[Bob of All Trades] Asus TUF 506 Review! A Ryzen 4800H Laptop Review!

This also applies to Intel. Not everything is a Thinkpad or Latitude or XPS or whatever. There are vast oceans of mediocre and outright bad laptops out there.

90% of everything is crap. The good ones will eventually shine out, they'll come, just be patient.

well. that particular laptop is their lower end line of laptops

so it is to be expected that its build quality (cooling, screen etc) is lower

Yes most but if the company like asus wants the hs version of the chips, like they do for the first 6 months, they have certain guidelines they have to follow in order to use that chip in there laptops, I'm not sure what the guidelines entail, I know it definitely has to do with the cooling but not sure what else, they want "AMD" wants the HS to be its showcase which it is so they do have some say in the matter..

Yup! I've been saying this for years, always get downvoted instantly for no greater apparent reason within minutes when even daring to mention that infamous OEM-factor™ … Or pointing towards the possibility, that it wouldn't be due to AMD's lack of will, competency or OEM-relations.

Of lovely Toys …
I (as well as many others) knew predicted that even AMD's 7nm-APUs won't change any of this misery even a single bit in the grand scheme of things. Why?
Since AMD's mobile CPU's or APU's performance' or lithography isn't the problem, and it never was. It's Intel.
I literally called that only sub-par AMD-configs will hit the market – even well in advance.

Wrote that November 2019:

Amd needs to release 7nm apus as soon as possible to be truly competitive in laptops.

AMD needs nothing, OEMs do.

Since Ryzen, AMD always had very comparable and quite competitive parts with strong APUs and powerful graphics, which would've made outstanding powerful yet efficient laptops with very good graphics (without the need for any dedicated graphics anyway) using their integrated graphics – still, they ain't used nor built anyway for whatever superficial reasons anyway.

Design-win after design-win AMD (so they say…) is announcing with their Raven Ridge or Picasso APUs and people are hoping for decent AMD-mobiles every time again when really good laptops are shown (only on stage for the press), in decent setups with decent panels, keyboards, batteries and powerful configurations – just to have those very design-wins being ebbed away anyway, with·out being build in any greater scale nor configurations, of course.

Yet, no-one ever seems to be at a loss for an answer on why there ain't any decent AMD-mobiles and why those which are built (if any) are always have to come in the shittiest condition possible, compared to any Intel-laptop.

Either it's that AMD can't deliver, then it's since the OEMs are cancelling their products even prior to shipping it and whatnot. However, the flimsiest of all excuses, is, when OEMs are telling us that there would be no greater demand on them and that people would ask for Intel-parts instead, of course! Of course no-one wants those shitty configs with subpar display-panels, keyboards, smallest batteries, subpar cases and a lack of any decent interface-connectors – if the good stuff is only equipped with Intel.

We're lying to ourselves if we think AMD would be the core of the problem here and the very reason why there ain't any decent AMD-laptops since roughly the 2000s, they ain't and they never were – but OEMs being paid for not building those AMD ones are. It's that the OEMs/ODMs are all a bunch of scurvy cowards who are getting paid for doing so.

tl;dr: AMD bringing their APUs on 7nm won't change a bit, as it isn't the problem here, and it never was.

Boy do I need to play the lottery, seems I can predict the future again! :/

Puppets
As sad as it sounds, but this very TUF 506-design and how it's done by Asus, is just another testament to all of it.

More or less proof to the fact, that OEMs/ODMs just ain't 'allowed' to build any decent AMD-hardware because of Intel – and how OEM's hands are virtually tied – due to Intel blackmailing them to not build any decent AMD-hardware, since they most probably just won't get sold any Intel-parts otherwise if acted against Intel's, well … Let's call it »Understanding of competition« for the moment. … and OEMs likely getting paid royally to do so, shut up and just 'leave it, the way it is'. Just take a look at MSI's new Bravo-line, as they feature terrible battery-life, have a quite flimsy design, are hot and loud. Why again? It's Renoir inside, of course.

Always so many tiny little coincidences, wherever you're looking, right? Somehow it always just looks like OEMs are still Intel's play-dolls ever since, no matter what AMD comes up with …

… and their belonging Strings
As always, we've seen so many top-of-the-line-devices with AMD throughout the years, but that's only when AMD announces their design-wins again. It just seems that OEMs are at least allowed by Intel to show some solid AMD-stuff at such points (for making a good impression in public, and to keep that picture of valid competition as perfect as possible). However, it doesn't matter anyway what kind of products get announced, since the AMD-builds and especially their quality hitting the market afterwards, seems to be always a fundamental another story, right?

Also wrote months ago:

The best CPU/APU is worth exactly nothing when it isn't built into laptops anyway.

