A groundbreaking multi-screen design makes the Zephyrus Duo 15 rise beyond compare
Flagship ROG Zephyrus laptops consistently redefine what ultra-slim gaming can be, breaking ground with faster processors, innovative cooling, and cutting-edge panels. With an expansive ROG ScreenPad Plus secondary display, the all-new Zephyrus Duo 15 introduces a new dimension of versatility that expands your horizons.
Desktops frequently feature multiple monitors that help gamers, creators, and power users do more with their machines. Laptop users are also commonly seen using their phones as a second screen, so the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 doubles down on displays with a unique AAS Plus design that makes the touchscreen an integral part of the cooling system. As the laptop opens, the secondary display rises up for a better view while also opening a massive intake for superior airflow.
Sophisticated cooling gives the Zephyrus Duo 15 ample thermal headroom for up to the latest 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i9 CPU and NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2080 SUPER GPU. The new AAS Plus design and enhancements like liquid metal compound for the CPU help to sustain the performance you need to tear through high-level gaming and content creation.
A standout cast of premium features augments the versatile foundation with flexible Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, responsive SSD RAID storage, and a proprietary GPU switch that lets you shift between silky gameplay and better battery life. Everything fits into a stylish all-metal body that’s thin enough to travel.
The Zephyrus Duo 15 fully embraces its dynamic dual nature, offering incredible agility and power to harness your creativity and enhance your play anywhere.
See the future of gaming laptops
Adding another display is no simple endeavor for ultra-slim gaming laptops, where every millimeter matters and every ounce counts. The screen needs to be large enough to show useful information and close enough to be within easy reach.
Our sister device, the ASUS ZenBook Duo notebook, has a similar dual-monitor setup that we were able to learn from to create the Zephyrus Duo. Since our laptop is made primarily for gamers who have high expectations for graphics performance, we made a few changes to optimize performance for gaming and content creation. We adjusted the tilt of the second screen for maximum utility and comfort, took the battery up to a 90Wh unit for longer-lasting power, and added more ports to support a variety of gaming peripherals.
When you open the laptop, the ROG ScreenPad Plus tilts up at a 13° angle for comfortable viewing and touchscreen interaction. This fluid motion is carefully choreographed by a custom hinge that staggers the rise of the displays to prevent damage. On early prototypes, the screens could make contact as the lid opened, so the hinge incorporates curved sliders that delay the deployment of the secondary display until just the right moment.
At 14.1”, this is the largest second display ever put in a production gaming laptop. The IPS panel stretches wide viewing angles across the full width of the body. Its 3840 x 1100 resolution boasts a high pixel density that delivers rich details, crisp text, and flowing lines at a smooth 60Hz refresh rate. Having more screen space enhances a wide range of scenarios. You can use the second screen to turn your primary display into a more immersive canvas for just about everything.
We’re working with game developers like Techland to optimize AAA games like Dying Light 2, which artfully moves co-op chats to the secondary screen for easy viewing, and adds touchscreen controls for switching between inventory items and quests. Our collaboration with Overwolf also gives you access to a ton of great apps that make the most of your multi-screen advantage. See real-time stats, build recommendations, and more for games like League of Legends, Dota 2, Fortnite, and CS:GO without ever Alt+Tabbing out of a game.
Gaming and streaming is a cinch when you can play on the main display and put chats and stream controls on deck. Content creation is easier when you can keep your primary canvas clutter-free and move toolbars, timelines, and reference material below. The touchscreen also supports the ASUS Pen active stylus, so you can take notes and sketch seamlessly.
Companion functions optimized for the ROG ScreenPad Plus also speed up day-to-day work and play. Task Group lets you take snapshots of your ideal app arrangements across both screens and open those apps instantly with a tap of the associated Task Group icon. ROG Armoury Crate has a built-in resource monitor that lets you track vital stats like CPU and GPU frequencies at a glance. And streamers can easily run a broadcast and game simultaneously with an interface optimized for the secondary screen thanks to XSplit Gamecaster.
