Speaking of game books, we have to mention the ASUS Sky Selection series, which integrates the two-dimensional aesthetic well into the game design, making the product more distinctive, and has a very good hardware configuration and cost performance. Some time ago, ASUS launched a new Choice 3 series game book, while continuing the previous product design style, updated the core configuration, and introduced a new support for dual display and three-mode switching, so how does it perform? Let's take a look at it with me.
Exterior design: Continuation of the two-dimensional mecha style
The new ASUS Sky Choice 3 game book has two colors, we got the eclipse gray version, relatively low-key and introverted, and the other magic blue is more youthful.
It still continues the previous two-dimensional mecha style design, the A side is made of metal, the surface is frosted processor, the touch is very delicate, and the four corners have a very iconic "rivet", maintaining a very high degree of recognition.
There is a small bump at the top, which can facilitate the user to open the A cover and achieve one-handed opening and closing; The notched part below can directly see the indicator light to determine the health of the computer.
The C side is also frosted and has a very delicate touch. The four LED indicators are located in the middle of the top and are very conspicuous.
The Choice 3 game book is equipped with a full-size main keyboard and comes with its own numeric keypad, which will be more convenient for daily use.
WasD's four buttons also use transparent keycaps, which can be quickly found for small partners playing FPS games.
Moreover, ASUS also set four shortcut keys at the top to control the volume +-, the microphone mute control and open the Armoury Crate Intelligent Control Center.
Its key range reaches 1.7mm, the rebound is very powerful, whether it is playing games or office typing feels very good. The keyboard supports RGB lighting effects, and a variety of preset effects in the Altran Intelligent Control Center can be selected according to your preferences.
The trackpad is about 26% larger than the previous generation, and the touch is very silky, making it possible to control the computer more precisely and comfortably even without a mouse.
The D-side is equipped with a large area of air intake holes to improve the heat dissipation efficiency. Non-slip foot pads are provided in all four corners, which are very stable when placed on the table, effectively avoiding accidental slippage.
Screen: Narrow bezel "triple-high" screen
The Choice 3 game uses a three-sided narrow border design, especially the left and right borders are very narrow, the screen ratio reaches 80%, has a good field of view, and this screen has a high resolution, high refresh rate, high color gamut "three high" attributes.
Its screen resolution has reached 2.5K, which is clearer and more delicate than the 1080P display.
And it is also very good in terms of color, the measured screen has 100% sRGB and 98% DCI-P3 professional color gamut coverage, compared with the general sRGB color gamut screen, can show more colors, whether it is watching movies, playing games or professional design is more advantageous.
In terms of color accuracy, the maximum ΔE is 3.4, and the average ΔE = 1, which is excellent and can restore the color well.
This screen also has a high refresh rate of 165Hz, which makes the picture smoother and smoother when playing FPS games. It also supports Adaptive Sync technology, which effectively solves the problem of stuttering, tearing and smearing of the picture.
Extensibility: Rich internal and external interfaces
In this piece of scalability, the Sky Choice 3 game book also has a good performance. In terms of external interfaces, it has an RJ45 network port on the left, HDMI2.0b interface (unique display output, supporting 4K 60Hz video output), two Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen1, one of which supports DP output), a USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A and a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A on the right.
Daily external keyboard, mouse, monitor and other peripherals, or connect to A USB stick, hard disk transfer data are OK.
Internal this piece, I got the version standard with non-on-board dual 8GB DDR5 4800MHz memory module, the maximum support extended to 64GB, you can upgrade and replace.
It comes with a PCIe4.0 SSD, reserved an M.2 interface that can be upgraded on its own, and two hard drives support RAID 0.
Heat dissipation configuration: five copper pipes + four air outlets
Heat dissipation configuration this piece, The Choice 3 game uses a glacier cooling system, equipped with dual fans + five heat pipes + four air outlets.
The fan section features a newly upgraded Arc Flow dust-free fan with 84 blades and a thin 0.2mm, which increases the intake volume while also reducing noise.
Hardware configuration: Ryzen™ 7 6800H + Full Blood RTX 3060 has strong performance
The Ryzen 3 we got is the Ryzen version, which is powered by the Ryzen™ 7 6800H processor that AMD just released in January this year, and the graphics card is the "full blood" RTX 3060.
The Ryzen™ 7 6800H adopts the latest Zen3+ architecture, 6nm process, 8 cores and 16 threads, the maximum acceleration frequency can reach 4.7GHz, and the L3 cache is 16MB.
The ArmouryCrate Intelligent Control Center built into the Choice 3 game book provides a variety of modes to cope with different use scenarios, and the silent mode will reduce noise as much as possible by limiting the power consumption of the CPU and graphics card; Performance mode provides better performance while trying to control noise; The Enhanced mode uses the highest fan speed and the highest frequency to provide the strongest performance, but it will be louder. And the new Sky Choice 3 supports dual display three-mode switching, supports single output, integrated display mode, mixed output three output modes, in order to play its strongest performance, I opened the unique display mode.
