Asus ROG G22CH 2024 Gaming Desktop - Review

Asus India recently launched its latest small form factor gaming desktop, the ROG G22CH, with upgraded internals. This latest gaming desktop is the 2024 iteration of the G22CH that landed in India in September 2023. The 2024 iteration comes with 14th-Gen Intel Core Desktop CPU and rest of the specifications are identical to the older version. However, the idea of not changing anything else is not a bad thing if the overall system offers adequate performance.

Specification-wise, the G22CH appears to be a capable offering for the small form factor (SFF) gaming desktop market. This is especially important for the limited SFF options available in the Indian market. Given that Asus took over Intel's Next Unit of Computing (NUC) division in 2023, the G22CH lineup seems to be the obvious successor to the Intel Raptor Canyon. As with the Raptor Canyon, the ROG G22CH is one of the fewer pre-built gaming SFF desktop currently available in the market. This provides gamers looking for an SFF system a hassle-free option instead of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) route.

In addition to the Intel NUC 13 Extreme Raptor Canyon successor, Asus has even brought the smaller ROG NUC gaming systems with Intel Core Ultra CPUs to the global market. However, for now, let's check if the latest ROG G22CH is capable enough to attract the SFF enthusiasts? Is it worth your money? Here is our review of the Asus ROG G22CH 2024 gaming desktop.

Specifications

Here are the hardware specifications of the Asus ROG G22CH 2024 gaming desktop.

ROG G22CH Gaming Desktop variants, price in India and availability

As highlighted above, the latest version of ROG G22CH is an upgraded version of the one that launched in 2023. Besides the CPU, there are no changes to the specifications or the design of the gaming desktop, and neither is Asus offering any other variant of it. The only other option to purchase is the 2023 version of the G22CH with Intel Core i7-13700F CPU.

The 2024 version is priced at ₹2,29,990, and it is available online on Amazon, Flipkart, Asus e-Shop (out of stock at the time of writing). For anyone looking to check the desktop in person before making the purchase, the G22CH will be available in Asus-exclusive and ROG stores nationwide.

Performance of ROG G22CH 2024 Gaming Desktop

Gaming Performance

While the Intel Core i7-14700F and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 combination is not top-of-the-line, it was still enough to provide a good gaming experience at 1080p resolution with graphics quality set to maximum. Looking at the performance at hand, the ROG G22CH 2024 version ran all the games from our benchmark suite above 100fps, with the exception of Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk 2077 ran at an average FPS of 83, and Red Dead Redemption 2 ran at 101 FPS. About 45 percent of our benchmark games ran above 150 FPS. Beyond Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2, the complete list of our benchmark suite includes Total War Saga: TROY, Borderlands 3 and Far Cry New Dawn. It also includes Forza Horizon 5, Gears 5, Hitman 3, Horizon Zero Dawn and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Anyone investing to get this gaming desktop in SFF design won't be left behind.

Benchmarks

Synthetic benchmarks confirmed what we noticed in gaming benchmarks. The ROG G22CH 2024 offers decent performance for its price and convenience. It may not be the best in the market, but it is among the best a pre-built SFF gaming desktop can offer. Our benchmark suite includes Geekbench 6, Cinebench 2024, 3DMark, PCMark 10, and Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU). In addition, we have added numbers for Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R23 to offer a comparison with past desktop CPU-GPU combinations we have reviewed.

The included Intel Core i7-14700F manages to inch close to the Intel Core i9 13900F in single-core workloads. In fact, it manages to beat the 13900F in some benchmarks. Interestingly, the chart shows that the i7-14700F beats the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. However, things will likely be different in gaming because of the 3D V-Cache. However, all this performance comes at a cost, which we will discuss in the next section.

On a side note, Asus should have gone with the i7-14700 CPU instead of the i7-14700F because the integrated GPU would be useful if the RTX 4070 GPU ever malfunctions. Asus India shared the rationale behind using SO-DIMM RAM modules for the desktop. The company highlighted that it wanted to address any issues arising from temperature and digital signal noise by using the SO-DIMM form factor for RAM.

