King among cheap gaming laptops? This ASUS with RTX 5060 costs less than 20 thousand!

A laptop with an RTX 5060 graphics card for under twenty thousand? ASUS Vivobook V16 is currently the price king among next-gen gaming laptops. But there’s a catch – it’s sold without an operating system, and installing Windows can be an adventure.

RTX 5060 at full power

While many laptops receive cut-down versions of graphics cards, here the RTX 5060 runs at 115 W with 8 GB GDDR7 memory. In this price range, it’s quite common for laptops to have only 65W versions. The Intel Core 5 210H processor has 8 cores (4P + 4E), plus 16 GB DDR5 RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD. IceCool cooling with two fans keeps temperatures in check. MIL-STD 810H certification promises durability according to the American military standard.

The display has a diagonal of 16 inches, a resolution of 1920 × 1200 px (16:10), and a refresh rate of 144 Hz. However, be aware of the color reproduction – only 45% NTSC, so it’s not ideal for graphic design or photo editing. But for gaming and general work, it’s sufficient. Also worth mentioning are the weight of 1.95 kg, the plastic body, and the backlit keyboard with a numeric keypad.

Without Windows – and installation is not trivial

The laptop is sold without an operating system. That in itself isn’t a problem – you save on the license. However, according to a review on Alza, Windows installation is more complicated. The SSD is not visible until you disable VDM in the BIOS. And during Windows 11 installation, the network driver is missing, so you can’t connect to the internet. A solution exists (the OOBE\BYPASSNRO command), but it can be frustrating for less experienced users.

The reviewer also mentions higher noise levels under load – but this is not unusual for a gaming laptop with a 115W graphics card. The original price was 27,990 CZK, and you can now find it on Heureka from 19,499 CZK. For the cheapest RTX 5060 laptop in the Czech Republic with uncompromised performance, it’s an offer worth considering – if you dare to install the system.

Do you buy laptops with a pre-installed system, or do you prefer a clean installation?