At the IFA 2015 consumer electronics show this past week, Asus displayed, among other things, the "world’s first" water-cooled laptop concept. Predictably branded with the Asus Republic Of Gamers moniker, the 17" GX700 boasts an external, detachable reservoir and radiator setup, which looks kind of like an angular, sideways boombox.
Attaching directly to the back of the GX700, Asus claims in its PR that the liquid cooler allows for "higher performance hardware" to be used, and "much easier" overclocking. Given the detach-ability of the cooler, though, one wonders what happens to said hardware when the cooler is detached, or if the GX700 is usable at all in that state.
The GX700’s internals are also shrouded in mystery. Asus at least mentions 6th-generation Intel CPUs – referring, undoubtedly, to the latest Skylake Core i7s. "The latest Nvidia graphics" feed the 17" IPS display, which, in another apparent world first, is 4K. It would certainly take strong hardware to play the latest games acceptably on that display.
All in all, the Asus GX700 is an interesting concept. The water cooler attachment looks really bulky, though, and a typical high-end desktop PC will likely outperform the GX700 regardless of its overclocking help. Still, if you want the dubious status of "that guy with the water-cooled laptop" at your next LAN party, you’ll just have to wait and see whether Asus decides to actually put these on store shelves.
