GoKawiil
Tech News
New renders of ASUS's upcoming Googlebook laptop have surfaced just ahead of pre-orders opening on September 21, showing design details including a rainbow glowbar on the lid and a dedicated Google key. The images also include rare X-ray and chassis frame views, adding to a summer of leaks about the new Google-branded laptop line from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.
Best Buy is selling the Asus ROG Strix G18, an 18-inch gaming laptop with an Nvidia RTX 5080 GPU, Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 2TB SSD, for $2,699.99, down $600 from its $3,299.99 list price. The machine features a 240Hz IPS display, RGB lighting, tool-less access for upgrades, and Thunderbolt 5 connectivity.
Asus is selling its ROG Edition 20 anniversary bundle—including the ROG Astral RTX 5090, a Crosshair X870E motherboard, a 3000W Thor Titanium PSU, and an open-frame case—for $10,849.96 on Newegg. With standalone RTX 5090 stock nearly gone in the US and third-party resellers charging close to $10,000 just for the card, this fully-loaded bundle now works out to be one of the least expensive ways to obtain the GPU.
Nvidia's RTX 5090 has vanished from first-party retail listings at Newegg and Amazon, leaving only third-party marketplace sellers offering the card at prices ranging from roughly $6,400 to $8,700, with some listings even higher. This marks a sharp jump from the $4,299 median price seen in June and the $5,199 low tracked in early September, with stock disappearing entirely within about two weeks. Micro Center remains the lone major retailer still selling the card near its typical price.
Asus has released the ROG Swift PG27UCWM, a 27-inch 4K gaming monitor built on its new Tandem RGB Stripe OLED panel technology. It supports 240Hz refresh at 4K (480Hz at 1080p), HDR10, Dolby Vision, DisplayHDR 400, and Adaptive-Sync, with a claimed 0.03ms response time. Reviewers found it delivers sharp imagery and strong gaming performance, positioning it among the top 27-inch 4K OLED displays currently available.
A Reddit user known as Tsuto says weekly visits to their county landfill's electronics recycling area have yielded enough discarded SSDs, HDDs, GPUs, RAM and even a laptop to assemble a working Proxmox home lab server. The rig combines scavenged parts—mirrored 256GB SSDs, a 1TB SSD, and three 2TB HDDs in RAID1 for ZFS storage—with a Core i7-7700 and 64GB of RAM bought separately on Amazon. Tsuto also salvaged an Asus ROG laptop with a GTX 860M GPU, fixed with a $25 replacement battery, for casual gaming.
Newegg is offering a combo deal pairing AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor with an Asus TUF Gaming X870E-Plus motherboard and 32GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5-6000 memory for $1,109.99. The package also throws in a 240mm Cooler Master AIO liquid cooler and a copy of Onimusha: Way of the Sword at no extra cost, saving buyers roughly $150 versus buying the parts separately.
The FCC has given Asus 'conditional approval,' clearing its routers of security concerns raised by the Defense Department and exempting them from the agency's ban on foreign-made routers until March 2028. The exemption spans multiple Asus product lines including RT, ROG, TUF Gaming and ZenWiFi Mesh series. TP-Link, despite meeting with FCC officials and arguing it operates as a US company based in California, has not yet secured similar approval.
The FCC has issued a conditional approval covering Asus's entire wireless networking lineup, including its RT, ROG, TUF Gaming, ExpertWiFi and ZenWiFi router series, along with mesh systems, repeaters, access points and 5G MiFi devices. The approval, tied to a national security review by the Department of War, is valid for 18 months from issuance.
Asus' Cetra Open wireless gaming earbuds are on sale for $22 off at Amazon and Best Buy, dropping the price to $206.99. It's the first discount the open-style earbuds have received since launch.
Because Windows runs across countless third-party manufacturers rather than one vertically integrated maker like Apple, laptop quality and battery life vary widely depending on the model chosen. Budget Windows machines often use plastic builds and x86 chips with weaker battery life, while premium options like the Dell XPS 13 or Asus Zenbook A16 rival MacBooks in build quality, and ARM-based Windows laptops from Qualcomm and MediaTek now close the battery gap, though at the cost of software compatibility.
A shopper known as @whateversunnyfinds bought a $30 Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen 4 expansion card at Kuwait City's Souq-al-Juma flea market and discovered three 2TB Samsung 980 Pro SSDs concealed beneath its heatsink. Each drive currently retails for roughly $400-$500, meaning the find could be worth $1,300-$1,500 despite one of the card's four M.2 slots being empty.