Tiny, Silent, Gaming Monster - ASUS G20CB
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,046 words · ~5 min read
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have you ever thought to yourself I've got very limited desk space but I simply
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cannot bear to put my computer on the floor and run ever so slightly longer
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wires okay so maybe that's not it but
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whatever the reason giant Tower PCS for
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enthusiasts are going away and these compact gaming machines are becoming
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more and more common but it seems like
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everything that I've seen so far has suffered from one flaw or another but
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maybe it doesn't have to be that way meet the ASUS Rog
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g20cb it's the best allaround mini
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gaming PC I've seen yet and it has RGB
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lighting dce
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tunnel bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse privately and
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enjoy a more open internet to try tunnel bear for free check out the link in the
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video description no it's not quite
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gaming console sized the Xbox One S is
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less than half the size but the Rog
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g20cb manages to pack much more gaming
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power into its still very compact footprint it's got a COR i7 6700 quad
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core with hyperthreading 16 gigs of ddr4
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RAM a 512 gig SATA 3 SSD and a 1 TB hard
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drive for a good balance of Speedy and spacious storage and it rocks an NVIDIA
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GTX 1080 graphics card making it suitable for much more than the intense
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full HD gaming that it advertises on the tacky sticker on the front in fact it
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absolutely chewed through through every VR application we could throw at it and
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made short work of our 4K gaming test Suite as well managing 45 to 60 plus FPS
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across the board with most games running at or near Max details but that wasn't
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the most impressive thing about it what blew me away was how quietly it did all
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of this the g20cb is not just whisper
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quiet when browsing the web it impressed the pants off me while I was running an
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hourlong CPU stress test and doing the same thing in Doom at 4K and remember
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this is coming from the same quiet freak who moved his computers into a separate
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room to get away from fan and pump
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noise so it turns out that the angled
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shape of the case and the indent at the bottom are more than just style they're
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part of an intentional acoustic management strategy the G20 is quiet
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from a normal sitting position next to it at a desk but significantly louder if
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you listen from the bottom or the top or the back the entire front of the system
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other than the slim DVD drive looks like an air intake with a space AG Rog styled
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Grill but it's actually blocked off to
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keep noise inside the system cool air is
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drawn up through the Bottom by custom blower Style fans and exhausted by the
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rear blower on the video card and through this wide heat sink near the top
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it works so well that even turning the video card fan up to 100% yielded only
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an additional 50 MHz or so on the GPU in
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Doom at 4K one of the biggest question marks
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with any pre-built and especially a compact one though is upgradeability and
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the g20cb is no exception here but if
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you're willing to break the warranty sticker I was able to upgrade the 16 gig
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single Channel memory to 32 gigs of dual Channel only removing about five screws
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and if you're willing to dig a Little Deeper the video card can be swapped
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ASUS includes an extra power cable for you for this and unlike its predecessor
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the CB version has an empty m.2 slot under the optical drive that can be used
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for an NVMe SSD so with rumor sites predicting that
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both AMD and Intel's next Generation CPUs will perform marginally better at
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best and the full stop in the trend
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towards more power hungry video cards I don't expect either the motherboard or
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the weird dual brick external power supply to hold back your gaming
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experience for a few years at least so
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in summary the G20 CB has some
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unexceptional qualities the terrible lighting Control software treats your
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inputs as mere suggestions the dedicated
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second power plug for the GPU can be
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accidentally yanked not that I speak from
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experience and the included SK HX SSD
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isn't the highest performance I've seen But at only a $200 premium over throwing
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all the parts in a cart on New Egg and building it yourself for a super small
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and Incredibly quiet gaming computer this one left me very
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impressed we have teamed up with razor
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to bring you guys another giveaway one lucky winner will get a death outter
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Elite Mouse an orata keyboard a kraken V2 and a cloth a cloth and five other
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lucky winners will get a Kraken Pro V2 headset some of the features of the
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Kraken Pro V2 include larger drivers a
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lightweight frame a headband design for better weight distribution and less
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clamping Force ear cushions that are larger softer and have better sound
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isolation and you can personalize it to fit due to it being
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interchangeable it's got a fully retractable unidirectional microphone
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and most importantly from the time that I've spent with it it is just playing
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way better than their last headset so there's a definite thumbs up for that
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you can enter at the link below for a chance to win so thanks for watching
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guys if you disliked dislike but if you liked then hey hit that like button get
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subscribed maybe even consider checking out the link to where to buy this
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computer in the video description that gives us a kickback also linked down
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there is our merch store where you can buy cool shirts like this one in our community Forum which you should totally
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join and if you're done doing all that stuff you're wondering what to watch
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next hey check out that video right there in the corner over on channel
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super fun I guarantee it'll be worth the watch