ASUS ROG launched the new Zephyrus G14 gaming notebook

Published by

teaser

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today launched the new Zephyrus G14 gaming notebook that brings unprecedented power to an ultra-slim 14-inch form factor.



-- ASUS -- Getting cutting-edge components to peak performance levels is challenging in such a small machine. Despite a chassis under 20mm thin, the Zephyrus G14 has carefully customized cooling that brings out the best of its exclusive 4th generation AMD® Ryzen™ CPUs and up to an NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2060 GPU. Users can optimize for gaming or creative pursuits with a choice between high refresh and high resolution displays, both with Pantone® Validated colors and AMD FreeSync™ technology. 
More than 10 hours of battery life and the ability to charge from compatible Type-C power packs makes the G14 extra portable. Subtle styling in Moonlight White or Eclipse Gray are clean and professional, accentuating a versatile design filled with premium features that enhance everyday use. The optional AniMe Matrix™ display deepens personalization, enabling users to show custom graphics, animations, and other effects across over a thousand mini LEDs embedded in the lid.


Packed into a much smaller footprint than 15-inch alternatives, the G14 easily slips into conventional laptop bags and backpacks. The system is only 1.79cm thin and 3.53lb without the custom LED matrix. To keep the notebook light and strong, honeycomb reinforcements beneath the palm rest add strength with minimal extra material. The Magnesium-aluminum alloy deck is precisely machined and fingerprint resistant for a professional polish. High strength and low weight make aluminum ideal for the lid, whose distinctive dot matrix design is produced by a CNC milling process that puts 6,536 precise perforations in the exterior panel.

The ROG splash across the lid comes to life with the AniMe Matrix display available on select models. This display uses 1,215 mini LEDs to give gamers a new medium to express their individuality. Each LED emits a white glow with 256 levels of brightness control.

Users can import animated GIFs and other graphics, build custom animations frame by frame, and type text messages with different fonts. Visualizations react to music and other audio, creating a unique platform for DJs and other artists. Additional features that will be added at the end of Q1 include system functions that show new email notifications, as well as the date, time, and battery level.

Perfecting the AniMe Matrix display was a significant milestone in the G14 project. It took 15 iterations alone to create the mask that evenly distributes light from each LED. The alignment of this diffusing layer has to be perfect to get the ideal effect, especially since the individual lights are rectangular rather than square. ROG engineers were also careful to balance the number of mini LEDs to minimize heat, controller hardware, and power requirements.

Immersive gaming visuals

The Zephyrus G14 comes with up to a GeForce RTX 2060 augmented by ROG Boost up to 1298MHz at 65W. The discrete GPU is based on the latest NVIDIA Turing architecture, which melds dedicated cores for programmable shading, real-time ray tracing, and artificial intelligence. This combination enables improved lighting, shadows, and other in-game effects, and it also offers a diverse array of compute resources for accelerating demanding workloads like content creation, 3D modeling, and deep learning.

Turing’s dedicated video encoder is largely responsible for the G14’s ability to game and stream simultaneously. The specialized hardware allows higher stream quality with minimal performance impact, and it’s compatible with Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), a popular capture tool among burgeoning creators and aspiring Twitch streamers.

High refresh or high resolution

The G14 offers a choice between two premium panels tailored for different needs. Users can select a faster Full HD display that goes up to 120Hz or opt for a higher WQHD resolution.

Smaller laptop screens aren’t usually available with higher refresh rates, but ROG worked closely with panel providers to create new 14-inch displays capable of keeping up. The 120Hz panel doubles the speed of typical laptop displays for smoother, high-intensity action.

AMD FreeSync™ technology adds another level of smoothness by coordinating frame delivery between the GPU and display. Game performance tends to vary based on the demands of the title and scenario. Most displays refresh at a consistent rate, which creates problems when new frames aren’t ready at the right time. FreeSync synchronizes the refresh rate of the display with the frame rate of the GPU to eliminate visual tearing that can ruin immersion, and also minimize stuttering and input lag.

Although FreeSync has existed for years, it enters a new era with 4th Gen AMD Ryzen processors. Their integrated Radeon graphics allow the technology to work with discrete GeForce GPUs for the first time.

FreeSync support extends to the WQHD display, and it can be even more effective at the lower FPS associated with the higher resolution. The extra pixels are primed for creators who want to see more detail in their work, but they also appeal to gamers who prefer taking in their surroundings at a slower pace. Thanks to smaller dimensions, the WQHD panel has a higher pixel density than typical 4K desktop monitors. Even the Full HD panel matches the PPI of a 28-inch Ultra HD display.

