Offering the best in display technology and packing in the highest-end parts possible, this year’s Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 gaming laptop is impressive, delivering desktop-like performance thanks to its integrated RTX 4090 mobile GPU and Intel i9-13900HX CPU. Asus has a huge winner on its hands, but also with a considerable price.
That’s not to say there aren’t some shortcomings. The 2023 Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 has some fans that can get really loud, and it isn't the most aesthetically pleasing computer on the market, especially compared to the lower-priced Zephyrus G14. Additionally, because this laptop packs in an RTX 4090 mobile GPU and an Intel i9-13900HX, drawing up to 230 watts at times, the battery never lasts very long. The Scar 18 is still more of a desktop replacement than something that customers should really lug around; however, its performance more than makes up for its few problems.
Asus ROG Strix Scar 18: Build Quality and Ergonomics
Right away, the 2023 ROG Strix Scar 18 reveals itself to be a hefty computer, weighing in at close to 7 pounds with a massive 18-inch screen. While it is certainly possible to toss this laptop into a backpack and take it on the go, the Scar 18 is a little more suited to being a desktop replacement due to its heft and serious power requirements. The chassis itself consists of an aluminum lid with a nice anodized black finish and a slightly see-through plastic for the bottom half. The plastic housing feels plenty sturdy, with not much flex to it, but it is, unfortunately, a fingerprint magnet. A nice touch on the Scar 18’s lid is that it has a lip on it, so users can open the laptop without having to wiggle their finger between the screen and the keyboard tray. Overall, the ROG Strix Scar 18 still feels as premium as its price tag indicates, albeit a little too chunky.
In terms of IO, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is feature-rich with 2 USB Type-C ports on the left side, along with an HDMI and Ethernet port right next to it. The laptop also offers two additional USB-A ports on the right side for even more connectivity options. We have no real complaints in regard to the IO feature set here and are happy to see so many USB-C and USB-A ports included on both sides. The Strix 18 can even charge via USB-C if users need a quick lifeline. The inclusion of an Ethernet port, in particular, is extremely welcome as more and more high-end gaming laptops continue to exclude Ethernet from their feature set despite being the superior way to get online.
Our only real nitpicks with the overall build of the ROG Strix Scar 18 are the number of lights on it and their odd, distracting placements. The Scar 18 places three bright lights right in front of the user and has a tacky red light right on the power button that make this very well-designed laptop look a little lower-spec at times. Even Asus’ lower-tiered ROG Zephyrus G14 elects to put the charging and power lights at the back of the laptop and away from view while also not being as bright as the Scar 18’s lights. It is odd to see the more premium laptop in Asus’ lineup not take notes from its younger siblings.
Asus ROG Strix Scar 18: Screen, Keyboard, and Webcam
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 has a magnificent 16:10 1600p, 240Hz screen that can reach a bright 500 nits and covers 100% of the sRGB color spectrum. In short, color reproduction is excellent on this laptop, without any of that “washed-out” look that lesser screens could have. Additionally, it gets bright enough to make scenes pop and really allows games to look their best. However, the Scar 18 does get bright to the point that users will want to turn that brightness down at night or in a dark room. Cranking the screen up to a full 500 nits is more for users who intend to be outside with this computer.
The Scar 18 also has a dedicated MUX switch that flips between the dedicated GPU and the iGPU in order to conserve power and improve performance. That MUX switch usually causes the screen to blink for a second, and then users are good to do. Regarding latency, the Scar 18’s 240Hz screen is snappy and on par with most other high-end, esports-oriented screens, with little noticeable ghosting and a tear-free G-sync experience.
For everyday typing, the Strix Scar 18’s keyboard is more than serviceable, offering a full-size keyboard and a ten-key number pad. The keys themselves are slightly raised, giving them a more tactile feel and eliminating some of the mushiness that laptop keyboards generally have. Our primary complaint with the keyboard is its off-center home row which makes typing a little awkward. There is enough space on either side of the laptop to space everything out a little more and make everything a bit more comfortable. This year, the Scar 18 also includes a webcam that should be fine for getting into a Zoom call but is about as “webcam” as a webcam can get. It’s low resolution and overexposed, but overall serviceable.
