Asus has up to date its dual-display gaming laptop computer for 2023, bringing AMD’s and Nvidia’s newest Ryzen 7000 and GeForce RTX 40 Collection silicon to the brand new ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 (begins at $3,499.99; $3,999.99 as examined). The comparatively slim type issue and distinctive design don’t compromise the efficiency: This machine posted a number of the quickest processing and gaming outcomes we’ve seen, and the elegant design retains an simple cool issue. After all, it’s a must to pay up for what you see right here, however in the event you’re already buying within the high-end gaming system vary, it’s possible you’ll as effectively get the head-turning design to associate with the blazing-fast body charges. When you’re in search of a extra conventional structure and a greater worth, take a look at the latest Editors’ Selection award holder, Lenovo’s Legion Professional 7i Gen 8, a standard gaming clamshell.
The Twin-Show Duo: Two Screens Are Higher Than One
The 2-screen design isn’t new any longer—see the same 2022 Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 mannequin—so it doesn’t want fairly as a lot examination, however it’s nonetheless fairly cool. When you haven’t seen this association earlier than, Asus Duo laptops use one essential usually sized show, along with a second smaller display above the keyboard. This second display, named the ScreenPad Plus on this method, is a contact show that angles up towards the consumer when the laptop computer is pulled open. The scale and specs of those screens have different over the previous few years, however the basic idea is identical.
As talked about, the specs of those screens have frequently modified by mannequin, and this unit is each superior and enticing. The principle show measures 16 inches diagonally, and it bears a pointy 2,560-by-1,600-pixel decision. That is a QHD-equivalent show, simply in a 16:10 facet ratio relatively than 16:9. The panel additionally contains a 240Hz refresh price for easy gaming classes.
The decrease display is a shiny contact show, with an awkward-sounding 2,560-by-734-pixel decision—nonetheless sharp, however a lot shorter than a standard panel. Nonetheless, it offers sufficient area to be usable, and each screens are crisp and brilliant; the primary show is a mini LED display, and its brightness is increased than most alternate options. Picture high quality is unquestionably a plus on this machine.
What is the objective of a second display like this one? You’ll be able to pull any window or complete utility onto the smaller show to make use of as a second monitor. Whether or not it’s a reference sheet you’ll look at incessantly (like a sport walkthrough), your music app, or a chat app, the second show provides a whole lot of digital actual property to an in any other case fairly compact system.
Contemplating it’s a 16-inch dual-display gaming laptop computer, its footprint and weight are relatively cheap at 0.81 by 14 by 10.4 inches (HWD) and 5.9 kilos. The Legion Professional 7i Gen 8, with its single show of the identical measurement, is thicker and heavier, at 1 by 14.3 by 10.3 inches and 6.1 kilos.
Whereas the Duo design is just not new, I ought to nonetheless take a second to say the design continues to impress me. Whereas hardly essential, and definitely costly, the Duo laptops proceed to really feel like they’re from the long run, particularly since these aren’t big, thick machines.
You’ll take pleasure in real usefulness from this twin-panel idea, and it offers some uncommon pleasure within the comparatively stale gaming laptop computer area. (Nevertheless, it’s possible you’ll expertise some occasional awkwardness with the home windows showing the place you don’t need them, as I did.) You’ll be able to toggle the second show off totally with a perform button above the touchpad. You may additionally discover a helpful bespoke menu on the left aspect of the ScreenPad Plus, the place all kinds of customization choices and shortcuts can be found.
Design Nuances
One of many victims of the additional show is the keyboard, which is a bit awkward. This has been the case with every Duo system, so whereas it’s not new to this version, it’s nonetheless a difficulty (if not an enormous one). The keyboard is shunted to the entrance fringe of the system, with no place to relaxation your palms. Not a deal breaker, however it’s barely much less snug than the traditional setup, and takes some getting used to. The keyboard additionally feels a bit cramped regardless of the comparatively massive chassis, as a result of it could’t transcend the bounds of the decrease half.
