Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE (2022) Review
A big gaming laptop with a big performance
Verdict
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE offers blistering pace inside a bold package that includes a good screen, but its connectivity and ergonomics could do with improvement – and laptops coming soon are set to offer even more speed
Pros
- Incredible gaming and app power
- Bright, bold 240Hz screen
- Comfortable keyboard
- Eye-catching RGB LED design
Cons
- Forthcoming laptops are faster
- Underwhelming connectivity
- Poor battery life
- Extremely expensive
Availability
- UKRRP: £3499
- USARRP: $3399
- EuropeRRP: €3599
Key Features
- Top-tier Nvidia and Intel componentsThe Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and Intel Core i9-12950HX are both at the peak of their powers in this laptop, which means you’ve got the gaming grunt for any big title and the processing pace for tough content creation workloads.
- A large screen with a high refresh rateThe 17.3in display, 2560 x 1440 resolution and 240Hz refresh rate all combine to deliver the crisp detail, high speeds and impressive quality required by any kind of game, from big-screen bangers to top esports titles.
- A bold, RGB LED-filled designThere aren’t many laptops with more RGB LEDs than the Asus – they’re in the keyboard and the logo, underneath the lid and around the base. When paired with the translucent keyboard deck it makes for an eye-catching design.
Introduction
Asus is well-known for making some of the boldest and most exciting gaming products on the market, and the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE does nothing to break from that hard-won reputation.
This monster portable surrounds its 17.3-inch display with loads of RGB LED lighting, and on the inside you’ll find enough power to handle anything alongside a 240Hz screen.
I’ve reviewed the G733CX-LL014W model, and it’s not cheap. US residents need to pay $3399 for this monster, and in the UK it arrives at £3499. In Europe, expect to pay north of €3599.
That’s a huge amount of cash for any bit of tech, even one of the best gaming laptops of 2023, and it sees the Asus sidle right up against the Alienware x17 R2 – but that laptop is more expensive. Replicate the ROG’s specification on the x17 and it costs $3999 / £3759 / €4199, although you do get screens with higher refresh rates. There’s also the MSI Raider GE77, which is even more expensive.
It’s also worth considering whether you should save up for the forthcoming 2023 version of this rig or some other Asus gaming laptops that will emerge later this year – so I’ve compared the Strix to those options, too.
Design and Keyboard
- Bold, bright design packed with game-friendly touches
- Connectivity is only mediocre
- The keyboard is fast and responsive
There’s no shortage of customisable lighting here. A ring of light stretches around three edges of the base and more lights illuminate the logo. The keyboard has per-key lighting, and there’s even a strip of lighting beneath the screen.
Whole swathes of the base use translucent plastic that enables gamers to get a glimpse of circuit boards. You even get replaceable hinge covers to bring a different look to your laptop.
There’s no denying this laptop looks the part, but it’s underwhelming in practical areas. Build quality could be better: this is a 3.1kg laptop that’s 28mm thick, but the metal around the keyboard flexes too much. Alienware’s laptop may be pricier, but it’s slimmer, sturdier and looks more mature.
I wish external connectivity was better, too. The Asus has two full-size USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, but they sit next to each other – deploy a large peripheral and the other port is inaccessible. The Asus has a Thunderbolt 4 port and a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 connection alongside HDMI 2.1, but there’s no card reader, fingerprint scanner or webcam. The MSI is notably better in this department, with more ports and an SD card slot.
The ROG does have 2.5Gbps Ethernet, dual-band Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, but that’s cold comfort given the omissions elsewhere. Annoyingly, the right edge only offers a slot for the gimmicky Asus Keystone NFC feature.
The Special Edition branding changes things, too. Positively, the internals have better cooling with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut Extreme paste. Negatively, the laptop includes a marketing game called Scar Runner. Invisible ink on the lid can help you solve puzzles in the game, but the codes can be read without the included UV flashlight and Asus also notes that “inks on the lid will fade over time”. It’s all just silly.
The keyboard’s crisp, fast action is good for gaming. The buttons don’t make too much noise, and you get per-key RGB LED backlighting alongside extra buttons for volume, microphone and fan control.
