When it comes to buying a new gaming PC, one of the main reasons to buy an off-the-shelf option rather than building one yourself is to get something reliable that is professionally put together. As good as my cable management skills are, they rarely measure up to what the pros can manage.
I want a good spread of hardware to choose from, though, which is why it’s encouraging to see such a broad swathe of configurations from the Asus ROG G700. If you want something modest and affordable, there are options for that. If you’d rather kit it out with the fastest CPU and GPU combination money can buy, that option’s there too. In any case, you get the same high build quality, sleek-looking, gaming PC with a roomy case, capable cooling, and attractive RGB lighting.
It’s a big’ old system, though. So you’ll want to ensure you have plenty of space on your desk or floor, and that you’re feeling strong on the day it arrives – or at least get someone to help you.
Design and Features
The G700 is a full-tower gaming PC measuring 18.88 inches tall and 20.05 inches long, and that doesn’t include the feet, which give it at least another inch of verticality. That means this system takes up a lot of space wherever you put it, but conversely also has plenty of internal volume which makes future maintenance or upgrades much easier.
In the more immediate term, however, it means you can enjoy a lot of the ROG branding that Asus covered this PC with. That’s going to be a love it or hate it thing for most folks, and it’s worth considering this PC is for gamers. That perhaps shouldn’t surprise considering it’s part of the ROG family, which of course stands for Republic of Gamers. This is no sleeper system, with RGB-lit ROG branding along the PSU shroud and on an acrylic panel just behind the front fans.
There’s even a multi-sentence mission statement of sorts on the PSU shroud which talks about how ROG kingdom gamers don’t conform and stand out from the pack. An interesting juxtaposition for a mass-produced gaming PC.
Cable management is excellent, with Asus seemingly adopting a design philosophy of hiding wires where it can, and making them flow with the natural lines of the system where it can’t. There’s a shroud for the 20+4 pin power connector, a PSU shroud that covers the entire base of the case, and the PWM fan cables and 12v-2×6 connector are as tucked away as they can be, giving everything a clean aesthetic.
It’s decidedly forward-looking in its design, lacking any kind of 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drive bay space. There’s enough physical room for heaps of drives, but no mounting solutions. That makes bringing over older SATA drives from your previous PC a little tricky. You can wedge them in behind the PSU shroud with some double-sided tape, but there are no mounting holes for them.
It actually feels like Asus missed a trick there. It could easily have included some screw holes on the back of the motherboard tray for some 2.5-inch drives and there’s a clear spot at the front where a 3.5-inch drive could be fitted to the floor.
If you don’t care about such ancient standards, and most of the people buying this system off-the-shelf probably don’t, it’s no big deal, but it’s something worth bearing in mind if you’re upgrading and want to bring some of your storage with you.
Still, this is one system you’re going to want to dust regularly to keep that sleek and clear aesthetic alive. You won’t need to worry about GPU sag though, as Asus has installed a sturdy GPU bracket that fits the aesthetic without standing out.
