I ’ve now reviewed my 2d laptop make around Intel ’s newest Arrow Lake - HX chipset and Nvidia ’s Blackwell GPU architecture . The first , theLenovo Legion Pro 7i , was very fast and lived up to the hype , while being a very large 16 - inchgaming laptopwith some nice aesthetic panache .
The 2nd is the Asus ROG Strix SCAR 18 , and it ’s even enceinte , with a striking 18 - in mini - LED display that ’s the best one I ’ve reviewed yet . It ’s also very fast , although a tiny bit behind , and it , too , offers up a lot to gamers looking for a great , kind of portable gaming machine .
Specs and configurations
The ROG Strix SCAR 18 will be available in a few configurations , only some of which are uncommitted as this reassessment is being written . The substructure model will include an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX chipset , which is common to all configuration , along with 16 GB of RAM , a 1 TB SSD , a 16.0 - inch QHD+ mini - LED display ( the only option ) , and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti . upgrade to an RTX 5080 and a 2 TB SSD brings the price to $ 3,400 , while an RTX 5090 boosts the terms to $ 4,500 .
Those are expensive prices , but of course , you get a lot of play laptop . It ’s a sight more expensive than the Legion Pro 7i , which come in at $ 3,399 with a Core Ultra 9 275HX , 32 GB of RAM , two 1 TB SSDs , the RTX 5080 , and a 16.0 - in QHD+ OLED exhibit . But I suppose much of that price difference is down to the big and very proficient mini - LED panel that Asus is using with the ROG Strix SCAR 18 .
Design
There ’s no mode around it : the ROG Strix SCAR 18 is a very large laptop . Of of course , packing so much magnate into a build that also needs to house an 18.0 - inch video display would be pretty grueling to do and keep things lissom at the same time . TheRazer Blade 18is a small fragile at 1.1 inch versus 1.26 inch , and lighter at 7.06 pound sign versus 7.28 pounds . But these 18 - inch gaming laptops are just self-aggrandising . You ’ll have to portion out with it if you require such a large display that can be carried around in one piece .
The ROG Strix SCAR 18 is reconstruct of a mix of material , including aluminum in the keyboard deck and plastic in the bottom flesh and lid . It ’s solid enough , with no bending , flexing , or whirl . I ’m sure the Razer Blade 18 might come across as better made , ease up Razer ’s devotion to make the mostMacBook Pro - like play laptops . But there ’s nothing amiss with Asus ’s construction .
In damage of its aesthetics , the ROG Strix SCAR 18 incorporates most of the things gamers want to see in their machine . First , there ’s plenty of RGB firing , including the per - key RGB lighting on the keyboard , the full - surroundings RGD LED ’s lining the underside of the chassis all the way around , and the large ROG logotype on the eyelid that pulsate according to what ’s frame-up in the Armoury Crate utility program . And the blanched Asus AniMe Vision LEDs on the lid are quite striking , showing a variety of present and usance messages that hang like a high - tech ticker magnetic tape .
At the same time , the overall plan does n’t include some of the more aggressive gamer touches like jet fighter exhaust discharge on the back . The vents on the ROG Strix SCAR 18 are more pedestrian and functional , and neither supply to nor detract from the overall gamer esthetic . The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i has RGB LED light up around its champion jet exhausts and it looks pretty cool . The ROG Strix SCAR 18 lacks those sort of hint . Whether that matter will be down to private preference .
Overall , I like the design . Yes , it ’s large and bulky , but like I said , that ’s really unavoidable .
Keyboard and touchpad
The ROG Strix SCAR 18 keyboard is a bit of a mixed bag . As mentioned above , it has per - cardinal RGB ignition that look groovy . And it ’s pretty talkative , even with the numeral computer keyboard for macro obligate in various game . If found the keycaps funnily lowly , though , which made it harder than necessary to keep my fingers on home dustup . And the switches are recondite and springy enough for play , but not quite as comforting as I wish . I did n’t really love typing this revue on the keyboard , but gamers will believably find it just enough , if not the salutary they ’ve used .
The touchpad was disappointing . It ’s big , but the buttons were n’t very responsive . I took to using an external computer mouse because I witness myself repeatedly trying to click to get thing done , and it was frustrating . Most gamers will use play mice , so that ’s probably not as much of an issue . But it ’s certainly not a strength .
Connectivity and webcam
There ’s plenty of connectivity , with a commixture of ultramodern Thunderbolt 5 ports and legacy connexion . That include a 2.5 K RJ45 Ethernet port , which will be appreciated for those who do n’t desire to game wirelessly . My biggest complaint is that all the ports are on the side , where putting them on the back would keep them out of the way . Wireless connectivity is fully up - to - appointment .