The following performance tests and game tests I will do in enhanced mode, the results are as follows:
Judging from the test results, the performance of the Ryzen™ 7 6800H has been slightly improved compared with the previous generation of Ryzen™ 7 5800H, and the gap with the previous generation of flagship Ryzen™ 9 5900HX is not much.
In addition, to test its performance release stability, I conducted ten consecutive CineBench R20 tests on it, and the results are as follows:
It can be seen that from the first time to the tenth time, the test results were basically maintained at the same level, and the performance was very powerful.
In the graphics card part, the one I got is equipped with the "full blood version" RTX 3060, which can increase the power consumption from 115W to 140W through the Dynamic Boost function, which is 10W more than last year.
Here's also a test to see how it performs:
Judging from the test results, in the Time Spy projects of Fire Strike and DX12 environments that test the game performance of the DX11 environment, the 140W RTX 3060 has a slight improvement in performance compared with the 130W RTX 3060, and the performance gap with the 140W RTX 3070 is further narrowed.
Grill test: 160W performance release
Judging from the test results, the hardware performance of the Choice 3 game book is very good, of course, when running large games or processing videos, continuous performance release is required, so here we conduct a roaster test to see how it performs for a long time under high load.
In enhanced mode, the AIDA64 single-baked FPU tests for 30+ minutes, the full core is 4.1GHz, the power consumption is basically stable at 80W, and the CPU temperature is about 90 °C.
AIDA64 FPU + Furmark double baking test 30 minutes +, CPU power consumption is stable at about 45W, graphics card power consumption at about 115W, total power consumption at about 160W, performance release is very powerful, CPU is about 87 °C, graphics card is about 83 °C, the processor temperature is high, but still below the safety value, the computer can still maintain stable operation.
In addition, I also tested its wind noise when baking the machine, and at about 20-30 cm from the front of the computer, the noise was 55 decibels, which was not a good performance, but it was acceptable.
Game Test: The AAA blockbuster is not a big problem
Finally, the game test link, this time I chose "Assassin's Creed: Odyssey", "Borderlands 3", "Tomb Raider: Shadow", "All Wars: Three Kingdoms", "Red Dead Redemption 2", "Control", "Cyberpunk 2077" and other games, 2K and 1080P resolution will be tested, if there is a light chase setting I will also add it, some games come with performance tests, directly use the built-in software test, the test results are as follows:
The above games have built-in performance testing software, from the results, The Choice 3 game book can run these games smoothly at the highest or sub-high quality at 2K/1080P resolution, and some games can further improve the frame rate after opening DLSS.
The other two used FRAPS to record frame rates, the first being Control.
The average frame rate is 50 at the highest quality of 2K resolution, and the average frame rate directly soars to 87 after DLSS is turned on, making the picture smoother. And even if the light chase is set to a high level, with the blessing of DLSS, the average frame rate can still reach 55, which is relatively smooth to play.
Finally, in Cyberpunk 2077, I still chose a scene of the rich buildings in Night City, and then carried out a series of operations such as running, vehicle driving, close-range combat, and long-range shooting.
In 2K resolution, preset super quality, turn on DLSS automatically, the average frame rate can reach 68, running very smoothly.
After I lowered the resolution to 1080P, the average frame rate was 49 at the preset light chase medium (DLSS auto), and after changing the DLSS to performance, the average frame rate could come to 61, which was smoother.
In general, the combination of Ryzen™ 7 6800H+RTX 3060 runs smoothly at 1080P/2K resolution, medium and high quality, and most of the current AAA masterpieces are still not a big problem, and with the blessing of DLSS technology, it can also effectively improve the frame rate.
Little Easter Egg: The desktop cute pet Tianxuan Ji knocks cute
The Chosen 3 game system has a built-in Sky Choice Ji table pet, and she is very cute on the desktop with a Q version of the image.
There is also a built-in alarm function, which can be adjusted in size, and you can also use the keyboard to control her to move up and down, left and right, and you can interact with her with the mouse.
You can right-click on it to open the walk mode, she will walk around on your desktop, if tired she will sit down and rest by herself; In simple mode, she becomes a "ball".
If you want to see her all the time, you can set it on top so that whether you watch a movie or play a game, she'll be there.
This table pet is also quite interesting, it can be said that the Choice series will be the second dimension fans to hold the dead.
Write at the end
Overall, the performance of this generation of Sky Choice 3 game book is very satisfactory to me, in addition to the unique design, high resolution + high refresh rate + high color gamut screen, in the daily work or play games have brought a very good experience, and the combination of Ryzen™ 7 6800H and 140W version of the RTX 3060 can basically meet the needs of most gamers, is a very worth choosing product.