Asus ROG Strix Scar 18: Gaming Performance
For this review, we will look strictly at gaming performance over productivity workloads. We took a look at some of the most demanding games on PC at the time of this writing to get a good grasp of how this computer would handle real gaming workloads. We benchmarked at the screen’s native 16:10 2560x1600p resolution and set the laptop to the Armoury Crate’s Ultimate mode, drawing around 230 watts from the wall. We intend to give a realistic view of how most customers will game and use this computer.
Starting with Cyberpunk 2077, the in-game benchmark ran at a 36 FPS average using the Ray Tracing Ultra preset at 1600p with no DLSS or Frame Generation on. Turning off Ray Tracing bumps that number up to a smooth 83 FPS average. To really see what the Scar 18 is capable of, we turned on the newly released Ray Tracing Overdrive mode and toggled on DLSS and Frame Generation. We came away with a super playable 72 FPS average that is leagues beyond most other gaming laptops.
Another heavy game is Red Dead Redemption 2, which was no sweat for the ROG Strix Scar 18. At the Max preset with no DLSS or FSR enabled the game ran at 102 FPS at 1600p. Equally impressive is Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, which ran at 118 FPS average using the Ultra High preset in its integrated benchmark. In a more taxing workload, Control maintained 58 frames per second when fully maxed, including maxed Ray Tracing settings. It should be noted that Control was tested in a particularly demanding area for this benchmark and regularly hovered around 70 fps throughout lesser demanding corridors.
Overall, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 really impressed with its gaming performance. Without using any form of DLSS or FSR upscaling solutions, the laptop proved more than capable of delivering 60fps or more at 1600p in some of the heaviest gaming workloads right now. 4K gaming is possible if users would like to hook up a screen via the Scar 18’s HDMI port; however, given the mobile and lesser-powered nature of the included RTX 4090, users will have to take advantage of upscaling technologies to get the same great gaming experience on a bigger screen. For gaming, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is one of the best laptops customers can get right now.
Asus ROG Strix Scar 18: Cooling, Thermals, and Battery Life
The Scar 18’s outstanding performance comes down to the laptop’s excellent cooling solution. Underneath the hood, the laptop sports a dual-fan design for the CPU and GPU while also having enough holes in the chassis to ventilate all that heat. Under full load and while pulling 230 watts from the wall, the Scar 18’s CPU hovered around 80 degrees Celsius while the GPU stayed a little cooler at around 75 degrees Celsius. For a laptop, these temperatures are acceptable but can get a little too close to the 90c threshold, where things start downclocking. Keeping this computer and its fans clean will be paramount to users for the best experience.
All of this cooling comes at the cost of noise, though. The Scar 18’s fans can certainly get loud once they’re at full blast, hitting 43 decibels under load and using the max performance setting. The laptop’s integrated speakers do get loud enough to drown out a lot of that fan noise, and the overall sound profile of these fans is not that bad by a laptop’s standards. These fans have a nice whoosh sound when they are running at full blast and don’t make any sort of high-pitched squeal. Any good pair of closed-back headphones with enough plastic and padding to create a decent amount of passive noise-canceling will block out most noise from these fans. However, our review unit did contain a bothersome coil whine in some instances, specifically in some games where the main menu was running in excess of 1,000 frames per second.
Power, cooling, and performance also come at the cost of battery life. The Scar 18 can’t really keep up when it’s not plugged in. This year’s model has the same 90Wh battery that previous generations had and comes with a beefy 330-watt power adapter. When using Armoury Crate's default Performance setting, the laptop lasted a little over an hour from full charge while playing Cyberpunk 2077. Of course, we were using a purposefully intense game to drain the battery, so less demanding games will likely last far longer using only the battery. However, we still suggest the Scar 18 mostly as a desktop replacement and for users to keep that charger handy when taking it out.
Overall, the 2023 Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is a great gaming laptop that is equipped to handle the most intense games on the market and deliver a great experience when doing so. It is about as future-proof as a laptop can get in 2023. However, it comes at a hefty price of $3,899.99 for the base model. Unless users truly need the best of the best and plan to use this as a full-on desktop replacement for the next few years, it might be worth finding something a little more modest and at a much lower price. Besides that, the Scar 18 is one of the best computing experiences on the market right now.
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is available now. Game Rant was provided with a retail unit for the purposes of this review.