ASUS ROG Strix Scar G835L

One brilliant move - the stickers. They are on the packaging plastic, and not on the actual computer and the display. This feels like it should have been a rule long ago, and I hope others follow this.

Despite being relatively slim for a gaming laptop, the ROG Strix Scar 18 does come with all guns blazing as it, in the tested and most expensive version, provides you with an Intel Ultra 9 CPU with 24 cores and running at 5.4GHz on the performance core, and an RTX 5090 boosted to 1647 Mhz and utilizing a massive 24GB of VRAM. If you are up for it, you can actually boost this additionally.

The performance mindset continues, despite having 2x2TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 (5.0 is perhaps still getting a bit too hot for laptops), you don't get 4TB as they are set up as RAID 0, but they are fast as hell. This means access times down to 72 my-seconds, and bandwidth speeds of 1830 MB/S using 3D Benchmark Storage test. Our test unit had 64GB DDR5 that for some reason operated at 5600 Mh. Most versions will have 32GB.

The cooling comes from a tri-fan vapor-chamber platform using Conductonaut liquid metal for interfacing 18" Mini LED, 2000+ dimming zones, 1600p resolution, 240Hz/3ms response time, and 100% DCI-P3. Pure OLED had been nice, but the colours are extremely vivid, and the brightness is extremely impressive.

The overall build-quality is really nice, the finish itself does match the price, its generally very solid and very clear that most parts are made with metal. It does however also increase the weight, which is already considerable as the external power supply could easily hold down a small child.

Unlike many others, who would like to incorporate everything with shortcuts and multi functionality, Asus has kept the traditional design with dedicated keys for media and fan control. I'll extend some thanks for that; it makes daily usage so much easier.

The battery life on such a beast isn't very impressive, however, it does support 100 Watt charging, so no having the massive power brick along isn't a problem as such - because otherwise getting more than three hours out of it is a problem, even when you switch off the graphics card and don't game. You can game around an hour, and on the other extreme, turn down the screen brightness to almost nothing, disable everything and get about 5 hours out of it. Not bad for a laptop with these specs.

There are three settings, silent, performance, turbo. Nothing more is needed, great approach. And the price is, well, surprisingly "only" 5400 Euro. I had expected a lot more given the current situation in regards to supply of components, so not cheap, but cheap-ish for an RTX 5090 equipped laptop.

There is actually a fourth mode, manual, that allows for some slight additional overlcoking, but as we expect most users to oversee this - and the fact that the CPU hits 100 degrees in normal Turbo mode, we do not recommend using it at all. You also get a big red warning sign, its annoying to activate, and the results didnt always beat the ones in normal Turbo mode. So we used the latter for benching. The GPU only hit 71 degrees, and the noise was impressively low at 36.4 dB.

So lets get on with the Benchmarking:

3D Benchmark

• Speed Way: 6395


• Steel Nomad: 6133


• Port Royal: 16276


• Time Spy Extreme: 12138


• Fire Strike Ultra: 14943

Cyberpunk 2077 - Ray Tracing Ultra

• 1080p: 82,13


• 1600p: 102,65

Ved brug af Quality 2x Frame Generation - Transformer Model

• 1080p: 185,89


• 1600p: 138,88

Total War: Warhammer III - Ultra-setings

• 1080p: 177,8


• 1600p: 123,4

Assassin's Creed Shadows - Ultra High-settings, DLSS Quality

• 1600p: 62


• 1200p: 67

Using Quality - 2x Frame Generation - Transformer Model
1600p: 107
1200p: 114

Star Wars Outlaws

• 1080p: 119


• 1600p: 74

Using Quality 2x Frame Generation - Transformer Model

• 1080p: 199


• 1600p: 133

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II, Ultra settings

• 1080p: 139


• 1600p: 119

Using Quality 2x Frame Generation - Transformer Model
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• 1080p: 252


• 1600p: 185

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - High-settings

• 1080p: 111


• 1600p: 108

Using Quality 2x Frame Generation - Transformer Model

• 1080p: 233


• 1600p: 26

The RTX 5090 really sets it apart from the competition. The price is just right and aggressive, and the display is bright and vivid. The only thing is, I strongly recommend a manual undervolt/underclocking of the CPU - running 100 degrees permanently isnt a good idea at any level and should really be avoided. That is also easy to do via the Armoury Crate software. But other than that, this is an extreme beast to carry around.