Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (2022) Review

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (2022) is the beast of a gaming laptop, but it packs some pretty high markup. At an MSRP of around $2500/£2800, this is definitely the most expensive kit I’ve ever tried. At first glance, paying that much for a laptop with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti seems a bit of a stretch, especially since spending that much for a laptop would normally get you something with a more powerful GPU inside.

However, the rest of the Strix Scar 17 (2022) spec sheet makes it a particularly enticing option. It’s powered by an Intel Core i9-12900H processor and also packs 32GB of 4800MHz DDR5 RAM, along with a rock-solid 2TB SSD to store all your games. The most important part of this laptop, however, is its display: a 17.3-inch 240Hz WQHD display that is, of course, quite large. It remains to be seen whether the title of best gaming laptop is worth it, but nothing goes!

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (2022) Specifications and Design

If you were hoping to get a featherweight ultrabook, you might want to reconsider. It’s a particularly chunky and heavy beast, weighing in at 2.9kg in total, and it comes with a sturdy chassis that could survive a few drops – not that you want to risk damaging its great looks.

It’s also a modern-looking gaming laptop with particularly thin bezels around the sides and top of the Scar 17’s massive display. They’re so thin, however, that there’s no webcam, although there would normally be a 720p one. That might be a huge letdown for some, but it’s a lesser feature for a gaming laptop in the grand scheme of things.

Despite the fact that the ROG brand generally represents products with a typically gamer aesthetic, with sharp edges and aggressive styling, the Scar 17 is tastefully equipped. It features a gray plastic chassis, with the ROG logo and glowing RGB on the bottom. This light will flash red when the laptop goes to sleep, which can be a little annoying, but otherwise there’s nothing particularly overdone about it.

The certain vibrancy of the Strix Scar 17’s look also extends to its chiclet keyboard, which features a sea of ​​RGB backlighting. This is where things get a little over the top, although I will say the coverage is solid and even. The keys themselves are not soft and you can use them decently. Unlike other gaming laptops, you also get a full-size number pad, you know, for typing in numbers and stuff.

Features of Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (2022)

Perhaps the star of the show on this Asus laptop is its large 17.3-inch display which also comes with a 240Hz refresh rate. Arguably, 144Hz is the common refresh rate that most people will be looking for, but the higher the better for competitive gamers, and 240Hz is where things get tasty.

It’s an absolutely stunning display, I have to say, and the QHD resolution strikes a good balance between detail and price. Getting 4K output to run at such a high frame rate will require a lot more power than the Strix Scar 17 can deliver, so a 240hz 1440p display might be the perfect choice for a 4K laptop. It handles movement particularly well, and games are crisp and dynamic. The addition of Dolby Vision HDR adds a little more dynamism to the proceedings, emphasizing detail and the solid contrast on offer. Meanwhile, the IPS display helps colors appear accurate and viewing angles are solid.

Under the hood, the inclusion of an Intel Core i9-12900H processor, with its 14 cores and 20 threads, is a true behemoth of a processor, with a boost clock of up to 5GHz. generation of memory, which the Strix Scar 17 takes advantage of with 32GB of 4800MHz DDR5 RAM inside. You also get a 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD which offers the benefit of generous capacity and blazing speeds for storing your games. It all feels particularly fast, it has to be said, and one would have to go a long way to find a better mix of CPU, RAM and SSD in a laptop at this price.

Asus also doesn’t seem to have spared the expense when it comes to connectivity options with the Strix Scar 17. Ports include a Thunderbolt 4 compatible DisplayPort, a pair of USB 3.2 Type-A inputs, a USB-A port, HDMI 2.1 and 2.5G Ethernet for robust wired networks. WiFi 6E guarantees a reliable and particularly fast wireless internet connection, while Bluetooth 5.2 also ensures that the Strix Scar 17 is state of the art.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (2022) Benchmarks and performance

Of course, the real marker of whether a gaming laptop is worth it is simply how fast it is and what performance it can give you for the price you pay. I’m happy to report that the Strix Scar 17 is a particularly fast laptop and 1440p capable machine, delivering more than playable frame rates in a number of games when you push things all the way, as you’ll see in the table below.

Apart from offering wonderful gaming performance, a series of usual synthetic benchmarks like the PC Mark 10 also reveal that the Strix Scar 17 is a practical and versatile laptop. This includes tasks as simple as browsing the web, as well as intense creative tasks like rendering and editing with particularly high driving scores.

The RTX 3070 Ti inside this laptop proves to be an excellent GPU across a wide range of resolutions, with impressive performance at 1080p up to 1440p in many games. That said, it can be difficult to max out the Strix Scar 17 (2022)’s 240Hz refresh rate on the highest settings. Lowering the quality a bit will produce higher frame rates, but of course at the cost of overall on-screen visual fidelity. If you want even better performance, Asus offers a way to overclock with your ROG Boost so you can get a few more frames.

Under load, it’s not the quietest laptop in the world, but the Strix Scar 17 doesn’t sound like a fighter jet taking off. Things get pretty toasty when you use it on your lap for its intended purpose, but it’s otherwise comfortable to wear. Most people will probably want to stick it on a desk or lap for use with a mouse anyway, because no one wants to game on a trackpad.

It’s on the battery life front that things are lacking, as this laptop only clocks up 3 hours and 12 minutes in the PC Mark 10 Modern Office benchmark test that I ran at low brightness. screen and a 50% RGB keyboard, despite Asus’ claims of up to 10 hours with video looping and a total battery capacity of 90Wh. To add to that, the power supply that comes with this laptop is also quite heavy.

Of course, in all of this, it’s hard to ignore the $2,500 / £2,800 price tag for a laptop with an RTX 3070 Ti, but looking at it broadly, it’s a a powerful machine with a particularly solid screen with nice details and incredible movement, as well as a superb and pleasant frame.

You’re buying this laptop primarily for its screen, as well as this level of power, and if you can cough up the asking price might be worth it.

Asus ROG Strix Cicatriz 17 (2022) review

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (2022) is an excellent gaming laptop with impressive power levels, but one that might as well break your bank.