Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE Laptop Specifications
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE delivers incredible speed within a bold package that includes a good display, but its connectivity and ergonomics can do with optimization – and laptops coming soon will deliver more speed
Key features
Nvidia and Intel's first-class components Both Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and Intel Core i9-12950HX are both at the peak of their power in this laptop, which means you've got the gaming gluttony for any big title and processing pace for challenging content creation workloads.
Large screen with high refresh rate The 17.3-inch display, 2560×1440 resolution, and 240Hz refresh rate combine to deliver the crisp details, fast speeds, and incredible quality that any type of game requires, from big-screen fireworks to the best esports games.
Bold design filled with RGB LED lightingThere aren't many laptops with RGB LEDs more than Asus – they are in the keyboard and logo, under the cover and around the base. When paired with the semi-transparent surface of the keyboard, it creates an eye-catching design.
Introduction
Known for making some of the most daring and exciting gaming products on the market, Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE does nothing to break that hard-earned reputation.
This portable beast surrounds its 17.3-inch screen with plenty of RGB LED lighting, and inside you'll find enough power to handle anything besides a 240Hz screen.
I checked the model G733CX-LL014W, and it is not cheap. US residents need to pay $3,399 for this monster, and at United Kingdom it costs up to £3,499. In Europe, expect to pay 3599 euros north.
That's a huge amount of money for any part of the technology, even if it's one of the best gaming laptops of 2023, and he sees Asus heading straight for the Alienware x17 R2 – but this laptop is more expensive. Duplicate the ROG specs on the x17 and cost $3999 / £3759 / €4199, although you get monitors with higher refresh rates. There is also the MSI Raider GE77, which is more expensive.
It's also worth considering whether you should save for the upcoming 2023 release of this device or some of the other Asus gaming laptops coming out later this year – so I've compared Strix to those options as well.
Design and keyboard
Bold and bright design filled with game-friendly touches
Only modest connectivity
Fast and responsive keyboard
There is no shortage of customizable lighting here. A ring of light stretches around three edges of the base and illuminates more logo lights. The keyboard has a light for each key, and there is a bar of lighting at the bottom of the screen.
Entire areas of the base use transparent plastic that enables players to get a glimpse of circuit boards. You can even get replaceable hinge covers to give your laptop a different look.
I wish the external connection was better too. Asus has two full-size USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, but they sit next to each other - they deploy a large terminal and the other port is inaccessible. Asus has a Thunderbolt 4 port and a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 connection along with HDMI 2.1, but no card reader, fingerprint scanner, or webcam. MSI is noticeably better in this section, with more ports and an SD card slot.
ROG has 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, dual-band Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, but that's a cool relief given omissions elsewhere. Annoyingly, the right edge only offers a slot for the attention-grabbing Asus Keystone NFC feature.
Special Edition branding changes things too. Positively, the interiors have better cooling with Grizzly Conductonaut Extreme thermal putty. Negatively, the laptop includes a marketing game called Scar Runner. Invisible ink on the cover can help you solve puzzles in the game, but the codes can be read without an UV flashlight, as Asus notes that "the inks on the cover will fade over time." It's all just silly.
The fast and clear movement of the keyboard is good for gaming. The buttons don't make much noise, and you'll get an RGB LED backlight for each key along with additional buttons to control the volume, microphone, and fan.
Negatively, though, there's no reason for a 17.3-inch laptop to shrink the number pad, cursor keys, or single-height back button. The trackpad is also modest, thanks to the slightly soft buttons pressed - use USB rodents instead. Users can buy Alienware using the CherryMX mechanical keyboard, which is not an option in Asus, and the SteelSeries writing equipment from MSI is very good.
It's annoying that Scar's 2023 update won't solve some of these issues. This revised laptop is 100g lighter and has a webcam, but it is not smaller and does not provide significant improvements in connectivity.
You'll find bigger updates on upcoming Asus ROG Strix G16 and G18 laptops. The 16-inch and 18-inch displays are all about updated interiors, new webcams, and better port placement, but they get rid of the number pad.
screen
The display provides a clear and colorful gaming experience
Other laptops have faster and more diverse refresh rates in this section
The speakers are loud and exciting, but they can do more detail
The 17.3-inch IPS display combines an adaptive synchronization refresh rate of 240Hz with a resolution of 2560 × 1440. Consider the 3ms response time and you'll get a board that can handle most gaming situations.
The maximum brightness of 331 cd is good enough for indoor situations and couples with a black dot of 0.31 cd/m² for a contrast ratio of 1068:1. This decent result means you have a great deal of punches in games. However, more depth would be welcome in dark scenes, and a higher brightness level would have enabled outdoor gaming.
