Rise above the common herd

A year ago(2019), I set my sights on this laptop for a simple reason: at IDF 2019, ASUS released a laptop claiming to be the most powerful in the world today, featuring NVIDIA's latest and strongest Quadro RTX 6000 mobile graphics card - named ASUS ProArt StudioBook One.

At the same time, NVIDIA also echoed the call: a special feature on the ProArt StudioBook One was simultaneously released on NVIDIA's official website, with the wording "Introducing the world's ultra fast RTX mobile workstation". The rare multi-faceted introduction of the ProArt StudioBook One in the feature shows that this model is a benchmark launched under the deep cooperation between ASUS and NVIDIA.

ProArt StudioBook One， Why dare to claim "the strongest computing power in the world today" and "global super fast"?

The key point is that it uses the outstanding RTX Quadro 6000 mobile graphics card.

Why is it said to be outstanding?

According to NVIDIA's data, the peak power consumption of this RTX Quadro 6000 mobile version is as high as 250W - more than twice that of the previous strongest RTX Quadro 5000 mobile version (with a peak power consumption of up to 110W)!

The performance resulting from this seems to differ only in TFLOPS and peak power consumption compared to the RTX Quadro 6000 desktop version

The mobile version has a TFLOPS of 14.9, while the desktop version has a TFLOPS of 16.3, with a difference of only about 9.14%;

The peak power consumption of the mobile version is 250W, while the desktop version is 295W - the difference is only about 8.47%;

Both are 24GB GDDR6 video memory, and the data in other aspects is the same.

Prior to this, the most powerful professional graphics card for laptops was the RTX5000 mobile version, which had a huge performance gap compared to the desktop version of the RTX 5000, let alone the higher end desktop version of the RTX 6000.

The emergence of ProArt StudioBook One, with its built-in Quadro RTX 6000 mobile version, completely breaks the limitations of mobile professional graphics card performance and power consumption, greatly narrowing the performance gap between laptops and desktops. It can indeed be said to be "outstanding".

Another outstanding feature is that its power supply is a very compact 300W gallium nitride power supply.

Firstly, this is the first time the author has learned about such a high-power gallium nitride laptop power supply;

Secondly, as mentioned above, the peak power consumption of the RTX Quadro 6000 mobile version equipped with ProArt StudioBook One is as high as 250W. Therefore, after subtracting the 250W peak power consumption of the graphics card from the 300W mentioned earlier, there is only 50W left. How will it cope with the full load operation of the entire machine?

So, the author believes that its power supply - gallium nitride+300W - is also outstanding, and in actual testing, it will be studied in detail.

Hard-earned

In a previous article, the author expressed personal hobbies - "As a long-time user of ThinkPad laptops, I love the classic ThinkPad 7-line keyboard and pointing system, and prefer the heavyweight performance model 17 inch mobile workstation." - Therefore, how could the author not pay attention to such a powerful performance product?

At that time, Asus did not announce the price of the ProArt StudioBook One. Based on years of experience in researching laptops, I provided the following estimate - "Currently, Asus has not announced the price of the ProArt StudioBook One, but according to the current RTX Quadro 6000 desktop version, the price is as high as $6300. Therefore, the price of the ProArt StudioBook One is estimated to be close to $10000

Then, regularly refresh the ASUS official website to see when ProArt StudioBook One will be released.

However, with the passage of time, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Spring Festival, the pandemic, the summer vacation, and the release of Intel's 11th generation CPU... I have not seen any news of the release of ProArt StudioBook One, and I cannot help but feel resentful: Is this ProArt StudioBook One a PPT product of ASUD and NVIDIA's paper war?

Fortunately, one day in September, in a QQ group, someone squeaked and said, "This was reviewed by Li Shufa on Bilibili.

Looking at Bilibili, I feel a great sense of regret - such an unprecedented machine is just a short and fast video? It's simply a waste of time! no way! You must personally experience the evaluation!

So, clicking the mouse opened the websites of Asus, Taobao.com, JD.com, eBay, and Amazon. After a search, it was found that they were available for sale on Amazon North America (displayed on Amazon.cn, but kept showing as out of stock). The inventory quantity was 2 units, and the price was... US$9999

This... fortunately, it's basically the same as the price I estimated last year.

