The Taiwanese giant has been diversifying its gaming portfolio for a long time now, providing affordable TUF gaming laptops to a premium ROG lineup. With an on-time product launch and new hardware upgrades indeed ASUS has changed the Indian gaming laptop market in a short while.
Its recently launched ASUS TUF Dash F15 with new 12th Gen Intel processors are doing good in the market and finally, we also got to test out the new generation of this popular lightweight gaming machine with the latest hardware specs.
This TUF Dash F15 when originally launched with 11th Gen processors looked underpowered but now with more cores while still being efficient is a good thing for gamers who don’t want to burden themselves with a heavy laptop. For FHD gamers, this laptop does the job easily because it delivers good FHD gaming performance and is enough to power moderate to high-end needs.
ASUS has provided both the Core i5 variant with RTX 3050 and the Core i7 variant with RTX 3060 for the consumers as they can choose their variant as per their needs. Here we got the Core i5 variant for review with RTX 3050 graphics which is the most demanding in the Indian market as it’s more affordable.
ASUS TUF Dash F15 Specifications
- Processor: 12th Gen Intel Core i5-12450H, 2 GHz Base Speed, 12M Cache, up to 4.4 GHz, 8 cores: 4 P-cores and 4 E-cores
- Memory: 8GB DDR5-4800,SO-DIMM x 2 slot, Max Capacity 64GB | Storage: 512GB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 4.0 SSD with additional 1x empty M.2 PCIe Slot
- Graphics: Dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPU GDDR6 4GB VRAM with 1550MHz* at 75W (1500MHz Boost Clock+50MHz OC, 60W+15W Dynamic Boost)
- Keyboard & Webcam: Backlit Chiclet Keyboard Single Light Touchpad, 720P HD camera
- Audio: Dolby Atmos, AI noise-canceling technology, Hi-Res certification, Built-in array microphone, 2-speaker system
- Coonectivity & I/O: Wi-Fi 6(802.11ax) (Dual band) 2*2 + Bluetooth 5.2, 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C support DisplayPort™ / power delivery / G-SYNC, 1x RJ45 LAN port, 1x Thunderbolt™ 4 support DisplayPort™
- Battery: 76WHrs, 4S1P, 4-cell Li-ion, 180W AC Adapter
- Weight & Dimensions: 35.4 x 25.1 x 1.99 ~ 2.07 cm (13.94″ x 9.88″ x 0.78″ ~ 0.81″), 2.00 Kg (4.41 lbs)
Here we got an 8GB RAM review unit but we recommend the retail variant with 16GB RAM for better performance. Note: For less than Rs.1 lakh this TUF Dash F15 (2022) laptop is giving 16GB of latest DDR5 RAM for best performance paired with a 12th Gen Alder Lake processor which does benefit from having a faster RAM and gives good gaming/productivity performance.
Let’s find out how this laptop performed in day-to-day usage as well as gaming:
Design & Build Quality
The design philosophy remains pretty much the same compared to last year and it still looks really cool for a budget gaming laptop. A hinge that can be opened with one hand, and a solid plastic build that doesn’t look cheap, also makes the gaming laptop light is the kind of build you expect from a laptop at this price range.
Overall, it looks great, especially the white lid along with the TUF logo looks stylish, and then the black accent when you open the laptop complements pretty well. The new 2022 ASUS TUF Dash F15 looks both stylish and is pretty solid for daily usage, so no complaints in this regard.
Display
Over the years, displays on budget laptops have been pretty bad and on the older TUF models, ASUS too didn’t provide good panels, however, since the company began its mission to provide the best displays it has never stopped since then. This TUF Dash F15 does come with a 15.6-inch FHD display with a 144Hz refresh rate which is adequate for most average gamers or people looking for a laptop in this range.
As I already told there are two variants of the laptop and this budget variant with a Core i5 chip will come with an inferior 62.5% SRGB panel featuring up to 250 nits of peak brightness, however, the Core i7/RTX 3060 variant comes with 100% sRGB panel with 300 nits brightness of peak brightness.
Also, there’s an optional WQHD 165Hz panel as well covering 100% DCIP-3 color gamut and having 300 nits of peak brightness. So, essentially according to your need select the laptop variant which suits your purpose, for average gamers, this variant with low color accuracy should do the job but those who need more from the display should upgrade.
