The performance that the two new gaming laptops that Asus has presented on behalf of the Republic of Gamers division, under the names of RoG Flow X16 and Strix SCAR 17 Special Edition, are destined to be almost unparalleled.
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During the For Those Who Dare: Boundless event, the Taiwanese brand Asus has again honored gamers with two other new creations from its Republic of Gamers videogame division, substantiated in the RoG Flow X16, an enlarged and enhanced version of the Flow 13 convertible, and in the Spedicial Edition, less portable than the first, of the RoG Strix Scar 17 laptop.
The Asus RoG Flow X16 (355 x 243 x 19.4 mm, for 272.1 kg), with a typical footprint of a 15 “, adopts a Nebula HDR panel, or a 16-inch QHD + LCD, with miniLED technology, certifications Pantone and DisplayHDR 1000, with DCI-P3 covered at 100%, 165 Hz refresh rate, Adaptive-Sync, 512 local dimming zones, 1,100 nits of peak brightness, support for the touch of capacitive pens for taking notes, hinge reclining to 360 ° to be able to use the device also as a tablet, classic notebook, or as a stand / tent. On the audio level, there are microphones with bi-directional noise cancellation, and stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res: the webcam, HD, has 3D noise cancellation and infrared for Hello.
The Ryzen 9 6900HS processor, an APU designed by AMD with 8 cores, 16 threads and 35W of TDP has fallen to the rudders: alongside it is the integrated Radeon RDNA2 GPU, but also the dedicated GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, designed by Nvidia to 125W, with the MUX switch that can delegate all graphics processing to the eGPU. It should be noted that, if still not enough, via the Asus Rog XG Mobile proprietary dock (powered at 330W, sized at 217 x 165 x 32.6 mm for 1 kg), you can benefit from an external GPU, such as the Radeon RX 6850 XT 12GB GDDR6 VRAM, but also additional ports (Display Port 1.4, HDMI 2.1, SD card reader, 4 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A). In terms of memories, the RAM (DDR5 4800) can reach up to 64 GB, while the storage, expandable via free m.2 slot, provides SSD (2 TB) with PCI-E gen 4.0 interface.
In terms of dissipation, on the back there is a huge Pulsar Heatsink heatsink that covers almost the entire width of the terminal, with 330 0.1 mm fins while, inside, in addition to the heatpipes and the three fans of the Frost Force system, it is provided also the use of the liquid metal of Thermal Grizzly. For typing, a keyboard with 1.7 mm travel caps, chiclet type, with N-Key function, and single-key backlighting (White with Aura Sync or RGB) was used. Of note, in terms of I / O and connectivity, the presence of a microSD reader, (1) USB 3.2 gen2 Type-C (DP 1.4 and Power Delivery), USB 3.2 2nd gen Type-A (2), HDMI 2.0b, 3.5mm combo jack, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2. The 90 WHr battery closes the technical picture with Windows 11 Pro.
The Special Edition of the Strix SCAR 17 (395 x 282.1 x 23.4 mm for 3 kg) is a gaming workstation in the body of a laptop. Basically, the laptop is equipped with a 17.3-inch IPS LCD screen with Adaptive Sync, 3 ms response time and Dolby Vision, a choice between a FullHD 360 Hz and 100% sRGB and a 240 Hz QHD with 100% DCI –P3. The audio is not far behind, with 4 Hi-Res speakers ready for Dolby Atmos, and the microphone array with two-way noise cancellation.
Under the keyboard, chiclet type, with RGB backlighting per key adjustable via Aura Sync, operates the Intel processor with 16 cores and 24 threads i9-12950HX which, via Dynamic Boost, benefits from 175 W being able to push to 5.2 GHz, while the GPU GeForcde RTX 3080 Ti, compared to what is seen in the CES 2022 model, via Dynamic Boost, can benefit from 25W more than previously seen (and therefore 175 W TGP). To complete this section we find 64 GB of DDR5 4800 RAM and up to 4 TB of storage, through PCI-E 4.0 SSD configured in Raid 0 configuration. For thermal dissipation, Asus has always resorted to Thermal Grizzly, whose liquid metal Conductonaut Extreme (spread on GPU and CPU) promises up to 15 ° less heat, in the name of a cooling compartment that also includes a vapor chamber practically extended to the middle of the motherboard.
There is no shortage of Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6E connectivity, with the ports that, on the other hand, are expressed in the RJ45 for Gigabit Lan, in the 3.5 mm combo jack, in HDMI 2.1, in Thunderbolt 4 via Type-C, in Type- C 3.2 2nd gen with DP 1.4 and Power Delivery, and in two USB 3.1 1st gen but Type-A. The autonomy section is also excellent: the battery, from 90 WHr, can be charged from 0 to 50% in half an hour using the new charger up to 330W, lightened by 27% and reduced by 34%. A little gem: for this laptop Asus has used a special invisible ink which, under the blue or UV LED light, reveals a motif that leads the user to the SCAR Runner mini-game.