These two new ROG systems are incredibly costly and have different strengths, but each gives gamers top-performing components across the board.
For more on the two new Asus ROG systems:
00:00 – 00:15 Introduction
00:15 – 06:40 ROG Flow X16
06:41 – 14:35 ROG Scar 17 Special Edition
14:36 – 15:27 Outro
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– Hello, I’m Matthew Buzzi from PCMag. And I’m here with Sascha Krohn from Asus Who has two new ROG
laptops to show us today. We’re going to start
with the Asus Flow entry, A new addition to the portable Convertible hybrid 2-in-1 product, But on the larger size this time. Sascha, why don’t you show
us what you have there? – Yeah, thanks. So it’s the ROG Flow X16. And our ROG Flow series
is all about versatility And ultra portable gaming devices. So the X16, as the name implies, 16 inch. The previous models we
had are the ROG Flow X13, Which we just refreshed, At CES a couple of months ago. And our brand new ROG Flow Z13, Which we launched at CES a few months ago. So the X13 is a 13.3 inch
1.3 kilo convertible, And the Z13 is a detachable. So it’s a 1.1 kilo Windows tablet With an Intel Core i9
12th gen CPU and a 3050Ti. And that’s only 1.1 kilo and
super compact lightweight. And now we’re extending
the ROG flow series further And we’re adding a 16 inch version Because people told us, Hey we would like to
have a bigger display. And we like to have an option
for even more performance. And the 16 inch form factor
allows us to do that. So let me switch to my top camera And I have it right here in front of me. So there you see the ROG Flow X16, You have some really powerful speakers In this device, huge touch pad.
And there is that panel. And the interesting
thing about this one is, You can see how my DSLR
camera cannot handle The white balance because
this is a mini LED Panel with up to 1100
nits peak brightness. – It’s just too bright! – Crazy bright. – Yeah. It’s just too bright. – It’s too bright for the cameras. – But you get the idea, right? So the cool thing is also
the super slim bezel. So if you look at it there,
super slim bezels all around It has a glass cover
that always makes a panel Or a laptop look so much
more premium and it’s touch. So that’s definitely
something really neat. And yeah, for anybody who
doesn’t really care about it Being a convertible and doesn’t want to Transform it into a tablet You don’t have to. You can treat this like just A regular Windows laptop, clamshell laptop And you have a really
premium device already based On AMD’s latest mobile Ryzen 6000 series, 6900 HS R9 CPU, Up to RTX 3070 TI GPU built
in, 105 Watts graphics power. So 80 plus 25 dynamic boost. And the really interesting
thing about this one as well Look at how slim it is. So it’s just a little bit thicker. Let me get the camera to focus. Come on. It’s just a little bit
thicker than the Flow X13 The 13 inch device, but
it has two SO-DIMM slots Two memory slots, and
it has two SSD slots.
So everything is actually
upgradeable in this device Despite it being so incredibly thin. And it’s only around two kilos. So it’s really light as well. And what else do we
have for the Flow Series That really sets it apart
is our XG mobile connector. So you can connect
external graphics adapters To this device. And there’s a built in
type C connector here That you can see, you can use it just Like a regular type C
connector, charge the laptop You get a display signal and so on. So for our external graphics adapters We have one that’s up to an RTX 3080 GPU and a brand new one That is up to the latest
AMD mobile high-end GPU The RX 6850M XT. And both of those offer
incredible performance. And they’re only around
one kilo in weight. So you can add that
externally to the laptop But since this one has a 3070 TI That doesn’t make all that much sense. You don’t get that much extra performance. So the key benefit here really is more About future proofing the device, You have eight PCI express lanes here Going straight to the CPU,
giving you maximum performance. That’s double the PCI
express lanes you get For Thunderbolt, for example. So in the future, you know,
down the road, two, three years Four years in the future, You can use those PCI express lanes And get the latest XG mobile at that time. And, you know, have the latest top
Of the line GPU plugged
in into this device. – You beat me to the punch In asking what was inside,
the burning question But you covered that on
the components front. Yeah. This makes the… With the smaller size
Flow systems I would say, And any viewers if you miss those systems, They are smaller, as Sascha said. So getting sort of the portability And the tablet form factor was
much more key to the design Idea, whereas then you would take it On the road, use it as
a tablet, bring it home Plug it into the
[indistinct] for more power. As Sascha said, this may be being bigger And having more powerful
external components Just out of the box, maybe
needs the external GPU less. And if you like the idea, You like the form factor
and you don’t need to use it As a tablet, ’cause the others, we did say You sort of have to a want a tablet To justify this, right? The tablet has to be something
somewhat useful to you Whereas this like many
convertible laptops, If you don’t want to
actually use it in that way, It’ll function just fine as
a laptop without any of that. – Yeah. And that’s right, But you can get it up to a 3070 TI But you don’t necessarily have to. Right. So you can also
get it with a 3050 TI And then the XG Mobile Becomes a lot more interesting again, Even for the current XG Mobile with this device. If you look at it, the design, So this is a pre-production unit.