Both displays are factory calibrated and Pantone Validated to ensure creators get the color accuracy they crave. The IPS-type panels have wide viewing angles and cover 100% of the sRGB range. They’re framed by exceptionally thin bezels, creating an expansive 85% screen-to-body ratio.

Nonstop speed

Last year, ROG collaborated with AMD to bring previous-gen Ryzen processors to the 15-inch Zephyrus G GA502. This device was the single best-selling slim gaming laptop at Best Buy USA last year. For the G14, ROG and AMD teamed up again to create an exclusive series tuned specifically for the smaller chassis.

The fastest 4th Gen Ryzen Mobile CPUs have a 45W power envelope that is too high for this particular form factor, so the Zephyrus G14 uses special 35W variations based on the same silicon. The chips retain up to 8 cores and 16 threads to blast through demanding workloads, but dial back the clocks slightly to make thermals more manageable. There’s still ample power for demanding applications like video editing and 3D rendering, and for heavy multitasking like mixing gaming with streaming, recording, and chats.

Cutting-edge 7nm fabrication technology helps condense so much power into such a small and efficient package. As a result, the Zephyrus G14 gives users greater freedom to work longer off-charge.

With up to 32GB of fast DDR4-3200 RAM across dual channels, there’s enough enough headroom for bigger projects too. Ultra-fast storage is supplied by an NVMe SSD with up to 1TB of capacity, meaning minimal load times for a huge library of games and apps.

One-of-a-kind cool

Ultraslim chassis leave little room for airflow, and a smaller footprint makes the G14 even harder to keep cool. The thermal engineers at ROG developed an exclusive feature that dynamically adjusts the power available to the CPU based on the GPU temperatures. It can make changes every second to react to spikes in GPU utilization, ensuring optimal gaming performance for the conditions.

This is the first ROG laptop to feature an ErgoLift hinge that tilts the keyboard at a more comfortable angle, giving the vents in the base more room to breathe. The design hides part of the lower bezel, too, but in doing so it can impede airflow out the rear exhaust ports. To compensate, vents have been cut into the bezel and the distance to rear heatsinks has been widened. Since that larger gap increases the depth of the chassis and makes the hinge more susceptible to downward pressure, a stiffer spring is used for added strength.

The rear exhausts and heatsink fins are shaped to direct air both up, away from the bezel, and down, towards the vents cut into it. Two more outlets line the flanks, and all four of them are filled with ultra-thin copper fins as slim as 0.15mm. The slender profile allows both higher density and lower air resistance than typical fins that are twice as thick. There are 209 heatsink fins totaling 68,868mm2 of surface area. They’re fed thermal energy by a network of five heatpipes that cover the CPU, GPU, and VRM responsible for powering them.

Dust and other particles inevitably get sucked into laptop fans, but self-cleaning cooling helps to avoid accumulation that can compromise performance and stability over time. It uses anti-dust tunnels to catch particles and direct them out the back of the chassis. Since full-sized tunnels take space away from the fan, the G14 features shortened tunnels that make room for the same size of fan used in the 15-inch Zephyrus models. This custom design offers higher airflow while retaining good dust ejection, striking a better balance for this size of machine.

Even the n-Blade fans are tweaked to optimize acoustics in the super small chassis. They’re made of a special liquid crystal polymer that lets these ultra-thin blades hold their shape at high RPMs. Instead of using 83 identical blades, n-blade fans in the Zephyrus G14 use 81 blades that are between 50mm and 51.2mm long. The uneven outer edge reduces noise caused by turbulence without adversely affecting airflow, and helps the G14 keep noise under 45dB in Turbo mode. Fan speeds are controlled by an intelligent algorithm that responds automatically to temperature changes. Three expertly tuned operating modes let users quickly adapt to different scenarios using a convenient keyboard shortcut, while Scenario Profiles seamlessly switch between modes based on user-defined preferences for individual games and applications. With the highest fan speed and frequencies, Turbo mode is the best for maximum performance. Performance mode strikes a better balance for gaming, while Silent mode goes further to reduce acoustics for lighter work and entertainment.