Purchasing is very difficult, Amazon North America does not support direct shipping to China and requires shipping.

There is another fatal factor that makes it impossible for me to place an order: due to the high price of US$9999 and Amazon's aggressive policies, using a Chinese credit card to place an order would result in 100% rejection of the order and a high possibility of my Amazon account being banned.

I couldn't help but seek help from 51nb netizens and found reliable North American netizens to help me purchase. As mentioned above, after placing the order, due to the large amount, North American netizens communicated with Amazon multiple times and provided many certifications before finally confirming the order. After receiving it, we professionally and responsibly repackaged it safely and sent it out via USPS/EMS without any additional charges. It's really amazing that 51 netizens are all over the world, and there's no need to worry about any product! We would like to express our gratitude to the netizen Victor in New Haven!

On 2020 September 15th, USPS departed from New York, North America. On October 2nd, it passed through Tokyo, Japan and arrived in Shanghai. On October 7th, it was delivered to me by China Post EMS, and everything went smoothly.

Three weeks have passed since the time of placing the order, and when I opened Amazon.cn again, I found that it was also available for sale. There was one unit in stock: priced at RMB¥ 68836.34, with an estimated import tax of RMB¥ 8948.72, and a total of RMB¥ 77785.06 excluding shipping costs

Unbound upon unboxing

Take out the ProArt StudioBook One packaging box carefully wrapped by netizen Victor from the weathered Amazon shipping box:

The main color of the packaging box of ASUS ProArt StudioBook One is black, and the front is decorated with golden lines, fonts, and color blocks.

Under the combination of gold and black on the front, coupled with a colorful rendering of the body, it looks very luxurious and classy.

But on the back, there is a sudden change in the art style, with built-in battery safety warning signs and configuration labels attached under the full black, a serious and low-key industrial style; The W590G on the configuration label is the model number of this ProArt StudioBook One (referred to as ProArt W590G for ease of writing).

Looking back at the front, I can't believe it's the same packaging box.

The bottom is slightly damaged, but the sealing label of ASUSTek COMPUTER appears to be unopened. This should be caused by Amazon Logistics during transportation in North America.

Cut open the seal and open the outer box from the top, revealing the inner box tightly protected by black foam.

In addition to the inner box, there is also an accessory box next to it, which is entirely black without any text or patterns.

Open the accessory box, only the power supply and power cord are inside, and the excess space is filled with a black foam - based on the information collected by the author before, this space should still be able to hold an important accessory.

This accessory appears in some sales regions, namely ASUS Professional Dock - which connects through USB-C and leads out 3 USB-A ports, 1 HDMI port, and 1 RJ45 wired network port - but it is not included in this console; In addition, the initial official instructions stated that USB-C to RJ45 dongle was standard. Looking into the reason, the author estimates that the official upgrade was to control costs, as the initial official explanation stated that the ProArt W590G had 32GB of memory, but now the official version has been upgraded to 64GB.

The ProArt W590G power supply is very compact, with a square combination of glossy and matte surfaces, and an ASUS logo on one corner.

On the side of the output power cord, there is also the NVIDIA logo, because its power supply is designed by NVIDIA.

On the other side, there are numerous detailed texts indicating that the power supply model is NVD-A-0300ADU00. NVD is probably an abbreviation similar to NVIDIA Vxxx Dxxx devices, and A may indicate ASUS. 0300 is of course 300W - its output current is 48V/6.25A, manufactured by Flex in Dongguan.

To illustrate the compact size of this 300W power supply, the author has presented multiple power supplies for comparison. The following figure, from left to right, is:

ThinkPad P71 230W

DELL Precision 7750 240W

Purple Rice 65W (Gallium Nitride)

Samsung Note 20 Ultra 25W

MSI WT75 330W

In terms of volume, the ProArt W590G power supply is indeed less than half of the 230W and 240W power supplies compared, and less than one-third of the 330W power supply. It is about four times that of the Zimi 65W power supply, which is also a gallium nitride power supply. However, it provides a powerful output of 300W, and its performance is worth looking forward to.

Put down the power and continue with the unboxing task - the ProArt W590G body is still in the black inner box.

The inner box opens from the side, and the process of stretching is very ceremonial.

