Asus crammed a full-blown GeForce GTX 980 GPU into the new Republic of Gamers G701 laptop

By Kevin Parrish Published July 19, 2016

Just recently, Asus launched its Republic of Gamers-branded G701 gaming laptop, a mobile beast based on the company’s GX700 liquid-cooled gaming laptop. It doesn’t come with the extreme cooling even though the Intel Core i7 K-series processor is totally overclockable (like, totally), but it is packed with a discrete Nvidia GPU and a screen that supports Nvidia’s G-Sync technology.

Based on the specs, there are several models on the market. On the processor front, the laptop sports an Intel Core i7-6820HK CPU that’s backed by up to 64GB of system memory and what appears to be a full-blown Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 graphics chip with 4GB or 8GB of dedicated video memory.

Recommended Videos

Storage-wise, the laptop provides two PCIe Gen. 3×4 SSDs in RAID 0 with capacities of 256GB or 512GB each, meaning owners can see up to 2,842MB per second read speeds and up to 2,482MB per second write speeds. This storage setup is backed by a built-in SD card reader although its maximum capacity is currently unknown.

As for other installed goodies, the new laptop includes one USB 3.1 Type-C port, three USB 3.0 ports, one Ethernet port, one HDMI port, one mini DisplayPort connector, and one Thunderbolt port. An HD web camera is mounted on the 17.3-inch screen that is LED-lit and has a maximum resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 (72-percent NTSC) or 3,840 x 2,160 (100-percent NTSC). Wireless networking is handled by a built-in Wireless AC component.

Overall, the new gaming laptop measures 16.88(W) x 12.16(D) x 1.29(H) inches and weighs around 8.37 pounds with the battery installed. The anti-ghosting keyboard is backlit for gaming in dark caves, and has 30-key rollover technology so that up to 30 keystrokes are correctly logged even when several keys are hit simultaneously. The keyboard includes macro keys that can be assigned through the ROG Gaming Center software.

The installed Asus software can also be used to overclock the processor with four settings: Standard, Optimized, Extreme, and Manual. According to the company, the GTX 980 graphics chip provides 20-percent better performance in a 3DMark DirectX 11 test than the GTX 980M chip that’s typically used for notebooks. Overclock the processor, and owners get an additional 17-percent performance boost for desktop-like gaming.

“ROG G701 features an ESS Sabre headphone DAC and amplifier for those of you who demand amazing sound not only in games, because you also spend a lot of time listening to music and watching TV shows or movies,” the company says in a blog. “The amp really helps to give you that crisp, punchy bass (of course you have to pair it with a nice pair of capable cans). For true 7.1 surround sound you can check out Strix 7.1, or ROG Strix Wirelss if you want to go wireless.”

If this laptop sounds tasty to you, wait until you take a bite into the price tag. On Newegg, the Asus ROG G701VO-CS74K laptop with a 64-bit version of Windows 10 Home costs $3,750. This model packs the GTX 980 GPU with 8GB of GDDR5 memory, the Intel Core i7-6820HK processor, 64GB of DDR4 memory, 1TB of storage capacity, and a screen resolution of 1,920 x 1,080. A laptop bag and mouse is included.

Former Contributor

Kevin started taking PCs apart in the 90s when Quake was on the way and his PC lacked the required components. Since then…

Topics

Computing

The Mac Pro nearly received an M3 Extreme chip twice as powerful as M3 Ultra

High production costs likely killed Apple’s M3 Extreme plans

Apple's Mac Pro on a table at a press event.

Apple discontinued the Mac Pro earlier this year, ending a 20-year run for a computer that once represented the very best of the company’s desktop lineup. However, Apple reportedly had much bigger plans for the machine before ultimately replacing it with the Mac Studio.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple developed an M3 Extreme chip that could have offered twice as many CPU and GPU cores as the M3 Ultra. The processor was intended to sit above the Ultra tier and could have finally given the Mac Pro the performance advantage it badly needed. Apple eventually abandoned the chip due to concerns over production costs and limited demand for such an expensive machine.

Computing

Hidden prompts can secretly rewrite an AI’s memory, and researchers say that’s a serious problem

Researchers discover AI attack that rewrites an assistant's long-term memory

Chatbot on a smartphone.

Large language models are getting better at remembering us. Whether it's your preferred writing style, recurring tasks, shopping habits or project deadlines, AI assistants are increasingly storing long-term memories to make future conversations feel more personal and useful. But according to new research, that same feature could become one of AI's biggest security vulnerabilities.

Researchers from New Mexico State University have demonstrated a new attack called GhostWriter, capable of secretly planting false memories inside AI agents. Rather than stealing information outright, the attack manipulates what an AI remembers, potentially causing it to make dangerous decisions long after the original attack has taken place.

Computing

This experiment shows how easy it is to poison an open-weight AI model for under $100

This research raises new doubts about trusting open weight AI models.

Computer, Electronics, Laptop

Open-weight AI models have been having a moment lately. Just this month, Moonshot's massive Kimi K3 model landed close behind Claude Fable 5 and GPT 5.6 Sol in several benchmarks, all while remaining fully open-weight and downloadable by anyone.

However, Katie Paxton-Fear, a cybersecurity lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and staff security advocate at Semgrep, managed to poison an open-weight model and proved how easily that openness can be turned against you (via The Register).