The ROG Zephyrus S GX502 brings professional ambition to ultra-slim gaming laptops

The ROG Zephyrus S GX502 breaks the boundaries of what ultra-slim gaming laptops can do. Inheriting the innovative spirit of its predecessors, this compact powerhouse isn’t content to just conquer the gaming arena with its new 9th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 processor, cutting-edge NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ graphics, and industry-leading 240Hz display.

Its ambitions aim higher with Pantone Validation that guarantees color accuracy for professional content creation, and a GPU switch that toggles between smoother gaming with G-Sync or better battery life with Optimus. Intelligent Cooling completes the experience by combining hardware and software to optimize performance and cooling for any scenario, while our Active Aerodynamic System (AAS) increases airflow enough to sustain higher clock speeds with ROG Boost.

There’s no need to compromise between hardcore gaming and serious work. The Zephyrus S GX502 offers unique versatility in a conveniently compact form, delivering dynamic performance that’s truly the best of both worlds.

Go anywhere. Do anything.

Just 18.9mm thin and 4.4lbs, the Zephyrus S is light enough to carry all day and small enough to slip easily into almost any bag. Super-narrow bezels framing the display enable the impressively compact footprint without sacrificing an expansive feel. The resulting 81% screen-to-body ratio encourages immersion, whether you’re deep in the latest games or finishing an important project.

Portability isn’t just measured in weight; it demands real-world strength and durability that’s difficult to achieve in ultra-slim laptops that too often feel flexy and flimsy. On the Zephyrus S, metal chassis pieces are made from a magnesium alloy that’s incredibly resilient and lightweight—perfect for surviving everyday life on the road. The palm rest is also reinforced by a rigid honeycomb structure that adds stiffness where it’s needed most. This piece is created using a combination of die casting and machining that provides maximum strength with minimal additional material.

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After it’s shaped and machined, the palm rest is covered by a soft-touch coating that resists fingerprints and smudges for a cleaner and more refined appearance. Sleek styling means the GX502 makes a good impression anywhere, from important meetings with clients to pre-match strategy sessions with teammates. The stark, all-black body is finished with a subtle hairline texture that adds professional polish to the lid. Illuminated Aura Sync accents can be tailored to your taste and environment, accommodating everything from understated keyboard backlighting to brighter, more flavorful flair. No matter your preferences, the Zephyrus S has the flexibility to fit your personal style.

Games are just the beginning

Smooth gameplay that keeps you in the flow requires high frame rates that keep pace with every encounter that comes your way. The Zephyrus S delivers with up to GeForce RTX™ 2070 graphics that boast fluid FPS for everything from cinematic adventures to high-intensity shooters. Thanks to advanced cooling, the GPU surpasses conventional ultra-slim configurations by clocking up to 1540MHz at 115W in Turbo mode with ROG Boost.

At the heart of NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX™ lineup is a revolutionary Turing architecture that enables new levels of visual realism. Upgraded CUDA cores for programmable shading combine with RT cores for real-time ray tracing and Tensor cores for AI processing, giving the GPU versatile resources to tackle demanding tasks. Games are enhanced by more lifelike effects, including more realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows. The potent cocktail of cores can also accelerate a wide range of other tasks, from content creation to 3D modeling to deep learning.

Computationally intensive tasks in particular benefit from the new 9th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-9750H CPU. The six-core processor can reach speeds of up to 4.0GHz with all cores firing, and its Hyper-Threading technology engages up to 12 parallel threads to power through heavy lifting. Add up to 32GB of DDR4-2666 memory, and the Zephyrus S can handle any multitasking scenario. Gamers can broadcast high-quality streams, chat with the channel, and play the latest titles without skipping a beat, while power users can run everything they need for maximum productivity.

Dual NVM Express® (NVMe®) SSDs running in RAID 0 add significant storage speed. Accessing data is blisteringly fast, which minimizes load times and makes the system feel incredibly responsive. With up to 1TB of capacity, there’s ample space to take your favorite games and apps, plus your professional portfolio, with you wherever you go.

Intelligence elevates cooling

Unleashing the peak performance of high-end components in such a slim design is impossible without innovation, so the Zephyrus S GX502 thinks outside the chassis. Its Active Aerodynamic System (AAS) elevates the body when you lift the lid, exposing a hidden air intake that stretches across the back. This opening increases airflow by up to 22% over traditional designs, which significantly improves cooling performance.

