Asus G74SX is a gaming laptop with Nvidia’s GTX 560M and Intel’s Core i7-2630QM, so this means that the device needs quality cooling and Asus did quite well in this department.
The two fans are not exactly quiet in idle mode, which isn’t great. You’ll hear the airflow, constantly. On the other hand, temperatures are kept in check quite nicely. The hard drive crackle is only occasional and unobtrusive.
The part around WASD keys is quite the coolest region on the upper part of the laptop – it can go up to 31°C. The right palm rest will go up to 30 °C whereas the left side is always much cooler. The hottest part is from the arrow keys upwards, towards the display, up to 35 °C.
It almost goes without saying that you will not use Asus G74S from your lap, be it because you’ll need a mouse or the heat on the right side. In fact, on the right-top part temperatures can hit up to 45°C.
The highest temperature we measured from the large air outlet was 66°C. Note however that this was during long gaming tests.
The following screenshots show that components are pretty cool in idle, but that temperatures rise under load.
