Labor Day is almost upon us (well, you, I'm a Brit, but don't let that put you off) and the deals are already beginning at the largest PC gaming retailers. Why do deals erupt whenever a national holiday rolls around? Idle thumbs make for more purchases, I guess. I'm not mad about it. I'm happy as one can be because I've spotted a gaming laptop deal so good, it makes others look bad.
- Asus ROG Strix G16 | RTX 5070 Ti | Ryzen 9 8940HX | $1600 at Best Buy
This isn't a no-name device from a dodgy retailer—only the best for you on Labor Day, comrade. We're talking an ROG Strix machine from Best Buy, with all the ROG flair you might expect, including an RGB light strip along the front of the device. Top priority for any purchase, that.
Under the hood we get to the real good stuff: a Ryzen 9 8940HX and an RTX 5070 Ti Mobile. The former is a powerful mobile chip from AMD with 16 cores and 32 threads from the Zen 4 architecture—that's just one generation behind the very latest chips and still plenty fast for gaming. The latter is from Nvidia's latest GPU generation, Blackwell, and runs up to 140 W in the G16 chassis.
The RTX 5070 Ti comes with 12 GB of VRAM bolted-on, which is 4 GB more than you'd find alongside an RTX 5070 Mobile. That's an important thing for gaming performance, especially at higher resolutions. However, you are pretty limited on the G16 by its 1900 x 1200 panel. It's rated to 165 Hz, at least, and you will be able to make the most of that speed in the right games or with the right settings (DLSS, Frame Gen) with the RTX 5070 Ti.
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We've tested an Asus ROG Strix G16 gaming laptop in recent months, but not this exact model. Slightly confusingly, this is the ROG Strix G16 G614PR, which is a different chassis to the G615 model we've actually tested.
The light strip doesn't circumvent the entire device on the G614 as it does on the G615, nor does the underside pop off without any tools. That's a bit of a shame, as that's a fun feature that I was testing out only earlier this week, but you'd need to spend $2,400 to get even an RTX 5070 G615 over at Best Buy, and I don't care for a tool-free rear panel that much.
What you do get in the G614 is an almost unbeatable value for money for the components it includes. I say almost because the MSI Vector 16 HX we wrote about earlier in the week is still $25 cheaper. Though you'd be picking an Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX chip over AMD's for the savings. I'd still pick the G16, personally.
A few other important details: you're getting 1 TB of SSD storage here, which is not bad, not great; the screen isn't HDR ready at 300 nits, but at least it's an IPS; there's 16 GB of 5600 MT/s DDR5 in here, though that's removeable for a future upgrade; and it offers two USB4 Type-C ports.
Sound good? Once again, that's over at Best Buy's Labor Day sales, which have kicked off a little early. Newegg's Labor Day sale has also already begun, though no gaming laptops to beat this one right now.
Asus ROG Strix G16 | RTX 5070 Ti | $1,600 at Best Buy (save $300)
1. Best overall:
Razer Blade 16 (2025)
2. Best budget:
Gigabyte G6X
3. Best 14-inch:
Razer Blade 14 (2025)
4. Best mid-range:
MSI Vector 16 HX AI
5. Best high-performance:
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10
6. Best 17-inch:
Gigabyte Aorus 17X
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