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Today at CES, Asus announced its lineup of 2025 gaming laptops, some of which feature Nvidia’s new, mega-powerful GeForce RTX 5090 graphics. The Asus ROG Strix SCAR models, which are designed with the ultimate gaming experience in mind, feature highly efficient cooling systems as well as top-tier hardware. The Zephyrus models, on the other hand, exhibit the perfect balance of portability and power. Let’s dive right in, folks. IDG / Michael Crider Asus ROG Strix SCAR (16- and 18-inch models) The 2025 Asus ROG Strix SCAR laptops are available in either 16- or 18-inch varieties, and they’re designed with raw firepower in mind. They’ll come equipped with the latest Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX processors and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 Series graphics, and they’ll also have up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM and 4TB of PCIe Gen4 SSD storage.  The 1400p mini-LED display has a refresh rate of 240Hz and a maximum brightness of 1,200 nits as well as 100 percent DCI-P3 color coverage, so it should deliver buttery smooth visuals as well as a vibrant, accurate picture. Other neat features include a tool-less access design (for easy access) and an Aura RGB light bar that encircles the chassis. IDG / Michael Crider The cooling system is (ahem) cool, too. It includes a custom vapor chamber and a sandwiched heat sink, which places high thermal conductivity material between two layers, thus maximizing heat transfer. We haven’t heard back from Asus yet about the launch date or pricing, but we’ll update this article accordingly once we have that information. Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 IDG / Michael Crider Asus’s ROG Zephyrus line of gaming laptops are known for their lightweight form factors and powerful internal hardware, and the 2025 models follow in the same footsteps as their older siblings. The new ROG Zephyrus G14 weighs 3.31 pounds with a maximum thickness of 0.62 inches and the new G16 weighs 4.08 pounds with a maximum thickness of 0.58 inches. That’s pretty light and slim, especially for a gaming laptop. The ROG Zephyrus G16 model is loaded with the latest Intel Core Ultra 9 285H processor and the G14 model boasts the newest AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor. Asus claims the G14 utilizes “robust heat pipes” and the G17 benefits from multiple “vapor chambers.” Keeping the hardware nice and cool is vital in terms of performance, so it pleases me to see the emphasis of efficient cooling, especially where these laptops are so thin and light.  IDG / Michael Crider As for the display, the G14 is rocking a 1620p panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 0.2ms response time. The G16 features a 1400p OLED display with a 240Hz refresh rate and a “similar response time,” according to Asus. If you play fast paced games like Overwatch or Valorant, a higher refresh rate will result in smoother gameplay (though we’d be surprised to find a top-tier RTX 5090 in a laptop this svelte).    They’ll be available in either Platinum White or Eclipse Gray colorways. No word yet on the release date or pricing, but we’ve reached out to Asus and will update this article as soon as we hear back. Asus Asus ROG Flow Z13 The Asus ROG Flow Z13 is a bit of an oddity (in the best way) because it’s a 2-in-1 gaming tablet and not a conventional clamshell laptop. It might not be every gamer’s cup of tea, but it’s still a unique offering that deserves attention. The 2025 model, as you might expect, features pretty impressive hardware. The 2025 version has an AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 chip, a 70 watt-hour battery, and a 1440p 180Hz touchscreen. The chassis itself is made of CNC aluminum and it comes with a 170 degree kickstand, which really ups the versatility factor.  The steel vapor chamber, which is designed to keep the hardware cool under heavier loads, has also been revamped with second gen Arc Flow Fans. The blades use “variable thickness and shape” to “maximize airflow efficiency,” according to Asus.   The 2025 Asus ROG Flow Z13 is expected to launch later in Q1. 

