I'm in. This Asus RTX 5080 gaming laptop nails speed, style, and price

Price When Reviewed

$3,299.99

Best Prices Today: Asus ROG Strix Scar 16

$3059.99

$3299.99

The launch of Nvidia’s RTX 50-series cell GPUs has, in fact, spawned a brand new era of high-end gaming laptops designed round them. Asus’ ROG Strix Scar 16 is among the many extra affordable options on this new line-up—although I’m undecided most individuals would name the laptop computer’s $3,299.99 MSRP “affordable.” Even so, the Scar 16’s pricing and efficiency make it worth. The Scar 16 additionally gives a couple of extras like an enormous touchpad and top-tier audio, that rivals are likely to skip.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Specs and options

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 is a part of a brand new wave of laptops powered by Nvidia RTX 50-series graphics and Intel Core Ultra HX processors.

This configuration is a step down from probably the most succesful, because it has an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (as a substitute of 285HX) and RTX 5080 (as a substitute of RTX 5090). Still, these chips are only a step down from the highest and nonetheless highly effective when in comparison with most laptop computer {hardware}.

• Model quantity: G635LW
• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX
• Memory: 32GB DDR5-5600
• Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 5080 (Max 175W with Dynamic Boost)
• NPU: Intel AI Boost as much as 13 TOPS
• Display: 16-inch 2560×1600 240Hz Mini-LED IPS-LCD
• Storage: 2TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD
• Webcam: 1080p 30fps digicam with Windows Hello assist
• Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 5 with DisplayPort / Power Delivery and G-Sync, 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL, 3x USB-A Gen 2 (10Gbps), 1x 3.5mm combo audio jack, 1x 2.5G Ethernet LAN port
• Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Biometrics: Facial recognition
• Battery capability: 90 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 13.94 x 10.55 x 1.21
• Weight: 6.17 kilos
• Other options: Aura Sync gentle options (gentle bar, brand, RGB keyboard), AniMe imaginative and prescient LED lid
• Operating System: Windows 11 Pro
• Price: $3,299.99 MSRP

Asus’ pricing is affordable. The Strix Scar 16 I reviewed retails at an MSRP of $3,299.99. That’s in keeping with comparable laptops just like the Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 ($3,099.99) and the MSI Vector HX AI 16 ($3,519.99).

As talked about, Asus additionally sells this mannequin of the Strix Scar 16 with an Nvidia RTX 5090, however selecting that improve bumps the value by $1,000 to $4,299.99.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Design and construct high quality

IDG / Matthew Smith

Asus has invested a whole lot of effort into the design of its high-end gaming laptops not too long ago, and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 reaps the dividends.

At first look, it appears moderately fundamental. The laptop computer is constructed from black matte plastics that don’t stand out. Turn it on, although, and also you’ll instantly discover the Asus “AniMe Matrix” LED gentle panel constructed into the lid. You’ve in all probability seen it earlier than, however for those who haven’t, refer to this video. Basically, the AniMe Matrix is a monocolor white LED show that may present easy data (just like the time) or animated photographs. I find it irresistible.

The laptop computer additionally advantages from RGB-LED lighting components round its perimeter, the ROG brand, and the keyboard. This design is typical for a laptop computer within the Scar 16’s value bracket, however it appears good. The laptop computer additionally helps Asus Aura Sync RGB-LED gentle syncing, which may sync lighting themes throughout a number of supported units.

Looks apart, the Scar 16’s construct high quality is par for the class. The plastics really feel good, with the inside offering a little bit of a soft-touch texture, and the chassis is inflexible. However, you’ll nonetheless discover flex for those who choose the laptop computer up from one nook whereas it’s open or when opening the show lid.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Keyboard, trackpad

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 has a spacious keyboard and lacks a numpad. That second level is vital. A lacking numpad will disappoint some homeowners but in addition permits a extra spacious structure that’s correctly centered. Personally, I favor laptops with no numpad on this measurement class, however your opinion could differ.

Key really feel is sweet, if not superb. There’s good key journey and a agency response, however the bottoming motion is slightly vaguer and rubberier than I’d favor. I’m nitpicking right here, although. It’s a wonderfully gratifying keyboard, and I had no downside utilizing it for hours at a time.

The touchpad is the place the Scar 16 outmaneuvers most rivals. It’s big, measuring about six inches large and 4 inches deep. Many rivals, together with the MSI Vector 16 HX and Gigabyte Aorus Master 16, have smaller touchpads. A spacious touchpad is best for multi-touch gestures and customarily permits a extra responsive really feel.

You’ll additionally discover “NumLK” printed on the touchpad. Press it, and the touchpad floor turns right into a numpad. It’s higher than nothing, I suppose, however I wouldn’t need to need to depend on it.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Display, audio

IDG / Matthew Smith

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 has a 16-inch show with 2560×1600 decision, a most refresh price of 240Hz, and a Mini-LED backlight behind an IPS-LCD show. It contrasts sharply towards the OLED shows present in some rivals.

First, the positives. The Scar 16’s Mini-LED panel is splendidly brilliant, appears glorious in HDR, and has a large coloration gamut. Contrast efficiency is spectacular, too, although you will note blooming (within the type of halos round brilliant objects) that doesn’t happen on an OLED show.

