Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) has recently enjoyed critical acclaim with the launch of the fabulous, AMD Ryzen powered Zephyrus G14. The new chipset is crushing performance benchmarks across the board in a slim and light package. While it looked like Intel had lost the game, it turns out Asus also had a whole new lineup of 10th Generation Intel Coffee Lake H powered laptops at the ready.
Leading the pack is the all-new ROG Zephyrus Duo with a 14-inch ScreenPad Plus touch display. The entire Zephyrus and Strix lineups have also been refreshed with new processors, graphics and 300Hz displays.
Next-gen performance
The new ROG laptops now have Intel Core i7 and i9 processors all with eight cores and sixteen threads for the highest mobile performance money can buy. These new processors can crunch some serious numbers, up to 5.3Ghz in turbo boost and as a result, will need better cooling. Asus is now using factory-applied liquid metal thermal compound across all 2020 Zephyrus and Strix models. This new cooling method offers improved heat transfer between the CPU and a cooling module for up to 10% increase in performance.
And now, with Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX Super offer a performance boost of up top 50% thanks to more CUDA, RT and Tensor cores than the standard variants. Asus ROG Boost uses Intelligent Cooling thermal design which uses custom factory overclock beyond the stock Nvidia speeds. Basically, the RTX in Asus laptops will run faster than standard chipsets.
New displays, lots of connectivity
For displays, Asus continues to expand its industry-first 300Hz display to the rest of the ROG lineup. Not only are the displays ridiculously fast but they are colour accurate. They are now Pantone Validated Certified which means content creators and designers will gravitate to these machines as much as gamers.
A new 4K display with 100% sRGB coverage is also available in select laptops. Asus is aware that gaming at this resolution is incredibly taxing on GPU’s and has paired the displays with Nvidia G-Sync.
As with many other manufacturers, Asus is now using dual-band Wi-Fi 6 on the entire 2020 lineup. In addition to that, new models are equipped with Thunderbolt 3 which enables users to connect to external displays or fast storage. But one of the most exciting benefits is that Zephyrus laptops can now charge over USB-C via USB Power Delivery. While you can’t game using USB-C charging, you can at least do lighter web browsing and productivity. It has a limit of 65W via a compatible USB charging pack.
Meet the new Frankenstein; the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15
When Asus launched the Zenbook Pro Duo last year, I was sceptical about the practicality of a dual-display laptop. The biggest problem being it’s flat orientation above the keyboard made it hard to see from a normal sitting position; forcing users to bend over to interact with it. Asus has solved this problem by making the new ROG ScreenPad Plus tilt up and forward towards you by a 13-degree angle when the lid is opened. This unique mechanism makes the screen immediately more user friendly.
The ScreenPad Plus is the 14.1-inch screen has a 4K(3840 x 1100) IPS panel. This is in addition to a 15.6-inch main display which comes in either 4K UHD or 300Hz FHD configuration. Once opened, the Active Aerodynamic System cooling solution uses the space between the titled secondary screen as a massive air intake to draw cool air into the laptop.
This is absolutely necessary to keep that i9 CPU and RTX 2080 Super running cool.
New Models join the family
Besides the Zephyrus Duo 15, Asus added a number of new models to the ROG family. The Zephyrus S17 is an ultraslim 17.3-inches with 300Hz panel and RTX 2080 Super and it’s baby brother, the S15 takes all the S17’s power into a tinier form factor. The new Strix Scar 15/17 inches are pro-gamer focused with 300Hz displays, i9 processors and RTX 2080 Super for blistering performance.
The Strix G15 and G17 pair back some of the specs of the Strix Scars and by that I mean a 240Hz or 144Hz display.
The new ROG gaming laptops will be available in Australia from early June from Asus authorised resellers and retailers. At this time, we have no pricing but will update when this information becomes available.
