CES 2021: ASUS Unveils New ROG Flow X13 Convertable Gaming Notebook
by Gavin Bonshor on January 12, 2021 1:40 PM EST
At the all-digital CES 2021 event, ASUS has unveiled a brand new convertible 14" gaming laptop, the ROG Flow X13. The Flow X13 can harness the power of AMD's Ryzen 9 5980HS mobile processor, with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card, with a flippable 360° touch screen.
The ASUS ROG Flow X13 represents an interesting segue into the gaming capable convertible space. Some of its most notable design aspects revolve around the 13.4" display, which has a 16:10 aspect ratio, with support for both touch and stylus input. The screen is coated with robust Corning Gorilla Glass, supports adaptive sync, and includes Pantone color validation. In terms of specification, the panel will be available with either 1080p 120 Hz or at 4K.
One of the biggest features includes its ability to convert into four different configurations on the fly, including a regular laptop, tablet, tent, and stand modes. Looking at the internals, the ROG Flow X13 will support up to and including the Ryzen 9 5980HS mobile processor, with up to and including NVIDIA GTX 1650 graphics. ASUS also states that it will be using AMD's top binned CPUs for this model to ensure the best performance and highest quality silicon.
Another claim from ASUS is that the ROG Flow X13's battery can hold out up to 18 hours, with 10 hours of expected battery life during continuous video playback. It comes supplied with its new 100 W USB Type-C PD charger that can charge an empty battery to 60% in around 39 minutes.
ASUS hasn't revealed when the ROG Flow X13 will be available to buy and hasn't supplied any pricing information.
Interested in more of the latest industry news? Check out our CES 2021 trade show landing page!
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Digital COrpus - Wednesday, January 13, 2021 - link
80-pin OCuLink, x8-wide (SFF-8621/SFF-9400, aka Molex "Nano-Pitch I/O") with a USB Type C connector likely for power delivery, in a custom over-mold. A photo of the custom GPU PCBs is up on videocards:https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-announces-rog-flo...
Those are 2, 40-pin connectors, aka x4 links in the top left. Aggregating 2, x4 OCuLink connectors to a x8-wide PCIe is supported in the spec by the PCIe SIG, but I don't understand why they would split the link internally. Except, unless, the IO on the dock is on a x4-wide bus and the GPU is on a x4-wide bus.
Spunjji - Friday, January 15, 2021 - link
I think the IO on the dock is also via the USB Type-C. Not sure why they'd split the link, though.Farfolomew - Thursday, February 4, 2021 - link
I posted this in the Radeon 5000 article, but I think it's worth posting here too. This new Asus Flow X13 laptop is quite unique, and kinda/sorta the first of it's kind of any device out there. How do I mean?Well, up to now, it's been all but impossible to buy a 360-degree hinged TOUCHSCREEN device, that also has a 120hz refresh panel. The only other laptop that had this were ones from HP that had a first-generation Privacy Screen built-in. The privacy screen has a feature that you can turn on and off to enable the viewing angles to be severely limited when desired. The first-gen versions of these had a knock-on effect of running at 120hz, so the touchscreen, 360-degree foldable versions of those are the only other touchscreen laptops with high refresh panels. None of them had particularly great gaming performance, as the best one available was a 4-core Kaby Lake-R powered Ultrabook. The new versions of HP's Privacy Screen no longer run at 120hz, so it was a limited time option.
That's why I'm so excited about this ASUS laptop. I wish it didn't have an external GPU, and only relied on the iGPU instead. But this is as close to my perfect device that has yet been created.