Remove the ProArt W590G body, revealing a small black box underneath the inner box:

In the black box are two booklets with the words "in search of incredible" written on them. At first, I thought they were built-in Easter egg rewards (after all, they were bought for $10000...), but when I looked at the small text "Warranty Card/User Guide" below, it was actually the warranty card and user guide.

The ProArt W590G that was taken out is still wrapped in a layer of transparent plastic film:

After removing the plastic film, we can finally face the ProArt W590G A-side: the ASUS logo is in the center, and the body is a dull silver gray, officially called Star Grey.

It is chamfered at all four corners, with a stepped indentation around the edges, and decorated with dense parallel lines.

The bottom is very flat and very simple, with rubber foot pads at each corner.

There is a relevant label near the center of the rear at the bottom, MFD: 2020-07, indicating that the assembly time should be July 2020.

At the front, there are no ports, and the conical chamfer design that shrinks inward around the body can be clearly seen.

At the rear, there are no ports, and a large part of the central area is occupied by the pivot shaft.

On the left side, there are charging ports and Thunderbolt 3 ports;

On the right, there are two Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Expand the screen and there is a white non-woven fabric covering the keyboard for protection.

The keyboard has no numeric keypad, and the up and down arrow keys in the lower right corner are compressed together; The touchpad is very spacious and features a click pad design without independent mouse buttons. The fine hollow area above the keyboard is where the speaker is located.

The power button is located between the F12 and Del buttons in the upper right corner of the keyboard and integrates fingerprint recognition.

The Fn key located between the Ctrl and Win keys in the bottom left corner of the keyboard has an indicator light, indicating that Fn lock is enabled after pressing the Fn+Esc key combination.

The left palm rest has a unique label, indicating that although the Intel Core used in this machine is i9, it is no longer the latest but the 9th generation from last year;

On the left side of the label, “StudioBook” is discreetly labeled, indicating that W590G is both “ProArt” and “StudioBook”.

The B-side of ProArt W590G has a 15.6-inch 16:9 screen with “ProArt” marked in the center below. The left and right sides can be described as narrow borders, but the top and bottom cannot be described as such.

In the center of the square on the screen are the ambient light sensor, camera, and camera indicator lights:

The microphone array of ProArt W590G is usually placed on both sides of the camera above the screen, unlike laptops. It is placed on the right side of the body near the palm rest and needs to be flipped over to be easily observed from the D-plane direction.

From this perspective, observing the B-side of ProArt W590G, it can be observed that there is a clear boundary and hierarchy between its screen and the casing covering the back of the screen.

Especially above it, there is a wide gap between the casing and the screen - this is the ProArt W590G's heat dissipation exhaust port:

Even after closing the top cover, a section of the AB surface physically grows out of the CD surface, ensuring that this heat dissipation exhaust outlet is exposed to the outside:

ProArt W590G can be said to be no different from a regular laptop when viewed from this angle.

But when viewed from the side, it can be found that the lower part of the screen cover is open - it will not open when the cover is closed:

The angle at which the top cover of the screen is fully opened, according to official data, is 4.57 °, which is the cooling air inlet of ProArt W590G.

Carefully observe the mechanism of this air intake, which not only has a rotating shaft but also uses a spring mechanism.

The following four images show the different angles at which the cooling air inlet automatically opens when the screen cover is located: the cooling air inlet below the cover and the cooling air outlet above the screen form the cooling air duct of ProArt W590G, and its structure and effect will be analyzed and tested later.

The ProArt W590G only has one power interface and three Thunderbolt 3 interfaces, so when connecting devices with USB-A interfaces, a USB-C to USB-A adapter is required:

For example, the most commonly used wireless mouse receiver has not yet appeared with a USB-C interface and can only use an adapter.

When ProArt W590G is turned off and powered on, the screen will briefly display the battery level and charging status animation, and then quickly turn off.

Disassembly is not allowed

According to my usual practice, after opening the box, it is usually disassembled. After careful observation, it was found that the structure of ProArt W590G is very unusual:

The AB side is where the motherboard of the whole machine is located. The cover on the A side has an open and closed design with a lower air inlet. The screen on the B side seems to be fixed with glue, and there are no screws or buckles visible on the outside of the two sides.

