ASUS ROG Flow X13: 13.4" 1920x1200 Touch, Ryzen 9 6900HS, RTX 3050 Ti, 16GB RAM Expired

despite having a mux switch, neither the usbc nor the hdmi ports are connected directly to the 3050ti and there's is no way to make that the case through the mux switch, which is a huge downside because I do use this laptop for displaying gpu intensive workloads from the hdmi port and having it connected to the dGPU is almost a must, for at least one of the ports.

With all that in mind, if you don't care about any of it, for 899 is an absolute steal. If I didn't need laptops to use with my workflow that have outputs connected to the dGPU, I would've totally bought another one of this, without any hesitation. For folks who need an extremely portable, elegant and powerful machine for its size plus doing some art on the tablet mode, it's an awesome one of a kind laptop, nothing at this price point comes even close to this.

W11 made it impossible (at least for the average user) to complete installation without an internet connection.

You are right, I did encounter this problem when reinstalling W11, it didn't have the drivers for Wifi so I had no way to complete the install... Except I remembered I had and old USB to Ethernet dongle and I plugged it in at the step where it prompts you to connect to the internet, that did the trick, W11 recognized the connection immediately.

Just an option in case you want to reinstall W11, you can buy a cheap dongle and wire the machine to your router during installation.

I was about to grab this but your comment stopped me. Are you saying I can't use the dGPU on an external display? That kills it for me.

I was about to grab this but your comment stopped me. Are you saying I can't use the dGPU on an external display? That kills it for me.

I got this laptop when it first came out about a year ago. It's light and still powerful enough to game occasionally. Only gripe I have that I wish I had known before purchasing is the fact that Asus limit you to oem charger for full performance such as when you game. You won't get full 100w of charging with 3rd party charging block and limit you to 65w even if you have capable charger. It is fine for office work but not for gaming.

Do you guys see a lot of difference in performance comparing this to the Acer Swift X ?

Yes that's what I am saying, all the video outputs are connected to the iGPU and only the internal display can be connected to the dGPU. It was kind of a bummer when I found this out and it's even more surprising knowing that the x16 has 1 usbc and the hdmi port connected to the dGPU(I also own that laptop).

I've been wanting to get x13 for a long time, but watched a few reviews just now, looks like the battery life is very mediocre, around 3hrs for regular use. If you go complete eco mode with 25% screen brightness you can probably get to the 5hr mark, which is underwhelming to consider this a portable machine

The specs for the 3050 Ti for this laptop says 40W. This is half of the normal TDP of the laptop 3050Ti. Does this mean this 40W version is significantly weaker than the typical laptop 3050Ti?

Some updates on my usage, updates to people concerned about Variable Refresh Rate (Freesync) and dGPU passthrough.


About ghosting:

Ok for those concerned about ghosting... I haven't played much games but CSGO was fine, minimal ghosting. There's a pillar in Dust2 Upper tunnels that produces the most ghosting for me, since ghosting pretty much occurs when pixels try to transition from near-black colors to a brighter color, and sure enough the X13 has ghosting on this display, but it wasn't much different from my VA 27" 165hz that I game with in my desktop, it didn't get in the way of my gameplay.

When I'm playing Dust 2 on CT side, I like to run past the middle doors and visually scan if there's a sniper on T side, you get just a couple frames to figure out if there's someone there, and that strategy worked just fine on this screen, it actually saved me a couple times from running middle 'cause I could see molotovs mid air flying towards mid doors and saved my butt from rushing middle when I was going to. I can tell you that this strategy doesn't work at all in low refresh rate screens or on screens that have too much ghosting, it gives your brain garbage or too little information to figure out what's going on.

I shall clarify this, if your game draws solid near-black lines or shapes, you will definitely suffer from ghosting, and it will be distracting and unacceptable, that is true for most VA panels and it is not exclusive to the X13.


VRR / Freesync/ External display:


I noticed a lot of screen tearing in CSGO, and had this weird jelly effect on screen with tons of ghosting even on bright scenes. Something was wrong, broken. I then tried an external display and had similar results with screen tearing, but no jellying or bad ghosting.

So after some reading, and for context I wiped the OS that Asus pre-loaded with borderline malware, I realized I never installed the AMD Radeon software, I had just installed the drivers.

