This is going to be a long post with a complete guide to the ASUS TUF gaming laptops based on my experience
All the links shared in this post are for reference only, I am not availing any benefits by sharing them.

On October 18 2021, I bought an ASUS TUF A15 (2021) laptop which started my journey with Gaming laptops and ASUS TUF Family.

It has a Ryzen 7 4800H, RTX 3050 (75W) 4gb VRAM (now called a 3050A), 8 GB of ram preinstalled DDR4 ram at 3200Mhz and 512 GB of SSD storage.

The ASUS Tuf comes with 2 ram and 2 SSD slots so I had 2 slots empty.

I have kept the highest standards when it comes to the maintenance of my laptop and it still looks as good as new because of it.

A. Maintenance

1. Uninstall Armoury Crate, MyASUS, McAfee and any other pre-installed bloatware shipped with your PC. I recommend reinstalling a fresh copy of windows (ideally from one of those bloatware and telemetry removed windows iso files) as the ASUS windows installation has some trouble with the latest Nvidia Geforce drivers. Here is how it should work:-

Preinstalled Windows -> Use Geforce drivers given by ASUS for your laptop model

Fresh Installed Windows -> Use the latest drivers from Nvidia Geforce Experience Application

2. Install GHelper -> The one application for all the control functions for your laptop and more.

Use Windows defender and nothing else. Fuck Mcafee

3. Battery -> I had a 90Whr battery which I kept between 60-80% for 2 years and the degradation went till 76 Whr. After that i used the battery extensively from 100 to 0 as i used to travel alot. Currently the battery is at 62 Wh with 3.5 years of usage.

I have seen people say "Dont expect battery from a gaming laptop" which is often used to make fun of someone who cares about battery life. That is not true. ALWAYS give preference to a laptop with a big battery because you can control the power consumption and make our laptop last longer when needed. but you cannot do that if you have a measly 60 Whr pocket battery.

My TUF lasted me 7 hrs and 38 minutes back in 2021 with the 90Whr in the following configuration:-

60Hz refresh rate

CPU Boost Off

igpu only (RTX Turned off)

Keyboard lights off

Brightness 70%

Speakers off

Bluetooth connected to headphones, Wifi connected

Usage: General Browsing, video streaming, documents and ppts.

I will admit in real world i usually keep refresh rate at 144Hz but 60hz is fine if you're desperate.

Now at just 62Whr, My laptop lasts 3.5 to 4 hours on the same config @ 144Hz

4. Re-install Windows Every 3 years for smooth experience

5. (Controversial) Install a keyboard cover to avoid the key prints getting faded/scraped.

6. KEEP YOUR LAPTOP CLEAN: Take care of its physical body. Wipe it with a microfiber cloth every month at the minimum. Change Thermal Paste every 3 years and gets fans cleaned every 1.5-2 years. It barely costs anything and the benefits are long lasting so i highly recommend you doing this. If not confident, find a local laptop serviceman, don't trust unknown third party service centers.

7. Upgrade!: Fill the 2 remaining empty slots with another RAM and SSD stick as soon as you can. upgrading my ram to 16 gb (8x2) and 1 tb storage (512x2) gave new life to my laptop in 2023 (2 years after purchase). If your battery has degraded below 50 Whr and you dont plan on replacing it within a year, consider getting a new battery pack installed.

Here is what i used:- (not referral)

RAM: https://www.amazon.in/Crucial-PC4-25600-SODIMM-260-Pin-Memory/dp/B08C4Z69LN/

SSD: https://www.amazon.in/Crucial-PCIe-NAND-NVMe-3500MB/dp/B0B25LZGGW/

B. Different Models

Ever since buying my asus tuf in 2021, I have recommended the asus tuf to many of my friends due to which i have a good understanding of most of the ASUS TUF Models. Here is my guide:-

-> 2020 Model: It was plagued with heating issues due to asus not leaving bottom panel air intakes open. I hope nobody has this model anymore.

Reference: https://www.amazon.com/Premium-Quad-Core-i5-10300H-GeForce-Keyboard/dp/B08NBNLHRD?th=1

-> 2021 Model: This was fixed from the 2021 onwards model.

Reference: https://www.amazon.in/ASUS-15-6-inch-NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-3050-Graphics-FA506IC-HN005W/dp/B09RQKK6CZ/

-> 2022 onwards there were multiple models. I will cover the ones selling right now

https://amzn.in/d/cHrQULI

These Laptops lack an igpu, which means RTX is running for even the most basic graphical tasks. MAJOR Battery guzzler

They also come with horrendous 48 Whr batteries which ruin the laptop's chances of lasting more than 3 hours ever in its lifetime. This is basically e-waste model in my view. I 100% do not recommend this.

https://amzn.in/d/dSAET2n

This is as excellent model with a big battery, good amd cpu and gpu. Its a solid machine.

https://amzn.in/d/9x9JMGW

This although comes with a big battery, the intel processors are power hungry but its nothing major.

My ideal Asus TUF laptop is with AMD CPU with igpu, AMD/Nvidia Gpu And a 90Whr battery

Note: Keep eyes on the TGP of gpus, many asus models have underpowered/non-max-q gpus like mine (75W 3050 while max-q is 95W)

There are many common issues that plague these models which I will cover now but before that a disclaimer: EVERY LAPTOP in this range has some or the other issue, there is no perfect gaming laptop in this range. you find a balance based on your pocket, priorities and requirements.

C. Known Issues and their fixes

- Mediatek/Realtek Network card : The mediatek network card used by ASUS is of poor quality and it is placed on the left side of the laptop under the SSD slot 1. The laptop is prone to the wifi and bluetooth option disappearing.

