Gaming has been a massive talking point at CES 2026, and Asus is one of the laptop giants at the forefront of it all. Not just because it's revealed it's bonkers dual-screen Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo or gamer-ready ROG Xreal R1 AR glasses, but also due to it's selection of devices boasting the latest CPUs.
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Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme will give laptops the ability to play the latest PC games closer to 100 FPS, while the AMD Strix Halo in the newly announced Asus TUF Gaming A14 offering near-RTX 4070 levels of gaming performance. It's clear integrated graphics is becoming key in 2026, and Asus is incorporating all these chips in its latest lineup of devices.
The question is, will integrated graphics takeover gaming laptops? I decided to ask Sascha Krohn, Asus' Director of Technical Marketing, and even he says, "being able to play Cyberpunk on integrated graphics and it actually looks like Cyberpunk and not Lego Cyberpunk, is really impressive."
But it goes deeper than that, and I even got Asus' take on the RAM crisis and whether we'll see an Asus ROG VR headset after all (since Meta essentially canceled the once-confirmed headset).
Integrated graphics on laptops the future of PC gaming?
"I would say we're definitely getting into the territory where that becomes a possibility. I think that's something that, in the past, you couldn't really do, but I think now we're getting to the point where, and just the fact that you're asking the question — you're not the only one — it shows that if you follow this trend, it is probably going to happen. And it's just a matter of time.
"Are we there right now? I'm not sure if we're already there right now. It's going to be very interesting in the end how the market reacts, like how end users react to this.
"We have a lot of laptops that don't have a dedicated GPU that are not gaming laptops, but people are playing games on them. We don't have any specific data like survey data on how much time do people spend playing games on those devices, but I would guess that people spend more and more time playing games on devices that aren't actually specific gaming devices. Especially with integrated GPUs improving gen-on-gen for the last couple of years.
"We have 120Hz OLED displays on consumer laptops now, which are amazing for playing games. And so if you're looking at casual games, I think that's something that's very feasible today already.
"The latest integrated graphics here are really impressive. I mean, being able to play Cyberpunk 2077 on integrated graphics and it actually looks like Cyberpunk and not Lego Cyberpunk is really impressive. And I think that's definitely making some people consider, 'hey, is that actually not good enough to to play?'
"And I think it really depends on who you ask, right? I think there's a lot of people who will say yes, this is good enough for me, this is totally fine. I don't need more. But calling that a dedicated gaming device is a whole other story, right?
"I think the expectations, once you call it gaming laptop, are probably higher. Gaming laptops are not going to go away anytime soon, even in the long term. And dedicated GPUs are going to still be around for many years. How many people are going to go for dedicated GPUs and how many people are going to go for integrated GPUs, that's something that everybody has a different take on.
Gaming laptops are not going to go away anytime soon, even in the long term. And dedicated GPUs are going to still be around for many years.
Sascha Krohn, Asus' Director of Technical Marketing
"It also depends how you define it, right? Like AMD Strix Halo is really impressive, but at the same time, it feels a little weird calling it an integrated GPU because, um, it isn't... How do you define integrated GPU?
"Historically it was it's built into the die itself. Now if you have a separate die on the same package and you basically just take a discrete GPU and just put it on the same package as the CPU, does that count as integrated GPU? But I think ultimately yes, there's going to be chiplet designs where you have the CPU and the GPU on the same package, and I think that's that's the trend, that's the direction."
Do you think Asus will struggle with the ongoing RAM crisis?
"That is a very big concern I think for everyone in the industry. And especially for our customers as well. Everything that worries our customers obviously worries us as well.
"Luckily enough, even though there's a big trend from the silicon vendors to use LPDDR memory because of the power savings and the increased battery life, so there's a big push there to use on-board memory, we do have still a lot of devices where we have SO-DIMM slots where you can upgrade the memory.
I think something that a lot of people aren't aware of — like end users and I think also media — is the amount of time it takes, if the day price changes drastically, for that shockwave to travel through the supply chain until it actually affects the price of devices
Sascha Krohn, Asus' Director of Technical Marketing
"So our Vivobook series, for example, and our gaming series, the ones that are not focusing on super slim and light, they do still have SO-DIMM slots so you can still upgrade the memory. I think that's something that, in this economy, is going to be very interesting for a lot of people. There's going to be a bigger focus on that, being able to upgrade the memory so you can buy it with maybe 8GB single channel only, and you just upgrade to a second 8GB, have 16GB dual channel, or you replace it.
"And depending on what the memory situation is going to be in the future, you can then adjust based on that. So I think that kind of flexibility is going to be more interesting in 2026. People will focus more on having memory slots; that's going to be a more important spec when they buy a new laptop than it was in 2025, I think.
"I think something that a lot of people aren't aware of — like end users and I think also media — is the amount of time it takes, if the day price changes drastically, for that shockwave to travel through the supply chain until it actually affects the price of devices that you see in Best Buy or Walmart or somewhere else.
"So it takes a couple of months. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised when they see that, "Oh memory prices went up, but oh, laptop prices and phone prices and and also gaming console prices didn't really go up yet." But I think that is still going to happen. It just takes more time until that travels down the supply chain until it reaches the retail stores and e-tail stores.
"So, yeah, just a heads up for everybody who's reading this, that is something that is still going to happen. But on the plus side, the way that we allocate memory and plan for memory, it helps to even it out a little bit. So it's not like going to be a sudden shock, but it's going to be a bit more steady. I do expect memory prices to go up and that is definitely something that nobody's really looking forward to."
Is Asus still looking into VR headsets after Meta apparently canceled Asus' third-party headset?
"I think that was made by our phone division, so I'm not too familiar with that to be honest. I did have it on my radar, I did know about it.
"Yeah, I'm disappointed as well. I'm a big AR/VR enthusiast, so yeah, sad to hear. I hope that it's something that we're still going to pursue, even if that's not going to happen in how it was originally meant to happen apparently.
"We are definitely still pursuing AR and VR in the sense that we have new AR glasses that we're launching here in a partnership with Xreal.
"What I like what Valve have said is that they made [the Steam Frame] a very modular design and they want to create this kind of like infrastructure around it. So third-party enablement is something that Valve has been really good at in the past. And that's something that I'm really excited about.
"And I hope that's something that we can also work together with Valve on. But I haven't heard anything about when it comes to us doing a VR headset, like coming to market in 2026. We're not showing anything or announcing anything here at CES. I do hope that we are going to do a VR device as well, absolutely."
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