There are lots of handy tools and apps designed to work intuitively with the ROG ScreenPad Plus, with more to come as well. I know they don't want too many associations with Zen, but this is a case where we can use one to show that there's an existing ecosystem.. of sorts at least
A display of excellence
Displays determine how you see and experience virtual worlds. There’s no substitute for a good one, which is why we work closely with panel partners to ensure ROG laptops have the best options for a wide variety of needs. Whether you’re looking for ultra-responsive gameplay or high-resolution detail, the Zephyrus Duo 15 has a primary display to match. You can choose between an ultrafast 300Hz/3ms gaming panel and a 4K UHD display with 100% Adobe RGB coverage.
Gamers and esports enthusiasts can gain a serious competitive advantage at 300Hz. The ultra high refresh rate surpasses the standard for tournaments and makes fast-paced encounters feel incredibly smooth. Catch every crucial play the second it happens and stay locked into the action. The 3ms response time keeps the picture crisp and blur-free for precise tracking and targeting in the midst of the melee.
Both primary display options use NVIDIA G-SYNC® technology to enable a uniquely engaging experience. Game performance tends to vary continuously with the intensity of the scene, but traditional displays refresh the on-screen image at a constant clip. This disparity can cause visual tearing artifacts and jerky movement that disrupt your immersion. G-SYNC synchronizes the display’s refresh rate with the GPU’s frame rate to eliminate tearing, minimize stuttering, and reduce input lag.
There’s just one catch: G-SYNC requires a direct link between the GPU and display, but that conflicts with NVIDIA Optimus technology that extends battery life by turning off the graphics processor when it isn’t needed. Our exclusive GPU switch lets you toggle between G-SYNC and Optimus modes depending on whether you want smoother gaming or longer battery life, reinforcing the Duo’s innate duality. All it takes is a few clicks and a reboot.
Power the next generation
You need a top tier GPU to keep up with the best displays. The new GeForce RTX™ 2080 SUPER makes everything fast and fluid, from intense shooters to cinematic RPGs. Thanks to advanced cooling and ROG Boost, the GPU hits clock speeds as high as 1330MHz in Turbo mode.
The revolutionary Turing architecture behind the GeForce RTX series enables incredible visual realism. Lifelike lighting, shadows, and reflections render with speed and efficiency across a diverse collection of upgraded CUDA cores for programmable shading, RT cores for real-time ray tracing, and Tensor cores for AI processing. These versatile cores can also accelerate serious workloads like image processing, 3D modeling, and deep learning.
Heavy lifting gets a big boost from up to a 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i9 CPU. This 8-core processor hits speeds of up to 5.3GHz on a single core, and can engage up to 16 parallel threads with Hyper-Threading technology.
With up to 48GB of combined onboard and SO-DIMM memory, the Zephyrus Duo 15 is ready for multitasking mastery across multiple displays. Its DDR4-3200 RAM outpaces the old 2666MHz standard, and even goes beyond the 2933Hz stock memory speed of the 10th Gen platform, enabling higher system speed and responsiveness than similarly equipped alternatives. Broadcast high-quality streams, chat with the channel, and play the latest titles without skipping a beat, or dive down a rabbit hole opening browser tabs to your heart’s content.
Two nimble NVM Express® PCIe® x4 SSDs run in RAID 0 to provide plenty of high-speed storage. The dual-drive array makes the whole system feel more responsive, with lightning load times and quick access to all your data. With up to 2TB of capacity, you can carry a formidable game library and professional portfolio wherever you go.
If you want to go beyond the hardware inside, USB Type-C with Thunderbolt™ 3 offers versatile connectivity for a wide range of powerful accompaniments. Hook up to high-speed storage for ultrafast multimedia editing and transfers, speed up gaming and rendering by plugging into external graphics, daisy chain multiple monitors to augment the integrated displays, or connect to a fully equipped desktop dock with the simplicity of a single cable. With peak theoretical interface bandwidth of up to 40Gbps – 4x the speed of the USB 3.1 Gen 2 standard – Thunderbolt 3 can balance multiple performance-hungry devices and drive external displays up to 8K resolution.
