We love getting our hands on brand new tech as it lands in the country so when ASUS offered up its 2022 Strix Scar 17 SE to Hypertext for review, we jumped at the chance.
This 17inch notebook is beastly and that shows in its profile. This isn’t a chunky notebook mind you, but it’s clear that ASUS had to pay special attention to cooling this notebook.
That’s because within the smooth black chassis is an Intel 12th Gen Core i9-12950HX, an Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti and 32GB of DDR5 memory.
Spoilers, this all comes together to make one of the best notebooks we’ve used this year so far. The only downside is that this notebook has a recommended retail price of R75 999. Is it worth it? That’s what we intend to discuss.
Performance
Let’s start, as always, with the performance you can expect from the 2022 ROG Strix Scar 17 (we’re calling it Scar 17 from here on out).
As mentioned there is an Intel 12th Gen Core i9-12950HX running at 2.3MHz base on CPU duties and this is backed up by 32GB DDR5 running at 4800. On storage duties there is a 4TB NVMe SSD and also using a fair few PCIe lanes is an NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU.
The display which measures 17.3inches has a native resolution of 2560 x 1440, support for Dolby Vision HDR a 240Hz refresh rate and 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut.
This is the only spec that ASUS South Africa is bringing locally so the performance you see below is what you can expect from your model.
Our first test was with Cinebench R23 and the scores we saw dropped our jaw. The MultiCore test saw the Scar 17 score 15 286, the fourth highest score on the Benchmark only trailing behind desktop systems. The single core test saw the notebook score 1 714 which is good news for applications that can only make use of a single core.
Moving to the GPU and we have to say – what did you expect?
There is an Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU in this monster and it performed beyond our expectations. Running God of War on PC was an almost spiritual experience. At the highest graphics preset at QHD resolution we managed to eke out between 85 and 90fps while playing with this dipping slightly into the 75 – 78fps region during in-game cutscenes.
In 3DMark’s TimeSpy benchmark we scored 11 134 points with frame rates sitting in the 68 – 79fps range depending on the scene that was rendering.
As for temperatures, the CPU never went above 94 degrees Celsius while the GPU only ever got as hot as 87 degrees Celsius. Keep in mind that we’re testing during the Winter months where ambient temperatures are cooler and performance may be adversely affected by higher temperatures in Spring and Summer.
As for fan noise, while you can hear them working under load, they never felt excessively loud and bumping up the volume on your headphones will drown out fan noise entirely.
To put it plainly, the gaming experience on the Scar 17 is immaculate and you won’t be disappointed. What makes the Scar 17 so good though is that there is more than enough headroom here to use the notebook for streaming. While it may not be as great as a second streaming PC, there is plenty of performance available if you drop your graphics settings in-game.
Battery life
Considering the components of the Scar 17, we were quite honestly expecting this notebook to last just four hours but we were wrong, thankfully.
To run down the battery we waited until loadshedding (thank you Eskom) and then streamed Dune (2021) from Google Movies. Sound volume was set to 75 percent, the display was at 100 percent brightness and WiFi was switched on.
This ran the battery down after 7 hours and 50 minutes and we can now pretty much recite every single line Timothée Chalamet utters in that film.
While playing God of War we only managed to get one hour of play time out of the notebook while on battery power. It’s not ideal and neither is the 35fps that gaming is limited to on battery power.
This isn’t a machine for gaming while loadshedding is in effect, but you will be able to get a decent amount of work done.
Ports and speakers
Usually, we don’t comment on webcams unless they’re something that really stands out. The Scar 17 though, doesn’t even have a webcam. It’s a move that makes sense as webcams on notebooks are generally terrible, but its absence is notable here.
We can forgive ASUS for omitting the webcam though because the speakers on offer here are superb. There is a four speaker system here and that covers more of the audio spectrum than most notebooks we’ve heard. Bass tones are deep and booming while treble tones are crisp and clear.
We had to check several times that we hadn’t plugged our speaker system in when listening to audio through the Scar 17.
As for ports, there are two USB Type A ports, one USB Type C (with support for DisplayPort, power delivery and G-Sync), a LAN port and an HDMI 2.1 port. You will also find a 3.5mm combo jack and one Thunderbolt 4 port.
Keyboard and sundry
The keyboard the Scar 17 is fitted with is a chiclet style with per-key RGB. The typing experience is fine but you may want to use one of the USB ports for an external keyboard.
Then, there is the fluff.
Behind the display is the lid of the notebook which includes special artwork that can only be revealed with the included UV torch. It’s a gimmickm but it’s a fun one and it doesn’t hurt the performance or ruin the notebook in any way.
There is also a customisable rear plate on the left of the notebook. This doesn’t illuminate or have any special function aside from displaying the ROG name but it can help to make the notebook feel more like yours.
A bag is also included with the special edition of the notebook.
The only bloatware we saw was McAffee which reminds us to once again ask manufacturers to stop installing AV software out of the box. We know these firms have agreements in place but it just ruins the experience when you’re about to dive into a game and AV software displays a threatening message about how much risk you’re under.
Conclusion
What we’re about to say is going to sound mad, but R75 999 is justifiable given how good the 2022 Strix Scar 17 SE is. Yes, it’s a massive amount of money, but having spent two weeks with this notebook it is absolutely worth that price.
For your money you are getting an unbridled gaming experience in a slick package.
Games have never looked or performed so well and we can’t help but feel that we weren’t able to take full advantage of this machine in the short time we had it despite exhaustive testing and late night gaming sessions.
While it’s tough to give the 2022 Strix Scar 17 SE a perfect score given this isn’t a notebook anybody can just buy. However, if you are looking for a notebook and have R80k to spend, ASUS has created a beast in the 2022 Strix Scar 17 SE and we highly recommend it.
