ASUS ROG G11CB review: The pre-built for you

Pre-built PCs has been historically expensive and have been equipped with sub-par components inside. Our friends from ASUS has been trying to remove that stigma by releasing well-built and specified pre-built PCs. We’ve already seen what they can do in a small form factor PC in the ASUS ROG G20CB. Today we’re going to take a look at a more conventional pre-built PC, the G11CB.

These are the specifications of the ROG G11CB from the ASUS website:

Operating System
Processor	The 6th generation Intel® Core™ i5/i7 Processor
Chipset	Intel® H170
Graphics	NVIDIA® GeForce GTX980 4GBGDDR5
NVIDIA® GeForce GTX970 4GBGDDR5
NVIDIA® GeForce GTX960 2GBGDDR5
NVIDIA® GeForce GTX950 2GBGDDR5
AMD® Radeon R9 380 2GBGDDR5
NVIDIA® GeForce GTX1080 8GB GDDR5X
NVIDIA® GeForce GTX1070 8GB GDDR5
Memory	8GB up to 32GB DDR4 at 2133MHz
Expansion Slots	1 x PCI-e x 1
1 x PCI-e x 16
1 x mini PCI-e
SATA	4 x SATA 6Gb/s
Storage	Up to 3TB SATA Hard Drive
Up to 512GB SSD
256GB M.2 PCIe x 4 SSD
Optical Drive	Tray-in Supermulti DVD RW
Blu-Ray Disc Combo
Blu-ray Writer
Audio	SonicMaster
Front I/O	1 x 6 -in-1 Card Reader
1 x Headphone
1 x Microphone
2 x USB 2.0
2 x USB 3.0
Rear I/O	2 x USB 3.1
2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1
2 x USB 2.0
1 x HDMI-Out
1 x VGA(D-Sub)-Out
1 x RJ45 LAN
1 x 7.1 Channel Audio
Card Reader	6 -in-1: SD/ SDHC/ MS/ MS Pro/ xD/ MMC/MMC Plus
Power Supply	300 W
500 W
Dimensions	6.92 x 17.32 x 17.40 inch (WxDxH)
9.84 x 20.07 x 21.65 inch (WxDxH) ~ inch with Carton
Weight	9.78kg (21.56lb)
Color	Iron Gray
Accessories	Keyboard
Mouse
Power Cord
Warranty Card
Quick Manual
Software	Anti-Virus Trial
Aegis II
ASUS Command
Ai Charger ll

Up close with the ASUS G11CB

We won’t focus much on unboxing the ASUS G11CB. You do get several things in the package though. Namely: a keyboard, a mouse, documentation, CD, and an AC power adapter. Fairly generic stuff from ASUS. The keyboard and mouse aren’t great but they should be enough for the general user.

The ASUS G11CB’s components are encased in a fairly generic looking case. If you quickly glance at it, you may mistake it from an office-grade desktop PC. The front preserves the Mayan-inspired design of other pre-built PCs from ASUS.

As you can deduce right now, the red accents at the front of the G11CB are indeed RGB lights, which can be controlled through the AEGIS app.

The top half holds several ports. The exposed ones are two USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and the SD Card reader.

The fold at the top of the ASUS logo houses the DVD drive of the G11CB if you ever needed one. The 3.5mm jacks, meanwhile, are located at the top of the chassis.

At the rear are the usual collection of ports courtesy of the H170 motherboard: two USB 2.0 ports, one HDMI, one VGA, two USB 3.1 Gen2 ports (teal), two USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, one Ethernet port, and six 3.5mm jacks for 7.1 channel audio.

Display connections for the G11CB are given by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 inside, which nets you three DisplayPort 1.4 ports, a single HDMI 2.0b, and a Dual-Link DVI.

Opening the G11CB is standard affair. The side panel can be removed by loosening two Phillips screws on the back of the side panel. The cable management is decent despite the generic layout of the case.

The G11CB’s storage is handled by two drives: a 128GB SATA SSD and a 1TB HDD. You can also deck out the G11CB with up to 512GB SATA SSD or a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD and ujp to 3TB SATA hard drive.

The desktop’s Intel i7-6700 is cooled by a generic Intel cooler, which is fine under most circumstances. You’ll won’t be overclocking your processing since it’s a non-K Intel processor.

Despite its respectable innards, the only disappointing part of the G11CB is its generic PSU. It’s not even bronze rated. Given that you’ll play games with an i7-6700 and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, it would have been nice of ASUS to thrown in a bronze-rated PSU to supply the components with clean power.

Software

The ASUS ROG G11CB comes with the company’s AEGIS software. From here, you can see most of the information you’d need including thermals for the components inside, system usage, and even time. You can also activate Game Mode to turn off any unnecessary applications to potentially boost frame rates while in-game. Of course, you can control the RGB lighting on the front panel through the AEGIS software.

Benchmarks

As a complete system, we tested the ASUS ROG G11CB’s CPU and GPU performance. Here are the numbers we were able to get:

System Benchmarks

Gaming Benchmarks (1920 x 1080)

The numbers we got from the ASUS ROG G11CB were decent. With the Intel Core i7-6700 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, it will definitely handle any game or workload you’ll throw at it.

Conclusion

With its decent gaming and general performance, the ASUS ROG G11CB is a surprisingly solid performing pre-built PC. This particular configuration of the G11CB is priced at PhP 85,995. It might be a bit expensive compared to the price a system you built yourself but keep in mind that all the components of inside the ASUS ROG G11CB have been tested by ASUS. Thus, having a higher chance of working in the long run even if the PSU is a bit shoddy. If in any case any of the components fail, ASUS is offering a 2-year global warranty for the ASUS ROG G11CB to keep your mind in ease.

Due to its performance and long 2-year warranty. We’re giving the ASUS ROG G11CB our premium desktop award. The G11CB is a great option for those who want to get a gaming-grade desktop PC without the hassle of building a PC themselves.