Asus has squeezed an RTX 5080 into my favourite small gaming laptop
Zephyrus G14 gets a major GPU boost thanks to improved cooling
With great 3D performance for its size and surprisingly decent battery life, the Zephyrus G14 has long been one of my favourite gaming laptops – and now at this year’s CES Asus has made it that much harder to resist breaking out the credit card and buying one. The 2025 Zephyrus G14 has been treated to the latest AMD CPUs and even finds room inside for an Nvidia RTX 5080 graphics card. For a machine that’s barely 16mm thick, that borders on witchcraft.
The 2024 Zephyrus G14 was a fantastic little laptop, but it maxed out with an RTX 4070. That’s still a pretty potent laptop GPU, but running the latest releases flawlessly on the 3K 120Hz OLED display was still a big ask. Asus has gone one better this year, giving the new Zephyrus G14 enough cooling ability to cope with the demands of the new RTX 5080.
16GB of GDDR7 video memory and DLSS 4.0 support should mean this 1.5kg machine can power through even the most demanding games, with fancy effects like ray tracing enabled. It’s paired with AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, up to 64GB of RAM, and ‘multiple terabytes’ of speedy SSD storage, so should demolish any desktop task you can name too.
The CNC milled aluminium chassis is basically unchanged from the old model, meaning it has MacBook Pro-rivalling good looks and build quality. The head-turning white LED array on the lid returns too, and there’s still a choice of gunmetal grey and silver/white colours.
Oh, and don’t forget the Zephyrus G16 either. The larger model is no less portable, but now finds room inside for an even more capable RTX 5090 GPU. It upgrades to an Intel ‘Arrow Lake H’ Core Ultra 9 285H processor, too.
There’s no word on pricing for either model yet, or exactly when they’ll go on sale. Expect them to land in the next month or two, and have a few thousand pounds/dollars/euros to hand if you want to bag one when they do.
The rest of Asus’ ROG line-up has been treated to new AMD, Intel and Nvidia silicon for 2025 too. The flagship ROG Strix series got the biggest visual overhaul, with a new chassis that prioritises cooling – but doesn’t forget the gamer-friendly RGB illumination either. It inherits an AniMe Vision display from the firm’s ROG Phone line, putting animations and text on the lid while you’re playing, and there’s now edge-to-edge LEDs running along the underside of the machine.
Naturally the 16in and 18in beasts can be had with up to an RTX 5090 dedicated GPU, kept cool by a sandwiched heatsink in the Intel-based Strix Scar, and multiple heatpipes on the AMD-based Strix G16 and G18. You’ll be able to spec either an Intel Ultra 9 275HX or Ryzen 9 9955HX3D CPU depending on the model, and the entire rear panel lifts off to easily upgrade the RAM and storage later down the line.
I also spent some more in-depth time with the ROG Z13 Flow gaming 2-in-1, which gets a 16-core ‘Strix Halo’ AMD Ryzen AI MAX 395+ APU. The Radeon 8060S integrated graphics core promises capable 1080p gaming on par with an Nvidia’s XX60-series laptop GPU, or you can hook up the new Thunderbolt 5 Xg Mobile external GPU for extra oomph.
All the new ROG laptops are expected to start sales in the coming months, with prices all still TBC.
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Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor 