Today at CES 2025, Dell announced that they’re bringing back the iconic Alienware Area-51 gaming laptops, which were known for their desktop-level CPUs and easy access for upgrades. This time, they come armed with the latest hardware as well as a new thermal architecture for better internal cooling. The otherworldly design is also just really cool. Let’s dive into the details! Alienware Area-51 gaming laptops Dell’s revitalized Area-51 laptops come in two flavors: 16 inches and 18 inches. The top-tier configurations feature an Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX processor and the next generation of Nvidia GeForce GPUs (likely the 50-Series, though Dell didn’t specify). They’ll also have up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM and up to 12TB (3x4TB) of NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD storage.  Wow. Just wow. In addition to the beefy internal components, the display looks stellar. Both models boast either a 16-inch or 18-inch display with a resolution of 2560×1600, a refresh rate of 240Hz, and a response time of 3ms. Gameplay should be as smooth as your mother’s freshly churned butter, perfect for competitive titles in which every millisecond matters. Dell As for cooling, the “Cryo-tech” thermal architecture is capable of pushing 37 percent more air through the machine than previous iterations, according to Dell. This is achieved by managing air flow, fan speed, and so on. An efficient cooling system has a major impact on gaming laptop performance, and those top-tier internals generate a lot of heat! These are also the first Alienware laptops to support PCIe Gen5 SSD storage. “When combined with Microsoft DirectStorage technology, now the GPU can directly access SSDs, which makes games run even faster than ever before,” said Dell. Finally, the new Liquid Teal finish, which gives the laptop an iridescent sheen, is to die for. I love the major departure from the clichéd gamer aesthetic (i.e., black chassis with red accents), which never was my cup of tea. On the underside of the laptop, you’ll find a Gorilla Glass window, which allows you to see all the internal bits and bobs inside of the machine. The RGB fans also cast a cool underglow, which you can see shining up through the keyboard. The new Alienware Area-51 gaming laptops are expected to launch later in Q1 2025 with an entry-level configuration price of $1,999.

Today at CES 2025, Razer announced their latest Blade 16 gaming laptop, which is thinner, more robust, and more powerful than previous models. That’s not to say the 2024 model of the Blade 16 was a slouch in the performance department, but it could’ve done with a better keyboard. Fortunately, the newest model does feature a redesigned keyboard as well as the latest AMD Ryzen AI processor. Let’s dive in. Razer Razer’s 2025 take on the Blade 16 The Razer Blade 16 (2025 edition) is expertly crafted from “a single block of aluminum to form a rigid unibody chassis,” according to the company. It has also been coated with an oxide layer, which provides greater durability. The 2024 model was constructed in the same fashion, so the look and feel will be familiar for Blade owners.  Razer even claims it’s the “thinnest gaming laptop ever” at only 0.59 inches thin. By comparison, the 2024 model measured 0.87 by 14 by 9.6 inches and weighed over 5 pounds. These laptops are known for being thin yet durable, and the 2025 Blade 16 appears to follow suit. Despite its slimmed-down body, it’s still packing a good amount of power. As previously mentioned, the Blade 16 comes with the latest AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, and it’s designed to offer “excellent performance and efficiency when working or gaming,” according to Razer. It’s also designed to “accelerate AI-enabled applications,” though we don’t have any further details on that at this time. The 16-inch OLED display is wickedly fast, too. Between the 240Hz refresh rate and the 0.2ms response time, visuals should look fluid and sharp even in motion. OLED panels also produce richer colors and deeper blacks, so playing games on this display should be a real treat. No word yet on launch date or pricing information for the 2025 model of the Blade 16, but we’ve reached out to Razer and will update this article accordingly when we hear back from them.

