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i'm really excited about this one guys ASUS rog sponsored an exclusive look

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behind the scenes at the creation of their most powerful gaming laptop ever

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the rog mothership so our tour starts at

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the ASUS headquarters tower here in taipei except that it doesn't instead we

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took a short walk to a non-descript building that the rog team described as

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a kind of secret lab or bat cave they

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couldn't show us the whole facility because of the top secret nature of the

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work being done here in fact we're only the second non-isu staff to set foot in

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here and even within ASUS only the ceo

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and design center employees are allowed inside

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but to tell the story of ASUS's reimagining of the desktop replacement

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form factor we needed to visit rog mothership's birthplace we'll start

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upstairs where everything from sketches to material evaluation and even soft

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goods creation happens and it's also where we'll see a recreation of the

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first airflow experiments that kickstarted the development effort so

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what you're looking at here is two identical desktop replacement gaming

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laptops with one of them set up the conventional way with a lot of

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restriction for the cooling system and a second one propped up like this to give

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the intake fans which are here on the bottom a lot more room to breathe

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now how much does this kind of configuration affect cooling performance

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it turns out quite a lot with no additional tweaks whatsoever this unit

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runs seven to eight degrees cooler than the other one and with the design of the

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rog mothership which includes more ventilation cutouts and liquid metal

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thermal compound they manage to push performance much further to the point

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where the machine can be about half the thickness of a traditional ASUS desktop

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replacement while both boosting up higher and running quieter

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now of course it's really not as simple as just

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taking an old laptop design and going like this

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done so let's head downstairs to the secret

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Labs machine shop our journey begins back in 2016 with the affectionately

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nicknamed grandma ship so this is ASUS

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first hard model of a standing high performance gaming laptop design with

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the keyboard angled up like this now

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back then they were studying how to make a laptop perform better and improve its

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ergonomics at the same time so they tried this concept out but this one is

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uh not very perfect if the keyboard's at an angle like this it's actually fine

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for gaming but they found that it wasn't great for typing so when this was first

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proposed it was rejected by top management probably for good reason

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they still believed in the underlying concept though so the team used foam

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rough models to experiment with different form factors so this one here

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is actually more like an all-in-one with a kickstand so you can see it even has

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some of its i o in the back that's not very laptop-like

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now this one is notable though because it was during this stage that they came

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up with the idea of making the keyboard detachable i mean

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if the whole system is up in the top piece why not with that concept nailed down

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they created quite a few rough models experimenting with different form

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factors so this one right here

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showcases an idea where they were going to have the system kind of pop out at

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the back like this and then the screen actually

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slide up this didn't end up making it to final

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production obviously now this one right here in black foam

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now we're fast forwarding to 2017. by now they've moved the keyboard forward

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just like the finished one we've got a proper kickstand and all the i o is on

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the sides more like a laptop so this is

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the first model that contains the main fundamental characteristics of the rog

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mothership at this stage the concept was accepted

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so they got the time and the budget to build a working prototype

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later that year so we're still in 2017 after a lot of hard work they had the

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two units that you can see on the table here in front of me this one right here

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is actually a working prototype complete

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with detachable keyboard they actually had a bit of a different

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concept for the detachable keyboard at that time the cord was kind of like a vacuum

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cleaner so you kind of pull it out and you press a little button like that

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but like the finished product it could also work wirelessly

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this one over here is more of a prototype of the industrial

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design so you can see here they've got their lighting effects that they

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proposed for the speaker the thermal tunnel areas it's really creaky there

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you go thermal tunnel areas and inside the kickstand so this is the point in

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the process where the designers need to really start thinking about the

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longevity and the usability of the product so it's here that they caught

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the issue where mounting the motherboard directly behind the display like this

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caused long-term damage due to emi and they implemented a shield to protect it

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and it's also where they discovered that they needed to completely rethink the

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keyboard the thing is that the working prototype

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took up a lot of desk space and it wasn't possible to get closer to the

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system because the keyboard was simply too big so they had to make it more

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portable now the original concept is actually ah

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this one right here they were going to make it foldable by simply putting a

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soft bridge in between the two halves see that

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clearly though this wasn't going to be good enough for

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rog so that's where the idea of implementing

