ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS GX501
Ultra-thin and benchmark-crushingly powerful, the Zephyrus is one hell of a gaming laptop
If you want to get your gaming kicks wherever you go, then you need an epically powerful gaming laptop
$3,399 asus.com
With its ultra-thin Nvidia Max-Q design, massive benchmark scores, and crisp anti-glare screen, the ROG Zephyrus makes playing even the most demanding games a no-compromise joy. If you want a premium, future-proofed gaming laptop that has both the looks and technical wizardry to kill, this is the king.
While the specs of the Zephyrus are only part of the story here, they are impressive to behold. The system comes packing an Intel Core i7 quad-core processor capable of operating up to 3.8GHz, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPU with 8GB of VRAM, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920x1080) anti-glare, wide-view panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and Nvidia G-Sync. Whew.
Power extreme
Asus has managed to squeeze all those high-end desktop-class components into an incredibly streamlined and attractive case, thanks to Nvidia’s Max-Q tech, which enables core components to be up to three times thinner than ever before. That thinness makes for an incredibly modern and stylish design. The Zephyrus is cool to the touch in a lush squared-off metal chassis, and looks beautifully understated and classy thanks to an all-black exterior with copper highlights.
Arguably the most clever element of the Asus ROG Zephyrus’ design is its innovative new cooling system, which sees the bottom panel of the system neatly drop down when the system is in use, to enhance airflow. In partnership with the system’s internal high-air chamber, it runs remarkably quietly, even when pushing serious pixels.
And pushing pixels is something it excels at. Not only did it lodge some massively impressive gaming laptop benchmark scores in 3DMark, it crushed T3’ ss erie softest games too. In
Wolf en stein II: The New Colossus, we turned up the settings to ‘Uber’. The result? Absolutely butter-smooth gameplay that suffered from zero slowdown, while Rise of the Tomb Raider returned a benchmark score of 101.15 FPS. Perfect for anything, including VR.