Negatively, though, there’s no reason for a 17.3-inch laptop to have shrunken numberpad or cursor keys or a single-height Return button. The trackpad is only mediocre, too, thanks to slightly soft button presses – use a USB rodent instead. Users can buy the Alienware with a CherryMX mechanical keyboard, which isn’t an option on the Asus, and the MSI’s SteelSeries typing gear is also very good.
Annoyingly, the Scar’s 2023 update won’t solve some of those issues. That revised laptop is 100g lighter and includes a webcam, but it’s no smaller and offers no big connectivity improvements.
You’ll find bigger updates on the forthcoming Asus ROG Strix G16 and G18 laptops. Their 16-inch and 18-inch displays sit around updated internals, new webcams and better port placement, but they do ditch the numberpad.
Screen
- Screen provides a crisp, colourful gaming experience
- Other laptops have faster refresh rates and more versatility in this department
- The speakers are loud and punchy, but could do with more detail
The 17.3-inch IPS display combines a 240Hz adaptive sync refresh rate with a 2560 x 1440 resolution. Factor in the 3ms response time and you’ve got a panel that’ll cope with most gaming situations.
The maximum brightness of 331 nits is good enough for indoor situations and pairs with a 0.31 nit black point for a contrast ratio of 1068:1. That decent result means you’ve got a solid amount of punch in games. That said, more depth would have been welcome for darker scenes, and a higher brightness level would have enabled outdoor gaming.
The average Delta E of 2.83 is fine and the display rendered 99.9% and 96.3% of the sRGB and DCI-P3 gamuts, so this screen will produce virtually every shade needed by mainstream titles. Its lack of Adobe RGB ability means it’s not a good enough panel for colour-sensitive design work.
This is a good screen. Its contrast, colour handling, resolution and refresh rate will make virtually every game look bold and nuanced. The resolution means you get more detail than the average 1080p panel, and the 240Hz refresh rate is well-placed to handle most competitive scenarios.
You’ll find better screens elsewhere. Alienware’s laptops are available with 4K, 360Hz and 480Hz displays – the former better for single-player titles and the latter two well-suited to high-end eSports. The 1080p panel I reviewed had more accurate colours and better contrast than the Strix’s screen. There’s little to choose between the Scar and MSI displays.
There are no significant updates to the screen inside the 2023 model. Head over to the G16 and G18 and the only improvement is a 16:10 aspect ratio, which means a higher 2560 x 1600 resolution.
The speakers are fine, too, although a muddy mid-range undermines the loud, powerful and bassy output. They’re acceptable for gaming, although a headset will be better.
Performance
- Loads of gaming power, with the ability to handle any current-gen title
- Enough processing pace for almost any content creation workload
- Impressive thermal performance
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 Ti may have been superseded by the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090, but it’s no slouch – it still has 16GB of memory, 7242 stream processors and a monster 175W peak power output. And Intel’s Core i9-12950HX is stonking, too, thanks to P-Cores that peak at 5GHz.
Elsewhere, the Asus deploys 32GB of dual-channel DDR5 memory. Storage comes from two Samsung PM9A1 SSDs in a RAID 0 array with fantastic, boot-blasting read and write speeds of 10,632MB/sec and 10,149MB/sec.
The Scar’s 2560 x 1440 averages of 104fps and 83fps in Horizon Zero Dawn and Borderlands 3 mean you’ve got enough speed to play any top-tier game smoothly at 60fps without compromising on settings. It’ll handle ray tracing, and you can output games to 4K screens, widescreens and VR headsets with minimal setting reductions.
An average of 361fps in Rainbow Six Siege at 1440p means you’ve got the eSports pace for competition on the 240Hz screen and for exporting to 360Hz panels.
There’s more gaming pace here than the Alienware could offer: the Scar’s 3D Mark Time Spy score of 13,090 was ahead of that notebook. You can get a little extra by switching to Turbo mode, too – that option saw the Scar’s Time Spy result improve to 13,684. A still-respectable result of 10,140 in Silent mode enables mainstream gaming with reduced noise levels. Out of laptops mentioned here, only the MSI was consistently faster than the Asus – and even then, not by much.