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a hinge came from the problem though is that's easier said than done

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after the first prototype failed ASUS keyboard supplier determined that it was

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impossible to build a hinge the way that ASUS wanted with the front surface flush

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while the hinge mechanism could be protected while you're folding it

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so with that feedback in mind the team here headed back to the model shop and

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created not one but two working prototypes to show their

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keyboard supplier with these in hand this one was agreed on and the supplier

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said that building something like this was in fact possible and also that they

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could mass produce it now we're on to the final mock-up so this

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right here with the major technology challenges solved it was time for them

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to nail down the aesthetic so each surface was sketched in 2d

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3d printed to determine how the design would look with depth and then combined

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into what you see here now this one doesn't work but it's basically

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representative of the look of the finished rog mothership

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whoa okay that keyboard is only kind of

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sort of attached to itself that wasn't my fault you didn't tell me

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it wasn't attached now that's the design story but after i expressed so much

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interest in the manufacturing process of the shell of rog mothership when i first

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saw it ASUS agreed to walk us through some of that as well so on this table

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here we're not looking at every single stage of the manufacturing but these are

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the key ones starting with this 9 kilogram

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10 us dollar aluminum slab you can see

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it only actually has a few basic cutouts and it includes

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these fixture points here because it needs to be flipped several times during

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the manufacturing process in order to access all the faces at this stage our

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bottom panel still weighs more than the finished rog mothership

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because we haven't removed the material from the inside yet but you can see that

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our sidewalls and our rear grille are looking a lot

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more notebook-like and our kickstand cutout is done now

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the really cool thing about this stage though is right here

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this is where our bottom cover gets put into the injection molding tool to make

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room for the plastic pieces that are needed for the four included antennas

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now they have to do it this way rather than clipping on a plastic piece at the

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end in order to get the absolutely perfectly seamless finish you can

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actually see here the plastic bits that are going to get

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removed that were part of the injection process cool right our next sample has most of

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the internals cut away now which as you can see

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makes a pretty big difference to the thickness and the weight of the material

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now obviously then seeing seeing this out of

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a single piece rather than taking something thinner and bending it up

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wastes a lot of material but it has

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tangible benefits in terms of structural rigidity and also the finish on the end

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product so you can see here that for its thickness this is really smooth and

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surprisingly strong

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it's like very little flex to it for the next stage we need a much smaller bit to

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cut out all the fine details what's cool here is that you can actually really see

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the republic of gamer's rog branding

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because it stands out more on the raw aluminum then after that

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we get into anodization this is what gives us a durable black finish on the

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product and as you can see we are

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almost done except for one small problem

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the plastic doesn't match the color of

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the rear grilles this simply won't do so the final step

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then is to paint just the rear grille component now

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the thing is that paint is not as durable as anodization but hey

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now it matches and if it does happen to get scratched a little bit there's still

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black underneath so it shouldn't be too noticeable

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finally every one of the only

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650 machines that ASUS builds is going

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to get the finishing touches

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now there's too many of these sorts of things for me

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to list today but every unit gets a unique serial number engraved and little

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accent pieces like these laser-cut mylar

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stickers that combined with speaker grilles protect the speakers and give it

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a nice premium look now the machines that we're looking at

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right now are suitable for prototyping but to achieve the speed and detail

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needed for mass production of the final product more sophisticated solutions are

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required that is if you can even call 650 units

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mass production now i've always said that when the bill of materials cost of

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a new device leaks and consumers complain that it's a rip off that there

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are many hidden costs that drive up the final sticker price

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but even for me seeing this process today along with the qc and validation

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lab i gotta say i'm coming away with a new

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appreciation for the time and the work that goes into creating something as

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specialized as rog mothership so

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i want to thank ASUS rog for inviting me here and sponsoring this video and you

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guys for watching the whole thing actually as a fun little reward for

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making it this far ASUS rog is giving away a strict scar 3 gaming laptop to

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one lucky viewer somewhere in the world so guys make sure you check out the link

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in the video description and show them some love in the comments

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if you guys dislike this video well you know where that button is but if you

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liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy

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the stuff we featured at the link in the video description sometime in the next

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couple months we think also down there is our merch store which

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has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you guys should

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totally join