Asus G11CD Review

Our Verdict

The Asus G11 is a compact and attractive gaming desktop that offers strong performance for less than $one,000.

For

Attractive, compact blueprint
Strong gaming performance
Included mouse and keyboard

Against

Lackluster software
No upgradability

Tom's Guide Verdict

The Asus G11 is a compact and attractive gaming desktop that offers potent performance for less than $1,000.

Pros

+
Attractive, compact pattern
+
Strong gaming performance
+
Included mouse and keyboard

Cons

-
Lackluster software
-
No upgradability

The Asus G11 is proof that getting into PC gaming doesn't require an exorbitant upkeep or a wealth of calculating know-how. This gaming desktop's cost tag ($849 starting, $999 as reviewed) is every bit inviting as its sci-fi-inspired design, and its Core i7 processor and GeForce GTX 960 GPU can handle the latest graphically rich games without breaking a sweat. The hassle-free G11 is an ideal starter PC for gamers, though its lack of upgradability limits its shelf life.

Pattern

The Asus G11 is a compact desktop PC with a fun and futuristic pattern that manages non to be overly gaudy. The computer looks similar a relic from a afar, gaming-obsessed planet, with Mayan-inspired etchings on the top and front panels flanked by glowing LED strips. The G11'south lights pulsate by default, making the desktop look like some sort of breathing, robotic fauna right out of the box.

Credit: Samuel C. Rutherford / Tom's Guide. — (Image credit: Samuel C. Rutherford / Tom'due south Guide.)

The PC'south LED "oral cavity," every bit I like to phone call it, tin can be customized to glow but nigh whatsoever color y'all want it to using Asus' included software. The surrounding light-upward panels, notwithstanding, are limited to scarlet — yous can only command how brightly they glow.

At 17.3 x 16.6 x half dozen.9 inches, the G11 demands very little desk-bound space. It's considerably shorter and slimmer than the similarly entry-level Digital Tempest Beat out iv (21.7 ten 17.3 x 8.iii inches), though not every bit sleek or living-room-ready equally the xiii.5 10 12.5 ten iii.7-inch Alienware X51.

Ports and Upgradability

An armorlike plate on the G11's front console provides like shooting fish in a barrel access to the desktop's main ports, which include two USB 3.0 connections, two USB 2.0 ports, a DVD-RW optical drive and a half-dozen-in-1 menu reader. Headphone and microphone jacks are located just above those ports and slots.

In the back, you'll find two more USB two.0 and USB 3.0 ports, two USB 3.1 ports and an Ethernet connexion. The G11 packs your essential audio ports (side, rear, subwoofer, line-in/out, mic), as well equally HDMI and VGA-out for video. If you adopt to plug directly into the PC's GeForce GTX 960 graphics card, the GPU's 3 DisplayPorts, HDMI port and DVI connection give y'all plenty of options for creating a multi-monitor setup.

Tinkerers will want to expect elsewhere, though. Considering the G11 is built to be a hassle-costless, plug-and-play gaming PC, there'south no easy way to pop the auto open up and bandy out its components.

Gaming Performance

Powered by an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 graphics carte du jour with 2GB of VRAM, the G11 is muscular plenty to play many mod games cranked to high settings at quad Hard disk. Information technology can even handle curt bursts of 4K gaming.

Asus' PC faithfully rendered Metal Gear Solid V's gorgeous open worlds at 2560 10 1600 with graphics set to high, assuasive me to see everything from Ophidian'due south war-weathered face to the game's realistic leaf in close detail. The G11 maintained a steady threescore frames per second throughout near of my sessions, allowing me to silently pop off enemy guards with no stuttering.

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The computer made quick work of Rainbow Half-dozen Siege during our benchmarks, running the tactical shooter at 124 fps on low settings and 55 fps on loftier at 1080p. The game slowed to a still-playable 31.v fps on depression settings when we switched to 4K resolution but sunk to an unplayable 11.9 fps on high.

When benchmarking the more demanding Metro: Terminal Calorie-free, the G11 turned in low/high settings results of 113 fps and 29 fps at 1080p, respectively. As with Siege, Metro was playable at 4K on depression (41 fps) but was reduced to a slideshow on high (8 fps).

The G11 scored 6,486 on the 3DMark Fire Strike graphics test, trailing the GTX 970-powered Digital Storm Vanquish 4 (x,519) as well every bit our 12,857 average for gaming desktops.

