigabit Dual-Band 802.11AC ultra-fast Wi-Fi.
2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0, 1x HDMI, 1x VGA ports and 1x Card Reader.