Just before the end of the financial year, ASUS Republic of Gamers sent us a little care package, comprised of a ROG STRIX Scope II RX Optical Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, the ROG STRIX SG27ACS Ultra-fast Gaming Monitor, a ROG Delta S Gaming Headset, a ROG Harpe Ace Aim Lab Edition gaming mouse, the ROG Sheath mouse pad, a ROG Raikiri Pro Gaming controller, and a ROG G22CH 1490KF005W Gaming Desktop, the subject of this review.

I mixed things up a little and wrote about my initial impressions of the system before I had a chance to give it a proper test run, which you can read about here, and after spending a couple of weeks with it, it’s finally time to write the review, but rather than repeating what I’ve already mentioned in that write-up, I’m just going to sum up a few things before I go into detail about how it performed.

The model we were sent came with a liquid-cooled Intel Core i9-14900KF 24-core processor, 16GB of DDR5 SO-DIMM RAM, a 1TB M.2 NVMe Solid State Drive, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX4070 DUAL 12GB GDD6X graphics processor. There is also another version available that comes with an Intel Core i7-14700F processor, also featuring liquid cooling, and either system can support up to 32GB of RAM, although you are limited to two slots. This all fits inside a case that measures in at 11.5 x 32.3 x 28.69cm, so it takes up next to no bench space, and with subtle Aura-Sync enabled RGB accents, it looks damn good in doing so.

Even with its small form, it comes with more than enough I/O ports to connect your favourite peripherals. The front panel houses two USB Type-A and a single USB Type-C, all of which are 3.2 Gen 2, and a combination 3.5mm combo jack for your headset. The rear panel contains four more USB Type-A ports, two of which are 2.0, and the others are 3.2 Gen 1. It also houses three additional audio jacks, perfect for connecting bigger sound systems with 7.1 channel support, an HDMI 2.0a, and the RJ45 ethernet port for those old-school LAN parties.

It comes pre-installed with Windows 11 Home and ASUS’s suite of additional software, including Armoury Crate, which makes tweaking your settings and controlling the lighting on your Aura-Sync compatible RGB hardware all the easier, and the internal RGB can be viewed slightly easier by easily switching out one of the meshed side-panels with the included semi-translucent black plastic panel, though I do feel like this will slightly reduce the airflow.

On paper, it sounds like a great gaming rig, and in practice, it exceeded my expectations. Playing games such as ARMA 3 with the highest possible graphics settings and the resolution set to Full High Definition, it easily exceeds 160FPS, even during situations filled with contacts and explosions. I also jumped back into my GTA V account to muck around for a bit, and once again, I found myself exceeding 160FPS. I did mention in my initial write-up that I was concerned about playing Star Citizen on this system, as while CIG mentions the minimum RAM is 16GB, they encourage 32GB, but I still had to give it a try.

The environments were very slow to render, but once they did, it was beautifully smooth, but only while I was sitting in an area that had a chance to load in. I found that I would average between 50 and 60FPS while moving around heavily populated areas, and I’d get closer to 80FPS while floating about in space. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but anyone who has played Star Citizen knows that it is in dire need of optimisation, and while Vulkan has technically been released, it’s only using a single thread’s computing power. If I moved into a newer location, the minimum recommended RAM would cause the system to slow down quite a bit while it tried to load in the local assets.

This also brought to my attention the amount of fan noise the system created while under load, and I think this has something to do with the size of the case. There isn’t a huge amount of material to absorb the noise generated by the cooling system, and the only fans I was able to locate were the two on the GPU and two connected to the liquid cooling radiator.

The GPU fans blow straight through the GPU radiator and into a small space behind the proprietary mainboard, which is then pulled through the CPU’s liquid-cooled radiator, and these fans appear to be smaller than the regular 120mm fans you’d normally see in a PC Case. This, at least in my opinion, means that the extraction fans need to run at a higher RPM to cool the system down, and with how compact the internals are, there isn’t space to add any more.

The ROG G22CH 1490KF005W Gaming Desktop is exactly what it sets out to be – a powerful system has been masterfully squeezed into a tiny case. There are drawbacks, such as the amount of noise the fans generate while under load, and the proprietary motherboard limiting your expansion options, but if you’re not worried about slotting in new components, or you use headphones over external speakers, it’s a fantastic gaming rig.

• Processor: Intel® Core™ i9-14900KF Processor 3.2GHz (36M Cache, up to 5.6GHz, 24 cores); Liquid Cooler
• Operating System: Windows 11 Home
• Memory: 16GB DDR5 SO-DIMM
• Storage: 1TB M.2 2280 NVMe™ PCIe® 4.0 SSD
• Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX4070 DUAL12GB GDDR6X : 3x DP, 1x HDMI
• Rear I/O:
  • 1x RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet
  • 1x HDMI 2.0a
  • 3 x Audio jacks
  • 2x USB 2.0 Type-A
  • 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
• Front I/O
  • 1x 3.5mm combo audio jack
  • 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
  • 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
• Dimensions (W x D x H)
  • 11.50 x 32.30 x 28.69 cm (4.53″ x 12.72″ x 11.30″)
• Weight
  • 08.40 kg (18.52 lbs)

 

Written by: Mathew Lindner