For all of the gamers out there, Asus just released their Republic of Gamers lineup of hardware, laptops, monitors and peripherals. Asus’s 2016 lineup, announced today at CES 2016, shows not just new laptops like the ROG GX700 with spaceship like styling, but also new water cooled motherboards, 4k monitors with 1ms response times, and new peripherals such as a gaming keyboard, mouse, and graphics docking station. Let’s take a look at their lineup.
Laptops
ROG GX700
One of the most ambitious and impressive machines on the list is the ROG GX700 Laptop. First revealed at IFA 2015 in Berlin, this Asus gaming laptop is being touted as the world’s first liquid-cooled gaming laptop thanks to its detachable ROG Hydro Overlocking System. The water cooling is necessary because this laptop comes with an unlocked 6th-generation (Skylake) Intel processor. With an unlocked chip, gamers are able to alter the clock speed of the chip in the BIOS, allowing them to accelerate the chip and push it to its limits, which creates significantly more heat.
What’s more is since it is using the unlocked Skylake mobile Core i7 chips, it will have 4 core variants as opposed to two cores which most previous lines of Intel mobile processors offered. As DirectX12 gaming API of Windows 10 comes into use by more and more game developers, this will be an important factor. DirectX12 utilizes all of the processors cores when running a game as opposed to just running a single core which was standard for all previous versions of DirectX. To power the massive 17 inch, 4K IPS display, the ROG GX700 also features a GTX 980. Note that I didn’t say a 980M, this laptop will come with a full desktop grade GPU for a true desktop gaming experience in a more mobile form factor.
ROG G752
This refresh of a more standard gaming laptop still comes with a great deal of power which won’t require a docking station to maximize its performance. The ROG G752 comes with a 6th-generation Intel Core i7, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M gpu, and the option to upgrade to 64GB of DDR4 RAM. It also comes with aggressive styling on the back that will certainly turn heads, part of the new ROG exclusive mobile 3D Vapor Chamber thermal system for efficient cooling.
Desktops
ROG Maximus VIII Formula
Asus also announced the ROG Maximus VIII Formula motherboards for full desktop gaming rigs. These motherboards are built with Z170 ATX architecture to support 6th-generation Intel desktop processors and feature CrossChill EK cooling system which is a hybrid of air and liquid cooling right on the motherboard. They also come in a variety of colors to match the theme of your custom build gaming rig.
ASUS 970 Pro Gaming/Aura
For those gamers who prefer having an AMD chipset as opposed to Intel, Asus announced the 970 Pro Gaming/Aura motherboard, which is the first AMD 970+SB950 chipset based ATX gaming motherboard to support the latest AMD processors.
B150I Pro Gaming/Wi-Fi/Aura
This mini ITX motherboard comes with customizable LED lighting, built in 802.11ac WiFi, an M.2 socket to make use of the latest high-speed solid-state drives, a dedicated onboard water-pump header to support water-cooling, and other ROG technologies such as SupremeFX and Sonic Radar II audio. All of this packed into a mini ITX form factor allowing gamers to build smaller rigs (think more size of an Xbox than a traditional tower) that still pack all the power of larger size gaming stations.
ROG GT51 gaming desktop
Asus’s newest gaming desktop won the 2016 CES Innovation Award in the Gaming and Virtual Reality category for its massively powered ROG GT51. As you might expect it comes with a Skylake chipset as well, but features the powerful 6700K processor, which can be overclocked for increased performance. It can also support multiple NVIDIA GTX Titan graphics cards to enable running games on three 4k resolution monitors. The ROG GT51 comes with its own software known as Turbo Gear to make overclocking and monitoring your system easy, with just a single click. The desktop PC additionally features its own cooling system which has a dedicated air tunnel. This maximizes the use of natural convection currents to efficiently manage all the heat the systems components will throw out during a gaming session. The case itself for this desktop features a side window to display the impressive inner hardware, and has customizable lighting effects which are capable of up to 8 million different colors.
Monitors
Asus announced new monitors as well today that are great for gamers. There are both 28 and 24 inch variants of their 4k MG displays which feature 3840 X 2160 resolution and 1ms response times.
ROG Swift PG348Q Gaming Display
The biggest monitor Asus announced is the ROG Swift PG348Q. This Ultrawide Quad HD (UWQHD) display features 3440 x 1440 resolution on a single 34 inch panel, a 100Hz refresh rate, and NVIDIA G-Sync technology to work seamlessly with your NVIDIA graphics card for minimal tear and fast rendering.
Peripherals
ROG Spatha wireless/wired gaming mouse
The latest ROG gaming mouse features 8200 DPI laser, 12 programmable buttons, and the option of it being either wireless or wired.
ROG Claymore mechanical gaming keyboard
This mechanical keyboard is specialized for gamers and features unique backlighting that is customizeable with RGB ligting and N-key Rollover technology. It can also be synced with ROG motherboards so that hotkeys can control fan speed, boot up, CPU and memory overclocking, and BIOS access.
ROG XG2 external graphics docking station
The Asus ROG XG2 is an docking station for you gaming laptop that can also house either a compatible ASUS GeForce or Radeon graphics card. This allows you to boost the graphics performance of your laptop which may only have standard graphics processor onboard the motherboard, and not a discrete GPU. It also allows you to supply power to your laptop, minimizing the number of cords you have to keep hooking into your laptop when you dock it.
That’s the full lineup of Asus ROG wares for 2016. Stay tuned for more news out of CES 2016.
