At the ongoing all-digital CES 2021 Asus has unveiled that it is giving last year’s ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 an update this year to the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE. The laptop will be dropping last year’s Intel Core i9-10980HK in favor of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H and Ryzen 9 5900HX. The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE is complete with new processors, new graphics options, and an upgraded main display.
The 2021 Special Edition update will see the laptop making the leap from Intel Comet Lake-H to AMD Zen 3 up to the Ryzen 9 5900HX including a new liquid metal cooling. It remains to be seen whether or not Asus will eventually incorporate an Intel option. Meanwhile, the GPU will get an upgrade to the GeForce RTX 3070 with 8 GB of RAM or RTX 3080 with 16 GB of RAM. What is still subject to test is the claim made by Asus of having clock rates of up to 1645 MHz and a TDP of 115 W. The Taiwanese company is also yet to specify if the new GPUs will be Max-Q or Max-P either since last year’s Zephyrus Duo 15 was limited to the GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q.
The laptop possesses a 15.6-inch main display, that users can now configure with a 120 Hz 4K UHD panel with full AdobeRGB coverage and fast 3 ms response times. The version released last year was limited to 60 Hz 4K UHD only.
The internal changes mentioned above, other than that, the chassis or external design remains unchanged including the 14.1-inch ScreenPad Plus. It is worth noting that the system does not include Thunderbolt support. Starting at $2899 USD, the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SEis now available for pre-order.
| Specifications Table | Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 5800HAMD Ryzen 9 5900HX |
| GPU | GeForce RTX 3070 w/ 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM (Max-Q?)GeForce RTX 3080 w/ 16 GB GDDR6 VRAM (Max-Q?) |
| Display | 15.6-inch 4K UHD 120 Hz, 100 percent AdobeRGB, 3 ms, non-touch, or15.6-inch FHD 300 Hz, 100 percent sRGB, 3 ms, non-touch14.1-inch ScreenPad Plus 3840 x 1100 IPS 60 Hz, 72 percent NTSC, touchscreen, or14.1-inch ScreenPad Plus 1920 x 550 IPS 60 Hz, 72 percent NTSC, touchscreen |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz soldered, 1x SODIMM free (32 GB max) |
| Storage | 2x M.2 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 (RAID 0 supported) |
| I/O | USB-C 3.2 Gen. 2 w/ DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery3x USB-A 3.2 Gen. 2HDMI 2.0b |
| Battery | 90 Wh240 W AC adapter (Ryzen 7 SKUs only)280 W AC adapter (Ryzen 9 SKUs only) |
| Size | 36 x 26.8 x 2.1 cm |
| Weight | 5.3 lbs |
