CES 2020 has come to an end and it’s time for me to head home, so let’s wrap up by
going through the best laptops I saw at the show and discuss what I was most interested
in.
The big news this CES was of course about AMD’s new Ryzen 4000 series Zen2 CPUs, which
go up to 8 cores 16 threads and promises of defeating the i7-9750H from Intel in gaming.
While I remain skeptical until I have one for testing, it’s definitely sounds like
a nice improvement and I can’t wait to test it out.
Based purely on the amount of requests I’ve had from you guys to do a review already,
the ASUS Zephyrus G14 seems like it’s a favourite, and I can see why. It’s the first
14 inch gaming laptop that uses Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics, granted it’s the 65 watt
Max-Q variant, this is still the best we’ve currently got in this form factor.
Alongside that, it’s got AMD’s Ryzen 7 4800HS CPU, which has 8 cores and 16 threads
of processing power, something that was previously only really obtainable with an Intel i9, or
something like a Helios 500 with Ryzen 2700. The G14 is far smaller and thinner though,
we won’t know for sure just how well it performs, but based on the specs and all the
work ASUS say they’ve done for thermals, I’m expecting good things from this laptop
and look forward to getting it in to review.
ASUS also had the G15 with same Ryzen processor, which seems to be the updated version of the
GA502, which is great to have, but I’m more interested in seeing what the new G14 can
do as it’s a completely new design.
MSI also had a new AMD based laptop, although if I hadn’t noticed it on the table at the
back, I might never have known about it as they didn’t mention it during their hour
long presentation. The Bravo 15 and 17 appear to be lower end gaming laptops, similar to
the Alpha 15, and while that’s cool and all, personally I was way more interested
in the new GE66 and GS66 gaming laptops, the successors to the popular GE65 and GS65 respectively.
These two laptops will have Intel 10th gen CPUs and I suspect next gen Nvidia graphics,
which is why there was basically no information available in terms of processor and graphics,
so I’m not sure when to expect them, as nothing has been announced yet.
The GS66 is a nice clean looking all blacked out gaming laptop, while the GE66 looks kind
of like a mini GT76 Titan, with a similar lid design and the addition of RGB light bar
along the front, just in case you need that bling.
Lenovo had their Y740s gaming laptop, if you could call it that, given it doesn’t have
discrete graphics from AMD or Nvidia inside, only the Intel graphics from the Intel CPU.
The idea with this one is that no graphics means that less cooling is required, so you
get a thinner and lighter laptop, which speaking from experience is preferable for travel.
Lenovo will start offering an eGPU solution, allowing you to hook up an external desktop
graphics card over Thunderbolt when at home to play games, so I guess not technically
a gaming laptop in the traditional sense, but that’s all they had in terms of gaming
at CES, no new AMD laptops there.
The ASUS TUF A15 and A17 gaming laptops look like decent incremental improvements over
the older TUF machines, with big 90wh batteries and the addition of AMD’s Ryzen 4000 series
CPUs, and RTX 2060 or GTX 1660 Ti graphics respectively we’re expecting them to be
fairly capable gaming laptops, hopefully without being all too expensive, as has been the case
with previous TUF models, it’s meant to be their more entry level more budget friendly
brand.
Dell had their new G5 15 Special Edition, think G5 that looks more like the new G3,
but with AMD Ryzen 4000 series CPUs and up to Radeon RX 5600M graphics. I’m interested
in this one as I believe it was the only machine I saw that uses a full AMD processor plus
AMD graphics solution, all of the other Ryzen based machines I checked out were paired with
Nvidia graphics. It’s also interesting because I don’t think Dell have previously offered
AMD hardware as part of their G series lineup, they’ve been all in on Intel and Nvidia,
I am keen to see how this new configuration compares and if they expand it into other
models like the G3 or G7 in future.
I think what I was most interested in was the Clevo laptop with 12 core 24 thread Ryzen
9 3900 CPU, I always expected to see AM4 desktop socket laptops become available for the 3000
series. We had some for last gen, plus there are quite a few laptops supporting Intel’s
desktop socket, but those are still currently limited to 8 cores 16 threads with the 9th
gen, so this is a nice change for those that need serious portable multicore power.
While we’re talking about raw power, the ASUS StudioBook One is pretty crazy. I have
briefly seen it before, but didn’t film it for a video, and didn’t realise just
how much power it was packing given the 2.4cm thickness. Along with the 8 core Intel i9
CPU, it’s basically got the equivalent of Mobile Titan RTX graphics inside, as the Quadro
6000 it uses has the same CUDA core count and 24gb of GDDR6 memory with a 250 watt TDP,
crazy stuff, and I really want to see how it actually performs. The cooling design was
also interesting, the principle is the same as the ASUS Mothership I’ve previously reviewed
where the heat generating components are placed behind the screen. When you open the lid,
a flap behind the screen opens up to allow air flow, which both allows the components
to breathe more easily compared to having fans pressed against the desk, but also keeps
the bottom surface cool on your lap with a cool keyboard area. Despite having crazy specs,
based on the size I know there are going to be some limits, so I hope I can get one when
it’s available and push it to find out just what those are.
I was also interested to see the improvements that Tongfang were making with their laptops.
The new 17 inch chassis being sold as the Eluktronics MAX-17 looks like it will be a
nice option for those who were interested in the MAG-15 but wanted a 17 inch laptop,
as it has a lot of very similar features, but with more powerful RTX 2070 Max-P graphics,
rather than the Max-Q that were present in the MAG-15. They’re also working on many
other changes and improvements to performance that I can’t talk about yet, so I guess
watch this space, this space being my channel, in other words I guess make sure you’re
subscribed.
There weren’t really that many new laptops here at CES 2020, at least not compared to
last year when Nvidia launched RTX for laptops, that seemed like a bigger deal, at least in
terms of new products to cover. Many companies including Razer, Gigabyte, Acer and Lenovo
had no AMD Ryzen 4000 series gaming laptops to show.
At this point I’m not sure if they’re waiting to see what happens or possibly still
testing them out, but to me this seems telling. ASUS has quite a few high end laptops, yet
we didn’t see them refresh anything with RTX 2070 or higher graphics with an AMD CPU.
I don’t know, it just seems like most of these companies are waiting for Intel and
Nvidia to launch their next gen before refreshing. I saw multiple laptops here at CES that were
listed as Intel 10th gen CPU with no further information. It could be they want to use
the new Ryzen CPUs, but new Nvidia graphics aren’t too far off, so they’re just holding
off, it’s hard to say, we’ll have to wait and find out.
EIther way, from what I’ve heard, it sounds like we should have many more interesting
laptops on display at Computex in June, so I’ll definitely be heading over to Taipei
again in 6 months time to bring you all the latest news, so if you haven’t already make
sure you’re subscribed for that future content, and check out my other CES 2020 coverage,
linked in the description if you missed anything here and want more details. Time for me to
spend 24 hours travelling back to Australia and then it’s back to the normal videos
after this one.