Asus ROG Strix Scar: No-Compromise Gaming Laptop With No Performance Hiccups

Whenever you think of premium gaming laptops, one of the most popular brands that come to most gamer¡¯s minds is Asus¡¯s ROG (Republic of Gamers).

They make some really cool-looking gaming machines, and this year they¡¯ve launched a bunch more in the market, in their Strix lineup. We got to test the Asus ROG Strix Scar G773QR gaming machine and here¡¯s what our experience was like.

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Display

We got our hands on the 17.3-inch Asus ROG Strix Scar G773QR which features a 1920x1080 pixels IPS panel. The panel features a refresh rate of 300Hz (3ms response time), as well as support for 100 percent SRGB.

Asus

The display was definitely one of the best I¡¯ve used on a gaming laptop with 300Hz being buttery smooth, especially while playing titles like Valorant or Rocket League. The panel¡¯s brightness at 300 nits felt a little low in comparison, but overall this was a fine panel.

The screen doesn't feature a webcam, but the laptop does come with a clip-on camera, which is decent enough for someone wanting to try out game streaming.

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Design

With the Strix Scar G773QR, they¡¯ve refreshed their design language a bit with neat elements here and there that truly wants to make you explore how this device looks. At 2.7 kilograms, even though it won¡¯t be the lightest machine to carry in a backpack, but if you had to, it won¡¯t hurt as much.

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We¡¯ve got an all-matte grey gun-metal finish which looks spectacular. And while it does have several edgy gamer-centric aesthetic cues, it¡¯s also very subtle.

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One place where it isn¡¯t so subtle is the choice of RGB LED elements around the machine. The front section below the wrist rest has an array of LEDs that syncs with the RGB LED keyboard and if you¡¯re someone who plays in pitch-dark setups, the LEDs set the mood really well.

Practicality

For I/O, the machine is incredibly well-loaded. You get one 3.5mm headphone combo jack, one HDMI 2.0b, three USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C with support for DisplayPort, power delivery and G-SYNC. It also packs one RJ45 LAN port. What¡¯s best is that it has the LAN and USB connections at the back for easy wire management on a desk setup.

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For typing and navigating, you get a full-sized keyboard that is engulfed with LEDs, while also being adequately spaced for someone like fat-sausage fingers like me. The keys are optical-mechanical which make sure the key registers are instantaneous and that truly felt like it while playing competitive titles. The keyboard was as responsive as my Razer gaming keyboard and that¡¯s really surprising on a laptop.

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The trackpad on the ROG Strix Scar 17 is considerably larger and I found it was the most responsive to register the Windows gestures for switching between windows or scrolling through web pages.

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Performance

In terms of performance, this machine is packing quite a punch. The variant I got my hands on was powered by an AMD Ryzen R9-5900HX mobile-grade processor.

Indiatimes

This is a stellar CPU with 8 cores and 8 threads. This was paired with 16GB of DDR4 memory clocked at 3200MHz.

Indiatimes

However, the true firepower was courtesy of Nvidia¡¯s RTX 3070 GPU, which was a mobile version of the desktop-grade GPU with 8GB GDDR6 memory. This machine is a true powerhouse, whether you see the performance in synthetic benchmarks or the gaming performance it delivers.

Asus

With all settings maxed out, Cyberpunk, a game that still is poorly optimised, managed to deliver a good 60-70fps. Another poorly optimized yet power-hungry game, Assassin's Creed Valhalla too ran on the machine offering frame rates of 65 to 70 fps. Control -- a game that¡¯s one of the best implementations of ray tracing in a game, with maxed out settings runs at 68-72fps. Forza Horizon 4 too ran at 60fps straight with all settings to ultra.

What¡¯s amazing is that despite running power-hungry games, the laptop managed to keep its cool. Partly it¡¯s thanks to Asus¡¯s novel fan design that allows for more cool air to channel in while expelling the warm air out efficiently, and partly thanks to the use of liquid metal instead of the regular thermal compound -- all this while not making it sound like a jet engine, which was really commendable.

Coming to battery performance, the 90WHrs, 4-cell Li-ion battery on the Asus Strix Scar 17 easily was able to deliver 3-4 hours on a single charge for causal web browsing, video streaming and other basic tasks, which is decent, coming from a gaming laptop.

Should you buy Asus ROG Strix Scar 17?

All the goodies the ROG Strix Scar 17 packs, comes at a rather hefty price tag of 159,990, it might seem overpriced. But the moment you hold the device and you use it, the experience surely makes it worth it.

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Whether it¡¯s the crazy RGB that moves in sync or the no-compromise performance that it¡¯s able to deliver or the exceptionally refined build quality, this is a fine gaming machine.