I wrote off the Asus TUF Gaming A14 last year, but a…

I wrote off the Asus TUF Gaming A14 last year, but a AMD Strix Halo glow-up changed my mind

I wanted to love the 2025 Asus TUF Gaming A14, but it’s complicated. For the small uplift in performance courtesy of that RTX 5060, there was a significant price hike and power efficiency took a hit because of it. What was my personal favorite gaming laptop had become a let down, and I moved onto the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 10.

But at CES 2026, Asus pulled out a boombox outside my window and serenaded me with a new generation Tuf A14 that ditches the Nvidia altogether and gives me AMD Strix Halo. You know the one — that chip that blew my mind in the Asus ROG Flow Z13.

Can it win back my heart? I can’t say for sure until we’ve got it in the lab, but I’m ready to open my bedroom window and listen to what this system has to say… OK this “Say Anything” metaphor has gone on for too long! Let’s just get into it.

Asus TUF Gaming A14 (2026) specs

Laptop	Asus TUF Gaming A14 (2026)
Display	14-inch 2.5K 2560 x 1600 pixels, IPS display, 165Hz
CPU	Up to AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 392
RAM	Up to 32GB LPDDR5X
Storage	Up to 1TB SSD
Ports	2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x USB 4 Type-C, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm audio combo jack, Micro-SD card reader
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3
Dimensions	12.2 x 8.9 x 0.7 inches
Weight	3.3 pounds

When the going gets TUF, the TUF goes integrated

At first glance, you’re getting the same great-looking system — with the same sleek lightweight chassis that feels durable and premium to the touch, the same 14-inch 2.5K IPS panel with 165Hz refresh rate, and the same great keyboard and glass trackpad. All-in-all, the same notebook that captured my heart back in 2024.

But the real glow-up is happening on the inside, courtesy of new AMD Ryzen AI Max+ chips. With these, Team Red wanted to bring that same beefy 40-core GPU you find in the AI Max+ 395 to mid-range laptops like this. That means one of two chips available to you:

AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 392: 12 cores/24 threads on the CPU
AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388: 8 cores/16 threads on the CPU

Both are still capable of that 60 Teraflops of RDNA 3.5 GPU performance, which as I’ve seen in testing the 395 is near-RTX 4070 levels of gaming performance (1.6x faster gaming performance than M5 MacBook Pro in Cyberpunk 2077) — all on integrated graphics consuming a lot less power than a dedicated Nvidia card.

That is an insane premise for a system that is (hopefully) kept at the mid-range prices Asus has in mind for the machine.

Outlook

Integrated graphics are key to 2026 being the year of the laptop. Here I was thinking I’d moved on — the TUF Gaming A14 had its time in the sun as my significant other, but I was doing better with the Legion.

But Asus is back with flowers, saying “I’ve changed,” and I’m so stoked to give the new A14 a proper test when it launches soon.

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