ROG Announces Zephyrus Duo 15 SE Dual-Screen Gaming Laptop

TAIPEI, Taiwan, January 12, 2021 — ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE, a special edition of its dual-screen gaming laptop. The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE combines an upgraded 15.6” main display with the critically acclaimed ROG ScreenPad Plus, which provides touchscreen controls on a 14.1” secondary display that enhances everything from gaming and streaming to content creation and multitasking.

The new Zephyrus Duo 15 SE also incorporates up to a next-generation AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900HX Mobile Processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 3080 GPU. Its innovative AAS Plus cooling system features redesigned fans that help dissipate up to 165W of combined processor power. A premium 4K 120 Hz panel displays uncompromising visuals for both gaming and creative work, while a 300 Hz alternative offers esports-grade speed. The RAID[1] storage nearly doubles throughput by connecting dual SSDs directly to the CPU.

A broader range of configurations makes the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE’s secondary screen accessible to a larger audience. All models incorporate quad speakers with Dolby Atmos to enhance audio output, advanced noise canceling to clean up voice communication, a microSD slot that simplifies accessing media, and fast-charging support that boosts real-world mobility. They also share an all-metal body with a new Dot Insight aesthetic that blends professional looks with subtle, laser-polished accents.

ROG ScreenPad Plus

Adding another display presents a unique challenge in an ultra-slim form factor. Every millimeter of space and gram of weight must be considered, and the secondary screen needs to be large enough to be useful and convenient for touch or stylus use. ASUS pioneered this type of display with the original ZenBook Pro Duo, and ROG took it to the next level.

The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE puts the same ScreenPad Plus secondary display on a tilting platform that enhances comfort and utility while also opening a large intake that improves airflow for the cooling system. When the laptop is opened, the ROG ScreenPad Plus rises up at a 13° angle for easy viewing and touchscreen interaction. This motion is fluid and carefully choreographed by a custom hinge that staggers the rise of the displays.

At 14.1”, this is the largest second display available in a production gaming laptop. The IPS panel stretches wide viewing angles across the full width of the body and provides large amounts of extra space. Gamers can enjoy a smoother experience by playing on the main screen while keeping chats and broadcast controls accessible below. Content creators can work on the primary display without clutter, keeping their toolbars, timelines, and reference materials on the second screen. Other types of multitasking also benefit from an extension of the desktop. The touchscreen even works with the ASUS Pen active stylus, allowing users to handwrite and sketch.

ROG is working with game developers and artists to bring new experiences to the ROG ScreenPad Plus. Techland’s eagerly anticipated Dying Light 2 moves co-op chats to the secondary screen for easy viewing and adds touchscreen controls for quick switching between inventory items and quests. Sharing a second-screen platform with ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo laptops offers compatibility with a powerful ProArt Control Panel coming to those devices. ROG’s Art of the Duo competition also showed how artists can use the extra display to meld game-inspired music and visuals.

The ROG ScreenPad Plus also works with many tools and apps that intuitively enhance day-to-day work and play. Task Group takes snapshots of users’ preferred app layouts across both screens and loads optimized setups for different scenarios. ROG’s Armoury Crate system utility scales down for the second screen and displays a helpful resource monitor that tracks vital stats like CPU and GPU frequencies. XSplit Gamecaster is optimized for the second screen, making it easy to manage a broadcast and game simultaneously. Overwolf offers a multi-display advantage with enhancements like real-time stats, build recommendations, and more for popular games. And digital audio workstation FL Studio moves its mixer within reach on the ScreenPad Plus, which also gives music producers more room on the main display for the app’s other tools.

Upgraded main display

The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE takes its main screen into a new Ultra HD era with a 4K panel that refreshes at 120 Hz and has an esports-grade 3ms gray-to-gray response time. With full coverage of the wide-gamut Adobe RGB color space, this premium display option balances professional-grade content creation with smooth and sharp gaming.

For fast-paced play, the Duo is also available with a Full HD display that features a 300 Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time. The ultra-high refresh rate surpasses the standard for esports tournaments and makes gameplay incredibly smooth, while the matching response time maintains a sharp picture for precise tracking and targeting.

Both primary display options use Adaptive-Sync technology to match the refresh rate of the panel with the frame rate of the GPU. Closely coordinating these components enhances gaming immersion by eliminating visual tearing, minimizing perceptible stuttering, and reducing input lag. The IPS-level displays are also calibrated at the factory to comply with stringent Pantone validation requirements. This process guarantees color accuracy, giving creators the fidelity they need and allowing gamers to experience graphics as the developers and artists intended.

