In the year 2020, picking one laptop as being the fastest gaming pc in the world is a herculean task as there are several models that pack a ton of power, and would tear through most demanding games. In the year 2019, The Asus ROG Zephyrus GX was the best gaming laptop on the planet for a lot of reasons: performance, design and thermals. It turns out in 2020 not much has changed either.
Obviously, we have heavy hitters like the Razer Blade Stealth 17 doing big numbers in gaming, and looking sleek at the same time. However, this article is not about premium gaming laptops with capped performance (no offence, Razer!). This article is about the laptop that gives the absolute best performance in gaming; no holds barred.
We introduce the Asus ROG Mothership as the fastest gaming pc in 2020. While some people are still not confident enough to call it a laptop, we would stick with calling it the most powerful gaming machine on the planet at the moment.
Price:
$6,500 (Yeah, we know it’s quite expensive)
Specifications
The Republic of Gamers division of Asus laptop decided to go experimental and berserk with the design of the Mothership and the specifications as well. The initiative is similar to what Dell did with the Alienware Area 51 laptop, creating a laptop that can deliver desktop-level performance with nothing to hold it back. The Asus ROG Mothership is a laptop created to perform like a desktop and quite frankly, be used like one too.
CPU: Intel Core i9-9980HK with 8 cores and 16 threads @ 45W TDP (2.4GHz – 5.0 GHz)
Memory: 64GB of DDR4 high speed RAM @ 2666MHz
Storage: 512GB of NVMe M.2 SSD (RAID 0) x 3
Display: 17.3-inch display 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) resolution @ 60Hz (16:9 aspect ratio) with Nvidia G-sync
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 with 8GB of DDR6 VRAM.
I/O: 1x headphone port, 1x mic port, 1x HDMI 2.0, 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A support DisplayPort and G-sync, 1x USB Type-C with display port and Thunderbolt 3, 1x RJ45 LAN port, 1x 2 in 1 card reader (SD and MMC).
Peripherals: Detachable keyboard (individually lit keys), in-built kickstand
Performance
With a specs sheet looking like an ammunition list for an all-out gaming war, we expected nothing but the best from the Asus ROG Mothership, and that is exactly what it delivers. The Asus ROG Mothership delivers what we can easily consider the best gaming performance from a laptop, beating out even Alienware’s Area 51M in benchmark scores by a few points.
Display
The only thing we didn’t like about the Mothership was its display. The display if insanely good, with G-sync and a 4K UHD resolution, HDR, and 100% Adobe RGB certification, the display is nothing short of impressive. What we have a problem with is the refresh rate, the refresh rate is capped at 60Hz, probably due to the 4K screen.
We suspect that at the time when the laptop was made, 4K screens were used to having a 60Hz refresh rate due to how demanding the screen gets. However, a lot has changed since the beginning of the year, and now 4K screens are boasting of having up to a 120Hz refresh rate.
To get the best refresh rate, we recommended that you connect the Mothership to a monitor with a higher refresh rate. It is important to note that you can opt for the FHD display @144Hz, but it just feels like a waste of good hardware on a full HD screen.
Graphics
Apart from the screen, everything thing else on the Mothership is nothing like your regular gaming laptop or pc, as it is truly difficult to call the Mothership a laptop without crossing a few lines. The Graphics card in the Mothership is not the watered-down version of the RTX 2080 from NVIDIA, Asus went with the desktop-class RTX 2080. It is easy to see why the Mothership requires two power bricks to deliver full power to the Mothership.
Plus, we really love the name Mothership!
Final Verdict
It is safe to say that the Asus ROG Mothership is a not laptop for everyone. The Asus ROG Mothership is a laptop for those that love to go bananas (and we don’t mean just the fruit). The Asus ROG Mothership is the fastest gaming laptop on the planet. The Mothership is also insanely expensive, maybe impractical, unusual but utterly amazing at gaming. Weirdly enough, for some reason, the detachable keyboard has no customizable backlighting.
If bananas are your thing and would not mind being the center of attention in any gaming convention, then go ahead and trade your laptop for the the Asus ROG Mothership. It is definitely for you.
