The ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 is an insane dual-monitor gaming machine

Last year, the ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo introduced the mainstream market to dual monitor laptops. This time, ASUS is giving the notebook a gaming makeover to allow gamers to experience what it feels like to have two screens on a gaming notebook.

Dual displays on a gaming notebook

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 comes with a 15.6-inch 1920 x 1080 main screen. As a gaming notebook it has a 3ms response time and a blazing fast 300Hz refresh rate with NVIDIA G-SYNC. Of course, color performance won’t just be traded in for speed. Thus, the monitor also has 100% sRGB coverage and is Pantone Validated.

Just below the main display is the ROG ScreenPad Plus. It’s a 14.1-inch secondary touchscreen display with a 3840 x 1100 resolution running at 60Hz. The display now tilts at a 13° angle for a more comfortable viewing angle.

The addition of a secondary screen on a gaming notebook will allow gamers to multitask more efficiently than before. Chat groups and Discord channels as well as general productivity apps can now be moved to the secondary screen in order to be more manageable and increase efficiency.

ASUS is working with game developers such as Techland to optimize upcoming AAA games like Dying Light 2, which moves co-op chats to the ROG ScreenPad for easier viewing. Touchscreen controls are also expected to be integrated for a seamless transition to and from inventory items and quests.

The brand is collaborating with Overwolf for monitoring. Gamers can download apps for competitive games such as League of Legends, Fortnite, and CounterStrike: Global Offensive to see real-time statistics and build recommendations.

What’s under the hood?

In terms of power, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 is equipped with an 8-core, 16-thread 10^th generation Intel Core i9-10980HK. Though more core counts usually mean more performance, ASUS says that the CPU on the notebook can reach up to 5.3GHz on a single core improving performance to apps that don’t natively support multi-core setups or Hyper-Threading.

16GB of DDR4 RAM is already soldered to the board with a single SODIMM slot available for a 32GB expansion. This allows you to have up to 48GB of DDR4 RAM running at 3200MHz instead of the usual 2600MHz.

There are two NVMe PCIe x4 SSDs running in RAID 0 for additional read and write performance. The dual drive setup can deliver faster load times and quicker access to data. With a capacity of up to 2TB, you can fit in your whole gaming library on-the-go while having some storage left for videos or your professional portfolio.

Depending on the version, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 can be decked out with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super or an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super. Aside from having the latest architecture from NVIDIA, the GPUs are able to push for more performance thanks to the notebook’s better cooling and ROG Boost. ASUS says that the RTX 2080 Super variant can reach peak clock speeds of around 1330MHz in Turbo mode.

An improved cooling system

An improved cooling system is needed for the notebook with all the horsepower under the hood. The tilted nature of the ROG ScreenPad Plus is now the new Active Aerodynamic System (AAS) of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 15. Instead of having a larger opening for the exhaust, ASUS is flipping the formula as the notebook now has a 28.5mm air intake when the ROG ScreenPad Plus is opened.

This new intake increases air flow by up to 30% compared to previous AAS implementations. This improved cooling system lets noise levels down to 46dB in Turbo mode and 43dB in Performance Mode.

In addition to the new AAS, the Zephyrus Duo 15’s processor is now coated with Thermal Grizzly liquid metal instead of bog-standard thermal paste. This improves contact and heat transfer from the CPU to the heatpipes for a greater thermal headroom.

The five heat pipes running across the notebook is cooled via Dual n-Blade fans. The new fans are able to fit 83 slim blade fans made from a special liquid-crystal polymer. This lets up to 17% more airflow compared to traditional designs and thus increasing thermal tolerance of the notebook.

The keyboard remains at the bottom portion of the chassis in order to give way for the secondary screen. ASUS is implementing their ROG Overstroke technology for a more tactile typing experience as well as placing hotkeys for volume and microphone mute just above the touchpad.  The keyboard also has per-key RGB lighting instead of zones for a refined customization experience and can be synchronized to other Aura Sync peripherals.

As part of the Zephyrus series, the Duo 15 needed to be light in order to be carried around reasonably. Thanks to a magnesium chassis, the notebook is able to measure at just 20.99mm thin and weighs around 2.4kg. Though relatively light for a gaming notebook, the device still comes with a rather high capacity 90Whr battery. Aside from having the charger, the notebook can be charged via a 65 USB Type-C connection so long as your power bank supports it.

No word yet when the ASUS Zephyrus Duo 15 will make its way to market nor its price. We expected that the notebook was geared up to make its debut on Computex 2020 but since the event has been moved, we expect more news about ASUS’ dual-screen gaming monster to arrive in the coming weeks.