Key Takeaways
1. Asus has launched the TUF Gaming A14 FA401EA in North America, featuring AMD’s Strix Halo platform and the Ryzen AI Max+ 392 APU.
2. The Ryzen AI Max+ 392 has 12 of the 16 Zen 5 CPU cores found in the Max+ 395, with adjusted clock speeds and a reduced L2 cache from 16 MB to 12 MB.
3. The FA401EA shows about a 25% performance drop in multi-core benchmarks compared to the Max+ 395, but smaller differences in 3DMark TimeSpy scores.
4. The laptop achieves around 80 FPS in modern AAA games at native resolution in Turbo mode, maintaining a thermal capacity of roughly 80° under load.
5. The FA401EA offers a GPU improvement over the older FA401WV model and can deliver solid performance while charging at 100 W through USB-C.
Asus has launched its first gaming laptop with AMD’s Strix Halo platform in North America. The TUF Gaming A14 FA401EA has already been available in other regions for a while. With the North American launch, ETA Prime has tested this laptop along with its new Ryzen AI Max+ 392 APU.
Ryzen AI Max+ 392 Details
The Ryzen AI Max+ 392 has 12 out of the 16 Zen 5 CPU cores that are in the Ryzen AI Max+ 395. AMD has made some changes to the CPU clock speeds and reduced the L2 cache from 16 MB to 12 MB. However, the Radeon 8060S remains the same, featuring 40 Compute Units (CUs) and a maximum boost clock of 2,900 MHz.
Performance Analysis
It’s not surprising that the Ryzen AI Max+ 392 shows about a 25% performance drop compared to its Max+ 395 counterpart in multi-core benchmarks, such as Cinebench 2024. Yet, ETA Prime noted a smaller difference in scores when using 3DMark TimeSpy. Aside from synthetic benchmarks, the FA401EA maintains around a 100 W TDP while under load in its Turbo mode, with a 115 W FPPT when switched to Manual mode.
Gaming Experience
The GPU performance aligns with what users generally expect from the Radeon 8060S. According to the video shared, the FA401EA achieves around 80 FPS in modern AAA games at its native resolution while in Turbo mode. Even with pulling 100 W from its APU, the laptop still has thermal capacity, reaching roughly 80° using Asus’ default fan settings.
In conclusion, the FA401EA offers a noticeable GPU improvement over the older FA401WV model (currently priced at $1,455 on Amazon) despite having 16 GB VRAM dedicated to its Radeon 8060S iGPU. The FA401EA might even deliver solid performance while charging at 100 W through USB-C, unlike its Nvidia-based competitors. For more details, check out ETA Prime’s video below.
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