When comparing System76 Oryx Pro vs ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW, the Slant community recommends ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW for most people. In the question“What are the best USB-C laptops?” ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW is ranked 8th while System76 Oryx Pro is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW is:
The fans produce at most 43.9 dB(A)of sound, quieter than virtually all of its gaming competitors. During idle, it is very quiet at just 28.9 dB(A).
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great Linux support
All System76 laptops come with Linux out of the box. The Oryx Pro comes with either Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or Ubuntu 16.10. But that does not mean that other Linux distributions are not supported, quite the contrary. Most Linux distros should work without any major problems with the Oryx pro and most (if not all) drivers are available.
Pro Excellent choice for gaming on Linux
The Oryx Pro is probably the best laptop with Linux support out of the box that is great for gaming as well. This is mostly because of the NVIDIA graphics cards. It comes by default with the GTX 1060 but for $289 more, you can add a GTX 1070 instead. The default 8GB of RAM is good for gaming but the 16GB RAM is ideal.
Pro Amazing overall performance
The default 6th generation i7 Processor coupled with the 16GB of RAM (even better with the versions with 32GB and 64GB) make for an absolutely amazing machine. It has a dedicated SSD for the OS only which massively increases startup time and for anything else you can choose up to two SSDs or HDDs of varying sizes. The Oryx Pro is perfectly capable of doing some heavy-lifting including 4K video editing and gaming at highest settings without a hitch.
Pro Good speakers
One of the bonuses of having a larger body is that you get to use good speakers instead of some small ones stuck underneath the laptop. They are also angled toward the user and the sound is crisp and loud enough, even though it lacks some bass.
Pro Good keyboard
The keyboard is very nice, it's not amazing by any means but quite comfortable to work with. The keys are pretty thick, thicker than what you may find in laptops today and with a nice springiness to them. The keyboard also supports multicolor backlighting.
Pro Good display
Has a 1080p matte display with an optional IPS matte display version. With great colors and brightness and almost no eye strain even when it's used for extended periods.
Pro Very customizable
Before buying the System76 Oryx Pro from the System76 website, you get to customize almost every aspect of the laptop as far as specs go. The price depends on what you choose to put inside your laptop and prices vary from $1475 for the basic version to $7000 for a laptop with a 17.3" Matte IPS Display, a GTX 1070, 6th Gen i7 CPU, 64GB RAM, and two SSDs of 5TB and 4TB respectively.
Pro Quiet fans
The fans produce at most 43.9 dB(A)of sound, quieter than virtually all of its gaming competitors. During idle, it is very quiet at just 28.9 dB(A).
Pro Good display
The UHD (8340x2160) IPS panel is a touchscreen model. It's average brightness is 250.2 cd/m² which is reasonable, but not ideal for outdoor use. The glass layer used is thicker, muting colors a bit more than other laptops. sRGB achieves 89%, and AdobeRGB scores 58% - both reasonable results, however not extraordinary. The screen is glossy, and provides great viewing angles.
Pro Good performance
The i7-6700HQ processor paired with 16GB of RAM and accompanied by the GTX 960M offers good performance for just about any task, although machines with similar hardware can be found for considerably less (although they don't come with USB Type-C).
The CPU scores 113 in CineBench R15 - a disappointing result. It's expected that that the system throttles down below its maximum setting before finishing the test.
For storage speeds, this laptop is great. It uses NVMe SSDs that are more common on extremely high end hardware. It can achieve 1633 MB/s read, and 1579MB/s write.
Gaming performance is very good, with games running on high settings with ease. Ultra settings will bring down FPS to below 30 for some games, however lighter titles can still run up to 77FPS (StarCraft 2).
Pro Good battery life
At full load, the ZenBook Pro can last for 1h57m, and when surfing the web it lasts 6h19m. These are good results for a gaming focused gaming laptop.
Cons
Con Very heavy and bulky
Weighing at 5.5lbs for the 15.6" version it's relatively heavy and it's one inch thicker than the XPS 13. But the extra space is not put to waste, considering how it has an Ethernet port, SD card slot, 2 Mini DisplayPrts, HDMI port, 2 USB 3.1 Type-C ports, 3 USB 3.0 Type-A ports and headphone and mic jacks. The GTX 1070 version also includes a headphone amplifier. However, the power brick that comes with the charger is ridiculously large at 2lbs which understandably adds to the weight of the laptop since most of the time you have to carry both with you.
Con Customer service could be much better
System76's technical support is pretty bad. When there's a problem that should be solved by them, they usually resort to sending replacement parts instead or blaming third-parties (even if those third-parties are not at fault) of something that they should be fixing.
Con No 4K option
It lacks the option to have a 4K display. While not a deal breaker, it's a shame that a laptop with a display as good as Oryx Pro's does not have a 4K option which would also be a great plus for gamers.
Con Gets warm
While they keyboard doesn't get hot, it does get warm (33C or 91F), and temperatures on the exterior exhaust fan can reach 48.5C (119F) which is higher than comparable laptops.
Con Poor speaker volume
Basses are virtually non-existent, and the volume doesn't go very high (although at high volume the sounds aren't distorted).