The touchpad additionally suffers from this association. It’s totally non-traditional, relegated to a slender portion on the decrease proper aspect. Once more, not new to this product line, however it takes a whole lot of getting used to. Even while you acclimate, it’s nonetheless much less perfect than a roomier, centered touchpad.
On the flip aspect, the second show does deliver a design benefit in improved airflow. The second display raises up as you open up the laptop computer from its closed clamshell state, and beneath it, extra air flow is uncovered. For creative-work and gaming laptops, transferring extra cool air via the system is a welcome efficiency buff.
Regardless of the relative thinness and strange design, Asus discovered room to suit loads of bodily connectivity on the system. The left flank holds the ability jack, a USB Kind-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, a USB Kind-C 3.2 Gen 2 port with charging and DisplayPort help, a microSD slot, and an audio jack. The fitting edge holds only one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port with DisplayPort help. The remainder of the ports are across the again, the place you’ll discover one other Kind-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, an HDMI output, and an Ethernet jack.
Testing the ROG Zephyrus Duo 16: High-Finish Energy Crams Right into a Mainstream Gaming Laptop computer
As acknowledged up high, the beginning worth is an eye-watering $3,499.99, so even getting within the door is significantly costly. Our overview mannequin doesn’t cease there, going for broke on energy. The spotlight is the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX “Dragon Vary” cell processor, which was the topic of a standalone testing story we ran as the primary Ryzen 7000 chip we acquired our fingers on. The outcomes the primary time round have been spectacular, however a CPU will carry out in another way in each laptop computer, so we have been nonetheless excited to place it via its paces right here once more.
The remainder of the specs embrace 32GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and the all-power Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU. On this laptop computer, the GPU is configured at 140 watts (W) plus a 35W enhance, which has an enormous impact on efficiency. We additionally examined the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop computer GPU by itself when it first launched just lately, however the identical precept applies: totally different laptop computer implementation, totally different efficiency. The “base” mannequin, in the event you can name it that, is the same loadout, however drops the GPU to merely an RTX 4080, and the storage halves to 1TB.
To pretty gauge the Zephyrus Duo and its elements, we’ve in contrast its outcomes on our suite of benchmarks with these of the next programs…
First, you’ve got final yr’s Duo 16, making for an honest easy 1:1 step-up comparability. Following that, now we have the most effective high-end values we’ve reviewed just lately, the 16-inch Lenovo Legion Professional 7i Gen 8, which additionally represents Intel’s thirteenth Gen Core i9 platform. The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 and the Razer Blade 18 run on that silicon too, however are bigger 17-inch and 18-inch laptops, respectively.
Productiveness Assessments
The principle benchmark of UL’s PCMark 10 simulates quite a lot of real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows to measure general efficiency for office-centric duties equivalent to phrase processing, spreadsheeting, internet searching, and videoconferencing. We additionally run PCMark 10’s Full System Drive check to evaluate the load time and throughput of a laptop computer’s storage.
Three additional benchmarks concentrate on the CPU, utilizing all out there cores and threads, to price a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a posh scene, whereas Geekbench 5.4 Professional by Primate Labs simulates fashionable apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease occasions are higher).
Usually, our last productiveness check is PugetBench for Photoshop from workstation maker Puget Methods, which makes use of the Inventive Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to price a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia functions. Nevertheless, we have been working right into a compatibility situation with the software program model we use and the brand new {hardware}, so we’ll look to change up variations or remedy this situation within the close to future.
The brief model of those outcomes is that the Zephyrus Duo was extremely quick. The longer model is that it set the very best rating right here on two outcomes, landed proper with the opposite leaders, and proved to be a powerhouse in content material creation and enhancing when not gaming. The brand new Ryzen silicon has come to shut to getting AMD again to neck-and-neck parity with, if not on high of, Intel—an enchancment from the prior technology.
Graphics and Gaming Assessments
We check Home windows PC graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark: Night time Raid (extra modest, appropriate for laptops with built-in graphics) and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We additionally attempt two OpenGL benchmarks from the cross-platform GFXBench, run offscreen to accommodate totally different show resolutions.