On the opposite hand, rivals with an OLED show can have a deeper, extra immersive picture, thanks each to their unimaginable distinction and lack of blooming. OLED additionally supplies superior movement readability resulting from its decrease pixel response occasions, which scale back movement blur. The Scar 16’s Mini-LED continues to be crisp, however fast-moving objects have extra element on an OLED show, like that discovered within the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i.

The Scar 16 helps G-Sync, which is a vital level. G-Sync permits the show to synchronize its refresh price with a sport’s body price to attain higher movement readability and remove ugly picture artifacts like display screen tearing.

Oh, and one last observe. The Scar 16 has a semi-gloss panel, whereas most OLED laptops have a shiny panel.

The Scar 16’s audio is intelligent. It packs tweeters right into a soundbar hidden in a hump alongside the show hinge. They’re adequately subtle that it took me a couple of half-minute to determine the place, precisely, the audio was coming from. These tweeters are paired with downward-firing subwoofers. The result’s a loud, well-balanced sound system that’s genuinely entertaining.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 has a 1080p webcam and a dual-array microphone. Neither is outstanding, however each do the job. The webcam is crisp in good lighting, and the microphone picked up my voice with good quantity and readability at the same time as I spoke softly.

Biometric login is supported by means of Windows Hello facial recognition. It works nice, as with most laptops which have the characteristic (and it’s very widespread lately). The laptop computer doesn’t have a fingerprint reader.  

Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Connectivity

IDG / Matthew Smith

The star of the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16’s connectivity is a pair of Thunderbolt 5 ports on the laptop computer’s left flank. These ports assist USB-C, have excessive knowledge charges (80Gbps bi-directional/120Gbps uni-directional) and DisplayPort, so that they’re an amazing choice for connecting to high-speed storage or a show. They additionally assist Power Delivery, however it will not be enough to completely energy the laptop computer when it’s underneath excessive load.

These ports are joined by three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, an HDMI 2.1-out, a 2.5G Ethernet LAN port, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. These are typical ports for a laptop computer on this class.

Unfortunately, the Scar 16’s port configuration is sub-par. The left flank homes many of the ports, together with the Thunderbolt 5 and HDMI ports. That decreases versatility, because it means you’ll have to snake cords across the laptop computer in case your peripherals occur to be to the laptop computer’s proper. Some of the ports are very far ahead, too, so that you’re going to see cable litter.

To be truthful, most 16-inch gaming laptops have the identical downside. Still, putting at the least some ports on the laptop computer’s rear could be higher, and it’s one thing to remember when contemplating how the Scar 16 will slot in your setup.

Wireless connectivity is powerful, although typical, with assist for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 (the newest model of every commonplace). All the aggressive laptops I may discover supply the identical wi-fi connectivity, however it’s nonetheless good to see.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Performance

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 has an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU with a complete of 24 cores (8 efficiency cores and 16 environment friendly cores). That’s paired with Nvidia’s RTX 5080, which, on this case, is given entry to the utmost supported graphics energy (175 watts counting Dynamic Boost). The CPU and GPU are supported by 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 stable state drive.

IDG / Matthew Smith

We kick issues off in PCMark, a holistic system take a look at. Here the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 reached a wonderful rating of 8,383.

That’s extraordinarily quick, defeating most laptops examined final 12 months by a large margin. However, because the graph reveals, new rivals with comparable {hardware} scored a hair higher.

IDG / Matthew Smith

Handbrake is a video encoding and transcoding program. Our benchmark converts a two-hour-long movie from MP4 to MKV format utilizing the CPU. It tends to be a long-duration take a look at, however the Scar 16 with Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX chewed by means of it in simply seven minutes.

While that is behind the Scar 16’s rivals, the margins listed here are so slim that they’re not significant. That’s excellent news for the Scar 16, because it’s inexpensive than the opposite Intel Core Ultra 9 HX laptops we examined.

IDG / Matthew Smith

It’s a special story in Cinebench R23, nonetheless, the place the Scar 16 reached a rating of 30,717. While the Scar 16 continues to be sooner than many cell CPUs, it falls noticeably behind the Lenovo Legion 7i Pro and MSI Raider 18 HX AI.

Overall, the Scar 16’s CPU efficiency is excellent however clearly a step behind the leaders. That’s not an enormous downside, although, as a result of the Scar 16 can also be extra moderately priced, and it’s nonetheless loads quick for a variety of duties, from gaming to video enhancing and far more.

Of course, for a lot of patrons, the Scar 16’s CPU efficiency is only a nice-to-have. This is a laptop computer constructed and offered for gaming. So, how does the Nvidia RTX 5080 carry out?

IDG / Matthew Smith

3DMark’s Time Spy and Port Royale benchmarks peg the Scar 16 off to a stable, although anticipated stage of efficiency. It trades blows with the 2 various RTX 5080 gaming laptops we’ve examined up to now. While there are some small variations in efficiency, they’re basically tied in these benchmarks. We’ll want to have a look at video games to seek out important variations.

