ASUS Republic of Gamers Unveils Mothership (GZ700)

Las Vegas, CES (January 6, 2019) - ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today 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 you 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 overclocked 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. The ROG Mothership will be available in Q1 2019.

The need for improved design based on performance

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 and 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.

A revolutionary new design and form factor

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 laptops 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.