What’s a Memorial Day without a good sale? Asus is early out of the gate, kicking off its summer-is-here sale with discounts across a wide range of laptops, monitors, and other PC components. It’s a surprisingly good time of year to upgrade your PC setup or pick up a new gaming laptop ahead of major releases coming later this summer (like the Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Remaster). The sale goes until May 23, so it’s only going to be around for a few more days.
Laptops & Tablets
I love when one of these sales includes a cross-section of a manufacturer’s product lines. This isn’t just an Asus ROG sale, it’s not just an Asus productivity sale either. And you don’t have to plan on emptying your savings if there’s something you want to check out. At the higher-end end of things, there’s the ROG Zephyrus G16, and ROG Flow Z13.
The Zephyrus G16 is the kind of gaming laptop that blends portability with power, pairing Inte’s Core Ultra 9 processor with an RTX 5070 Ti GPU giving you a surprising amount of raw power in a relatively svelte (4 pound) frame. That means it’s also a solid amount of horsepower for productivity, creative work, and multitasking with a 100+ tabs open at a time. The design is also one that I appreciate, it’s a gaming laptop that looks cool without screaming this is a gaming laptop at the top of its lungs. There is a time and place for that, but it’s not always what I want when I’m working from a cafe or carrying something into a conference room. What you won’t get on a purely productivity minded laptop that might look like the Zephyrus G16 though is the 16-inch ROG Nebula OLED display. It’s got a 240Hz refresh rate for absolutely liquid smooth gaming, pairing that with the deep contrast and vibrant colors you get from an OLED panel, makes the Zephyrus G16 a solid all-around pick in its price range.
Meanwhile, the ROG Flow Z13 is also on sale and it’s such a delightfully weird little machine. This is essentially a tablet with the internals of a gaming PC. That means it’s extremely portable, the kind of thing that’s bigger and heavier (2.65 pounds) than an iPad but is just about as carry-around-everywhere-able. It has a 13-inch 180Hz display, and AMD’z AI Max+ 395 processor. This configuration also comes with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Taken together this is a shocking amount of power in what is essentially a thick tablet with a detachable keyboard.
Check out the list below for a few more recommendations on laptops in Asus’ sale.
- Asus TUF Gaming A16 — $1,100 (
$1,400) - Asus Zenbook S14 UX5406SA-PH79T — $1,200 (
$1,600) - ROG Flow Z13 — $2,200 (
$2,400) - ROG Zephyrus G16 — $2,600 (
$2,800)
Displays
Look you can never have too many monitors. It’s just a fact. More displays means more productive. Even if you just all that extra real estate to have a YouTube video open while you play Marathon it’s honestly worth it to have at least two monitors for a gaming desktop. The displays included in this sale are an interesting mix, too. There are two ProArt models, and a ROG Strix gaming monitor. So if you’re a creative professional who likes to play games, you’ve hit the jackpot.
The ProArt Display OLED PA32UCDMR-K is a high-end professional-grade monitor for anyone who needs extremely accurate color reproduction. It features a 4K OLED panel tuned for pro uses like photo, video, and design work. Like all the monitors in Asus ProArt line, the PA32 comes factory calibrated, so you should be able to get to work straight outta the box. In addition to the color accuracy, the OLED panel offers support for HDR content so it wouldn’t make a bad gaming display either. And there’s another reason for that: It’s a 240Hz panel. This version is 32-inches, but the 27-inch version is also on sale and packs the same features in a slightly smaller (and cheaper) frame.
The dedicated gaming display on sale, the ROG Strix XG27UCS Gen 2 is a 27-inch 4K display with a trick up its sleeve. The refresh rate when you’re running it at 4K is no slouch at 180Hz, but if you’re willing to drop it down to 1080p, you can pump that refresh rate up to 324Hz. This is definitely a feature for competitive gaming where every single frame matters, but it’s also just a cool trick that this display can pull out that kind of speed. At 27-inches too, it’s big enough to feel expansive, but small enough to fit on an average desk as a solo monitor or paired with another 27-inch.
- Asus AiO PC — $950 (
$1,000) - ProArt Display OLED PA27 — $1,100 (
$1,300) - ProArt Display OLED PA32 — $1,600 (
$1,900) - ROG Strix XG27UCS Gen2 — $329 (
$400)
Cases & Coolers
Sales like these are a great time to do more granular upgrades to your PC. Not just big ticket items like GPUs and CPUs. Cases, coolers, other internals. Once upon a time this kind of sale was a great time to pick up RAM for cheap but now you’ll be lucky to find a good set for under a few hundred dollars.
The ProArt PA401 is an interesting PC case. It’s engineered for cooling just like any other high-end PC case, but this one’s designed to fit into a more natural aesthetic. It has a front panel made of actual wood, so it will fit into any room with a sort of understated vibe. The kind of case that looks more like furniture than a neon-drenched hardcore gaming battlestation. There are two versions on sale, one with a tempered glass side panel, and one with a more understated mesh panel.
There is, however, nothing understated about the ROG Ryuo IV 360 ARGB all-in-one liquid cooler. This thing is delightfully colorful, glowing customizable ROG Aura-sync-able lighting around the fan mounts and the processor mount. It uses a 360mm radiator so it’s powerful enough to keep a high-end gaming processor nice and cool even under load. If you’ve been curious about upgrading from air cooling to liquid cooling, this is a great place to start.
- Asus Prime AP303 Mesh — $97 (
$110) - ProArt PA401 Wood Edition Mesh Panel — $130 (
$150) - ProArt PA401 Wood Edition Tempered Glass — $140 (
$155) - ROG Ryuo IV 360 ARGB Cooler — $40 (
$450) - ROG Strix Helios II — $320 (
$370)