Inside, heat pipes are strategically placed to draw degrees off the CPU, GPU, and surrounding power circuitry. All the components share dual heatsinks at the back, and each processor has its own dedicated heatsink in the flanks. The heatsinks are filled with ultra-thin fins that maximize surface area for heat dissipation while decreasing air resistance. The actual airflow comes from dual n-Blade fans with super-slim blades made of a special liquid crystal polymer that can withstand high RPMs despite being 33% thinner than typical designs. Thinner blades give us the room to fit 83 of them per fan, increasing airflow by up to 17%.

Carefully shaped intake shrouds help to draw more air into the blades. Errant particles can sometimes come along for the ride, so anti-dust tunnels inside the fan housings catch particles and propel them out the back. This self-cleaning design mitigates buildup on the heatsinks and fans that could compromise cooling over time, allowing the system to maintain maximum efficiency over the long haul.

Performance and cooling requirements change based on the task at hand, so the Zephyrus S has multiple modes tuned for different needs. Silent mode sacrifices a smidgen of speed to keep acoustics as low as possible, which is ideal for everyday work and lighter entertainment. Performance mode is ideal for gaming, with enough horsepower to achieve high frame rates without generating too much noise. Turbo mode shifts the balance further in favor of performance, offering maximum speed to push through demanding projects, but also more noise to satisfy the associated cooling requirements.

A convenient keyboard shortcut lets you instantly switch between modes on demand. The Zephyrus S can also choose the right mode automatically based on the active application and Scenario Profiles that you define in ROG Armoury Crate software. These profiles link applications to specific operating modes, lighting effects, and other settings, allowing seamless switching that adapts to what you’re doing on the system.

Professional quality and speed on display

Even the display is versatile enough to excel in different arenas. Its blazing-fast refresh rate satiates serious gamers, while Pantone® validation supports professional creators.

Pantone sets the standard for color across the visual media industry. To live up to it, each IPS-level panel for the Zephyrus S is calibrated at the factory with ProArt™ TruColor Technology, ensuring true colors across the full sRGB range. Artists, designers, and content creators can polish their portfolios and complete critical projects with the confidence that colors are accurate on a global scale.

True colors ensure that gamers experience virtual worlds as the developers intended, but the speed is the bigger draw. The 240Hz refresh rate is the fastest available for gaming laptops and meets the standard for professional esports play. The Zephyrus S GX502 is capable of displaying four times the FPS of a conventional screen, saturating you with silky graphics never before available in a portable machine. Intense firefights to crowded battle royales feel especially fluid, with smooth, clear visuals that keep you locked into the action.

Switch between G-Sync and Optimus

Gaming frame rates are variable, changing with the intensity of the scene, but displays typically refresh the on-screen image at a constant clip. This disparity can cause visual tearing artifacts and jerky, uneven movement that disrupts immersion, so the Zephyrus S GX502 uses NVIDIA G-Sync technology to compensate. G-Sync synchronizes display’s refresh rate with the GPU’s output, which eliminates tearing and minimizes stuttering to give you seamless visuals with buttery gameplay.

There’s just one catch: G-Sync is incompatible with NVIDIA’s Optimus technology, which extends battery life by turning off the GPU when it isn’t needed. To solve this problem, we developed an exclusive GPU switch that lets you toggle between G-Sync for gaming and Optimus for battery life. All it takes is a few clicks and a reboot.

In internal testing, Optimus mode let the laptop reach up to four hours of web browsing and nearly five hours of video playback. Combined with G-Sync through our proprietary GPU switch, it adds another dimension to the split personalities of the Zephyrus S GX502.

Charge on the go with Type-C Power Delivery

Stretch your time spent off the main charger even further with USB Power Delivery. The default 230W adapter is made for hardcore gaming, which consumes a formidable amount of power. For everyday tasks like web surfing and office productivity that don’t need the discrete GPU, you can swap out the beefier unit for a standard Type-C adapter up to 65W. USB-C chargers are much smaller and lighter, making the laptop even more portable if you don’t need to do any heavy lifting on the road.

If there’s no time to stop or no sockets in sight, the Zephyrus S can charge from USB power packs. The ASUS Zenpower Pro PD supplies enough juice for an additional 2.2 hours of video playback and 1.5 hours of web browsing, which is plenty of time to finish up the last episodes of a show or put the final touches on an important project.

Fast-charging works in the opposite direction to supply up to 18W to compatible smartphones and other devices plugged into the system. The Type-C port also supports DisplayPort 1.4 output to an external monitor. With HDMI 2.0b on top of that, you can drive dual displays for full multitasking mastery, or play games and watch movies on the big screen in 4K UHD glory at up to 60Hz.

