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Hey, how's it going? Dave 2D here!
So I want to do a quick video to talk about two upcoming laptops that were showcased at Computex.
The first one that caught my eye was the Asus Zephyrus.
So this is their new ultra-thin, ultra-light gaming laptop that's actually packing a GTX 1080.
So this is the world's thinnest laptop with a GTX 1080, it's thinner than the Aorus X7,
thinner than the Razer Blade Pro, it's even thinner than the new Acer Triton 700.
The thing is GTX 1080 chips run hot, like, really hot,
so manufacturers tend not to put those GPUs into these thin-and-light chassis,
because it's just asking for trouble to happen down the road.
The Asus is a little bit different.
You'll notice that the keyboard and trackpad are shifted down, so the top half of the deck
is essentially a giant grill right on top of the CPU and GPU to allow for better airflow.
Secondly, the bottom of the laptop shifts, so when you open it,
the hinge mechanism actually opens up this gap on the side of the device for more airflow.
And when you close it, everything seals back up.
And the third thing, and I think this is the most important thing,
is that the GTX 1080 in this thing is one of the new Max-Q GPUs from Nvidia.
And these are essentially just more power-efficient versions of these GPUs.
They're not like a new fabrication or anything, they're probably just going onto the line,
picking out the ones with the best thermal characteristics,
so the ones that have the least current leakage, so you can undervolt it a little bit,
and just deliver those as Max-Q GPUs.
I'm not trying to belittle what Nvidia's done here, I think it's awesome for the consumer,
it's just not a brand new fabrication or anything like that.
Now, with this reduced power consumption and reduced thermal output,
I wouldn't be surprised if you're getting slightly reduced performance as well,
but we'll have to see when the review unit comes in.
To top it off, the Asus Zephyrus is decked out with some really nice gamer-oriented features,
but the big one for me is the 120Hz G-Sync panel.
And I've said this before, but when you play games on a really high-end GPU,
you gotta pair it up with a nice display like this, so you can actually make us of those frames.
The paper specs are awesome, and visually it's pretty unique. It's not going to be everyone's favorite design,
but there's a huge amount of functionality here, and not just aesthetic style.
So the other laptop that caught my eye was the Asus ZenBook Pro, the UX550.
And this is a device that I think a lot of you guys would be interested in as well, because it's something that--
well, it's functional, and just, like, super cool.
It's a thin-and-light laptop with a GTX 1050ti, 4K screen,
and all the usual trimmings for a premium, high-end laptops.
The base model starts at $1300, but once you deck it out with all the good stuff,
I wouldn't be surprised if it's closer to, like, 18, or maybe even $2000.
Now the design is actually very similar to the Asus ZenBook 3, so this is their ultrabook,
and it's got the whole focus on thin-and-light design with really good build quality,
and the chamfered edges look awesome. The UX550 has all of this stuff as well.
Now aside from good looks, the thing that makes the ZenBook Pro special is the 1050ti.
That thing handles 1080p gaming really nicely. It's kinda like the sweet spot for laptop gaming.
Not just in terms of pricing and performance, but also in terms of thermals.
You don't need something super thick to cool a 1050ti.
Now, the paper specs are awesome, but there's two things that kinda worry me.
The first is the build quality. So the ZenBook 3 was built really well, super thin.
But the older-generation ZenBook wasn't amazing,
and when I saw a clip of someone pressing down on that new ZenBook Pro, that worried me.
Now I don't know if it was like a full, retail version that she was playing with,
it could have been an earlier prototype or something. I'm hoping that is was an earlier prototype,
because if the final version has that kind of flex, that's going to be disappointing.
The second thing is the thermal management.
Now, Asus normally has pretty good thermal management on their laptops,
it's just that this is a thin-and-light one.
The 1050ti, it's not a super hot chip, it's relatively easy to cool, it's just I hope Asus has done it properly.
Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video, I'll be doing full reviews for both of these devices,
the Asus Zephyrus as well as the ZenBook Pro.
I'm more interested in the ZenBook Pro, because that's just a device that, I mean, it's just right up my alley.
Super thin, super light, 1050ti, what's not to like, right?
Thumbs if you liked this video, subs if you loved it! I'll see you guys next time.
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