Once you hold your own ASUS ROG Mothership, you’ll feel the same delightful joy when you purchased it from the top 10 most expensive gaming laptops. The ASUS ROG Mothership is essentially a mini all-in-one gaming PC opposite to the meaning of the term laptop. The device’s screen houses all of the venting and materials, leaving the detachable keyboard to descend like an intergalactic gangplank.
Aside from the odd looks, the Mothership is a full-fledged expensive gaming laptop. It contains a powerful overclockable Intel Core i9 processor along with an Nvidia RTX 2080 GPU. Considering an additional 64GB of RAM, 2TB of SSD, and a stunning LED with a 3-millisecond response time. Then, what was once an oddity becomes a very effective rig. This convincing rig is valid if you have $5,499 to spare since talking about the most expensive gaming laptop.
Overall, the Mothership is an exciting but pricey glimpse into the future, as well as one of the best gaming laptops, VR-ready laptops, and RTX 2080 gaming laptops available.
Price and availability of the ASUS ROG Mothership
By a long shot, the ASUS ROG Mothership is not the most expensive laptop. For a base model, though, $5,499 is not a bad deal. Nonetheless, it includes a 2.4GHz Intel Core i9-9800HK processor with 64GB of VRAM, four 512GB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSDs in RAID 0 configuration, an Intel UHD 630 Graphics GPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, and a 1920 x 1080 display with a 144Hz refresh rate. You can have an upgraded Display to a 4K, 60Hz screen for $6,499 more.
ASUS ROG Mothership design
The ASUS ROG Mothership takes a remarkable position in this list of unusual laptops in my time. The hybrid is undeniably an ASUS, with black polished aluminum and a huge backlit Republic of Gamers (ROG) logo toward the bottom of the lid. The top of the lid is devoted to venting, with several medium-sized slots arranged in an alien-like geometric pattern. If you look closely, you can see lettering carved into the frame, as if it’s some hidden code that will open the universe.
We are referring to the part of the Mothership that houses the show as the lid, which is quite counterintuitive. It’s so big that we wouldn’t blame you for thinking it’s the system’s undercarriage. The system’s bottom is slightly lighter than the central part, weighing 2.6 pounds versus the 8-pound top. It, too, has a large backlit ROG logo in the top-right corner, where an exterior logo would be anticipated.
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To uncover the interior of a laptop, you typically pick up the system’s lightest component. There is no such thing as an ASUS ROG Mothership. You will have to raise the hybrid so that the kickstand that supports the actual lid can be used. The front panel is then gently lowered, revealing the keyboard and another big ROG emblem occupying the top of the keyboard deck.
The ASUS ROG Mothership weighs a back-ache-inducing 10.6 pounds with the keyboard connected to the monitor. It’s a big load to carry on the subway, but it’s doable if your bag and back are up to the challenge. It weighs 9.9 pounds and is only marginally heavier than the MSI GT76 Titan. At 8.5 pounds, the Alienware Area-51m (16.1 x 15.9 x 1.11.7 inches) is the lightest of the lot.
Port Configuration
There is not a single port along the keyboard deck’s sides. When detached from the LED portion of the ASUS ROG Mothership, you’ll witness a single USB Type-C port in the hinge of the keyboard. Other than that, all required ports and buttons are located along the sides of the display.
On the right, there is a USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 port alongside an HDMI 2.0 port and a USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 port that doubles as a DisplayPort 1.4 input.
Additionally, there is an SD card reader, two power jacks, and a power press. There are three USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and jacks for a headset and microphone on the left side of the device.
Display
The Mothership’s 17.3-inch 1920 x 1080 screen isn’t overly saturated and offers warm, realistic color. The 144Hz refresh rate and 3-millisecond response time resulted in incredibly smooth action games.
The ASUS ROG Mothership panel reproduced 102 % of the RGB gamut, achieving our recommended minimum of 100 %. The Area-51m had a higher contrast of 118 %, but neither unit could outperform the premium average of 147 %. The Titan, on the other hand, delivered a 157 % color cavalcade.
The Mothership’s display is very bright, averaging 286 nits higher than the Area-51271 m’s nits. The Titan, on the other hand, measured 376 nits, exceeding the group average of 318 nits for the first time.
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Audio
The ASUS ROG Mothership’s speakers are fantastic. You may also use the Sonic Studio 3 app to switch between the five presets (Music, Movies, Gaming, Communications, Off). Gaming adds a slight hint of surround sound proper for Gaming.