To test the accuracy and other features claimed by this Taiwanese giant new ASUS TUF Dash F15, we ran tests on our Datacolor SyperX Pro, and here are the results:
As you see in the display tests, this budget variant of the ASUS TUF Dash F15 performs pretty decently and comes with a 67% sRGB color gamut. Obviously, it’s not the most color accurate, does the job somehow, and with up to 288 nits of peak brightness, the TUF Dash F15 is a good budget gaming laptop.
However, those who need a more color-accurate display on a gaming laptop should opt for the higher variant or go for the ROG Zephyrus G14.
Performance
Talking about performance as you know, this new 2022 variant TUF Dash F15 now comes equipped with up to the latest 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12650H processor for best performance. However, here we have the Intel Core i5-12450H processor with 8 cores where four of which are P-cores and four of them are E-cores, however, the Core i7 variant has 6 P-cores for better performance.
So, for those who have basic needs and average gaming requirements that too at 1080p, this variant should be more than enough, and considering the fact it is based on the latest platform, coming with upgradable DDR5 RAM, this should last a lot of years for most people.
Even those who want to use this gaming laptop for professional usages like video editing or Photoshop can do so but do get the Core i7 variant for that as I feel that is more value for the money spent. Still, if you are low on cash, this variant under Rs.1 lakh is a great buy and can perform pretty well, let’s see how this laptop performs in various synthetic benchmarks:
In all the synthetic benchmarks you will see the performance of this Core i5-12450H processor with 8GB RAM is top-notch in single-core, resulting in better gaming numbers. On the multi-core front, it gives older Core i7 or Ryzen 7 level performance even being a budget-end processor. For budget to mid-range gaming laptops, this kind of performance is more than enough for most gamers out there.
As you get a PCIe Gen 3 SSD with the lower variant, the speeds are capped under 3000MB/s for read and the writes are exactly half of it. However, an average consumer looking for a gaming laptop at this price segment won’t have any issues as the boot speeds are quick and game load speeds are also decent.
Overall, in terms of performance, this ASUS TUF Dash F15 even with 8GB RAM and Core i5 processor I didn’t find any issues doing my everyday work, however, 16GB RAM is obviously recommended for anyone who will buy it.
Gaming
In terms of gaming, this new TUF Dash F15 gives a great performance in FHD, and in those games where DLSS is supported, the frame rates are really good without affecting performance much. Even in Battle Royale games also you get hundreds of frames per second and in triple-A games, you comfortably get 60+ FPS in medium to high settings.
Here are some of the gaming benchmarks in some of the latest gaming titles:
In gaming as you see from high-paced CS: GO to heavy Far Cry 6, in every game at FHD you won’t have many hiccups at all, now, games like Cyberpunk 2077 might give problems. However, with RTX 30-series GPUs, this TUF Dash F15 brings DLSS and Ray tracing onboard that gives superior performance without any compromise on quality.
Keyboard & Trackpad
Talking about the full-size keyboard, I would say this is much better than a lot of other laptop manufacturers, take for example the recently reviewed Dell G15 5511 gaming laptop which also has 15.6-inch chassis but the layout of the keyboard is very tight. So, as the keys are very small and the gap between them is negligible it’s very hard to type on those laptops.
However, this is not the case with this ASUS TUF Dash F15 as you have a keyboard layout that totally takes advantage of the space and makes sure the key size is big enough even for those who have bigger fingers to type on. Also, the spacing between the keys is done well so that you don’t accidentally press on the wrong key, thanks to ASUS’s new quiet keyboard design.
This makes input noise under 30dB and I did notice less noise while typing, distracting me less this time, also having a travel distance of 1.7mm is one of the best in this price range. Even an ardent typer like me won’t have any issues typing all day and the clean white backlighting just gets the job done on this new TUF Dash F15.
The trackpad is quite big, thanks to a 27% increase in size, you have more headroom to navigate easily and for me who uses a dedicated mouse I was also comfortable using it for casual tasks, however, for gaming, you will indeed need your external mouse.
I/O & Connectivity
ASUS has never failed users in this aspect and with this TUF Dash F15 (2022) also you won’t complain much as you have maximum ports on the left-hand side: 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, 1x HDMI 2.0b port, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C support DisplayPort, RJ45 LAN port and lastly the Thunderbolt™ 4 port as well.