The later one, the final one Is not going to have those lines here. That’s just a pre-production
kind of situation. And it’s going to have a coating On here that rejects fingerprints. So you won’t be seeing Smudges like you’re seeing right now here Cooling wise, really interesting. We have… Come on focus. There you go. Edge to edge fan exhaust here in the back. So that’s the first time we’re doing this And I haven’t actually
seen anybody else do this. This is all heat sink fins. This is not just vents. And I do have the heat sink here as well. So I can show that And we have a triple fan
cooling solution in here. So we have two fans here
and then a third fan. And the third fan here allows us to have Only 45 decibels under full
loading versus two fans Where we would get the same
performance, but would have to Run the fans at higher speed
and get around 52 decibels. So that’s a huge improvement,
seven decibels less Thanks to having a third fan
and lots of heat pipes, As you can see there, And liquid metal on the CPU. So there’s the nickel
plating that makes sure The liquid metal doesn’t dry out Or get worse over the years. So you can expect years
and years of pretty much The same temperatures like on
the first day, which is really Two benefits for liquid metal.
So it lasts, it stays
pretty much the same. You get the same temperatures
year after year after year And you get much lower temperatures. So around 10 degrees lower
than regular thermal paste. – Now we’re going to switch
over to the other product Sascha has to show us, which
is the Strix Scar entry. This is something a bit special. It goes all in on power. It’s the Scar Special Edition And Sascha correct me if I’m wrong, This is for those
enthusiasts who want to max Out on power and sort of go all in On the component options and have the kind Of the best possible available
power right now in a laptop. So take it away. Show me what it looks like. And talk, talk me through it. – Let me move over the Flow X16 And then put the Scar
Special Edition up here. So like you mentioned, it is special. Yes. We literally call
it the Special Edition. So the Scar Special Edition is essentially The Scar 2022 that we launched at CES Just a couple of months ago
but we supersized everything And everything is fully maxed out. So what you get is a
slightly different design. So you can clearly tell that
you don’t have the regular one But this is a different version And you still have all the
perks of the regular Scars. So this part, the armor
cap can be removed. You get three different ones,
bundled with the laptop. You can customize it, paint it. You can even 3D print your own. And if you don’t have a 3D printer
You can actually get one from a website. There’s several services
online where you can Download the file, the 3D
render file to 3D print it And then they print it for
you, and send it to you. So very very cool. You just need a little bit
of hot glue and a magnet And you can create your
own custom tag on here. So when I open it up,
you see that keyboard And that chassis. That’s what really sets
apart for me at least, Our Strix Series, the Strix Scar And the Strix G from our other models Is you get really nice
keyboard temperatures Very low keyboard temperatures And very generous key travel,
two millimeter key travel Nice key cap curve, generous
spacing and everything. And you have a cool
semi-transparent chassis here. So that’s the internal chassis
structure that you can see Through this part of the chassis And panel wise you’re looking
at a huge 17 inch screen Very immersive for gaming
and movies as well. And you get a choice Between two of the best panels Or the best panels you can get In a laptop and even in a desktop monitor. So full HD 360 Hertz, QHD 240 Hertz. There just isn’t anything better On a desktop monitor either. And you get that built into your laptop And look at how slim that panel is. Isn’t that awesome? How cool would it be If your desktop monitor
would be that slim, huh? – One day.
– Yeah. One day I think
it actually will happen. I don’t think it’s going to
be that long in the future, But not saying that we have something Coming up with this but… So you can see the
thickness of the device. It is not… Come on, focus. There we go. It’s not super slim, but
at around 27-30 millimeters It is very respectable
for a desktop replacement ’cause this is like a portable workstation Essentially portable
workstation gaming station. You got 2.5G internet in the back. HDMI, two type C ports, the power jack. And yeah, you have USB ports, USB A On the left side and the combo audio jack. But what this is really about Is the performance and the components. And I can show you here, This is the motherboard And you can see anybody, I’m a geek at heart. Anybody who knows a little bit About hardware is going
to see this, the VRM row. And is going to be like, wow That’s a really powerful system. So CPU here, you got Intel’s
12th gen latest mobile CPU. That’s going to be the
Core i9 12950 HX CPU. This one has eight performance cores And eight efficiency cores, as opposed To currently the best
you could get until now Was six performance cores
and eight efficiency cores. So now the same as in
a desktop 12th gen CPU You can get that in a laptop as well. And in video’s latest and
greatest RTX 3080 TI GPU.