Keyboard and touchpad
The keyboard on the Mothership is a nice little puzzle. When one removes the keyboard, the speakers are at their finest, allowing the audio to reach your ears without interruption. In the case of a connected keyboard, the highs can become distorted, which can be fixed by lowering the volume. When you’re getting ready to use the laptop, it unfurls rather than opens. The keyboard rests on a 10-degree incline while magnetically connected to the central portion of the hybrid to compensate for the lack of a palm rest. And it works for the most part, as long as the ASU ROG Mothership is resting on a long enough surface to hold your wrists.
You may lay the keyboard flat or fold the top underneath it to create a lap-friendly computer once the keyboard is removed. The keyboard connects to the ASUS ROG Mothership via 2.4GHz Wi-Fi for wireless use or a USB Type-C cable for wired use.
The island-style keys are nice and tall, with plenty of room between them. They’re even firm when it comes to bouncy reviews. The 3 x 2.4-inch touchpad will turn into a digital number entry device with the touch of a button, in case you’re playing a game that requires a number pad or need a faster way to crunch those numbers. When the button is pressed, a red-backlit pad appears, allowing for quick data entry or fragging, whatever you prefer.
When you press the button a second time, the number pad is disabled, and the touchpad becomes a standard touchpad. Although the touchpad is thin, you will have no trouble using multitouch gestures like pinch-zoom, two-finger scroll, or three-finger press.
Aura Sync by ASUS ROG Mothership
No one can see the self-respect of the ASUS ROG Mothership without a flashy light show. The same can be said for this Mothership. The ASUS preinstalled its Aura Sync app to ensure it’s putting the best-backlit foot forward. You can deck out the hybrid in a manner befitting an over-the-top gaming laptop with eight different effects. These effects include Static, Strobing, Starry Night, Dark, Breathing, Color Cycle, Rainbow, and Music.
The Music preset, which glows according to the genre you choose, is one favorite feature of ASUS ROG Mothership. So when you put it on Funk and listened to Bruno Mars’ “Perm,” the guitar, vocals, and drums all got different colored lights.
Gaming, graphics, and Virtual Reality
With the Mothership, Asus isn’t pulling any punches. The hybrid device has a complete Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU with 8GB of VRAM. That means it can handle even the most graphically demanding games while maintaining high frame rates. When you’re not saving the world, the system also has an integrated Intel UHD 630 Graphics GPU.
The convertible kept up with the competition, scoring 86 on the Rise of the Tomb Raider test (Very High, 1080p). It outperformed the MSI Titan’s (RTX 2080) 68 frames per second and the 65 fps luxury gaming laptop average. It was no match for the Area-51m, which scored 92 frames per second. The ASUS ROG Mothership sailed past the Titan’s 79 fps and the 64-fps average on the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark, clocking 91 frames per second.
When we turned to Hitman, the Mothership fell 135 frames per second, beating the Titan’s 113 frames per second and the 107 frames per second group average. The Area-51m, on the other hand, had a higher frame rate of 143 frames per second.
With 108 frames per second, the ASUS ROG Mothership beat out the Grand Theft Auto V test competition. That was enough to beat the Area-51and m’s Titan’s 105 frames per second, as well as the group average of 79 frames per second.
The Mothership is more than capable of meeting all of your VR needs, whether you’re trying out the Oculus Rift S or the latest HTC Vive Cosmos. The laptop hybrid outperformed the Area-51m, Titan, and the average in the SteamVR performance test.
ASUS ROG Mothership’s Performance
The Mothership and its 2.4-GHz Intel Core i9-9850HK processor with 64GB of RAM will be there for you if you ever have to do actual work. And, if all of that multitasking and number-crunching capacity isn’t enough for you, then you can overclock the CPU. Despite getting 29 additional tabs
open in Google Chrome, the laptop quickly handled an episode of Raising Dion on Netflix at its base clock speed. And when I started playing Borderlands 3 in the background, it kept plugging.
The ASUS ROG Mothership scored 34,879 on the Geekbench 4.1 synthetic overall output test, outperforming the 24,742 premium gaming laptop average. The Area-51m and Titan achieved 32,591 and 32,167 points, respectively, with their desktop Core i9-9900K processors.