Cooling carries performance to new heights
Modern processors only achieve their full potential when thermals allow, which is particularly challenging in slender systems. The original ROG Zephyrus revolutionized ultra-slim laptop cooling with an innovative Active Aerodynamic System (AAS) that opens a large intake vent when you lift the lid. Different implementations of this design improve airflow by opening 7~10mm vents that extend across the bottom of the laptop, but the Duo provides an opportunity to take things in another direction.
Our initial AAS concept included an alternative approach with a vent opening upward. It wasn’t strong enough to use at the time, but adding the second screen and thickening the magnesium aluminide frame stiffened the design enough to implement as AAS Plus. Tilting the touchscreen at an angle opens a larger 28.5mm air intake, and allows the fans to draw in cooler air from above the laptop instead of warmer air from beneath it. This massive air intake increases airflow by up to 30% over previous AAS implementations, improving heat dissipation. More efficient cooling lets us keep noise levels below 46dBA in Turbo mode, and 43dBA in Performance mode.
To carve out even greater cooling headroom, we paint the CPU with Thermal Grizzly’s liquid metal compound instead of using standard thermal paste. Applying the exotic material is delicate work typically done by hand. That’s not viable for mass production, so we commissioned custom equipment to automate the process with mechanical precision, and also designed a special internal fence to prevent the liquid from leaking over time. After honing the approach with the ROG Mothership, we’re rolling out the patented process and fence across our entire lineup of ROG laptops with 10th Gen Intel Core processors. Improving heat transfer between the CPU and cooling module provides thermal margin that can be used to lower temperatures, reduce noise, or increase performance.
The cooling module strategically snakes five heat pipes to draw degrees from the CPU, GPU, and surrounding power circuitry. Each of the four heatsinks is filled with ultra-thin fins that maximize surface area for heat dissipation while decreasing resistance to airflow. Dual n-Blade fans circulate air with super-slim blades made of a special liquid crystal polymer that’s strong enough to withstand high RPMs. Thinner blades leave room to fit 83 per fan, increasing airflow by up to 17% compared to traditional designs. A mesh cover guards the fans against anything that pokes into the AAS vent.
Cooling requirements change based on the task, so the Zephyrus Duo 15 has multiple modes tuned for different needs. Silent mode sacrifices a smidgen of speed to keep acoustics low, which is ideal for everyday tasks. Performance mode gives you the horsepower needed for high gaming frame rates without too much noise. Turbo mode dials the CPU up to full power and reaches higher speeds with a louder fan profile.
Switch between operating modes on demand with a handy keyboard shortcut or automatically with Scenario Profiles. Available through the ROG Armoury Crate utility, Scenario Profiles let you link individual games and applications to specific operating modes, lighting effects, and other system settings. They’re triggered by the foreground application and allow seamless switching that adapts to what you’re doing.
Accuracy, comfort, and durability are key
The heat from powerful internal components can sometimes make laptop keyboards uncomfortable to use, particularly during marathon gaming sessions and with sustained heavy workloads. To help keep your hands away from the warmest parts of the machine and create more space for the second display, we pulled the keyboard forward like the original Zephyrus and the new Zephyrus S17. The design lets your wrists sit on the table, like with a desktop keyboard, and we have a detachable palm rest for greater comfort while you work and play.
A handful of keyboard enhancements upgrade the input area below the touchscreen. The separated groups of function keys are easier to identify on the fly. Dedicated hotkeys put volume and microphone mute within easy reach. ROG Overstroke technology lifts the actuation point of the underlying switches for a more responsive experience. And you can mash multi-key inputs with speed thanks to N-Key rollover that registers every press precisely. The touchpad tucked neatly to the right of the keys lights up a digital numpad with the press of a button.
Per-key RGB is great for highlighting critical commands and time-saving shortcuts. You can streamline your workflows, or just coordinate your RGB lighting across an ecosystem of Aura Sync compatible peripheral devices.
