Asus introduces 18mm thin RoG gaming laptop with GTX 1080 Max-Q

Asus has unveiled the Zephyrus GX501, an 18mm thick laptop for gamers equipped with the GTX 1080 Max-Q. When the user opens the 15.6″ screen, the housing is slightly lifted for better cooling.

At 17.9mm at its thickest point and 16.9mm at its thinnest, the Zephyrus GX501 is one of the thinnest gaming laptops to date. For example, the Razer Blade Pro is 22.5mm thick. The Zephyrus weighs 2.24 kilograms and has a Max-Q version of the GeForce GTX 1080. The laptop is equipped with Intel Core i7 quad-cores from the Kaby Lake generation. The 15.6″ screen offers a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels, a refresh rate of 120Hz and support for Nvidia’s G-Sync.

Asus equips the laptop with a mechanism it calls Active Aerodynamic System. When opening the screen, the laptop is slightly lifted at the back. This releases ventilation grilles, which has a positive influence on the airflow and thus on the cooling in the laptop. The keyboard is backlit and its colors can be set with Asus’ Aura software.

The manufacturer has brought forward the keyboard of the laptop, just as Acer has done with the Acer Predator Triton, for example. With the Zephyrus GX501, the trackpad is placed where the numerical island is normally located.