At the end of the last decade, the Taiwanese giant Asus began an active expansion of the gaming peripherals market, bombarding players with mice, keyboards, monitors, mats and other advanced peripherals from the ROG series, as well as their more affordable alternatives from the TUF series. Since price is a decisive factor for most gamers, a little later more affordable and technically simplified mice, keyboards and other things from The Ultimate Force family enter the market, in which the manufacturer strives to reduce cost without sacrificing quality. This approach was repeated in 2019 when Asus announced its first TUF headphones. Since then, this series has released 2 wired headsets TUF H1 and H3, as well as a couple of modernized options, to which wireless receivers were attached and equipped with batteries.


The older model TUF Gaming H3 is a classic full-size closed-type gaming headset. It has a fairly rigid headband, the frame is made of metal, the earcups do not rotate, and the microphone does not detach. When you don't need it, just lift it up and it will turn off automatically. The headset turned out to be quite massive, but at the same time quite light (294 grams) and comfortable, the ears in it do not get particularly tired even after several hours of continuous play. The TUF Gaming H3 features 50mm ASUS Essence drivers with standard impedance and frequency spectrum values. They sound quite rich and spacious; you can not only play with them, but also listen to music, although they are unlikely to be suitable for music lovers. But there are no advanced things like ANC or a built-in DAC here.

As for the younger model H1 and its wireless variation, the picture is in many ways very similar to the H3, but with minor simplifications: the cable is simpler and without braiding, the speakers are slightly smaller (40 mm versus 50 mm), the resistance is higher (60 Ohms versus 32 Ohms) , and the microphone has lower sensitivity and a narrower frequency spectrum. Otherwise, they have the same high-quality passive noise insulation, speakers from the same ASUS Essence series, the same multi-channel audio virtualization system and a microphone certified in Discord and TeamSpeak. An equally important plus of the entire series is support for most popular gaming platforms, including Windows, Sony PlayStation 5, Xbox One (alas, not the newer Series S and Series X), as well as Nintendo Switch.