The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 was already a head-turning gaming laptop. With its lifted secondary screen, it already boasted one of the most unique gaming laptop designs of all time. But at CES 2021, Asus has updated the ROG laptop with a feature we’ve only ever dreamed of: A 4K display with a 120Hz refresh rate.
While 4K gaming laptops have been around for years, they have never had the power to actually play games at the resolution. But with Nvidia’s latest generation of RTX 30-series GPUs, that may finally change. The clearest indication of just how powerful they are? Asus thinks you can play games in 4K at up to 120 frames per second. Of course, Asus will also offer a 1080p model with a 300Hz screen and a 3 millisecond response time.
The other piece of the puzzle is the new AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor, which can scale up to 90 watts, or 50 watts when the GPU is also active. The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE is one of the few gaming laptops to debut at CES with this high-powered gaming CPU from AMD.
Other internal changes to the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE include a completely new cooling system. The laptop now uses five heat pipes, four heat sinks, and redesigned ultrathin fans. Asus says these new 0.1mm fan blades improve airflow by as much as 19%.
Asus has also made some small tweaks to the keyboard, making the volume, microphone mute, and other function keys easier to identify and reach.
All that aside, the 14.1-inch ScreenPad Plus remains the most eye-catching feature of the design. The secondary screen can be used as an extension of the top screen or as a second monitor altogether. Asus imagines the ScreenPad Plus being useful in a number of scenarios, including gaming, multitasking, and content creation.
In testing the original Intel model, I found that the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 achieved fantastic performance, likely thanks to its beefy size and excellent cooling.
Asus did not indicate a starting price, but did state that the new ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE would be available starting in North America in the first quarter of 2021.