Since every portable featuring anything AMD is crippled on purpose by OEMs at Intel's behest – whilst the former get likely compensated for doing so by the latter. You just can't get a decent laptop/notebook with any AMD-parts, roughly since the 2000's.

It's futile to dispute this. We all know it, and they didn't even make any greater secret out of it.

Every laptop/notebook having anything AMD has either crippled Ram-configurations, comes with subpar displays, keyboards, drives, batteries, storage-configurations, coolings, technologies and/or feature-sets and is generally never allowed to be part of the top-of-the-line of the given product-stack – that being said, if it even is allowed to be sold after all and not just was intended to serve as some alibi-product sitting on a web-site from the get-go you constantly can't order ever since due to it being unfortunately 'just right now' out of stock. What a bummer!

There was even that quite decent and massive 8-core (DTR-alike) AMD-laptop in 2017 featuring the 1700 when Ryzen hit the market, the ASUS R.O.G Strix. As soon as it went public and people became aware of it and started ordering it, it was instantly 'out of stock' and no-one was allowed to buy one, of course.

The laptop-market Intel fully has in hands from top to bottom ever since – and OEMs aren't really allowed to build anything AMD. If they insist, they at least have to build subpar ones, which you see confirmed since ages as only the lower models are ever equipped with AMD-parts. It's dirty …

The OEMs even doesn't make any greater secret of being bribed by Intel and joyfully taking their money, like MSI's CEO;

»We have a big portion of the AMD motherboard, which makes Intel kind of upset. But I say 'hey guys, once you solve the supply issue, let's figure out how we can get back your share.'«

Tells quite the story, doesn't it?

You need at least two sides for any successful bribery, right?
Someone who tries to bribe, and another one to comply to it while taking the money.

tl;dr: It's not only Intel who plays dirty, but the OEMs taking Intel-money™ in the first place are at least equally as cancerous. In addition; History doesn't change, it just repeats itself. … and it ever has.

I'm aware that I'm likely getting downvoted here for bring up a painful subject and I'm also aware that's maybe because people just don't like hearing ugly news, even if it may be the truth. Some people may even go so far calling me a conspiracy-theorist, thing just is; It seems the only conspiracy on this subject comes from completely another corner – and crucial intel about it, are kept behind closed doors since ages.

I'm fine with it, as I'm doing in anyway – since it's nevertheless important that such things getting pointed out and the whole picture needs to be painted for those being unaware of that. My point is, it doesn't get any better if we lie to ourselves and keep pretending that everything would be fine when it in fact isn't. It's us and our responsibility as customers to encourage a healthy competition and stop supporting uncompetitive practices while demanding fair, sane-priced products. The past have shown we all ain't going to get this, as long as Intel is as powerful as they still are …

tl;dr: Intel's far-reaching yet unseen hand flex its muscles, as the great puppet master pulls his strings again.

As I don’t see the point of gaming on a laptop I’m most excited about the upcoming thinkpad x13 and t14.

For comparison, my undervolted 8750H (6c/12t) uses around 58W for a full 3.9Ghz all-core boost during a Cinebench 15 run. It gets 1250 points, which is basically the max this chip can do without overclocking. The 4800H here gets 1800 for roughly the same power use, very impressive indeed.

Seems like AMD got a winner here.

Does your undervolt still work? Did any bios update disable it? Also this 4800H should be compared to the 9880H anyways

this laptop is mainly interesting because its got the new amd chip

the laptop it self is a lower price series from asus. don't expect high end screen and so on

I've only had one and I'm extremely pleased with it as and yes it's there top model , ROG G703GX-XB96K

Not a fan of Asus laptops. Their budgets ones are bad. Very flimsy build and awful screens.

The Zephyrus G14 that they're sending around for 4900HS reviews is getting a strong reception.

Seems like most TUF products have subpar cooling. Only one I know that's recommended is the X570 as a budget motherboard.

From what I hear, Asus Tuf laptops are well known to have bad thermals.

Laptops always run hot.

I have an Alienware 17 r5 and it hits around 100 degrees for no apparent reason just playing a youtube video in Chrome. It's a giant extremely well build laptop but it's known for having a poorly applied heatsink/paste and whatnot (sometimes a more than 20 degree difference between core temps)

Thats when itll start throttling, it's a laptop, and a cheaper one @that. Those are normal numbers but what he's saying is when it spikes is weird because it's when he's least expecting it to..

You got downvoted but imo you're right.

As soon as I read "Asus TUF" I knew it most likely won't be good.

I nearly bought a RX 5700xt TUF Gaming. Apparently Asus made a worse aftermarket model than the blower design from AMD with uncooled memory which reaches well over 100° celsius while in use.

And instead of not selling this clearly broken product it just gets reduced in price.

So yeah, I'm done with Asus.

The screen thing is really overblown, totally fits my needs