The ASUS STRIX SCAR 18 Feels Like a Portable Desktop, Pushing Power, Performance, and Near Perfection (Review)

Gaming laptops are such a strange concept to me. Over the years, I’ve found myself slowly growing more interested in these portable powerhouses, and I’ve had the pleasure of diving into some incredible machines. But, after going hands-on with the ASUS STRIX SCAR 18, powered by an NVIDIA 5080, the time for me to ditch my desktop is drawing ever closer. Not even batting an eye with the most demanding of games or workflows, the STRIX SCAR 18 is simply one of — if not the most — powerful gaming laptops on the market. The vivid display, incredible thermal performance, and power packed within an admittedly thin chassis make this one that will be hard to beat.

The Asus Strix Scar 18 Is Big, Bold, and Beautiful, With a Vivid Display That Puts Most to Shame

Immediately upon opening the ASUS STRIX SCAR 18 and getting over how massive this piece of equipment was, I popped it open and powered it on. On the main Windows homepage, I was treated to what this display was immediately capable of, with the generic wallpaper popping off the screen. Incredible color depth alongside fantastic viewing angles make this a treat to see in person. Showing this laptop to both my wife and my parents, they immediately wanted to know how they could get a TV that has this crisp of a picture, even though the display is technically 2.5K, rather than 4K. At roughly 18 inches, it feels like you’re carrying around a small television on your lap, and could easily be used throughout a work day.

But the display isn’t the only thing about the STRIX SCAR 18 that’s immediately eye-catching. The overall design is very GAM3R, with a programmable LED strip along the back that can be made to say anything you like. You could display your Gamertag, your Steam Name, or anything else. Alongside the underglow and the per-key RGB on the keyboard, it’s quick to catch the eyes of anyone in your vicinity. Yes, you can turn off all of the fancy lighting and save a lot of battery in the process. Since I had this plugged in most of the time, I always had it shining.

While The Display and Laptop Itself Are Big, The Battery Life Isn’t

Weighing a touch over 7 pounds, the ASUS STRIX SCAR 18 is big. It’s hefty and chonky, but also feels nice in the lap. When all of the external lighting was turned off, and I was just using it for work purposes, I was pleased with the overall battery life. But if I turned everything on and went to town on the latest AAA games? The battery life wasn’t exactly the best, typically pulling in an hour to an hour and a half of game time. If you need an all-day workhorse, this may not be your best bet in the long run.

This Laptop Looks Like My High School Dream Car, or Something Out of ‘Fast and the Furious’. Total Gamer Energy

If you pull up to the function rocking the STRIX SCAR 18, folks are going to know that you mean business. It’s visually loud and pulls in attention, regardless of where you may be. Playing games in public? The STRIX SCAR 18 does kick into overdrive, but that’s never a bad thing. It means that the impressive thermals are doing their job, and doing it far better than most others. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 on Ultra with Psycho Ray-Tracing and Path Tracing turned on, my CPU was typically spiking at 71C, and the GPU was hovering in the mid-60C range. Rather impressive, considering the game was running at a pretty steady 60fps, but more on that later.

The exterior is plastic and attracts fingerprints rather quickly. The natural oils in our fingers tend to do that on any matte plastic, so it’s not a major issue with the STRIX, specifically. Build-wise, the STRIX feels incredibly sturdy and seems like it can handle some abuse. Would I suggest raging and tossing this? No, but if you toss it into a backpack or a suitcase, it’ll withstand any type of travel. The size of it does make it more “desktop replacement” than “mobile workhorse”, but for those willing to deal with the heft? It does the work.

Best of the Best With No Contest

If you decide to turn off all of the extra lighting effects and run it like normal, this is a genuinely professional-looking laptop in every regard. When it’s not shining like the underside of a 2001 Dodge Neon, it’s quite sharp to look at. But, in my case, I’d rather have it shining loud and proud. It’s an expensive and gorgeous piece of technology, and I’m using every part of it whenever I can. Just like the ROG FLOW, this is a piece of tech that turns heads.