As well as, we run three real-world sport checks utilizing the built-in 1080p benchmarks of F1 2021, Murderer’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These characterize simulation, open-world action-adventure, and aggressive esports shooter video games, respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (the previous at its Medium and Extremely high quality presets, the latter at Low and Extremely high quality), whereas F1 2021 is run twice at max settings with and with out Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing turned on.
The weird design did seem to considerably restrict the Duo 16 compared with one of the best of one of the best, however not by a big margin. Even with that modest hole, the gaming outcomes have been measurably highly effective (although sure, that needs to be anticipated, given the components and value). Nonetheless, we are able to affirm it carried out because it ought to, delivering top-end body charges in quite a lot of gaming eventualities. You’ll be able to load up any fashionable AAA title and revel in excessive body charges, with the extra show there to assist with guides, on-line chats, music, and extra.
Our most demanding sport check, Murderer’s Creed: Valhalla, sees body charges of comfortably greater than 100 frames per second (fps) even at most settings. That’s at 1080p, whereas on the Duo 16’s native QHD decision, it averaged 91fps on the Extremely Excessive preset. That decision is extra straining, clearly, however the system can cruise previous the 60fps goal even then. You don’t have any 4K concern with this show, however ray tracing and extra demanding titles will profit from the GeForce RTX 40 Collection GPU and Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling the place it applies to the sport in query.
Battery and Show Assessments
We check laptop computer battery life by taking part in a domestically saved 720p video file with show brightness at 50% and audio quantity at 100% till the system quits. We be certain that the battery is totally charged earlier than the check, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
To benchmark shows, we additionally use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Home windows software program to measure a laptop computer display’s coloration saturation—what proportion of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 coloration gamuts or palettes the show can present—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per sq. meter).
Battery life was, sadly, poor right here. The twin shows, excessive decision, and highly effective elements add as much as solely three hours of battery life on our check. That’s disappointing, particularly as a result of this method manages to be considerably transportable regardless of these elements, however it would final off the charger for simply a short while. You in all probability wouldn’t do a lot pro-grade inventive work or hardcore gaming classes on battery, typically talking, however this consequence does restrict the product’s general usefulness as a cell gadget. It needs to be famous that this laptop computer ran its show a number of hundred nits brighter than most others within the check at 50% brightness, which absolutely contributed to this brief battery runtime.
On the flip aspect, coloration protection is broad, which is thrilling information for inventive professionals on this system. The principle display regarded brilliant to my eyes, and the outcomes affirm that—after which some. This is likely one of the brightest laptop computer shows we’ve examined, delivered by the mini LED backlighting, including to the clear and vibrant high quality picture. Although the method was considerably awkward on the ScreenPad Plus, I ran the brightness check on it, too: It measured 181 nits at 50% and 364 nits at 100%.
Verdict: A High-Class Choose for Huge Budgets
As has been the case with previous Zephyrus Duo programs, this laptop computer is super-cool and hyper-expensive. For these with the deepest budgets, the “worth” right here might not matter, and so they’ll be getting a chic twin-screen system with the quickest fashionable components. These customers and early adopters might want the best, quickest factor, and the Duo 16 makes a compelling case on that entrance.
For the overwhelming majority, although, it’s exhausting to justify assembly the asking worth right here. You may discover gaming laptops which are simply as quick, and even sooner, for a lot much less cash. That could be much less of a priority for customers laptops that price significantly greater than $2,000, to start with, but when an alternate just like the Lenovo Legion Professional 7i Gen 8 is inexpensive and sooner, it’s powerful to make a case towards it if all-out pace is your essential cause to spend massive. In case your finances is sort of limitless and the twin screens are probably the most interesting design you’ve seen, although, you’ll undoubtedly take pleasure in this cutting-edge machine. Simply thoughts the battery life; that was the primary quibble that stored it from four-star standing.