It’s official: Nvidia’s next generation of gaming graphics is here, and friends, the GeForce RTX 50-series looks pretty compellingly priced on paper. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced eight different GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards during his CES 2025 keynote – four for desktop, and four for laptops, all compatible with a new DLSS 4 generation. The same GPUs were announced for both form factors: The GeForce RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070. It was a big difference from AMD’s keynote, where RDNA 4 and the Radeon RX 9070 weren’t even mentioned despite press receiving a high-level briefing. Let’s start with Nvidia’s hotly anticipated desktop graphics cards, powered by Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture. They’re actually cheaper than expected, with lower prices than their predecessors…except for the RTX 5090. But there’s a reason for that. Meet Nvidia’s RTX 50-series desktop graphics cards Nvidia I was convinced that the GeForce RTX 5090 would cost $2,500 or more based off the leaked specs. Well, Jensen didn’t really get into product level specs, but at $1,999, it’s a relative bargain for AI researchers, if not necessarily gamers. With 32GB of VRAM and a beefy 512-bit bus, paired with Nvidia’s flagship Blackwell GPU, this thing will be ferocious in gaming, but unparalleled in machine learning tasks if you can’t afford a pricey Nvidia enterprise-class card. Nvidia The theme goes down the line: At $999, the RTX 5080 costs $200 less than the 4080 did at launch (and the same as the RTX 4080 Super). At $749 and $549, the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 cost $50 less than their predecessors (though to be fair, I called the RTX 4070 Ti “hobbled and wildly overpriced”). Better yet, Jensen said that the RTX 5070 delivers RTX 4090-class performance for roughly a third of the price. Inside the new dual-fan “double flow through” Nvidia Founders Edition design, with an absolutely miniscule PCB. Nvidia If that’s true in games and not just AI workloads or benchmarks, it’s an exciting start to the new generation – but be warned that these starting prices for Nvidia’s overhauled Founders Edition versions may not reflect the same price you’ll see on custom third-party cards. Nvidia’s announcement post for the 50-series, published after the keynote, includes some high level performance details for each desktop GPU, but only in full ray tracing and DLSS-enabled situations. Since we have no tangible idea what sort of performance benefits DLSS 4 brings, take these with a bunch punch of salt for now. It shows what’s possible though. Nvidia Nvidia says the RTX 5090 is “2X Faster Than The GeForce RTX 4090;” the RTX 5080 is “Twice As Fast As The GeForce RTX 4080;” the RTX 5070 is “2X Faster Than The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti;” and the RTX 5070 is as fast as the RTX 4090. Again, only expect to reach those high-water marks in specific games and scenarios that support the full suite of Nvidia ray tracing and DLSS features. The RTX 5090 offers wayyyyyy more CUDA cores than the 4090, so it should be a beast no matter what, while the lower-tier RTX 50-series cards have more modest CUDA upgrades, so Blackwell’s architectural changes (and DLSS 4) may need to do some heavy lifting if Nvidia plans on offering big performance uplifts. We’ll see! Look for RTX 50-series graphics cards to start hitting the market later this January in some form. Nvidia didn’t say which cards are launching when. Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series laptops Usually, Nvidia launches desktop GPUs well before their laptop counterparts, but not with the RTX 50-series! Well, kinda. They’re launching in March, while the desktop cards launch this month, but Jensen revealed both onstage. Nvidia Details were scant beyond what you see in the screenshot above. The GeForce RTX 5090 will be available in laptops starting at $2,899; the RTX 5080 in laptops starting at $2,199; the RTX 5070 Ti in laptops starting at $1,599; and the RTX 5070 in laptops starting at $1,299. Pay close attention to the cited AI TOPs under the model numbers for both the laptop and desktop GPUs, though. Laptop graphics tend to be cut-down from their desktop cousins, and the AI TOPS suggests that’s the case with the RTX 50-series too. The RTX 5090 desktop card offers 3,400 AI TOPS while the laptop version hits 1,850 – about the same level as the desktop RTX 5080. (No surprise there, as the laptop 4090 is basically a desktop 4080 stuffed into a notebook.) The same trend continues down the laptop 50-series line. Update: Nvidia’s GeForce website provided more specs after the keynote and yep, my initial suspicions were correct. Be sure to also pay attention to memory capacity (especially for the RTX 5070) and bus width size, in addition to CUDA core counts. That laptop 5090 is nowhere near the firepower of the desktop 5090 (though Nvidia wisely increased the memory capacity of the laptop 5090 over the desktop 