ASUS Zephyrus S GX701 Laptop Rocks 17-inch 144Hz G-Sync Panel And Beastly RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU
But the biggest news with the Zephyrus S relates to the GPU that it uses. While its 15-inch counterpart makes use of a Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1060 or GeForce GTX 1070 with Max-Q design, this enlarged gaming notebook relies on NVIDIA's new Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 with Max-Q design. This is NVIDIA's latest mobility GPU that brings with it real-time ray tracing goodness that is sure to spread to more games during 2019 (Battlefield V was the headlining title for the GeForce RTX launch in late 2018).
NVIDIA's GeForce RTX family provides a significant performance advantage over its Pascal-based predecessor, and real-time ray tracing performance should be more than adequate given the Full HD resolution of the 17.3-inch display. In our own testing, the desktop GeForce RTX 2080 was able to manage roughly 89 fps in Battlefield V with Ultra Settings and DXR enabled at 1920x1080 (with the Tides of War patch installed).
While the GPU is definitely the star of the show, there's other high-end hardware goodness to be had with the Zephyrus S. For instance, it makes use of an 8th generation Intel Core i7-8750H processor that can be backed with up to 24GB of DDR4-2666 memory (8GB is already integrated into the motherboard). There are also two M.2 NVMe PCIe slots (one x2, one x4) that each can support up to 1TB SSDs.
When it comes to connectivity, you'll find a host of ports including three USB-A ports and two USB-C ports. Also along for the ride is an HDMI 2.0b port. As for wireless networking, ASUS has outfitted the Zephyrus S with Bluetooth 5.0 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.
Given that this is a gaming notebook, you won't be surprised to find per-key RGB lighting for the keyboard along with AURA SYNC. The keys also provide 1.4mm of travel and N-key rollover.
ASUS says that the Zephyrus S (GX531) will be available later in Q1, and pricing has yet to be determined.