Overall Performance

Packing a 6th-gen Intel Core i7-6700 processor with 8GB of RAM, the G11 is plenty powerful enough to handle your workload once you're done gaming. The desktop held up gracefully confronting the pile of tasks I threw at it, fifty-fifty equally I watched six video streams, downloaded a game and ran Metal Gear Solid V all at once.

Asus' desktop netted a fourteen,788 on the Geekbench iii performance test, falling behind the Core i7-6700K-powered Shell 4 (eighteen,890) and our twenty,847 boilerplate.

The G11 completed our spreadsheet test (matching 20,000 names to addresses) in a fairly brisk 3 minutes and 14 seconds. However, that wasn't quite enough to pinnacle the Vanquish 4 (2:52) or our 3:12 category average.

On our file-transfer test, the G11'due south 1TB, 7,200-rpm hard drive (with an 8GB SSD) copied 4.97GB of multimedia files in ane minute and 27 seconds, resulting in a transfer rate of 58.49 MBps. That might be proficient plenty for moving around some pictures and videos, but it's not nearly every bit fast as the Trounce's 250GB SSD (221 MBps) or our 243-MBps gaming desktop boilerplate.

Keyboard and Mouse

The G11 comes with its ain keyboard and mouse, and although they're no match for dedicated gaming accessories, they're perfectly fine for gamers who desire to start playing right away.

The included charcoal keyboard is pretty ordinary, save for some red backlighting and a large knob at the top that lets you quickly conform volume. I found the membrane keys to be a scrap mushy, likely due to their three.7-mm travel and adequately loftier actuation of 65 grams. Still, that didn't cease me from blazing through the Key Hero typing test at a speedy 106 words per minute with perfect accurateness (my boilerplate is about 85 wpm). Plus, you're more likely to utilize the keyboard to run around virtual worlds than to chop away at a report as fast equally possible.

The G11'southward mouse is even more straightforward, sporting a standard push layout and a basic black design that's highlighted by red stripes on either site. I did enjoy how ergonomic the curvy accessory felt, and had no real problems when navigating websites or playing games.

Software

The G11 comes loaded with Asus' exclusive Aegis II software, which places a minor widget on your desktop that lets yous monitor performance, customize the PC and record gameplay. Unfortunately, the software's interface is a little bad-mannered, and not all of its features worked reliably in my testing.

The calculator looks like it comes from a distant, gaming-obsessed planet.

In the Aegis app, you lot can play with the PC's lighting, choosing from 8 million colors for the front panel and whether the lights pulsate or stay steady. You tin also continue rail of the PC's performance load and utilise the Boost Launcher, which allows yous to automatically close certain apps when launching a game for optimal performance. As well, for some strange reason, the Aegis map lets yous view a map of the world that pinpoints what city you lot're in.

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While those features worked just fine, capturing my gameplay didn't become as smoothly. The app's GameALive tool oftentimes crashed after taking a few screenshots, and failed to capture video at all. Fortunately, there are plenty of free and reliable ways to record gameplay on a PC, including the Nvidia ShadowPlay tool that comes preinstalled as part of the GeForce Experience app.

Configurations

The G11CD'due south starting $849 configuration packs a 6th-gen Core i5 processor, 6GB of RAM, a 1TB difficult drive with an 8GB SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 GPU. Our $999 model has a speedier Core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM.

The G11'due south $i,399 config ups the storage to 2TB and the RAM to 16GB, and features a stronger GTX 970 GPU. The highest-end $ane,699 model has a GTX 980 card.

Bottom Line

The Asus G11 is an impressive value for those looking to dip their feet into PC gaming. Its compact design and included mouse and keyboard brand it like shooting fish in a barrel to get correct to playing, and its Core i7 processor and GTX 960 GPU provide gaming muscle that defies its upkeep toll.

However, if you're looking for an entry-level gaming PC with ameliorate staying power, consider the Digital Storm Vanquish 4. It's available in like pricing configurations, and while it doesn't look as pretty as the G11, the Vanquish offers faster flash storage options and can exist easily upgraded over time. Overall, though, the G11 has everything yous need to play modern games at loftier settings for less than $1,000, and that'south what counts.

Mike Andronico is Senior Writer at CNNUnderscored and was formerly Managing Editor at Tom'south Guide. When not at work, yous can usually grab him playing Street Fighter, devouring Twitch streams and trying to convince people that Hawkeye is the best Avenger.