IDG / Matthew Smith

Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which we run with out using DLSS or raytracing, is an efficient illustration of high-end titles from the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 console era. Of course, the Scar 16 with RTX 5080 has no downside on this title and averaged 189 frames per second at 1080p and highest element. With that mentioned, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i leapt far forward on this sport.

IDG / Matthew Smith

Metro Exodus is a cross-generation title. We don’t run it with DLSS or raytracing enabled, however we do use the acute preset at 1080p decision, which lives as much as its title. Even the mighty RTX 5080 doesn’t fairly beat a mean of 100 fps.

The story for the Scar 16 is a much less excessive model of the Shadow of the Tomb Raider outcomes. The Scar 16 is a bit behind, and the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i runs forward. Still, I wouldn’t name this an enormous loss for the Asus.

IDG / Matthew Smith

Now let’s try Cyberpunk 2077, a current-generation title that’s consistently up to date to embrace the newest options. I ran the sport at 1080p in each the Ultra preset and the ray-traced Overdrive preset. All types of picture upscaling and body era had been disabled.

These are the type of outcomes I wish to see, as a result of they make my job straightforward. The Scar 16 as soon as once more finally ends up a bit behind the competitors, however not a lot in order that it’s prone to take the Scar 16 out of rivalry. That’s very true within the Overdrive preset, the place the decrease common framerates amongst all examined programs scale back the obvious gaps between them.

I additionally tried the Scar 16 in Overdrive mode with the DLSS Transformer Model and DLSS Frame Generation in use, with DLSS Quality chosen. That boosted the Scar 16’s efficiency fairly a bit, to a mean of 63 frames per second. So, it’s solely potential to get pleasure from Cyberpunk with ray tracing on the Scar 16.

Overall, the Scar 16’s efficiency is exactly what I anticipated getting into. The Scar 16 is a bit inexpensive than different laptops with Nvidia RTX 5080 that PC World has reviewed up to now. It’s additionally a lot smaller than some, just like the MSI Raider 18 HX AI, which weighs about two kilos extra. Given its value and measurement, it’s affordable to count on the Scar 16 could be slightly slower than the options, and that’s what occurred.

Fortunately for Asus, the Scar 16’s efficiency drawback is just not important sufficient to matter in lots of conditions, and particularly in gaming. The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i posted higher sport efficiency total, however it’s additionally $300 dearer, so the selection between them actually comes all the way down to your price range and desire.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Battery life, portability

Gaming laptops just like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 aren’t often nice for battery life, however there’s cause to have hope for the Scar 16. It helps Nvidia Optimus and doesn’t require a reboot between hybrid and full-GPU mode; you’ll be able to simply flip it on or off within the settings. Advanced Optimus can also be in use by default and will robotically flip the Nvidia GPU off when it’s not required.

IDG / Matthew Smith

And but, the Scar 16 didn’t do effectively in our commonplace battery take a look at, which loops a 4K file of the quick movie Tears of Steel. It appeared that the Nvidia GPU was engaged anyway. The Intel Core Ultra 9 isn’t significantly power-efficient, which I believe had some impression on the outcomes.

In the true world, I discovered the Scar 16’s battery life to be extraordinarily variable.

I feel 5 or 6 hours could be potential in a light-load state of affairs, however two to 4 hours is extra typical. Note, too, that the situation I’m describing continues to be a modest workload; I’m shopping the online with a couple of tabs open, enhancing pictures, and writing in Word. Playing a sport will drain the battery much more rapidly. 

In any case, the Scar 16 isn’t transportable, in any case, weighing over six kilos and measuring as much as 1.21 inches thick. These are regular figures for a gaming laptop computer, however greater than I need to pack day-to-day. The laptop computer’s massive 380-watt energy brick doesn’t assist issues.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Conclusion

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 is a stable 16-inch gaming laptop computer for buyers seeking to snag Nvidia’s cell RTX 5080. Nvidia’s GPU performs fairly effectively right here, solely barely lagging the efficiency of bigger 18-inch programs. It’s the same story for the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, which, although a step down from the 285Hx, continues to be extraordinarily quick in any multi-core take a look at.

Asus’ design is a bonus as effectively, with a sexy “AniMe Matrix” show throughout the laptop computer’s lid and respectable construct high quality. On the draw back, the laptop computer’s battery life wasn’t nice regardless of the inclusion of Nvidia Optimus to change off the GPU in some conditions. I additionally suppose the location of the bodily ports, which line the edges of the laptop computer, is inconvenient.

Priced at $3,299.99, the Scar 16’s pricing is mid-pack amongst its direct rivals, although most land inside a pair hundred {dollars}. I feel the Scar’s design gives some benefits over the Gigabyte Aorus Master 16 and MSI Vector 16 HX AI (like a big touchpad).

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is the Scar 16’s most troublesome opponent. It has an OLED show, which I favor, and carried out a bit higher total. However, the Lenovo is $3,599.99. At MSRP, I’d in all probability nonetheless go along with the Lenovo, however a $100 or $200 low cost on the Scar 16 may push me in that path.

Overall, the Scar 16 is a well-priced, high-end gaming laptop computer that delivers robust CPU and GPU efficiency.