ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) announced the ROG Mothership (GZ700), a new desktop replacement that redefines the form factor for gaming laptops. Instead of sitting flat, the ROG Mothership stands tall to draw more air into its advanced cooling system. Its keyboard detaches and folds to fit different scenarios, giving user the freedom to find the perfect position, and the innovative design leaves enough room to put all the speakers right below the screen. The exquisitely machined aluminum chassis frames a 17.3” Full HD IPS-level display with a 144Hz refresh rate, 3ms GTG response time display featuring NVIDIA G-SYNC™ technology is powered by the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 2080 GPU and Intel® Core™ i9-8950HK processor. Better cooling allows the ROG Mothership to push the CPU and GPU beyond stock speeds and still sustain exceptional performance with demanding workloads. The factory over-clocked core is complemented by a RAID 0 array with three NVMe SSDs, plus next-generation networking that enables greater than gigabit speeds for both wired and wireless connections. A radical internal concept made real, the ROG Mothership caters to connoisseurs who appreciate the engineering and craftsmanship that goes into premium PC hardware. This desktop replacement redefines what’s possible for portable gaming machines that take hardcore horsepower to go. Desktop replacement laptops put incredible power in a portable package that allows them to be taken anywhere. But, they also make concessions to conform to a clamshell form factor that’s unnecessarily rigid for deployment on a desk. The limiting legacy blueprint of previous designs not only limit cooling, but also locks the user into a fixed position that’s really only required for use on a lap. Every year ASUS designers, engineers, and other experts gather for brainstorming sessions that inspire the next generation of products from the Republic of Gamers. The idea for the ROG Mothership came out of one of those meetings almost three years ago. It was clear that high-performance laptops were starved for airflow because they draw from a narrow gap between the base and the desk, and ASUS wondered how much the situation could be improved by putting key components behind the display, allowing greater airflow from the back. From tests conducted, core temperatures were much cooler with the standing orientation, which validated the idea and spawned Project Mothership to pursue it. Research and design then focused on how gamers use desktop replacement laptops and saw that many connect an external keyboard and display. Having the laptop occupy so much desktop area was a real impediment to achieving a comfortable position. Research also supported that gamers prefer their keyboards off to the side and at an angle, which simply isn’t possible with traditional laptop layouts. Prototypes were created that introduced a detachable keyboard with a folding design that dramatically reduced the system’s overall footprint. This granted the flexibility to not only position the keyboard as needed, but to also replace it entirely without wasting desk space. A hinged, stepless kickstand pops out automatically from the bottom edge of the chassis when it touches a surface, allowing for one-handed deployment. The hinge allows the user to adjust the screen for different setups from a range of angles, between standing and leaning back; even allowing for a user to stand over the screen. The main body pieces are machined from solid slabs of aluminum using a precise CNC milling process that ensures a perfect fit. The process steps through 114 individual tooling stages and takes nearly 20 hours to carve every little detail. Most of the keyboard housing is machined aluminum as well, wrapping the ROG Mothership in a protective metal jacket that’s strong enough to survive everyday knocks and bumps. Each piece is then brushed and anodized for a flawless finish. ROG has a history of liquid-cooled laptops dating back to the GX700. Project Mothership explored something similar but ultimately decided on air cooling. Efficient liquid requires a large external radiator that compromises portability, and free-breathing intakes can draw in enough air to effectively cool a single CPU and GPU. The unique design’s efficient air cooling allowed a reduction of the thickness of the chassis to 29.9 mm-more than 10 mm thinner than the original prototype. The upright posture makes it easier for more air to flow into the dual 12V fans, but that’s just one aspect of an intricate cooling system that directly affects users. A special shield prevents heat from the CPU and GPU from affecting the display. Factory overclocked chips generate a lot of heat, so they’re covered by a network of eight heatpipes that transfer thermal energy to the heatsinks at the edges. The pipes are linked to the CPU, GPU, graphics memory, and VRM feeding them power. Keeping the fins clean is crucial to maintaining long-term performance and stability. The standing orientation lifts the air intakes off the table, exposing them to less dust, and particles that enter the cooling system are drawn into anti-dust tunnels that shoot them out of the chassis. Fan speeds can be controlled by expertly tuned system profiles that adapt to different scenarios using a handy keyboard shortcut. Turbo mode uses the highest frequencies and fan speeds to reach maximum performance, while Balanced mode optimizes performance and cooling to drop noise levels while gaming. The ROG Mothership pushes its CPU and GPU into over-clocked territory right out of the box. The Intel Core i9-8950HK CPU usually runs at up to 4.3GHz with all six cores and 12 threads engaged, but in Turbo mode, it runs up to 4.8GHz in, an increase of almost 12%. The CPU pairs with up to 64GB of power-efficient DDR4 memory for content creators working on big projects and power users who require multitasking. It’s also linked directly to NVMe RAID 0 array. SSDs normally connect to the chipset, which is constrained by a DMI link to the CPU with only four lanes of PCI Express 3.0 bandwidth—the same as a single high-end M.2 drive. The three-drive HyperDrive Extreme array in the ROG Mothership hangs two SSDs directly off the CPU, bypassing the DMI bottleneck and enabling peak throughput up to 8700MB/s. All three drives are covered by a heat spreader that improves cooling for sustained storage loads. Graphics duties are handled by the new GeForce RTX 2080 discrete GPU and its accompanying 8GB of dedicated GDDR6 memory. Powered by the new NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture and the revolutionary RTX platform, these processors bring together real-time ray tracing, artificial intelligence, and programmable shading. Availability & pricing: The ASUS ROG Mothership will be available in the second quarter of 2019. Pricing and configurations will be announced at launch.