In Geekbench’s single- and multi-core tests the i9-12950HX scored 1788 and 14,986, with the latter almost 3000 points beyond the Core i7-12700H used inside the Alienware and only a little behind the monster MSI notebook. That multi-core result improved to 15,755 in Turbo mode and only dropped to 13,474 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 multi-tasking is no issue.
The Special Edition cooling works well, too. Even when pelting through games the Strix is one of the quieter large gaming laptops, it beats the noisy MSI, and it matches Alienware. The internal speakers or a headset will handle the noise even in the toughest situations. The exterior never got too hot, either.
| Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE | Alienware x17 R2 | MSI Raider GE77 | |
| CPU | Intel Core i9-12950HX | Intel Core i7-12700H | Intel Core i9-12900HX |
| PCMark10 | 7634 | 7856 | 7038 |
| Geekbench 5 Single / Multi | 1788 / 14,986 | 1686 / 12,040 | 1833 / 15,872 |
| GPU | Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti | Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti | Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti |
| 3DMark Time Spy | 13,090 | 12,486 | 13,593 |
It’s a great bill of health for the Scar, but you’ve got options if you want even more power. On the graphics side, the forthcoming RTX 4080 core should be about 20% faster than the RTX 3080 Ti. You’ll find that GPU inside the 2023 version, the G16 and G18, too, and prices shouldn’t deviate much from this rig’s $3399 / £3499 / €3599 price.
On the processing side, the Scar’s 2023 version uses an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX, while equivalent G16 and G18 rigs use the Intel Core i9-13980HX. The AMD chip hits about 17,000 points in the Geekbench multi-core test, while the new Intel CPU tops 21,000 points.
If you don’t need that speed, though, still consider the Scar’s 2022 model. When it comes to mainstream gaming and content creation, it’ll do anything, and it’ll likely drop in price when those updated models launch.
Should you buy the 2022 or 2023 Scar, though? It’s tricky, no matter which components it’s got. There’s no denying the performance on offer, and it’s got a good screen – but it should have better connectivity, build quality and ergonomics. It’s quick, but you’ll find more finesse elsewhere.
Battery
- An hour of gaming lifespan and three hours of working use
- Future notebooks won’t make significant improvements in this department
It’s no shock 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 gaming, just under three hours in an everyday work benchmark, and four hours if you watch movies with the screen at reduced brightness.
Those results are not great, but not surprising. Alienware’s laptop was no better here and the MSI outpaced 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.
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Should you buy it?
You need maximum power right now – with loads of lights, too
The Asus has incredible gaming and processing pace and, thanks to RGB LEDs at every turn, there’s no denying it looks the part. The screen is a good all-rounder, too.
You’re happy to wait for more pace, or you want a more rounded system
Forthcoming Asus notebooks will be even faster, and other laptops are slimmer, lighter and longer-lasting, with improved keyboards and port selections. The Asus is fast, but unbalanced.
Final Thoughts
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE is one of the fastest gaming laptops on the market right now, and it also deploys a solid screen and a bold chassis with plenty of RGB LEDs. It’s not practical or ergonomically pleasing enough, though, and future rigs will offer even more pace without much of a price jump.
How we test
Every gaming laptop we review goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge key things including build quality, performance, screen quality and battery life.
These include formal synthetic benchmarks and scripted tests, plus a series of real world checks, such as how well it runs when running a AAA game.
We used as our main laptop for at least a week.
Tested the performance via both benchmark tests and real-world use.
We tested the screen with a colorimeter and real-world use.
We tested the battery with a benchmark test and real-world use.
FAQs
Yes, this is one of the most powerful gaming laptops on the market when it comes to gaming – at least until the RTX 4000 GPUs arrive inside laptops.
Trusted Reviews test data
Full specs
Jargon buster
GPU
The graphics processing unit is designed to render graphics, which is particularly important for gaming, creating 3D models and editing video.SSD
Known as Solid State Drive, this is a faster form of a memory than a standard hard drive. Results in faster loading times and more ambitious games.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