The webcam is a 1080p version , and it ’s fine . It has an infrared photographic camera for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition , which I appreciate . The Arrow Lake - HX chipset does n’t have a immobile Neural Processing Unit ( NPU ) , and so the ROG Strix SCAR 18 is n’t a Microsoft Copilot+ PC laptop computer . That ’s probably fine , because if you want to habituate this laptop for AI processing , you ’ll want to use the incredibly fast Nvidia Blackwell GPU .
Performance
This is just the second laptop I ’ve review with Intel ’s Arrow Lake - HX chipset , the Core Ultra 9 275HX . It has 24 core group ( eight public presentation and 16 Efficient ) , running at up to 5.4 GHz and consuming 55 Watt of power , promote to a utmost of 160 Watt . Asus throw it up to 65 W in its configuration . The Core Ultra 9 275HX is a very firm chipset , with slightly fast heart and soul that ensue in slimly quicker multi - core score over the premature generation Core i9 - 14900HX with around the same canonical specs . I observe a discrepancy between Asus ’s WWW situation where it tell the central processing unit can get up to 80 Watt , while my public press stuff say it ’s 65 watts .
The Strix SCAR 18 is also the 2d I ’ve review with an Nvidia Blackwell 5000 - series GPU , the GeForce RTX 5080 . It has Nvidia ’s newest CUDA Congress of Racial Equality , streaming multiprocessor , and RT and tensor cores , and it powers Nvidia ’s DLSS 4 that leverages on - gadget AI processing speeds for much faster scaling and form generation with an eye toward dramatically improving visual quality while running at interchangeable framerates to the former generation . It also boosts performance in labor like television editing with ripe encryption / decode engine . Asus give the RTX 175 up to 175 watts , sum up 240 W — just a spot less than the 250 watt Lenovo gives to the Legion Pro 7i . Again , that ’s per my press material , while the Asus vane website allege it ’s up to 255 watts . If I can get that clarify , I ’ll update the followup .
Asus includes its Armoury Crate utility that provide view finder command over execution than Lenovo ’s LegionSpace usefulness in the Legion Pro 7i . In addition to several performance - based presets , you may enter a manual mode where you may get more granulose in configuring the processor and GPU . I did n’t dig up into the scene , but they there for anyone who wants to fully optimized carrying out . In our benchmarks , I used the Windows , Performance , and Turbo options and reported the latter in the board below .
The Asus ROG Intelligent cool down organization make great use of all that interior blank , with an ending - to - ending vapor chamber , triple fans , and Liquid Metal helping to keep thing nerveless . The fans spun up during acute sitting , specially in Turbo mode , but they were slightly quieter than with the Legion Pro 7i . I ’ve used gaming laptops that were a lot louder and where the fan noise was harsher .
In our standard suite of benchmarks , the two Arrow Lake - HX / Blackwell laptops perform similarly , with the Lenovo machine being slenderly faster across the board . That might be down to either the slight addition in power or more aggressive tuning . Both are much faster than previous generation Windows laptop computer in most of our benchmarks , with only the Asus ROG Flow Z13 ( a very diminutive simple machine ) being quicker in Geekbench 6 multi - substance with its AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ 935 chipset . But there ’s no doubt that the Strix SCAR 18 will be very fast for the most demanding productiveness undertaking .
originative professionals looking for a fast Windows laptop for photo redaction and video redaction , along with user that use 3D blueprint and rendering software system , often look to game laptops given their eminent - end components and focus on pure performance . The Pugetbench Premiere Pro and Photoshop benchmark fly the coop in the hot rendering of each Adobe app and give a good indication of a laptop computer ’s performance for demand Almighty . The Strix SCAR 18 is very fast in both , even vanquish out the Apple MacBook Pro 16 in the Premiere Pro benchmark where the M4 Max chipset benefits from fast encryption / decoding circuitry . Again , the Legion Pro 7i was faster .
Gaming
As mentioned above , the Nvidia Blackwell 5000 - series is aimed at provide like framerates to the late 4000 - series GPUs , but dramatically enhance optic quality . It does this by using various AI - powered mental process for upscaling and soma multiplication , using Blackwell ’s very fast AI functioning . The ocular improvements are hit , for indisputable , but we do n’t presently benchmark performance using any game that fully suffer DLSS 4 and so will show off the visual impact .
So far , the two RTX 5080 laptop I ’ve review have been very fast , but not necessarily much quicker in various games than previous 4000 - serial laptops . Which is to say , you ’re not leave up performance across the board , you ’re getting much better visual caliber , and you ’ll see performance increases as plot become more optimized . There ’s nothing wrong with that . Note that I ran some benchmarks with the Strix SCAR 18 GPU set at the highest setting , but it made no departure in the benchmarks .