Portable power keeps you and active anywhere
Everything about the Zephyrus Duo 15 is thoughtful and intentional. The design truly allows form to follow function, using space efficiently and effectively to squeeze incredible power and premium features into an impressively slim body that’s just 20.9mm thin and only 2.4kg.
The sleek magnesium-aluminide chassis is strong enough for life on the road. Its clean lines, all-metal construction, and anodized finish impart a premium and professional feel. This is a gaming laptop you can discreetly use at the office, client meetings, and coffee shops. But be prepared for a double-take when people see the second screen.
It’s easier to stay productive anywhere you want to go with the Duo’s high-capacity 90Wh battery. The laptop can also charge via USB Power Delivery, so you can stretch your time off the wall and take care of lighter work with a 65W Type-C adapter that’s much smaller than the standard unit required for full performance. Use a USB-C adapter to lighten your load on the road or around town, then plug in to full power when you return to home base. If the battery runs low and you can’t find a free socket, you can buy time by charging from a compatible USB power pack.
The ins and outs of on the go gaming
Comprehensive connectivity lets this gaming laptop power a full battlestation or workstation. The USB 3.2 Gen 2 port with Thunderbolt 3 supports Power Delivery and DisplayPort™ 1.4, and can be used to connect a G-SYNC desktop monitor. There’s also an HDMI 2.0b output capable of driving a 60Hz signal for 4K monitors and TVs. Three Type-A USB ports accommodate additional peripherals, including a mouse, gamepad, and VR tracking.
Life on the road involves lots of wireless networking, so the Zephyrus Duo 15 lets you connect and play at speed with superfast Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+), otherwise known as 802.11ax. When paired with a compatible router, Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) boosts peak interface bandwidth up to 2.4Gbps, and improves efficiency for busy networks like crowded coffee shops and offices. It also reduces latency, meaning less lag for sensitive activities like online gaming, and expands upstream capacity, which provides more bandwidth for livestreaming. If you’re more inclined to plug in, the Gigabit Ethernet jack at the back offers the lowest possible latency for serious multiplayer matches.
Two audio jacks make it easier to connect a standalone microphone and headset for streaming or voice chat, and a premium ESS Sabre DAC 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, 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 Duo 15 | |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel® 10th Gen Comet Lake i9-10980HK |
| Graphics | NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 SUPER™, 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM |
| Operating system | Windows 10 Home |
| Display | Main Screen: 15.6” PANTONE® Validated, supports Microsoft Hybrid Graphics / G-SYNC switching |
| Memory | 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz onboard, plus 1 x SODIMM slot up to 32 GB (supports up to 48 GB total) |
| Storage | 2 x M.2 SSD slot (NVMe® PCIe®), PCIe® 3.0 x4 512 GB / 1 TB, supports RAID 0 |
| Keyboard | Backlit chiclet keyboard, supports n-key, per-key with 1.4 mm key travel |
| Audio | 2 x speakers, ESS + Hi-Res Audio (HRA) certification, supports smart amplifier, Nahimic Sonic Studio + ISST |
| Wi-Fi / Bluetooth | 2x2 multi-antenna WiFi 6 (802.11ax) |
| I/O Ports | 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C™, DisplayPort 1.4, TBT, PD input 20 V/3A；output 5 V/3A 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (right) 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (Bottom) 1 x HDMI (HDMI 2.0b support) 2 x audio jack: mic-in & headphone, plus mic-in 1 x RJ45 LAN |
| Battery | 90 Wh |
| Power Supply | 240 W power adapter |
| Size | 36 x 26.8 x 2.1 cm |
| Weight | 2.4 kg |
A revolutionary design redefines duality
Groundbreaking design and breathtaking graphics combine in a singular machine that bridges the worlds of gaming and content creation. Two screens reflect the dual nature of the Zephyrus Duo 15 and radically alter the landscape of what gaming laptops can be. This revolutionary machine leads our lineup of 2020 ROG laptops, and may truly change the way you game.
The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 will be available starting May 2020. Check with your local ROG representative for details on configurations, availability, and pricing in your region.
