Even cheaper than on Cyber Monday — My dream gaming laptop is a 14-inch beast with an RTX 4060, and the price has never been lower

News
By
last updated

I didn't see this one coming — the Zephyrus G14 is even cheaper than on Cyber Monday (and Best Buy price matches).

This one certainly caught me off guard. My dream gaming laptop and the absolute best 14-inch gaming laptop on the market enjoyed a very healthy sale throughout Black Friday and Cyber Monday — and many of you expressed your interest. ASUS surprised me, though, by actually lowering the price even more following Cyber Monday. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is a phenomenal compact gaming laptop, and it's now $50 more affordable than ever before at just $1,149.99 at Best Buy.

NOTE: Don't worry if you already took advantage of the previous Zephyrus G14 deal at $1,199.99 — Best Buy's Holiday Price Match Guarantee means Best Buy will honor the lowest price on almost any products it offers (including this laptop) even after you purchase it. Products bought between Oct. 27 and Dec. 30, 2023 are covered by this guarantee until Jan. 13 (possibly longer for My Best Buy members), so you can get some of your money back if the price falls further.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2023) — Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD | $1,599.99$1,199.99 now $1,149.99 at Best Buy

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2023) — Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD | was $1,599.99 / $1,199.99 now $1,149.99 at Best Buy

The Zephyrus G14 is consistently highly rated by critics and consumers alike, and is all-around the very best 14-inch gaming laptop you can buy. This configuration is perfect for 1440p gaming with its Ryzen 9 CPU and RTX 4060 GPU, and is enjoying a healthy Cyber Monday discount. If you want an excellent gaming laptop that's highly portable and actually viable as an everyday laptop, this is the one to get.

View Deal

✅Perfect for: Those who want a balanced, compact gaming laptop with great performance, a premium design, a fantastic set of features, and surprisingly solid battery life when not gaming

❌Avoid if: You want a larger screen, as this is a 14-inch gaming laptop (16-inches tends to be the standard for a full-sized gaming laptop)

💰Price check: $1,595.99 at Amazon

🔍Our experience: We unfortunately haven't reviewed this laptop in years (I would in a heartbeat, though), but you can check out these glowing reviews from PCMag and Toms Guide

🤔Why Best Buy? Best Buy is a trusted retailer with in-store pickups, fast standard shipping, lenient return windows, and great customer support. Best Buy will also price match most things until Jan. 13, even after you purchase it. Those with My Best Buy memberships get a lot more benefits like exclusive discounts and offers, 60-day return windows, faster (free) shipping, better device protection, and more. If you want to learn more, check out our in-depth guide on My Best Buy memberships

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is a brilliant compact gaming laptop, and this configuration is mostly well-balanced. However, 512GB of SSD storage is on the small side, and you may want more than 16GB of RAM depending on what you're doing. Fortunately, ASUS has a detailed guide on how to upgrade the storage and memory on your ROG Zephyrus G14, and we have recommendations for the best components to get. While you're at it, you might as well get a good gaming mouse and headset, because you'll need those, too.

TLDR: The ROG Zephyrus G14 has one M.2 slot, so you'll need to replace it to upgrade the existing SSD. That slot supports up to PCIe Gen 4.0 SSDs. You have two DDR5 SODIMM slots, with one taken up by the existing 16GB. The laptop supports up to 32GB of RAM in total, so your best bet is adding another 16GB stick in the second slot (ASUS recommends minimum 4,800MHz for RAM speed).

Deals STILL AVAILABLE!

The best balance of power and portability in the business

The gaming laptop I would buy, if I weren't already drowning in gaming laptops. (Image credit: Windows Central)

ASUS makes a ton of... Well, everything PC related. The company makes laptops and desktops (gaming and otherwise), PC components, monitors, even gaming handhelds and phones. Not everything the company churns out is top-notch, but the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is consistently one of the best 14-inch gaming laptops on the market, offering a better balance between portability, power, and price than competitors from Razer and Alienware.

Holiday gifting deals

Windows Central Holiday Gifting Deals

(Image credit: Windows Central)

• ROG Ally cheaper than ever
• 3 classic games less than $3 each
• My favorite FPS is STILL 36% off
• 2 top indie games for under $10
• Xbox fight stick lowest-ever price
• Series X mini fridge still JUST $40

This configuration isn't the mostly wildly powerful configuration of the Zephyrus G14 (this laptop can get crazy fast), but it is perfect for most PC gamers with capable hardware and a reasonable price (even before this discount, which shaves an extra $450 off). With this laptop, you're getting a very powerful AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS CPU to handle all your processing needs (and then some), combined with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 with 8GB of VRAM, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and 512GB of PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD storage.

That combination of hardware is more than powerful enough to take advantage of this laptop's 14-inch, QHD 1600p display with a 165Hz refresh rate. That display looks great, too, with up to 500 nits of brightness and vivid colors. You can play all the best PC games with medium-to-high settings pretty comfortably with this setup, and the Zephyrus G14 does a fantastic job with thermal management despite its diminutive stature.

All of this is wrapped up in a premium, immaculately constructed chassis made of aluminum, magnesium alloy, and plastic (I just love this white color, which stands out in a crowd of drab grey and black laptops). It weighs less than 4lbs and is less than 19mm thick; with thin bezels around that 14-inch display, this is a highly compact laptop that can fit into almost any laptop bag or backpack.

This is an image of last year's model from PCMag, which is practically identical to the model on sale here (apart from the internal hardware, of course). (Image credit: PCMag)

For ports, you have two high-speed USB Type-C 3.2 ports (one with Power Delivery), two USB Type-A 3.2 ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and even a microSD card slot. In the box you get a 240W barrel plug charger to keep that battery topped off, although this laptop actually has decent longevity as long as you're not pushing that GPU away from the outlet. You also get 1-month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate included with your purchase, helping you get started with hundreds of high-quality PC games.

Don't worry, the fun doesn't stop there. Dolby Atmos bolsters the onboard speakers, Windows Hello biometric authentication helps with faster logins, and the backlit keyboard features customizable RGB lighting. Sure, you could spend far more to get ASUS' most powerful gaming laptop, but most people would be best served by the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2023), which can pull double-duty as a gaming PC and an everyday laptop. It's not just the best 14-inch gaming laptops, it's one of the best gaming laptops period... And I really wish I had one on my desk right now.

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is available now for just $1,149.99 at Best Buy, it's best price ever (with full price matching from Best Buy, if you recently took advantage of the last deal). If you're looking for another incredible holidays deal from ASUS, the ROG Ally is also enjoying its best discount ever — just $399.99 at Best Buy.

CATEGORIES
Zachary Boddy
Zachary Boddy
Staff Writer

Zachary Boddy (They / Them) is a Staff Writer for Windows Central, primarily focused on covering the latest news in tech and gaming, the best Xbox and PC games, and the most interesting Windows and Xbox hardware. They have been gaming and writing for most of their life starting with the original Xbox, and started out as a freelancer for Windows Central and its sister sites in 2019. Now a full-fledged Staff Writer, Zachary has expanded from only writing about all things Minecraft to covering practically everything on which Windows Central is an expert, especially when it comes to Microsoft. You can find Zachary on Twitter @BoddyZachary.