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The Mothership transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in just 5 minutes and 50 seconds. It sped past the 9:20 average, as well as the Titan’s 5:51 and Area-515:51 m’s and 6:00, respectively.
The ASUS ROG Mothership’s quad of 512GB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSDs in RAID 0 configuration duplicated 4.97GB of multimedia files in 4 seconds during the File Transfer Test. That’s a transfer rate of 1,272.5 megabytes per second, which was just enough to beat the Area-51dual m’s 1TB NVMe PCIe SSDs, which recorded 1,272.3MBps. With a score of 1,454.1MBps, the Titan and its 2TB NVMe PCIe SSD took first place.
Battery life of the ASUS ROG Mothership
The Mothership may not last an entire workday, but it manages to outrun its competitors. The ASUS ROG Mothership lasts 4 hours and 41 minutes with the keyboard attached (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits) on the Laptop Mag battery test. The Mothership’s time increased to 5:09 without the keyboard. Both times are faster than the average premium gaming
laptop time of 3:09, as well as the Titan (3:45) and Area-51m times (2:36).
Cooling System
There’s no doubt that the Mothership is a sight to see. However, the hybrid’s wacky design often serves a practical purpose, keeping the system’s components cool during strenuous activities. Since the majority of vents on traditional laptops are on the bottom, they often have cooling problems. Airflow is improved by placing everything on the back and top of the device.
ASUS equipped the Mothership with two fans and eight heat pipes (four on the CPU and four on the GPU) to help keep things cool in addition to better airflow. As if that weren’t enough, the company is also using Thermal Grizzly Liquid Metal, a thermal compound that claims to keep the
CPU at 35 degrees Fahrenheit cold (13 degrees Celsius). ASUS has also implemented software to help balance efficiency, cooling, and power consumption.
There’s no doubt that the ASUS ROG Mothership is a sight to see. However, the hybrid’s wacky design often serves a practical purpose, keeping the system’s components cool during strenuous activities. So, what does it all mean? In other words, you have a machine that runs cooler than a standard gaming laptop. And all of the hot air that would usually be directed at your groin is directed upward, away from any vital body parts. In terms of efficiency, this means that if you want to overclock either the CPU or the GPU, you can do so without fear of thermal throttling.
Many reviewers have tested ASUS ROG Mothership performance after running numerous tests on full-screen on YouTube. Test results have shown that the temperature on the touchpad remained at 81 degrees. In comparison, the temperature in the center reached 82 degrees. The weather on the top and back of the Mothership was 92 degrees below our 95-degree comfort level.
Software and warranty
The Mothership brings with it a slew of branded applications and services, as well as some less-than-necessary bloatware. Asus for device diagnostics on the advertised side is a must-have for
keeping the system in top shape. GameFirst V, for example, is gamer-centric software that manages network bandwidth to ensure prioritization of your games. However, you can find the majority of apps in the armory crate. You’ll also get Hyper fan, which helps you to monitor fan speed in addition to GameVisual and Sonic Studio. Panel Overdrive is also available, allowing you to take advantage of the 3ms refresh rate. If you want to try your hand at overclocking, Armory Crate also has links to download Asus Game Plus and GPU Tweak lI.
Nvidia GeForce Experience comes preinstalled, with its suite of software designed to improve your gaming experience.
The bloat is thankfully minimal on the ASUS ROG Mothership, as no one wants Asphalt: Street Storm, Candy Crush Saga, or Gardenscapes. McAfee Personal Security is somewhat more helpful, but only marginally. A one-year international warranty and a 30-day zero-bright dot guarantee come standard with the ASUS ROG Mothership.
Conclusion
After all, who will say no to ASUS ROG Mothership’s overclocked CPU and GPU running at peak performance? Even though the $5,499 price puts a heart attack on anyone with a fear of crediting a bank account, the ASUS ROG Mothership competes with and outperforms its traditionally built competitors in several domains. This excellent position is due to its Core i9 CPU, Nvidia RTX 2080, 64GB of RAM, and 2TB of SSD. Most gamers will prefer a brighter, more vibrant screen, similar to the MSI GT76 Titan. One of the critical factors missing is the ability to upgrade a part or two, equal to the Alienware Area-51m, for the money.
Overall, the ASUS ROG Mothership is the machine for well-heeled gamers looking for a laptop replacement. It can manage nearly every ounce of performance for them.
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