5080), and the laptop 5070 offers just 8GB of VRAM over a 128-bit bus — a skimpy total that frankly doesn’t cut it at even 1080p resolution in 2025’s latest games, though Nvidia may argue that DLSS 4’s AI benefits reduce memory demands. What’s inside Blackwell? Nvidia That’s all well and good, but how do these puppies perform? Jensen didn’t get into details on-stream, instead relaying some high-level Blackwell specs that matter more for AI researchers than gamers – AI TOPS, RT TFLOPS, “AI management processor,” and the like. You can see it all in the screenshot above. On the plus side, at least some of Nvidia’s RTX 50-series will include bleeding-edge GDDR7 memory, helping to deliver up to 1.8TB/s of memory bandwidth, or twice what was possible with its predecessor. It will also offer dual shaders for INT and floating point calculations (the big two for traditional gaming graphics), the ability to intermix GPU and AI workloads as needed, and programmable GPU shaders that can process neural network tasks. If it sounds like Nvidia is going all-in on AI, well, they have been for years. Haven’t you seen DLSS and DLSS 3 Frame Gen? On that note, Jensen also teased DLSS 4, complete with “neural texture compression” and “neural materials” that reduce the need for traditional GPU rendering even further. Nvidia says that while DLSS 3 could inject AI-generated frames between every GPU-rendered frame, DLSS 4 can infer three full frames off of a single traditional frame. Hey, AI upscaling is killing native graphics, after all. Jensen said that a total of about 33 million pixels are generated for four frames of 4K imagery; with DLSS 4, that’s still true, but the GPU is only rendering about two million of those, with AI doing the rest of the heavy lifting. You can read much more about DLSS 4 and multi-frame generation on Nvidia’s website if you’re interested. As DLSS 3 users who forgot to turn on Nvidia Reflex can tell you, injecting AI-generated frames also injects latency — though Reflex can claw it back. That’s a much, much more pronounced problem when you’re using AI to create multiple frames. Enter Nvidia Reflex 2, which uses “frame warp technology” to reduce latency by up to 75 percent. It’s complicated stuff, so watch the video and hit that link for an in-depth explanation of the technology if you’re interested in more details. Bonkers – and potentially very, very game changing if it works as advertised. That’s a big if, though, and there are plenty of questions still swirling around the RTX 50-series’ capabilities after Nvidia’s detail-light keynote. Stay tuned to PCWorld (and PCWorld’s YouTube channel!) for all the latest updates and news coming from CES 2025.

Dreame is making a splash at CES this year with a new pool cleaner that’s smart enough to gauge the shape of your pool before it dives in for a cleaning, along with a robot vacuum with retractable, obstacle-climbing legs. Slated to ship in March, the Z1 Pro robotic pool cleaner boasts Dreame’s PoolSense technology, which intelligently recognizes pool shapes and adjusts its cleaning strategy for optimal results. With 8,000 GPH suction power and dual brush technology, the Z1 Pro promises thorough cleaning, removing debris from floors, walls, and waterlines. The Z1 Pro’s LiFi Control System utilizes optical communication to offer precise control over cleaning patterns and paths. Dreame says its horizontal waterline cleaning technology is now 50 percent more efficient than in previous models, while the Auto Poolside Parking feature simplifies retrieval. Dreame Priced at $1,599.99, the Z1 Pro will launch in March 2025, with pre-sales beginning on January 7. Customers who pre-order through Dreame’s website can access a $600 discount, along with a one-year extended warranty. Besides the Z1 Pro, Dreame has unleashed a new high-end robot vacuum at CES with a killer feature: retractable legs that can hoist the bot over obstacles. Set to go on sale next month, the X50 Ultra robotic vacuum packs Dreame’s ProLeap technology, a set of retractable robotic legs that allows the bot to traverse barriers up to 6 centimeters high. Complementing this capability is the VersaLift Navigation system, which dynamically adjusts the height of the device for cleaning under furniture, while DToF (direct time of flight) LiDAR technology allows for precise, 360-degree mapping and obstacle detection. Edge and corner cleaning get a boost with the X50 Ultra’s Dual Flex Arm Technology, while a HyperStream Detangling DuoBrush system captures hair while preventing tangles. The AceClean DryBoard 20 system introduces advanced self-cleaning functionality, including hot water (176-degree Fahrenheit) mop washing and drying. The X50 Ultra incorporates intelligent sensors capable of identifying up to 200 object types. The X50 Ultra will be available for $1,699.99 starting February 14, with pre-sales opening on January 7. Early buyers on Dreame’s official website can access a $390 discount, an extra cleaning kit valued at $149.99, and an additional two-year warranty.