Asus Zenbook S16 (2026)

Better value than its Core Ultra Series 3 rivals, but AMD's chip fails to deliver a knockout punch

- TIM DANTON

AMD announced its Ryzen AI 400 series chips at CES, but don’t get excited: I can’t spot any difference between the ten-core Ryzen AI 9 465 processor that debuts in this Zenbook S16 compared to last year’s Ryzen AI 9 365. Asus also offers the S16 with the six-core Ryzen AI 7 445, but beware: only two are high-performance Zen 5 cores, with the four Zen 5c cores built for efficiency. Plus you only get a 1TB SSD for your £1,500, while the Ryzen AI 9 465 edition of the S16 comes with a 2TB SSD for £1,700.

The Ryzen AI 9 465’s 12-core Radeon 880M is also a far superior GPU to the 4-core 840M in the Ryzen AI 7 445, but you’ll still need to drop down to the bottom rung of graphics settings in challenging games.

Sticking to High and 1200p, it averaged 38fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 31fps in Dirt 5 and 28fps in Cyberpunk 2077. That compares to 55fps, 57fps and 65fps from the Asus ExpertBook Ultra (see p58) with its Intel Arc B390 graphics.