Optimize your workflow with per-key RGB

Type-C connectivity is augmented by three Type-A USB ports that are primed for plugging in vital peripherals like a gamepad and mouse. Choose components compatible with Aura Sync, and you can enhance focus or lighten your mood with custom colors and effects that go beyond the Zephyrus and into your environment.

Once Aura Creator launches in June 2019, per-key RGB backlighting can be enabled to turn the keyboard into a canvas for color-coded layouts that enhance productivity and gaming. This level of customization can speed up your workflow with programs that have useful shortcuts you tend to forget, or you can use it to identify vital keys for specific games.

The keyboard is loaded with features and subtle modifications tailored for gaming and everyday usability. Input precision gets a boost from N-Key rollover, which registers every press no matter how many keys you hit at once. Dedicated hotkeys keep vital commands like volume and microphone mute within easy reach on the left, so you never have to tab out or take your right hand off the mouse. Spaces between the function keys below allow for more intuitive identification on the fly, traditional directional keys speed up navigation, and the larger space bar provides a bigger target for your thumb.

Boost your range with smarter Wi-Fi

Maintaining a strong Wi-Fi connection isn’t always easy. Distance from the router, the shape of the room, and even furniture placement can all contribute to dead spots and weak connections. To keep you connected, ROG RangeBoost technology evaluates the signal strength of four antennas spread across the Zephyrus S chassis in different orientations, and then picks the best pair for the environment.

The intelligent multi-antenna array can increase range by up to 30%. With more signal stability and fewer dead spots, you can make the most of the integrated Gigabit Wi-Fi to work and play anywhere. For activities like multiplayer gaming and serious streaming that are more sensitive to network performance, Gigabit Ethernet provides a low-latency connection impervious to wireless congestion.

ESS Sabre audio makes headphones sing

Premium ESS Sabre audio elevates the experience for gamers with good headphones. The HiFi DAC reduces noise and distortion, enabling clearer audio with wider dynamic range. Combined with virtual 7.1 surround sound, you can enjoy deep spatial immersion in games and virtual reality experiences. Hi-Res Audio certification guarantees fidelity, so you can experience the full quality of your media collection with rich and detailed sound.

When you’d prefer to leave the headphones off, the onboard speakers deliver reliable and engaging audio with minimal distortion. Smart Amp technology keeps the speakers within thermal and excursion limits, so you can turn up the volume without wrecking the cones.

	ROG Zephyrus S GX502
Processor	Intel Core i7-9750H
Display	15.6” FHD 240Hz/144Hz 3ms IPS-type PANTONE validated anti-glare with G-SYNC
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8GB GDDR6 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6
Memory	Up to 32GB DDR4 2666MHz
Storage	256GB/512GB/1TB SSD M.2 NVMe PCIE 3.0 with RAID0 support
Wireless	Intel 9560 2x2 802.11ac Wave 2 Gigabit WiFi Bluetooth 5.0
Connectivity	Gigabit LAN 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type C (with DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery) 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type A 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type A 1 x HDMI 2.0b 1 x 3.5 mm audio jack  1 x 3.5 mm mic in 1 x Kensington Lock
Keyboard	RGB backlit  chiclet keyboard with 1.4mm travel distance, N-key rollover, and Overstroke
Audio	2 x 2W speakers with Smart Amp technology
Battery	76Whrs 4-cell Lithium-ion 15.4V
AC Adapter	230W AC Adapter
OS	Windows 10 Pro / Windows 10 Home
Size	14.1 (W) x 9.9 (D) x 0.74 (H) inch
Weight	2 kg
Where to buy (USA)	ASUS Store Newegg B&H Photo Video Abt EXcaliberPC.com HID Evolution Michaelelectronics2 Micro Center Mobile Advance XoticPC

Let your personalities shine

Gaming laptops aren’t supposed to be as flexible or versatile as the ROG Zephyrus S GX502. It overachieves in every sense, offering an exceptional experience for gamers, powerful performance for creators and power users, and the ability to shift between personalities to tackle anything that comes its way. The effortlessly sleek styling combines an array of thoughtful touches to complete a sublimely portable gaming laptop that goes the distance.

The ROG Zephyrus S GX502 will be available starting in June 2019. Check with your local ROG representative for details on regional availability and pricing.

By Katherine Vu