Fix 1: Open the laptop, remove the wifi card, clean it with a soft microfiber cloth, and install it again firmly. (Sometime the card gets loose but this is very rare)

Fix 2: Buy a wifi+bt network adapter. This is the cheaper solution and the one i went ahead with.

Adapter I used: https://www.amazon.in/TP-Link-Archer-T2U-Nano-Wireless/dp/B0BMX82Y3J/ (This has drivers support on both windows 11 and GNU/Linux)

Its a cheaper option for me in my country: India

Fix3: Buy the better quality Intel AX210 wifi card. It is expensive but the best option.

Personally, I hate that asus cheaps out on internal components like this. Their SSD is also not the best in the industry but fine for the avg user i guess.

Lenovo is the best in this regard.

Slow Wakeup Time

This issue in my experience is exclusive to Windows only.

The fix i found was to long press the keys for 2-3 seconds and then waiting for the laptop to respond.

The best fix was to use Linux as the response time on linux is as good as those evo certified thin and light laptops.

Hinge Issues

Goes without saying, treat your laptop with care. open from the centre of the display and dont drop the laptop.

I took good care of mine and the hinges are as good as new to this day.

Frequent Bluescreen Issues

Happened alot to me on preinstalled windows. Re-installing a fresh windows 11 copy improved this alot but I still get some blue screens from time to time. I think its windows 11 just being a horrible OS

Never faced any issues on linux.

Weak Power Button

This is an issue with tuf laptops with elevated power button. I think its poor design on ASUS's part. Only thing that can be done is to be gentle with the power button.

High Temperatures

I understand the fear of high temperatures impacting components' longevity,

however the ASUS Tuf is able to handle these high temperatures.

As I will cover in my extensive usage later in the post, the Laptop is notorious to reach the maximum temperatures at 95 degress for CPU and 86 degrees for GPU but it does not thermal throttle much and is able to sustain these temperatures with good performance for many hours of constant use.

You can disable CPU Boost if you want.

I personally just reduce max temp for cpu to 90 degree through G helper.

Noisy, vibrating Fans

This happens after a few years of usage mostly but can be earlier if you live in a very dusty environment, keep fans on all the time. I think the cause is partly poor component quality of asus and partly wear and tear caused by the user.

I faced this issue after 3 years of constantly running the fans most of the time.

If you too face this issue, visit a laptop serviceman and ask him to clean the fan and polish the ball bearings a bit/oil it.

Else you can ask them to replace the fan.

If i have missed any issues, let me know ill cover them in the comments/edited post.

D. Usage

I used my laptop for everything I can imagine and I can say i have used it to almost it's max potential 100+ hrs on GTA 5 at Ultra graphics 60-70 fps constant

60+ Hrs on Death Standing High 60-70fps

200+ hrs on Cyberpunk 2077 on High with 40-70 fps constant (I also modded Cyberpunk heavily)

50+ hrs on deadisland riptide on highest graphics with 70+ fps

200+ hrs on Forza Horizon 4 on High graphics at 60-70fps constant

I'm very satisfied with the performance It's not about the max graphics it's about getting the best out of the Rig you have with decent enjoyable fps.

I have also done alot of other professional tasks too from graphics design to video editing to running alot of virtual machines (sometimes multiple at once as I work in cybersecurity). I also dual boot linux. Used WSL also.

Used the laptop for 3D rendering in blender and GIS work on ArcGIS and QGIS too on both windows and Linux.

I have used all the ports for one thing or the other and experienced the highest read write speeds the ports and SSDs supported.

That's all folks

I am attaching some photos of my laptop form 2021 when i first got it and now to show the truth behind my laptop's maintainence

I am happy to be part of this family despite the ups and downs. You can refer this post before buying the ASUS Tuf laptop and once you buy it, MAINTAIN IT and Fix the problems if any you face. I'm here on this sub to help.

Also AMA, I will try to respond as frequently as I can.

DM only if really needed, ask in comments first.

Im thinking about buying the asus tuf f16 5060

So alot of them are regarding erors in the bios and cooling and firmware wich cause all kinds of trouble (stuttering, freezing, crackling audio, black screens,etc) after 8 months to a year of use that what i understood while researching

although most of the reports i have seen are on the ROG but some are also on the tuf and other asus laptops

i only found them while asking on discord and searching reddit and it really made me reconsider

but any youtube video i have seen gives no mention about it .

Its my first time researching laptops so i could have got some things wrong but there are definitely some issues that people reported.

So I'm a CS student and it's my first year , I looked for laptops for over a month and I settled over 3 , Asus TUF gaming A15 or F15 or F16, I want a machine to code on and play modern games on high or mid settings and my budget is about 1000-1200 dollars so which one do you recommend+ should I wait for Black Friday to get a better deal or it won't make a big difference

Hey Everyone,

After a very long time to hunt for sales, I have finally brought home the ASUS TUF A15 Ryzen 7735HS and RTX 4050.

It was a hard decision for me, I got this one for 915 dollars. And there was the lenovo Legion 5 with i7 13650 and RTX 4060, which was for 1097 dollars.

These prices are particularly low for my country.

But after contemplating a lot and realising I only ever game at 1080p, which combined with DLSS and optional FG would be more than enough for my task, I bought the TUF. It's a fabulous machine and I am loving it. A huge thanks to this Subreddit as it massively influenced my decision to buy a TUF over LOQs or HPs.

I also noticed a huge debate between Ghelper and Armory crate, I am planning to test out both myself.

In my country, I can't open the laptop myself or I will void the warranty. I am planning to purchase the additional 2 year warranty. What else do you suggest I should do or know about in this new laptop?