Now we’re running those. We are pushing as much power And as high as wattage
through those two chips As the manufacturer
respectively allows us. So for the 3080 TI that is 175 Watts, 150 plus 25 dynamic boost for the CPU That is also 175 Watts. And that is really amazing. If you think about it, for
a mobile CPU, 175 Watts That is if you’re only using the CPU. So if you’re doing
something like video editing Or compiling code, something of the likes When you really need a
lot of CPU horsepower You can go up to 175 Watts. That is the not long
term power consumption. It is going to go down a little
bit, to around 160 Watts. If you have something
running for quite a while But 160 Watts is still
insane for a laptop. And I am pretty sure there’s
not going to be anything Quite like it when it
comes to performance. Memory wise, up to 64 GB
DDF5 4800 megahertz memory, Two SSD slots both gen four, Four PCI express lanes in rate zero For up to 14,000 megabytes
per second transfer speeds. So as you can see
everything fully maxed out And you get the best of the best As well when it comes to cooling. So there’s a vapor chamber here. And that is one huge vapor chamber. I don’t think I’ve ever seen A bigger vapor chamber in any device. And yeah, so we even
have heat pipes here to Extend the heating fin
surface area, even further For even more performance
and as you can see
There are two cold plates on here That are both nickel plated. So we got nickel plating On the CPU cold plate and
the GPU cold plate again. So liquid metal on both CPU and GPU. And this is actually our second generation Liquid metal that we developed In partnership with Thermal Grizzly. So this one has a new solution. This is a new solution. That’s going to be available On the retail market as
well in a couple of weeks Thermal Grizzly will be selling it So you can buy it, Anybody can buy it and put
it on your desktop CPU, GPU, Nintendo Switch, your toaster. Anything you want to cool I don’t know why you’d
want to cool a toaster. I don’t know why I said that, but… – Got to find the perfect that balance Between the heat and the cool that’s… There you go. – Right. Yeah. For the new liquid metal It gets rid of the tin. So it’s pure Gallium and Indium. As a result, it is more expensive. It’s almost twice as expensive
as regular liquid metal But you get even higher
thermal conductivity. So you get even lower temperatures Up to five degrees lower
than regular liquid metal, Which is very impressive. ’Cause regular liquid metal
is already around 10 degrees Lower than normal paste,
And like I said, it lasts And lasts and lasts and you
got the same temperature. So this is one hell of a cooling solution. And you can see everything
is really fully maxed out. You get the best of the
best for everything. The panel, memory storage,
CPU, GPU, ethernet, IO ports Cooling solution,
everything fully maxed out. And we do have our regular
Strix Scar still available. This just came out at CES
just a few months ago. So this one is not going to replace it. It’s going to sit on top. It’s going to be a more
powerful version for basically People who just want
everything fully maxed out. We believe that for most customers The regular Scar is
probably the best solution The best option for them. But then there are people who They just want everything fully maxed out. This is not going to be
an affordable solution Obviously this is going
to be a premium product. And it is going to come
at a cost literally To have everything fully maxed out. But there are people who really want this. And this is kind of our thank you To our ROG community who wants us to, Push everything to the limit And give them a device that Has everything fully maxed out As fast as you could possibly
build a gaming laptop. – So as I mentioned at the top, This is for enthusiasts. This is one for the hardcore fans, The ones with the big budget, Those who want the best of the best.
It may be not for the
majority of the shoppers. We have plenty of round ups
of our favorite entry level And mid-range gaming laptops. You can check those out on PCmag.com. Go look at those and browse Through those if that’s
what you’re looking for. But as far as the value
front, maybe not this. This is definitely for the enthusiasts. – It’s basically for the
Philip J. Frys out there Who are yelling at us,
shut up and take my money. Just gimme the best. – The best of whatever you have At this point in 2022 Take it and put it in this
laptop and, and pay up. Right. That’s the idea. Sascha, thank you so much
for showing us both of these. You can check out more details On PCmag.com and read eventual reviews Of these laptops when
they become available. So do check back and
thank you for watching.
