Asus and Nvidia announce ‘world’s fastest laptop’

Asus has announced the first mobile workstation that features the Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000 24GB GPU, the ProArt StudioBook One, which falls into Nvidia’s Studio programme and is described as ‘the world’s fastest laptop’.

The TU102-based Quadro RTX 6000 GPU is the same as its desktop implementation in terms of CUDA Cores (4,608), RT Cores (72), and Tensor Cores (576), as well as GDDR6 memory (24GB), but the final TDP and clock speeds are yet to be confirmed. We’re told it’s not an official Max-Q design, but you can expect that it has been tweaked to suit mobile form factors. Nevertheless, power consumption is going to be high; there’s a reason this GPU hasn’t been used in a laptop before, and it's the same GPU used for RTX 2080 Ti. Coupled with an Intel Core i9-9980HK, that means a whole load of heat to deal with.

According to Asus (and Nvidia, which is responsible for the reference ‘ACE’ mobile workstation design that the ProArt StudioBook One is based on), the solution to this thermal challenge is twofold: have the CPU and GPU installed behind the 15.6” screen, and use titanium vapour chambers to cool them with heat exhausted down and out behind the laptop. The result is performance that is said to be within 10 percent of a high-end desktop workstation that uses the same GPU.

Chosen for its high thermal conductivity relative to its weight, titanium has allowed Asus and Nvidia to keep the overall z-height to below 25mm while maintaining a claimed 300W cooling capacity. With the key power hungry components being where they are, the keyboard/wrist rest area will also be kept cool even during intensive use.  

Rounding out the specs, the laptop will also feature 64GB of DDR4 memory and a 1TB NVMe SSD. It also includes Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and will feature three Thunderbolt 3.0 enabled USB-C ports.

The ProArt StudioBook One will feature an enhanced version of Nvidia’s Optimus power saving technology that enables auto-switching between the discrete Nvidia GPU and the Intel CPU’s integrated GPU based on workload.

The 15.6” display touts a 3,840 x 2,160 (4K UHD) resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. It offers 100 percent Adobe RGB coverage and 97 percent DCI-P3 coverage. It’s also said to be Pantone-validated and calibrated to reach an average delta E value of below 1. It’s currently unclear whether every single unit undergoes this process or whether it’s batch-based.

Hoping to further boost the mobility credentials, Asus says the 300W charger has been shrunk considerably compared to a ‘typical’ model. Its version measures 92mm x 92mm x 28mm and is compared to a reference one that measures 100mm x 200mm x 43mm.

Pricing and availability of the Asus ProArt StudioBook One are yet to be announced.