Anybody who's tried gaming with a laptop knows the biggest problem they face: heat dissipation from a blazing-hot processor, GPU, and RAM. ASUS thinks they have a solution for that with the ROG GX700: a combination of high-powered gaming laptop with a crazy liquid cooling dock. Let's take a look.
The GX700 comes with an overclockable Intel Skylake processor, NVIDIA graphics, and an exceptionally-sharp 17-inch 4K IPS LCD display. But the real star of the show here is the liquid cooling, which comes courtesy of the enormous docking station. This isn't your typical docking station — you won't be getting Ethernet or hooking up an external monitor by pushing down on the latch. This gives you liquid cooling and nothing more. Think of it as the laptop equivalent of an automotive radiator.
Seeing as the dock is pumping liquid coolant through the laptop, you want a tight and secure fit to avoid any leakage, and in our time with the GX700 we saw just that. Pushing down on the latch slightly firmly the laptop in and connects the conduits, expanding the cooling loop to the large radiator and fans in the rear dock. If you're overclocking the processor, this seems to be a must, lest you start melting your keyboard in the process. Undocking is a two-step process: push down forcefully on the button close to the back of the laptop and then lift up on the latch. Seems kind of necessary to us that it be difficult — we wouldn't want to pick it up and have coolant pour out all over our desk.
Obviously, this laptop and liquid cooling dock combination isn't for everybody, and ASUS doesn't expect it to be. ROG stands for Republic of Gamers, ASUS's gaming-focused line-up of laptops, desktops, and accessories. The GX700 fits that bill. It's technically a laptop and thus technically portable, but it's certainly not a machine you'd want to lug around on a regular basis. It's huge, it's heavy, and though we don't have specs on it, we don't expect the battery life to be phenomenal. This is a machine purpose built for hardcore gaming — it just makes it easier to pick up and go somewhere else to do that gaming if you have to. It's radically-designed, it'll be insanely expensive, and it's just so damn cool (in more way than one).
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