The first AMD Ryzen gaming laptop has arrived in the form of the ROG STRIX GL702ZC, and it’s made by Asus.
Announced at Computex in Taipei, Asus managed to get the scoop, launching not one but two laptops powered by AMD’s Ryzen processors. This finally puts to an end half a decade of gaming laptop dominance for Intel, who, along with Nvidia, have had somewhat of a monopoly on the gaming laptop scene of late.
Ryzen, for the uninitiated, is AMD’s big bang-for-buck processor line. It’s been on sale as a desktop processor for a few months, but until now had been notably absent from laptops. Note that this isn’t Ryzen Mobile, but appears to be a full-fat desktop chip. Ryzen Mobile will come later this year on thin and light laptops.
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The notebook in question is the Asus ROG STRIX GL702ZC. STRIX is Asus’ mid-range gaming brand, so it’s not the full-fat ROG that some have been hoping for. But still, it has an eight-core Ryzen 7 1700 chip on board alongside AMD’s latest Radeon RX 580 GPU.
With so many cores and a mid-range GPU, this is a bit of a streamer’s dream. Depending on the price, this could find itself sitting nicely alongside laptops powered by an Intel/Nvidia GTX 1060 combination.
The laptop’s 17.3-inch display is a Full HD IPS panel, and comes with AMD FreeSync on board for tear-free gaming. All in all, this is a bit of an AMD fan’s dream.
We’ll admit, it’s not a very exciting-looking laptop, but it’s what’s inside that counts. Right?
We don’t have details on other specs, or even a release date at this point, but expect a launch some time in the next couple of months.
Does Ryzen in a laptop get you excited? Or do you wish everybody would stop talking about it? Let us know.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