The ROG ScreenPad Plus comes in two resolutions to match the main screens. A 4K option displays especially crisp text and sharp lines at 3840 x 1100, while a 1920 x 550 alternative pairs well with the Full HD main panel option. Both use IPS-level technology and refresh at 60 Hz.

Next-gen GPU and CPU

The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE backs up its high-refresh display options with up to a GeForce RTX™ 3080 laptop GPU. Thanks to advanced cooling and ROG Boost, the chip is able to run up to 1645 MHz at 115W with ROG Boost, with another 15W available from Dynamic Boost — a higher power envelope than similarly slim laptops can match.

More power helps the GPU deliver fast and fluid gameplay in everything from intense shooters to cinematic RPGs. Like the rest of the GeForce 30 Series, this GPU is based on a new NVIDIA Ampere architecture with updated CUDA cores for programmable shading, enhanced RT cores for real-time ray tracing, and upgraded Tensor cores for accelerating AI. This versatile combination enhances gaming performance and graphics in addition to speeding up other workloads like image processing, 3D modeling, and deep learning. It’s also backed by up to a massive 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM reserved exclusively for the GPU.

An AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900HX Mobile Processor with 8 cores and 16 threads provides a substantial boost to any workload. Built on cutting-edge 7nm fabrication technology, this new generation of Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors pairs the latest “Zen 3” architecture with a larger on-chip cache up to 20MB. It’s designed to deliver a more immersive laptop gaming experience, and it also powers through serious work like 3D rendering, content creation, and intensive multitasking.

The Ryzen 9 5900HX scales up to 50W of sustained power when the GPU is active and 90W on its own, nearly doubling the wattage typical for this class of processor. And enabling the Turbo operating mode automatically raises the CPU’s clock speed by 200 MHz, pushing performance even higher.

Dual NVM Express^® PCIe^® x4 SSDs run in RAID 0 to provide up to 2 TB of storage for a massive game library and professional portfolio. The Ryzen CPU allows both drives to connect directly to the processor without sharing bandwidth, enabling exceptional transfer rates up to 7000MB/s.

With up to 32GB of combined onboard and SO-DIMM memory, there’s plenty of DDR4-3200 RAM for multitasking across multiple displays. Users have the freedom to broadcast high-quality streams while using chat software, to work on large projects and datasets, and to open as many browser tabs as needed without delay.

Innovative cooling

High-end processors only achieve their full potential when thermals allow, so putting them into slim systems is especially challenging.

ROG redefined ultra-slim laptop cooling with the original ROG Zephyrus, whose Active Aerodynamic System (AAS) improved airflow by exposing a 7–10mm intake across the bottom of the laptop when the user lifts the lid. In the original Zephyrus Duo 15, the tilting touchscreen opened a much larger 28.5mm intake that let the fans draw in cooler air from above the laptop instead of warmer air from beneath it. This massive vent increased airflow by up to 30% over previous AAS designs, earning the name AAS Plus.

The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE further increases the cooling efficiency of the AAS Plus design, allowing more power to be fed to the processors without an increase in noise levels. One of the keys to this improvement is a new Arc Flow fan design with radically reshaped blades that move more air more quietly. Each fan features 84 blades that vary in thickness from base to tip to maximize airflow, and the blades are capped by a special aerodynamic wave pattern that minimizes turbulence and noise. These are the first fans made with a new version of ROG’s liquid-crystal polymer, which enables blades as thin as 0.1mm that remain strong enough to spin at high RPMs. The combination of a new shape and thinner blades improves airflow by up to 13% compared to the previous generation. With 0dB Technology, the fans switch off completely when CPU and GPU temperatures are low in the Silent operating mode. This makes cooling truly silent under light workloads.

To add further cooling headroom, the CPU is covered with Thermal Grizzly’s liquid metal compound, which reduces processor temperatures by as much as 10°C compared to standard thermal paste. Applying the exotic material is delicate work typically done by hand. That approach isn’t suitable for mass production, so ROG commissioned custom equipment to automate the process with mechanical precision, and designed a special internal gasket to contain the compound. For 2021, ROG has updated this patented process for AMD CPUs, adding a special step to protect surface-mounted components on the processor package. Using liquid metal to accelerate heat transfer away from the new chips provides thermal margin that different operating modes use to lower noise, reduce temperatures, or increase performance.

The cooling module’s five heat pipes draw thermal energy away from the CPU, GPU, VRAM, and VRM. They distribute it across four heatsinks filled with ultra-thin fins that maximize the area for thermal dissipation while decreasing resistance to airflow. There are 222 heatsink fins totaling 112,357mm² of surface area, even higher than the original Zephyrus Duo 15.

