ASUS just turned the volume all the way up on the ProArt P16. The company’s newest flagship configuration swaps in NVIDIA’s top mobile GPU, an RTX 5090 Laptop chip, and a new 16-inch “Lumina Pro” tandem OLED touchscreen that claims desktop-level brightness and 4K resolution — and yes, the price reflects it: the halo configuration will land at $3,999.99, available from Best Buy and directly from ASUS in Q4 (international mid-October, U.S. in December).

The headline specs

The top-end ProArt P16 (the model ASUS showed off) pairs:

• AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU (same high-end chip ASUS used last year).
• GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU, up to 24GB VRAM on the mobile part.
• 16-inch 3840×2400 “Lumina Pro” tandem OLED touchscreen, 120Hz with VRR and HDR brightness peak claims up to 1,600 nits.
• Up to 64GB LPDDR5X, and 4TB SSD via two 2TB drives.
• Connectivity: USB4 (40Gbps), USB-C and USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps), HDMI 2.1, SD Express 7.0, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.
• Thin(ish) and light(ish) for the class: ~14.9mm thickness and ~1.95kg (4.3 lb).

That spec sheet reads like a banker’s list of everything a power user could want on a Windows machine — especially if you value touch and color-critical screens.

What “tandem OLED” actually is

“Tandem OLED” isn’t a marketing word for a brighter OLED — it’s a display design that stacks two OLED sub-panels to extend brightness and longevity while keeping the lovely color and contrast OLEDs are known for. In practice, that lets ASUS push much higher HDR peaks (ASUS quotes up to 1,600 nits) while also supporting faster refresh rates and variable refresh for smoother motion in apps and when gaming. For creatives who work with proof HDR video or work on HDR stills, the brightness plus accurate OLED contrast is a rare combo in a laptop.

But — small print — tandem panels can be glossier and reflect more in bright rooms than matte options, and not every creative workflow needs 1,600-nit HDR. Still, for on-the-go color-critical work, this is a meaningful step up from standard 4K OLED laptop panels.

The GPU question: desktop ambition, laptop limits

Putting an RTX 5090 in a 16-inch creator laptop is headline-grabbing, and the chip itself is a massive generational leap on paper. But the real story for laptop GPUs is power and thermals. Mobile RTX 5090 configurations ship with flexible TGP (Total Graphics Power) ranges — many OEMs set the chip to somewhere between ≈95W and 150W, and final performance varies depending on a laptop’s cooling and power delivery. That means a 5090 in a very well-cooled desktop-sized chassis (or an 18-inch behemoth) will run closer to the GPU’s top potential than a thin 16-inch machine.

ASUS lists the P16’s 5090 at up to 120W TGP in its spec window — a tasty number for a portable, but still lower than the highest-power 5090 laptop builds we’ve seen from big-chassis gaming laptops. In short, you get a next-gen 5090, but don’t expect desktop-level sustained performance in the smallest thermally constrained scenes.

Cooling, thermals and the portability tradeoff

This is the standard balancing act: the P16 is slim and light for a 16-inch professional laptop, which makes it far more portable than a dedicated desktop-replacement chassis. The trade is predictable — thin machines with high-end GPUs tend to see thermal throttling under very long, sustained GPU or combined CPU+GPU loads (heavy 3D rendering, long 8K exports, full-tilt game sessions). Reviewers and ASUS itself flag that the thin chassis is a design choice that favors portability over absolute sustained horsepower. If you routinely run marathon renders, a bigger machine with more aggressive cooling will be faster in the long run.

ASUS says it revised the cooling system for this refresh (vapor chamber tuning and intake/exhaust layout), but physics still rules: higher wattage + tighter chassis = more noise and warmer chassis surface under load. If you want near-desktop sustained performance, you’ll either accept the noise/heat or need to plug into a larger desktop-class gaming chassis.

The creator features that matter day-to-day

ASUS doesn’t just sell raw numbers — it also layers in software and hardware tricks for creators:

• DialPad: a ring-style control embedded in the touchpad for scrubbing sliders, brush sizes and other parameters in apps like Photoshop and Premiere. It’s a small physical UX detail that some pro editors swear by, and ASUS has pushed this since earlier ProArt machines.
• Copilot key & AI tools: the P16 leans into Copilot+ PC integrations and ASUS’ own MuseTree/StoryCube creator utilities, which aim to accelerate minor creative tasks with AI. These are quality-of-life additions rather than workflow reinventions, but they do add value if you already use those ecosystems.

For photographers and videographers, the SD Express 7.0 slot and the broad port spread (high-speed USB4 + USB-C/A + HDMI 2.1) mean you can plug in cameras, capture cards and external drives without hauling adapters. That’s a small thing that often makes the day easier.

Pricing and alternatives — is $4,000 sensible?

If $4,000 makes you do a double-take: same. ASUS will keep the 2024 entry-level P16 (with an RTX 4060) in the line for around $1,999.99, and it’s offering mid-tier 2025 configs with RTX 5070/5080 GPUs starting from $2,499.99. So there’s a spectrum: the $3,999.99 machine is the halo, not the only option. If you want punchy GPU power but don’t need the brightest tandem OLED, the mid options look like a much better value for many creators.

Compare that to a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 Max: Apple’s laptop wins on all-day battery and often better sustained multi-thread efficiency per watt, while ASUS offers discrete-GPU acceleration, Windows app compatibility, and far more ports. Which is “better” depends on the apps you use (native Final Cut vs. Premiere/Resolve, etc.) and whether you rely on CUDA or other GPU-specific features.

Who should care about this P16

Buy this ProArt P16 if:

• You need a portable Windows creator machine with a bright, color-accurate OLED touchscreen and you want an edge in GPU tasks that can benefit from Nvidia’s Blackwell/RTX 50-series features.

Consider a cheaper config if:

• You don’t need the absolute brightest HDR peaks or the top 5090 GPU, and you’d rather spend $2,000–$2,500 for a very capable machine with fewer thermal caveats.

Skip it if:

• You run massively long renders daily and need desktop-level sustained throughput — a larger chassis or a small desktop workstation will give you better thermals and consistent performance.

Final thought

The 2025 ProArt P16 is an all-in-one attempt to deliver the dreaming-of-MacBook Pro experience on Windows: clean chassis, top panel, lots of ports, and enough power for serious creative work. But the laptop still lives in the old tradeoff: compromise on thinness and you get more sustained GPU, keep it thin and you get a stupendously portable, very capable machine that will occasionally ask for mercy under marathon loads. For many creators who work on location, the P16’s mix of a blazing OLED, a high-end 5090, and real-world I/O will be a compelling alternative to Apple — so long as you accept the price and the thermal tradeoffs.