In the synthetic 3DMark Time Spy benchmark , the ROG Strix SCAR 18 was slightly behind the Legion Pro 7i , and we ’ll see that this pattern held in all of our bench mark . As with our non - gaming benchmarks , the Asus is just a little slower than the Lenovo . That ’s likely down to tune up , but the differences in all likelihood wo n’t be enough to pull a determination .
break up down by individual games — and all listed resultant role are in each laptop computer ’s high public presentation style — we ’ll start withCivilization VI . This deed benefits from incommode very fast processor and very fast GPU carrying into action , and like the Legion Pro 7i , the Strix SCAR 18 was very fast at guide it .
InCyberpunk 2077 , the Strix SCAR 18 was slightly behind the Legion Pro 7i , while theLenovo Legion 9i Gen 9with an RTX 4090 was the fastest in this comparing grouping . I surmise that the RTX 5090 will take the top spot in this secret plan , although again , I would n’t carry a massive increased .
InRed Dead Redemption , the Asus was in reality the second - tedious laptop computer . For whatever reason , it fell further behind than in the other title . It ’s still quite playable at 1600p and Ultra art , but this biz was n’t it ’s best viewing ,
Finally , Assassin ’s Creed Valhallashowed that the laptops we ’ve tested have been around the same level of performance . And it ’s very tight .
Overall , once again , the ROG Strix SCAR 18 did n’t break any records , and in fact did n’t keep up with some RTX 4000 - serial publication laptop computer , but it was more than tight enough for most gamers in these older titles . I mistrust that these results will only improve .
Battery life
We try barrage life with gambling laptops , and invariably , we reach the same ratiocination . These are n’t laptops that you should plan to carry around and utilize without being plugged in , specially for their master use of gambling which pushes every component to its limits . And then turn over the size of it and weighting of the ROG Strix SCAR 18 , this is n’t really meant to be carried around all that much at all . you could move it from place to place for gaming sessions , but you ’ll be carrying the very large and heavy major power brick along with you regardless .
In our web browse and video intertwine assault and battery tests , the laptop computer barely made it to two time of day , and in our more demanding Cinebench R24 test , it did n’t make it to an hour . A 90 W - hour battery just ca n’t keep up with knock-down components and a very power - thirsty 18 - inch mini - LED display . Just plan on keeping the matter plug in .
Display and audio
I ’ve review a few mini - go displays , and they all been pretty good . That includes the MacBook Pro 16 , which until now has had the best example . The Strix SCAR 18 , though , might beat them all in some very important metrics . It ’s an 18.0 - column inch 16:10 QHD+ ( 2560 x 1600 ) mini - result jury running at up to 240Hz . It ’s improbably bright and has glorious color . It ’s not as sharp as the MacBook Pro 16 ’s presentation , being both lower declaration and much bigger . But for gamers , it anticipate outstanding high dynamic range ( HDR ) carrying into action along with a super libertine refresh pace that supports Nvidia G - Sync for rent - free gaming .
My Datacolor SpyderPro colorimeter capture the objective excellency of this panel . It ’s incredibly promising at 1,084 nits , which is brighter than the MacBook Pro 16 ’s 585 nit with SDR content . Apple ’s control board can peak as high at 1,600 nits with HDR , but in terminus of sustained SDR brightness , the Asus comes out on top . And , its demarcation proportion is incredibly hight at 16,310:1 , pulsate out the MacBook Pro 16 ’s 12,940:1 . Both have deep blacks , but the Strix SCAR 18 is a bit deeper . The colours are also wide at 100 % sRGB , 89 % AdobeRGB , and 100 % DCI - P3 , with splendid color accuracy at DeltaE 1.05 ( less than 1.0 is undistinguishable to the human oculus ) . The MacBook Pro 16 comes in at 100 % , 87 % , and 99 % , severally , along with DeltaE 1.18 .
The one negative of mini - conduce versus , say , OLED display , is that there can be some blooming on brilliant objects against black background . I did n’t comment anything important , and unless you ’re in a very dark environment , you may not detect it either . rather , everything looked dramatic , and HDR content was dandy . That ’s for both gaming and HDR medium cognitive content . This is a very honest show that will show off every secret plan you play , and will take advantage of all the power this laptop provides .
Audio is provide by two-fold tweeters and downward - firing speakers , and quite frankly , it ’s not all that telling . It set out trashy , but there ’s some optical aberration at full volume , and sea bass was observably lacking . I strongly advise a good pair of gaming earphone — which you ’ll probably already plan on using .
A very large, and very awesome, gaming laptop
If you desire a gaming machine that you could stuff around with you and do n’t might the girth and weight , the ROG Strix SCAR 18 will reinforce you even while it gives you a slight exercise . To set about with , the large size of it is necessary to gain access to that awesome mini - LED presentation that ’s as bright and colourful as any I ’ve reviewed — and even full than most .
And then the carrying into action is also fantabulous , even if it ’s not the fastest I ’ve review . It will keep up with everything you throw at it , from punt to originative workflows , without transgress a sudor . It ’s not cheap , but that ’s not to be expect with such a well - design gaming machine .
