For now, though, as long as you’re OK with the particularities of this series and you’re willing to pay the kind of money Asus are going to demand for it, this Flow X16 is the multi-purpose laptop to get in its segment and earns my full recommendation. The shorter tests such as 3DMark are very close to the performance scores measured with the main power charger connected, but the CPU performance takes a dip in the sustained CPU loads, as the system power limits it to 45W. This 2023 generation is mostly a hardware update of the previous model, with whom it otherwise shares design characteristics and overall functionality. It steers away from the AMD platform implemented in the 2022 variants, though, and is now an Intel 13th-gen platform with RTX 4000 graphics. That allows for a notable boost in CPU performance, and almost no impact on the efficiency on battery power, Just keep in mind that most 2023 X16 configurations bundle a mini LED display, which looks awesome, but is more power-hungry than the standard IPS panels offered with most other premium laptops over the last years. The second key ingredient in the Flow X16’s cooling solution is the new Pulsar Heatsink. Comprised of ultra-thin copper cooling fins as slim as 0.1mm, this double-sized heatsink has total surface area of 110,902mm², making it extra dense without limiting airflow. Combined with the Frost Force cooling system and Thermal Grizzly’s liquid metal thermal compound on the CPU, the Flow X16 is redefining what thin and light gaming looks like. Bring in the XG Mobile's big guns

With the laptop sitting on the desk and in the games that scale well with Dynamic Boost, we’re looking at temperatures in the low-80s C on the CPU side, but 85+ on the GPU side, with a slight GPU thermal throttling. This is minor, and doesn’t affect the performance in a noticeable way. The fans ramp up to about 45-46 dB at head-level on this Turbo mode. Asus implements a complex thermal module on this laptop, different in a few ways from what they implement on their other portable designs. For the RAM and storage options, the laptop offers two accessible memory DIMMs and two M.2 SSD slots. Our unit shipped with 32 GB of DDR5-4800 RAM in dual-channel and a single mid-level PCIe gen4 Micron 3400 SSD. This is gen4, but only a mid-level performer and not one of the fastest gen4 options available out there. The layout is fine, with proper sized and spaced keys, slightly spaced arrows, and the extra set of multimedia keys at the top left, characteristic of ROG laptops. ROG engineers had to bend a few conventions to accommodate all of the power inside it’s the Flow X16’s svelte frame. The X16 builds upon years of Intelligent Cooling experience and improvements to push the boundaries of the kind of power possible in a thin and light laptop. Our new Frost Force Technology directs air through precisely calculated and machined cutouts in the chassis, sending air directly towards internal components to keep them cool even during extended gaming sessions and video renders. In addition, the X16 has a unique tri-fan design. This extra auxiliary fan directly helps exhaust heat from the GPU to the heatsinks, while also keeping fan noise lower than a traditional dual fan design.The Turbo mode ramps up the fans to levels of ~45 dB, which is quieter than the Turbo mode on all the other ROG laptops that I’ve tested lately. For reference, something like a ROG Zephyrus M16 is going to perform up to 20% faster in the CPU loads, with rather similar GPU results. I haven’t reviewed the RTX 3060 version of the M16, though, for a proper comparison. The Core i9 processor stabilizes at ~90W of sustained power on the Turbo setting, with temperatures of around 94-96 C and scores of around 2850 points. The fans spin at ~45 dB at head level in this mode.

All these combined allow Asus to cool the components in this chassis with lower noise levels than on other designs. For comparison, the similarly powered Zephyrus M16 runs much louder on both Balanced (46dB – M16 vs 42 dB – X16) and Turbo (51dB – M16 vs 46 dB – X16), with lower temperatures on the M16 when the two laptops both sit on the desk, but with higher temperatures on the M16 when both laptops are bumped up from the desk. That’s because those slim rubber feet on the X16 choke the fans, as mentioned already in the previous section, while the taller feet of the M16 and its Ergolift hinge design do not. For the GPU, this series is available with RTX 3000 Ti graphics chips. What we have on this sample is the mid-tier RTX 3060 running at up to 125W in supported games and applications, with Dynamic Boost. RTX 3050Ti and 3070Ti variants are also available. The ROG Flow X16 is pretty much a grown-up Flow X13, as Asus opted for the same design lines, materials, and finishing details on the two, for consistency within the Flow series.An updated generation of the 2023 Asus ROG Flow x16 series is available in the meantime, with updated specs and display options. Here’s our detailed review of this 2023 Asus ROG Flow X16 update. Design and construction