Thermal Performance

While the ROG G22CH 2024 desktop offered decent thermals, things could have been better. For context, the gaming desktop uses a Liquid AIO with two 80mm fans for the radiator. Besides this, there are no case fans inside the desktop and the right, left, top and bottom sides of the G22CH have mesh panels to tackle the heat.

During our review, the Intel Core i7-14700F CPU peaked at 86-degree Celsius with average of around 50-degree Celsius. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU peaked at around 83-degree Celsius on the hot spot, with general peak of around 67-degree Celsius. Talking about GPU temperature average, we noticed around 40-degree Celsius during regular use and around 50-degree Celsius during extended gaming sessions. It is possible that you may notice higher temperatures during the summer as this review was conducted in February winters of Delhi. Things will obviously change depending on the region in which you stay in India.

Now, let's discuss the cost and why we believe the thermals can be better in the Asus ROG G22CH. First, the desktop runs loud even in the absence of top-end hardware like the Intel Core i9 CPUs or GeForce RTX 4080 (no point mentioning 4090 as it won't fit). This is likely due to the two 80mm fans needing to ramp up to cool down the entire desktop.

The fan spin is noticeable (almost in line with a full-fledged mid-tower gaming desktop), pushing one to need a headset or increase the output of their speakers to drown out the fan spin. Larger fans or even one additional fan would have made things better. You can check the sample of fan noise and ramp-up above.

‘Tool-Free’ Design, Upgrades, and Software

The Asus ROG G22CH 2024 continues the tradition of offering remarkable engineering to pack all the computing and graphics power in such a compact package. Unlike the Intel NUC 13 Extreme I reviewed last year, the G22CH looks beautiful with the included RGB lights inside the case. While Asus markets the desktop with a “tool-free design” and promises that you can get inside “without turning a single screw”, it is not the reality. In real life, you do need to unscrew one long-ish screw to get into the desktop.

If you need your screwdriver to open the desktop, then it doesn't matter if you need to unscrew one, three or more screws. This marketing pointer makes it challenging for the user from step zero as one can't easily figure how to open the case. You are led to believe that you don't need any tools, so you keep trying to open the case by pressing the tab on the backside. We know this is not something most people will do right after purchasing their G22CH 2024 gaming desktop. However, they will get to it at some point to perform maintenance like cleaning or upgrades. There are no instructions or pamphlets to guide; nothing is mentioned in the user manual.

We contacted Asus India to determine the reasons behind the design choice, marketing and lack of instructions. It outlined that it is aimed at gamers looking for a plug-and-play experience without the need to get inside the system. The global version of the G22CH comes with a transparent panel, and the user manual includes instructions to locate the rubber gasket and remove the screw to change the side panel. We believe instructions and more accurate marketing would have offered a better customer experience to G22CH 2024 buyers.

Upgrades for the Gaming Desktop

This brings us to the upgradability of the G22CH, as one of the reasons most people get a desktop is so that they can keep upgrading it down the line. Like with most SFF desktops, upgrades can be challenging because of the limited space, but the limited cooling capability and the 600W PSU make it even more difficult here. Things would have been easier if the included AIO could handle higher loads at extended periods, and the PSU had some power headroom. While we are unsure about the next-gen Intel chipset or socket, the only obvious and meaningful upgrade will be a GPU that could likely hit the maximum power limit of the existing PSU.

Considering the PSU and cooling capacity, ROG G22CH 2024 is aimed at customers who don't want the hassle of performing any upgrades to the system. So, if you are not looking for a console-like experience where everything works and instead want to get your hands dirty, go the DIY route for an SFF gaming desktop.

Software with G22CH 2024

The G22CH comes with Windows 11 Home and the usual Asus pre-installed software, including the Armoury Crate App, Aura Creator, and MyASUS. There is some additional system bloatware like McAfee and other bits that you can remove from the legacy Windows Control Panel.