Cooling requirements change based on the task, so ROG offers multiple modes tuned for different situations. Silent mode reduces speed slightly to keep acoustics low, which is ideal for everyday tasks. Performance mode provides the horsepower required to push high frame rates in games without excessive noise. Turbo mode overclocks the CPU by 200 MHz to enable even higher performance with a louder fan profile.

Users can switch between operating modes manually with a quick keyboard shortcut or automatically with Scenario Profiles. Available through the ROG Armoury Crate utility, Scenario Profiles let users associate individual games and apps with specific operating modes, lighting effects, and other system settings. Profiles are activated by the foreground application, providing seamless transitions between preferences for different tasks.

The keys to comfort and accuracy

Powerful internal components can sometimes make laptop keyboards uncomfortably hot during long gaming sessions and with sustained heavy workloads. The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE pulls the keyboard forward to keep the user’s hands away from the warmest parts of the machine and create more space for the second display. This design lets the user’s wrists sit on the table, just like a desktop keyboard, and a detachable palm rest provides cushioning to improve comfort.

Several enhancements upgrade the main input area below the touchscreen. Dedicated hotkeys put volume controls and microphone mute within easy reach. Separated groups of function keys are easier to identify at a glance. ROG Overstroke technology lifts the trigger point of the underlying switches for quicker response. Multiple keys can also be pressed with speed thanks to N-Key rollover that registers every press precisely. The touchpad positioned to the right also lights up a digital numpad with the press of a button.

While the virtual numpad glows red, the keyboard has per-key RGB lighting that’s great for highlighting critical commands and time-saving shortcuts. Users can mark important bindings for games, streamline workflows, and coordinate colorful lighting across an ecosystem of compatible Aura Sync peripherals.

Portable power

The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE truly stands out. Its sleek body is just 20.9mm thin and weighs only 2.4kg. Made of magnesium-aluminide, the all-metal chassis is tough and durable. The Dot Insight design uses clean lines and black anodizing to impart a professional feel that fits into any environment, while laser-polished accents and a seamless diamond add flashes of flair that contrast the stealthy surfaces.

A high-capacity 90Wh battery provides extended unplugged time, and fast-charging technology brings it back to 50% in just 30 minutes. The laptop also supports charging from Type-C devices up to 100W. Being able to top up from USB power packs fundamentally enhances users’ mobility and reduces the need to look for wall sockets. Although the included AC adapter is required for full performance, a USB-C adapter is much smaller and lighter to carry yet still powerful enough for day-to-day use. A single Type-C adapter can also be used to power the user’s laptop, phone, and other devices.

Pump up the volume and filter out the noise

Dolby Atmos technology puts the user in the center of the action with 5.2.1-channel virtual surround sound. The number of speakers has doubled from the original Zephyrus Duo; two tweeters fire audio directly at the user, while dual woofers bounce bass off the table below. Smart Amp technology keeps the woofers within thermal and excursion limits, allowing for high volume. A standard 3.5mm jack is also available for headphones and headsets.

Advanced Two-Way AI Noise Cancelation improves voice chat by removing unwanted sounds from both input and output audio. It can be applied to any device and even customized on a per-app basis, so noise-canceling can be limited to chat apps without affecting important in-game sounds. With this technology, gamers can communicate better with teammates, creators can record cleaner audio in any environment, and everyone can enjoy clear conversation.

Two-Way AI Noise Cancelation runs entirely on the CPU, which leaves the GPU free to focus on maximizing frame rates for the smoothest possible gaming experience.

All the I/O needed for gaming on the go

Extensive connectivity lets the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE power a full battlestation or serious workstation. The USB 3.2 Gen 2 port supports DisplayPort™ 1.4 for desktop monitors, and an HDMI 2.0b output can drive a 4K monitor or TV at 60 Hz. Three Type-A USB ports accommodate additional peripherals, including a mouse, gamepad, and VR gear. ROG has also added an ultra-fast microSD 4.0 reader capable of speeds up to 312MB/s, so users can quickly load footage from drones, action cameras, and other portable devices.

ROG gives users high-speed wireless connectivity with Wi-Fi 6, also known as 802.11ax. When combined with a compatible router, Wi-Fi 6 increases peak interface bandwidth up to 2.4Gbps and improves efficiency for crowded networks like those found in busy offices and coffee shops. It also lowers latency, which reduces lag for sensitive activities like online gaming, and it expands upstream capacity, which provides more bandwidth for livestreaming. For users who would rather plug in, the Gigabit Ethernet jack at the back of the system provides the lowest possible latency for serious multiplayer gameplay.

[1] RAID will be supported in a future AMD driver update. Please check with your regional ROG representative for more details.