There have been a few larger two-in-one laptops with hardware powerful enough for PC gaming. But they’re typically made for media creators, such as HP’s Spectre x360 16, so gaming is just something they can do, not what they’re built for. The ROG Flow X16 that Asus announced on Tuesday is a full-fledged gaming two-in-one with components and cooling strong enough for demanding games and the option to really boost performance at your desk.
Aside from extra venting, the body of the 16-inch two-in-one doesn’t have a typical gaming laptop design. Likewise, it’s not too thick at 19.4 millimeters (0.8 inch) and it weighs about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds). However, inside you’ll find up to an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU and up to 64GB of DDR5 4,800MHz RAM. A unique heatsink design and three fans keep everything cool.
Precise chassis cutouts send air toward components for better cooling.
Asus
Asus used a 16:10 QHD Mini-LED touch display with a 165Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage and 1,100 nits of peak brightness. It sounds like a fantastic gaming display, especially since you can use it for touch-friendly mobile games in laptop mode or swing the keyboard out of the way and use the X16 with a controller or an external keyboard and mouse.
Also, like the smaller ROG Flow X13 and Flow Z13 detachable two-in-one, the X16 works with Asus’ latest XG Mobile eGPU that supports up to an AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT graphics card. It’s also a docking station with an HDMI 2.1 out, a DisplayPort 1.4 out with G-Sync support, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports and a UHS-II SD Card reader.
The ROG Flow X16 will be available later this year starting at $1,950. That converts to roughly £1,580 or AU$2,795.
Asus
For those who care less about mobility and flexibility and more about pure performance, Asus also announced the ROG Strix Scar 17 SE. Starting at $3,500, the 17-inch laptop has an Intel Core i9-12900HX with an Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti that’s been boosted to a 175-watt power envelope for more GPU performance than any other laptop in its lineup, Asus said. Configurations will include up to 64GB DDR5 4,800MHz RAM and two 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSDs in RAID 0.
The Strix Scar 17 SE will be available with two panel options: an FHD display with a 360Hz refresh rate or a QHD screen with a 240Hz refresh rate. There’s also a multiplexer (MUX) switch so the discrete graphics can bypass the integrated graphics to reduce latency.
