6/10
Open rating explainerInformationWIREDCompact and thin, yet comfortable to use. A sharp, fast, and colorful display. Really responsive keyboard and touchpad. Decent battery life.TIREDNot powerful enough for the price. Last year's RTX 5060 model is a better buy.Gaming laptops should have discrete graphics cards. Outside of the RGB lights, it’s what classifies a laptop made for gaming. All attempts to do otherwise have largely been disasters.
The Asus TUF Gaming A14 wants to rewrite that script. It uses one of AMD’s new Max+ chips, which come with impressive integrated graphics instead, not unlike Apple’s high-end MacBook chips. After loading up some games, I was impressed how quickly I forgot about this laptop's lack of GPU. I wish it were cheaper though, as its performance can't compete with more powerful gaming laptops at this price.
Can't Pin It Down
Photograph: Luke LarsenThe Asus TUF A14 is an enigma. First of all, it’s a 14-inch gaming laptop. It's hard to get these components into a smaller package, so these are usually rare and usually reserved for high-end gaming laptops, like the Razer Blade 14. Second, the A14 is in Asus’ “TUF” brand, which are its most price-conscious options. Last, there’s the aforementioned AMD chip. All that is to say, the TUF A14 was one of the gaming laptops I was most excited to test this year.
In the past, I’ve stayed away from Asus TUF laptops, as it was the bottom-tier in terms of design. That meant chunky chassis, poor displays, and thick bezels. The models from 2025 looked more modern, but the prices weren’t competitive with some of my favorite cheap gaming laptops like the Lenovo LOQ 15 and Acer Nitro V 16.
But again, the TUF A14 is something new, and the design is impressive. It’s right around the same thickness and weight as the 14-inch MacBook Pro, and the bezels around the sides of the screen are really trim. The bottom bezel is thick, primarily because the A14 uses a 16:9 aspect ratio screen. I won’t belabor that point, but it means less screen and more bezel in the same footprint. Overall, it’s very subtle. The gaming aesthetic is heavily downplayed, with only a few elements left, such as the typeface on the keycaps and the shape of the vents below the hinge. There’s not even per-key backlighting on the keyboard.
Photograph: Luke Larsen
Photograph: Luke LarsenYou’d never know this was a gaming laptop based on the usability of the keyboard and touchpad; on gaming laptops versus work ones, these can often be afterthoughts. Here, they’re both excellent. The touchpad, in particular, is oversized and surprisingly precise. Although the laptop is made of plastic, it handled the pressure I was putting on it around the lid, keyboard, and palm rests without too much give.
The TUF A14 has a helpful assortment of ports. On the left side, you get a USB-A 3.2 port, USB-C port, HDMI 2.1, headphone jack, and proprietary power jack. You get an additional USB-A and USB-C (USB4) port on the right side, alongside a micro SD card slot. I really like the decision to put the USB4 port on the right side, as it means you can both charge the laptop or connect to an external display from the right side too. Only being able to charge from one side is one of my pet peeves, so good job, TUF A14.
More Than Gaming
Photograph: Luke LarsenOnce I saw the resolution of the display, I knew the TUF A14 was no longer a real “budget” device. It’s 2560 x 1600, a big step up from the typical cheap gaming laptop. It also has a 165 Hz refresh rate, which is useful for when playing in 1200p—and let’s be honest, that’s the go-to the vast majority of the time. The higher resolution, though, plays into why the A14 is a solid hybrid device that can work as well for gaming as it does for school or work.
It goes up to 411 nits according to my colorimeter, which is plenty bright for both gaming and taking work on the go. While the color performance won't knock your socks off, it's better than many gaming laptops I've tested.
The webcam and speakers aren’t anything special. The camera is 1080p and has an IR camera built-in for Windows Hello. The image quality will get the job done, but if you’re in daily video calls, you and your coworkers may not love the quality. As always, the quality of your own lighting has a larger impact on image . The stereo speakers are perhaps the weakest aspect of this laptop’s multimedia package. The bass is pretty pathetic, and there’s a lack of body to the sound. But that’s nothing too surprising.
No GPU Required
Yes, the Asus TUF A14 successfully recreates the gaming performance of a discrete GPU with only AMD’s gigantic Max+ 392 chip—also known as Strix Halo. You can see how that performed in a sampling of some of the game tests I ran below.
1200p Ultra1200p MediumCyberpunk 207748 fps71 fpsBlack Myth: Wukong16 fps32 fpsMonster Hunter Wilds41 fps50 fpsIt’s a flex that AMD can replicate the performance of a discrete GPU. I don’t want to downplay that point because it's a big deal that this even works. But an engineering innovation alone doesn’t necessary make for a better overall product. After all, Asus still sells a more conventional version of the TUF A14 from last year that pairs a Ryzen 7 with a discrete GPU: the RTX 5060. That configuration comes with half the memory, but only costs $1,700. Asus is positioning the AMD Max+ 392 model as the higher-end option, but based on other laptops I've tested, this underperforms against the RTX 5060 and RTX 5050.
In other words, you won't get frame rates as high as with the latest generation of other gaming laptops. (For those curious, though, this is still a big step up from Intel's latest integrated graphics as tested in the Dell XPS 14).
So, here's the question that was in my mind as I was testing and using the TUF A14: If performance is not the reason why you'd choose this over a more conventional gaming laptop, what is? In theory, not having a discrete GPU would allow for a thinner laptop. While the TUF A14 is quite compact, the 2025 RTX 5060 version is the same size.
Battery life is another possibility. Using just integrated graphics, the TUF A14 is able to run more efficiently, especially when not gaming. It’s quieter, cooler, and lasts longer on battery. As much as I like to say the Razer Blade 14 or 16 are gaming laptops that don’t act like gaming laptops—when it comes to battery life, you’ll get a couple more hours out of the TUF A14. It’s a trend I noticed with the Dell XPS 14, which switched to using Intel’s highly improved integrated graphics and similarly got much better battery life as a result—well over 20 hours. But TUF A14 isn't on that level. I got around 10 hours of video playback battery life with the TUF A14, and only around five hours in a more standard workflow. Again, that's more than a typical gaming laptop, but not dramatically so.
Setting the particulars of the configurations aside, there's a lot to like about the TUF A14. The screen is impressive, the design of the chassis isn't obtuse, and the system runs fairly quiet. It's just hard to recommend at $2,100. I haven't tested the RTX 5060 model, but based on the price and components, it's likely a better purchase. Meanwhile, this TUF A14 is around $600 cheaper than the RTX 5060 Razer Blade 14, when matched with the same amount of RAM, but that laptop performs better, has an OLED screen, and is wrapped in an aluminum chassis.
AMD's revolutionary chip needs to be matched with an equally daring laptop to really shine, but here, it's priced too high to justify its new approach. There's a lot I really like about this laptop, but you're probably better off opting for last year's RTX 5060 version.
$2,200 at Best Buy$2,350 at Amazon$2,200 at B&H Photo$2,350 at Walmart
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