The Delta E's average of 2.83 is good and the screen has offered 99.9% and 96.3% of the sRGB and DCI-P3 series, so this screen will produce almost all the shade that the headlines need. Its lack of Adobe RGB capability means it's not a good enough palette for color-sensitive design work.
This is a good screen. Its contrast, color treatment, accuracy, and refresh rate will make almost every game look bold and accurate. Resolution means you get more detail than a 1080p panel average, and a 240Hz refresh rate is well positioned to handle the most competitive scenarios.
You'll find better screens elsewhere. Alienware laptops are available with 4K, 360Hz and 480Hz screens – the former is better for single-player titles and the other two are well suited for high-end esports. The 1080p panel I reviewed had better colors and contrast than the Strix display. There is not much to choose between Scar and MSI monitors.
There are no significant screen updates inside the 2023 model. Head to the G16 and G18 and the only improvement is the 16:10 aspect ratio, which means a higher resolution of 2560 × 1600.
The speakers are also good, although the muddy midrange undermines the high, powerful and luxurious output. They are acceptable for games, although the headset will be better.
performance
Lots of gaming power, with the ability to handle any title of the current generation
Virtually sufficient processing speed for content creation workloads
Impressive thermal performance
Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti may have been replaced by the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090, but it doesn't slack — it still has 16GB of memory, 7242 streaming processors, and a power output of 175W. Intel's Core i9-12950HX is also amazing, thanks to the P-Cores peaking at 5GHz.
Elsewhere, Asus deploys 32GB of dual-channel DDR5 memory. The storage comes from two Samsung PM9A1 SSDs in a RAID 0 array with blazing read and write speeds of up to 10.632MB/s and 10149MB/s.
Scar's 2560 × 1440 average of 104 fps and 83 fps in Horizon Zero Dawn and Borderlands 3 means you have enough speed to smoothly play any top-notch game at 60fps without compromising on settings. You'll handle ray tracing, and you can output games to 4K displays, widescreen monitors, and VR headphones with minimal setup cuts.
The average of 361 fps in the 1440p Rainbow Six Siege means you got the pace of esports to compete on a 240Hz screen and to export to 360Hz panels.
There's more gaming pace here than Alienware can offer: Scar's 3D Mark Time Spy score of 13,090 was ahead of this laptop. You can get a little extra by switching to Turbo mode as well – this option saw Scar's Time Spy score improve to 13684. The still-respectable score of 10.140 in silent mode enables mainstream gaming to be played at low noise levels. Of the laptops listed here, only MSI was consistently faster than Asus – and even then, not much.
In Geekbench single- and multi-core tests, the i9-12950HX scored 1788 and 14986, with nearly 3,000 points behind the Core i7-12700H used inside Alienware and only behind the monster MSI notebook. This multi-core score improved to 15755 in Turbo mode and only dropped to 13474 in silent mode.
You'll be able to run high-end photo editing tasks, 4K video editing workloads, and other content creation apps on this laptop, and multitasking is not a problem.
The cooling system of the version also works well. Even when navigating games, the Strix is one of the quietest gaming laptops, it beats the noisy MSI, and matches the Alienware. Internal speakers or headset will cope with noise even in the most difficult situations. The outside was not hot either.
It's a great scar health bill, but you have options if you want more strength. In terms of graphics, the heart of the upcoming RTX 4080 should be about 20% faster than the RTX 3080 Ti. You'll find that the GPU is inside the 2023 version, the G16 and G18 as well, and the prices shouldn't deviate too much from this device's price of $3399/£3499/€3599.
On the processing side, the Scar's 2023 version uses the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX processor, while the G16 and G18 equivalent platforms use the Intel Core i9-13980HX equivalent. The AMD chip reaches around 17,000 points in the Geekbench multi-core test, while the new Intel CPU beats 21,000 points.
If you don't need that speed, you can still consider the 2022 Scar's model. When it comes to mainstream gameplay and content creation, it will do anything, and the price will likely drop when these updated models are released.
Should you buy scar 2022 or 2023? It is difficult, no matter what ingredients it contains. There's no denying the performance on offer, and it has a good screen – but it should have better connectivity, build quality, and ergonomics. It's fast, but you'll find more dexterity elsewhere.
battery
One hour of playtime and three hours of practical use
Future laptops will not make significant improvements in this section
It's no surprise that the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE doesn't offer great battery life even with a 90Wh power pack. Expect about an hour of longevity when playing, just under three hours in the daily work standard, and four hours if you watch movies with the screen at low brightness.
These results are not great, but they are not surprising. Alienware's laptop has never been better here and MSI has outperformed both of its competitors. And don't expect the 2023 version to improve - it retains the same 90Wh power pack. The G16 and G18 also have 90Wh batteries.