Turns out, Freesync is controlled entirely by the Radeon software because the internal display and HDMI port are connected to the iGPU, so even though your screen refresh rate is controlled by Windows, the variable refresh rate feature has to be enabled on, the same way you would enable it in the Nvidia control panel if plugging a Gsync display directly to your desktop Nvidia card... in this laptop you have to enable Freesync in the AMD Radeon software for every display connected, including internal and external.

So after installing AMD software with the automated install (it detects all missing AMD drivers and it also updated/installed some missing chipset drivers), I went to the Radeon software and Freesync automatically enabled for the internal display. The screen tearing, jellying and weird ghosting on bright colors disappeared, only the natural ghosting on near-black colors was left behind, normal on these type of panels.

Tried the external display, and that one for some reason didn't automatically enable in the AMD Radeon software, but I did it by hand and it worked just fine, I was able to play with no screen tearing or artifacts.


About GPU passthrough:

After AMD Radeon software is installed and with VRR enabled, my games played in high FPS, so I was wondering if the dGPU was being utilized. I opened task manager, and sure enough, games were using the dGPU, while Freesync was being handled, functional and enabled in the iGPU.

Additionally, Windows 11 has a option in the settings that lets you control what GPU will be used at OS level, and sure enough I found the icon of my games already in the list and set to use the dGPU (you can change it if you wanted to).

*My* conclusion:

dGPU passthrough works fine on the iGPU, with iGPU handling VRR if enabled, for both internal and external monitors.

Some updates on my usage, updates to people concerned about Variable Refresh Rate (Freesync) and dGPU passthrough.


About ghosting:

Ok for those concerned about ghosting... I haven't played much games but CSGO was fine, minimal ghosting. There's a pillar in Dust2 Upper tunnels that produces the most ghosting for me, since ghosting pretty much occurs when pixels try to transition from near-black colors to a brighter color, and sure enough the X13 has ghosting on this display, but it wasn't much different from my VA 27" 165hz that I game with in my desktop, it didn't get in the way of my gameplay.

When I'm playing Dust 2 on CT side, I like to run past the middle doors and visually scan if there's a sniper on T side, you get just a couple frames to figure out if there's someone there, and that strategy worked just fine on this screen, it actually saved me a couple times from running middle 'cause I could see molotovs mid air flying towards mid doors and saved my butt from rushing middle when I was going to. I can tell you that this strategy doesn't work at all in low refresh rate screens or on screens that have too much ghosting, it gives your brain garbage or too little information to figure out what's going on.

I shall clarify this, if your game draws solid near-black lines or shapes, you will definitely suffer from ghosting, and it will be distracting and unacceptable, that is true for most VA panels and it is not exclusive to the X13.


VRR / Freesync/ External display:


I noticed a lot of screen tearing in CSGO, and had this weird jelly effect on screen with tons of ghosting even on bright scenes. Something was wrong, broken. I then tried an external display and had similar results with screen tearing, but no jellying or bad ghosting.

So after some reading, and for context I wiped the OS that Asus pre-loaded with borderline malware, I realized I never installed the AMD Radeon software, I had just installed the drivers.

Turns out, Freesync is controlled entirely by the Radeon software because the internal display and HDMI port are connected to the iGPU, so even though your screen refresh rate is controlled by Windows, the variable refresh rate feature has to be enabled on, the same way you would enable it in the Nvidia control panel if plugging a Gsync display directly to your desktop Nvidia card... in this laptop you have to enable Freesync in the AMD Radeon software for every display connected, including internal and external.

So after installing AMD software with the automated install (it detects all missing AMD drivers and it also updated/installed some missing chipset drivers), I went to the Radeon software and Freesync automatically enabled for the internal display. The screen tearing, jellying and weird ghosting on bright colors disappeared, only the natural ghosting on near-black colors was left behind, normal on these type of panels.

Tried the external display, and that one for some reason didn't automatically enable in the AMD Radeon software, but I did it by hand and it worked just fine, I was able to play with no screen tearing or artifacts.


About GPU passthrough:

After AMD Radeon software is installed and with VRR enabled, my games played in high FPS, so I was wondering if the dGPU was being utilized. I opened task manager, and sure enough, games were using the dGPU, while Freesync was being handled, functional and enabled in the iGPU.

Additionally, Windows 11 has a option in the settings that lets you control what GPU will be used at OS level, and sure enough I found the icon of my games already in the list and set to use the dGPU (you can change it if you wanted to).

*My* conclusion:

dGPU passthrough works fine on the iGPU, with iGPU handling VRR if enabled, for both internal and external monitors.