Asus has quietly added an RTX 5080 option to the ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) for buyers in the US, and it is priced at $4,799.
That’s odd because last year’s ROG Zephyrus G16 with a more powerful RTX 5090 is currently sitting on Amazon for $4,599. Somehow, Asus has priced a less powerful GPU at a higher price than its predecessor with a better GPU.
So what exactly does $4,799 buy you?
The new model pairs Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5080 with Intel’s Core Ultra 9 386H (Panther Lake) processor, 64GB of RAM, and a boosted TGP of up to 160W, which is 20W more than the RTX 5070 Ti variant, which was the only US option until now.
The extra headroom matters, as the RTX 5080 is around 15% faster than the 5070 Ti. The gap could widen in VRAM-heavy titles, especially since the 5080 has 16GB of VRAM while the 5070 Ti maxes out at 12GB.
RAM doubles too, from 32GB to 64GB. It also comes in a new silver finish for those who’re interested.
Does the upgrade actually justify the price jump?
The new ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) with the RTX 5080 costs $1,100 more than the one with the RTX 5070 Ti. If you do the math, that’s a 29% price increase, partly due to the more powerful GPU and partly due to double the memory capacity.
The specs, I’d say, are meaningfully better for heavy users. However, I can’t overlook the fact that the 2025 ROG Zephyrus G16, with an RTX 5090 and 64GB of RAM, no less, costs $200 less on Amazon right now.
If raw GPU performance is your priority, the math doesn’t favor the new model, making the older one a no-brainer for most buyers. Keep in mind that it’s based on Intel’s Arrow Lake architecture.