There are 10 screws on the bottom D surface that can be easily removed, but after removing all the screws, the author worked hard with a plastic pry for a long time, but still couldn't open them.

Considering that only the keyboard, battery, and speaker are on the CD side, I believe that even if the CD part is disassembled, if the AB part cannot be disassembled, it is not meaningful, so I will simply give up. By the way, the built-in battery of ProArt W590G is a 90Wh 12 cell lithium-ion battery.

So, we can only use official promotional materials to talk about the internal structure of ProArt W590G on paper first.

The ProArt W590G is designed and built based on NVIDIA's "concept car" laptop called ACE, supported by NVIDIA RTX technology. Therefore, in addition to the 300W gallium nitride power supply mentioned earlier, NVIDIA has also made great efforts in the overall structure, heat dissipation system, and Advanced Optimus technology of the ProArt W590G.

The key points of the NVIDIA ACE reference design, which focuses on 15 inch screen models, are as follows:

NVIDIA ACE heat dissipation design

The CPU and GPU are located behind the display screen and use ultra-thin titanium heat dissipation plates to dissipate heat;

When the body thickness does not exceed 25 millimeters, it can handle heat dissipation with a power consumption of 300 watts;

The external temperature of the body should not exceed human body temperature at room temperature, and the keyboard should maintain a cool touch;

NVIDIA ACE Power Supply Design

Adopting enhanced advanced NVIDIA Optimus technology, it can automatically switch between discrete graphics cards, integrated graphics cards, and hybrid graphics cards based on workload;

Adopting a 300 watt ultra-thin power supply, which is only half the size of traditional power supplies;

NVIDIA ACE Screen Recommendations

4K, 120Hz, supports NVIDIA G-SYNC screens

Wide color gamut (100% Adobe RGB), high color accuracy (Delta E<1)

Verified by PANTONE and factory calibrated

NVIDIA ACE Performance Goals

NVIDIA ACE aims to provide desktop level performance in the mobile form of a laptop.

Let's first take a look at the design of the ProArt W590G in terms of its body architecture:

Firstly, the CPU and GPU of ProArt W590G are located on the motherboard behind the screen. The red box in the figure represents the GPU, the yellow box represents the CPU, the blue box represents the onboard memory, the green box represents the M.2 2280 SSD, and the white box represents last year's speculation that it may be the second M.2 2280 SSD, but it seems to be incorrect at present.

The design is that after the screen cover is unfolded, the lower part opens to form an air intake:

Then the internal cooling fan draws in external cold air through the air intake:

The cold air that is then sucked in is carried away by the titanium heat sharing plate connecting the CPU and GPU, and the hot air formed is discharged from the heat dissipation vent above the screen:

Finally, the ProArt W590G body with the above structure has a thickness of 2.42cm, which is less than 25mm. However, despite using titanium heat plates, the overall weight of the machine is still 2.9kg;

In fact, the ProArt W590G has a design that places the main components behind the screen, similar to an all-in-one computer with an air intake under the back cover. ASUS has already had a similar design on its other model, the ROG Mothership (GZ700- also known as the "ROG Supergod X" in China). However, the keyboard of the GZ700 is detachable and more inclined to be used as a desktop all-in-one computer, rather than a laptop.

The author believes that the main structure of ProArt W590G is actually the same as the industrial computer with a built-in screen and keyboard below, except that a built-in battery and speaker are added below the keyboard.

The built-in heat sink adopts a titanium uniform heat plate, which strictly speaking, is only a quantitative change rather than a qualitative change in design.

The design of the ProArt W590G screen cover automatically opening to form an air inlet after unfolding is truly stunning at first glance. In actual use, its heat dissipation effect, convenience, and reliability need further testing.

At this point in the text, there are already 70 images, exceeding 50. As usual, serialization 1 ends.

In ASUS ProArt StudioBook One Review Part 2, similar to my previous laptop review article, we will conduct comprehensive testing on ProArt W590G, with the most important being the following two points:

1. Check if the power of the ProArt W590G mobile version RTX 6000, which stands out, is as touching as the joint promotion between ASUS and NVIDIA;

2. How can the overall performance of ProArt W590G be demonstrated with its unique 300W gallium nitride power supply;

Coming soon!