Top off with Type-C charging

ROG created the first gaming laptop capable of being powered by DC or USB-C input, and the technology is a perfect fit for the mobile Zephyrus G14. With support for USB Power Delivery, it can handle lighter work powered by up to a 65W Type-C adapter that’s much smaller than the 180W unit required to unleash the discrete GPU.

If the battery runs low, Type-C charging allows users to extend their life on the go and work longer anywhere. While the Zephyrus G14 is plugged in for a full recharge, USB power flows in the opposite direction as well, offering fast-charging support capable of supplying up to 3A to compatible smartphones and other devices.

Flexible options on the go

The Type-C port with USB Power Delivery is also capable of driving an external monitor via DisplayPort 1.4. The HDMI 2.0b port makes it easy to game or watch movies on 4K monitors and TVs. There’s plenty of connectivity for external devices through a secondary Type-C port focused on USB functionality, plus two Type-A ports for additional gear. No dongles needed.

The Zephyrus G14 amps up wireless networking with Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) connectivity, also known as 802.11ax. When paired with a compatible router, Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) boosts peak interface bandwidth up to 2.4Gbps, and improves efficiency for crowded spaces. It also reduces latency, meaning less lag for sensitive activities like online gaming, and expands upstream capacity, which provides more bandwidth for live-streaming.

The G14 is the first ROG laptop to integrate fingerprint login into the power button. A single press wakes the machine and briefly caches a user’s fingerprint, saving it to authenticate when Windows is ready to log in. On machines with multiple users, the OS automatically detects the right account.

Despite smaller chassis dimensions, the keyboard takes cues from larger Zephyrus gaming laptops. Key switches with ROG Overstroke technology actuate earlier in the stroke for quicker, more responsive input, while N-key rollover ensures that every press registers, even when entering multiple keys at once. Spaced keys minimic desktop layouts to let users fire off function commands more intuitively, and access essentials like volume and mic mute instantly with dedicated hotkeys.

Dolby Atmos Sound

In the Zephyrus G14, Dolby Atmos technology enhances spatial immersion with virtual surround sound for both headphones and speakers.

The Dolby algorithms are also optimized to maximize loudness and fidelity for the G14’s integrated speakers. Two tweeters positioned above the keyboard fire high-frequency sounds directly toward the user, while two woofers beneath them offer deep bass amplified by the ErgoLift design. This quad-speaker setup delivers perfectly balanced audio across the spectrum. With this technology, users can pump up the volume on movies, music, and games without losing clarity or detail.


Zephyrus G14

Processor Up to AMD R9 4900HS
GPU Up to NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2060
6GB GDDR6 VRAM
Operating System Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 Pro - ASUS recommends Windows 10 Pro for business
Display 14-inch Full HD (1920x1080) IPS-level panel, up to 120Hz, 100% sRGB, Pantone® Validated, AMD® FreeSync™
Audio 2x 2.5W speakers with Smart AMP technology
2x 0.7W tweeter, Array Microphone
With Dolby Atmos technology ,km
Keyboard Backlit Chiclet Keyboard, N-key support, 1.7mm travel distance, 4 Hot keys, Golden Curve, Power key with Fingerprint
Cameras External Camera (1080p@60FPS), optional
Memory & storage DDR4 3200MHz SDRAM up to 32GB
M.2 NVMe PCIE 3.0 up to 1TB SSD
Wireless Intel® Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax)
Bluetooth 5.0 *Bluetooth version may vary as the OS upgrades
Connectivity 1 x USB3.2 Gen2 Type-C™ with DisplayPort™ 1.4 and Power Delivery
1 x USB3.2 Gen2 Type-C™
2x USB3.2 Gen1 Type-A
1x HDMI 2.0b
1x 3.5mm headphone and microphone combo jack
1x Kensington Lock
Battery 180W Power Adaptor
Plug Type :ø6.0 (mm)
Output: 20V DC, 9A, 180W
Input: 100~240V AC, 50/60Hz universal
Colors Moonlight White / Eclipse Grey
Dimensions WxDxH
32.4 x 22.2 x 1.79 cm
Weight 3.53 lb

¹ Specifications, content and product availability are all subject to change without notice and may differ from country to country. Actual performance may vary depending on applications, usage, environment and other factors. Full specifications are available at http://www.asus.com

AVAILABILITY & PRICING

ASUS Zephyrus G14 (GA401IV-BR9N6) will be exclusively available at MSRP $1449.99 


Share this content
Twitter Facebook Reddit WhatsApp Email Print