You get two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports one on the left and another on the right-hand side, which is enough as you have the high-speed Thunderbolt 4 port already for data transfers. This laptop also supports Type-C charging (up to 100W PD) and lets you top off your laptop from portable power packs, so you can stop scrambling for a socket when the battery runs low.
In terms of WiFi and Bluetooth, the TUF Dash F15 never gave me trouble in this regard because the network speeds were up to the mark as you see:
Never did I face any network issues while working or playing nor any lag even if the distance between my router and the laptop was quite far.
Also, in terms of Bluetooth as well I never faced any issues connecting to multiple devices at once and never there was a lag in connectivity or interruption of any sort, overall, even the base variant of the ASUS TUF Dash F15 (2022) delivers good connectivity.
Thermals & Upgradability
For a gaming laptop, thermals play a very important role to maximize performance while still keeping the laptop cool for longer duration and intense gaming sessions as well. For this reason, even in a thinner chassis, ASUS has managed to cram in five copper heat pipes along with the new 84-blade Arc Flow fans.
This helps to draw heat away from the CPU, GPU, VRM, and VRAM and dissipate it quickly through four heatsinks and fan outlets. Indeed the cooling is quite good to tame these powerful 12th Gen Intel CPUs as the fans are quiet most of the time but do dissipate heat, unlike the AMD Ryzen variants which are a lot more efficient.
Still, ASUS has done a great job in thermals but temps do reach when gaming and ideally during normal usage. In terms of upgradability, the company has also given the room to upgrade this TUF Dash F15 down the line, providing both extra SO-DIMM RAM and SSD slots for an upgrade.
Unscrewing the innovative pop-open screw pushes the bottom of the chassis away from the body is really easy, this simplifies system memory and storage upgrades. You can extend up to 64GB DDR5 RAM across the two slots and also use the extra SSD slot for an easy upgrade down the line.
Audio & Webcam
Lastly, the audio of a gaming laptop is also key I feel because a lot of gamers don’t use headphones and I am one of them, however, even for my endless FIFA sessions, the dual speakers on this TUF Dash F15 with Dolby Atmos support gives great sound output. Not the loudest I’ve heard but certainly is accurate enough and gets the job done.
ASUS has also used two-way AI Noise Cancelation to keep incoming and outgoing communications clear of background noise, very helpful during calls or gaming sessions. The 720p webcam is ok not the best but ASUS should certainly upgrade it to FHD as it is doing with the expensive models.
Battery Life
Coming to the battery life, which could be an important aspect for a lot of people, this Alder Lake chip with 4 efficient cores does help to make the laptop only perform when needed. This, in turn, saves a lot of resources and also extends battery life, however, as you see in the screenshot I was getting an average battery life of around 4-5 hours when the discrete GPU was turned off.
Obviously, you cannot expect huge battery life from a gaming laptop, however, this ASUS TUF Dash F15 gives decent battery life, certainly not the best, so do note that if you plan to use it you have to carry a charger with you anyways.
Verdict
Now, should you buy this new ASUS TUF Dash F15, and why? Well, as you might have seen, this is a slim-looking gaming laptop, not as premium as ROG Zephyrus G14, but certainly looks good with those white and black theme designs. With the highest durability rating, the latest Intel processors, and NVIDIA GPUs providing a healthy battery life, this is a good buy for most gamers out there.
If your budget is at Rs.1 lakh, then the new TUF Dash F15 makes sense as it’s easier to carry, gives you performance anywhere you want, and has good gaming numbers across all new gaming titles. While it’s not the most efficient gaming laptop out there but does the job for most tasks and with solid upgradability along with new platform support, this is a good overall package.
Ultimately, this is your decision whether you can bear with some of the cons and want a powerful new gaming laptop that is both upgradable & easy to use. Also, carefully choose the variant of this TUF Dash F15, here, the 8GB one costs ₹88,499 on Amazon India, however, we will obviously recommend you the 16GB variant. Now, if you require more performance, a better display, and faster storage, you can opt for the Core i7 option.
Buy this Core i5 TUF Dash F15 (2022) 16GB variant from Amazon India: https://amzn.to/3qpaqMb
Or, buy this Core i7 TUF Dash F15 (2022) with RTX 3060 from Amazon India: https://amzn.to/3BodhdF
Or, buy this Core i7 TUF Dash F15 (2022) with RTX 3070 and QHD display from Amazon India: https://amzn.to/3RVQr3D
