This year, we’ve reviewed several Asus laptops that are members of the ROG Zephyrus gaming line—powerful, but still compact and attractive. You would buy a Zephyrus if you needed good gaming performance, but you still wanted a day-to-day work computer you might bring to your office or class. The Strix line avoids the latter position. They’re gaming laptops. They’re just for playing. They’re not cheap, they’re not discreet, and they don’t hold anything back.
This is where the Strix Scar 15 stands out. Each component is built with the gaming enthusiast in mind, and there is a range of exclusive features for these consumers. Of course, they still come with a few trade-offs—and people who may need to use their console for things other than gaming should explore those choices.
The Strix Scar 15 starts at $2,199.99 on the Asus website. The basic model comes with a Core i7-10875H, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super, 1GB of SSD capacity, and a 240Hz screen. The model we are looking at today is a big step forward: it costs $2,799.99 and is powered by Intel’s 8-core Core i9-10980HK and RTX 2070 Super, which are accompanied by 32GB of RAM, 2TB of storage, and a 1920 x 1080 300Hz panel.
If you clicked on this review, you would be more concerned about the frame rates this laptop is setting. Only say: they’re fine.
The Strix Scar averaged 248fps on CS: GO at full settings. Owing to the 300Hz panel of this model, the chips are not just 248fps; you’re really seeing 248fps. You can note a disparity in frame rate between this device and the same one with a 240Hz display, although a minor one.
Overall, CS: GO has been a smooth experience. The Scar just fell below 100fps until I ran through a dense whirlwind of mud.
Not all games will take full advantage of the 300Hz screen unless you’re planning to bump down the output settings. The Strix set up 67fps on the Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s fastest ray tracing setting on the Ultra. The Red Dead Redemption II cranked to Ultra and the Scar averaged 54fps. Both games were very playable in such environments, without any stuttering or slowing. These findings are in line with the MSI GE66 Raider, and the smaller Zephyrus G14 has a large margin.
It’s worth mentioning that when I was letting the Scar rip in Turbo mode, 10980HK got pretty hot all the way through my gaming session, spending a chunk of time in the mid-90s and reaching 99 degrees Celsius a couple of times. When I moved to the standard Output profile, the Processor spent more time in the mid-high 80s, and I only saw a 1-2fps difference as a result. So if you’re concerned about frying your hardware, you’re not going to lose a thing if you sit on the Performance profile.
Another cool thing is the deck style, which is printed with what Asus calls “Cybertext.” Essentially, the Republic of Gamers is written all over it in an urban-chic type of font. It’s discreet and far from intrusive, but it gives the entire product a subtle science-fiction vibe.
Speaking of the keyboard deck: the palm rests are painted in a special “soft-touch paint.” It’s much cleaner than the usual palm rest and it’s good to lay your hands on it.
Asus keyboards are also among my favorites, and the Strix Scar keyboard is no different. I love to type in this one. I sound like my fingers are floating when I’m using them. There are a very good click and very little resistance. And I’m particularly appreciative of the handy row of hotkeys at the end, which includes volume buttons, a silence microphone, one that adjusts the output profile, and another button that pulls up Armoury Crate.
If you want to plug in your own peripherals, you have a good set of ports on your side. There are three USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports and an audio jack on the left side, while the back includes one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, one LAN RJ-45 port, and one HDMI 2.0 port. That’s much of what you’re going to need, but there’s one clear omission: Thunderbolt. A lot of people do not care for this, but it’s a port that I’m surprised not to have on a $2,799 laptop.
There’s a Keystone II reader on the right. Keystone II is a physical key that helps you to save your personal settings. You may still use it to access a private disk room that Asus refers to as a “shadow drive.” This can be encrypted if you have Windows 10 Pro.
The Keystone II is a neat concept given how many configurations and profiles there are to keep track of the Strix. You can choose between color presets for various styles of games in the ROG GameVisual app. You can adjust the colors and animation of your keyboard in Aura Maker. In GameFirst VI, you will prioritize bandwidth between programs you run; presets are Gaming First, Live Streaming First, and Multimedia First.
The Keystone II
I like one more thing: headphones. The music was perfect, with good surrounding quality. The Strix isn’t going to replace a decent external speaker, and the percussion was a little thin. But the vocals were very simple, and at a high pitch, I never heard any distortion. Laptop fans get very noisy while gaming, but I didn’t have any problem hearing the audio of my games over them.
There’s a lot of good things about the Strix, as you can see. Yet there are still trade-offs. Most of them aren’t super important to games, but they’re worth holding in mind.
I have a few problems with the trackpad, too. It has subtle clickers that need a little more skittering around to press than integrated buttons. I like these particular clickers better than any of them, but they’re always easy to skip, and occasionally I find myself shaking a chassis while I tried to click. Usually, I found it less sensitive and less precise than I expected it to be. Occasionally, I thought I was pressing when I wasn’t, leading me to inadvertently move things around.
The touchpad also has a nifty feature where it can be turned into an LED number pad by clicking the built-in NumLock button in the top right corner—but I hit this button with my palm when typing and unintentionally triggering the Numpad many times. Unlike Asus’ ZenBooks, which also have this functionality, you can’t navigate with the touchpad when the Numpad is up, so I keep having to interrupt my workflow to deactivate it.
The main drawback, however, is the life of the battery. I averaged two hours and 28 minutes of continuous multitasking and office work with Strix on the Power Saver profile with a screen of about 200 nits of brightness. The Strix is a gaming laptop, so I didn’t expect hours and hours of juice. Still, a lot of players are doing better: the MSI GE66 Raider has made four hours of the same workload.
Overall, these nitpick underscore Asus’ priority for the Scar. It’s not a laptop that’s supposed to be duplicated as a travel buddy or a home-based driver—don’t buy it to be your main PC.
But it doesn’t mean that the Scar isn’t great at what it’s meant to be great at, which is gaming. Its results are in line with those of the best 15-inch rigs on the market and provide valuable customization software with a special colorful interface for booting. If you need the highest frame rate and the fastest screen, the Strix Scar 15 is a reasonable buy.
