The new Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE comes with a hefty price tag, but only if you have big power (not including big responsibility): not only does it feature the latest notebook CPUs and GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, but its 14-inch secondary screen slants tilted to further extend the ultra-sharp (or ultra-fast) screen.

So what else does this best-of-breed laptop candidate, just announced at CES 2021, have to offer? Let's explore that.

The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE starts at $2,899 and is available for pre-order in North America at the ASUS US Store.

The big story here is that the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE now has dual displays and more. The new ScreenPad Plus (an ultra-sharp 14-inch display with 3840 x 1100 or 1920 x 550 pixels) rises to a 13-degree angle, touching the bottom of the screen and expanding its space.

The panel is positioned across the full width of the chassis, and Asus suggests that the secondary screen will be an ideal space for software used for chat, streaming broadcast tools, and other programming ROG is working with game developers to make ScreenPad Plus further utilization, and the upcoming "Dying Light 2" will place touchscreen controls for managing inventory and quests in this space, as well as co-op chat. Other partners include XSplit Gamecaster, Overwolf, and FL Studio.

In addition, Asus' Task Groups can be used to create custom layouts for this section and easily open groups of apps.

ROG has also upgraded the thermal management of the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE, improving airflow through the sloped ScreenPad Plus. There is also a new Arc Flow fan design with blades that ROG has reshaped to "deliver more air more quietly. In addition, Asus uses Thermal Grizzly's Liquid Metal compound in its new AMD CPUs to lower CPU temperatures by up to 10 degrees (compared to standard thermal paste). These measures are rated to dissipate "up to 165W of total processor power consumption."

The Zephyrus Duo 15 SE offers gamers two choices for the main display. More casual gamers can opt for a 4K/120Hz panel, while esports players can choose a 1080p display with an ultra-fast 300Hz refresh rate. Both panels feature Adaptive-Sync technology to reduce lag and match the screen's refresh rate to the GPU's frame rate; the 4K panel can fully cover the Adobe RGB wide gamut color space.

This is going to be a beast: the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE is powered by a GeForce RTX 3080 laptop GPU, and Asus claims that its cooling and ROG Boost technology allows the GPU to run at 115W at up to 1645MHz. The GPU uses the new Nvidia Ampere architecture, with an improved CUDA core for programmable shading, an upgraded RT core for ray tracing, and a Tensor core for AI. It also has 16 GB of VRAM dedicated to the GPU.

On top of that is AMD's latest mobile processor, the Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 8 cores and 16 threads, using the company's latest Zen 3 architecture and up to 20 MB of on-chip cache.

The ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE is truly a Special Edition with a Special added to it. With tons of graphics power, a truly unique secondary screen design that extends the screen, and plenty of cooling features to keep everything running properly, this is going to be the wildest gaming laptop you can get your hands on.

And at $2,899, it should be. We're especially looking forward to seeing how useful the ScreenPad Plus will be in real-world use.