No Matter if It’s for Work or Gaming, the ASUS Keyboard and Trackpad Are Astonishingly Good

One spot that typically makes or breaks my enjoyment of a laptop is the keyboard and trackpad. After using mechanical keyboards for the past 5 or so years, it’s hard to go back to the standard chiclet style that you find on your typical laptop. But, after typing and gaming for the past month, I’ve grown to genuinely enjoy it. No missed keystrokes, no phantom presses, and a trackpad that feels like it’s the size of a football stadium. I have no complaints on this end.

But the most impressive part to me, especially after playing a few games, is that the keyboard never felt hot. Some laptops, especially back in the day, would get incredibly warm. That heat would instantly be transferred into your fingers if you had to do anything, but this one stayed nice and cool. Anything behind the laptop, however, did get blasted with some pretty intense heat, especially during longer and more intense gaming sessions. If you’re pushing the ASUS STRIX to its limits, it’s going to pump out some heat and sound like a jet while doing it.

To be fair, if I were at my desk, I typically plugged in a different keyboard to ensure that I was comfortable writing and working. But when I found myself using strictly the built-in keyboard, I was never disappointed. There’s no flex to the keyboard, and it never felt like it was going to give out under intense pressure.

ASUS STRIX SCAR 18 Technical Specifications

Features	Technical Specifications
Operating System	Windows 11 Pro
Processor	Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, Intel AI Boost NPU, up to 13TOPS
Graphics Card	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU
Neural Processor	Intel AI Boost NPU
Display	18in, 2.5K (2560 x 1600, WQXGA), 16:10 Aspect Ratio, Mini LED Panel
Refresh Rate	240HZ/3ms Response Time
Anti-Glare	Yes, DCI-P3, 100%
HDR	Dolby Vision HDR
Memory	32 GB DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM, up to 64GB
Storage	2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Performance SSD
Expansion Slots	x2 DDR5 SO-DIMM Slots, x2 M.2 PCIe Slots
I/O Ports	3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, x1 HDMI 2.1 FRL, x3 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, x1 2.5G LAN Port, x2 Thunderbolt 5 w/ Display Port/Power Deliver/ G-SYNCH
Keyboard	Backlit Chiclet Keyboard w/ Per-Key RGB
Touchpad	Yes
Camera	1080P FHD IR Camera
Battery	90WHrs, 4S1P, 4–cell Li-ion
Power Supply	380W AC Adapter, 20V DC output, 19A
Weight	7.28 lbs
Dimensions	15.71” x 11.73” x 0.93 ~ 1.26”
Upgradeable?	Yes (Tool Free Access on Bottom) (RAM, SSD, Fans)

Don’t Take My Word for It; The Asus Strix Scar 18 Benchmarks Extremely Well

Now, obviously, a gaming laptop needs to be good at one thing in particular. Gaming. The STRIX SCAR 18 is an absolute beast in an 18′ chassis. No matter if I was playing plugged or unplugged, I could always count on this laptop to deliver the best gaming experiences possible. Using 3D Mark to test both unplugged on Default settings and plugged in on Turbo settings, I saw some fantastic scores. 200+ FPS on 1440P Ultra Battlefield V is impressive and all, but I had to jump into some of the more graphically intense games that I had in my library and push this thing to its limits. Thankfully, I never found that particular limit and was incredibly pleased to see the results.

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine II is a visually striking game. The screen fills up with enemies at a moment’s notice, and dropped frames can mean the difference between life and death. Playing on Ultra Settings, native resolution with DLSS turned on, I was pulling anywhere between 70 to 90FPS on average, using Steam’s built-in Frame Counter. Playing a game like this at 2.5K resolution and seeing it look and run as good as it did was incredibly impressive, something that even my standard desktop can’t do. But it was when I tested it with Cyberpunk 2077 that I had my mind figuratively blown.

Playing Graphically Demanding Games Without Compromise Is an Amazing Thing To See on a Laptop

The first thing I did when I booted up Cyberpunk 2077? I cranked everything to the maximum settings. If the ASUS STRIX SCAR 18 was going to fail me somewhere, it would be here, right? Well, I was quickly proven wrong once again. According to the built-in benchmarking tools, with everything cranked to the max, Psycho Raytracing on, I was still pulling in an average of 70FPS. With Path Tracing on Max and Psycho Raytracing, the benchmarks would typically pull 50 to 51 FPS. Granted, this was all at 2.5K Resolution, as well. If I bumped it down to 1080P, I can only imagine what type of performance I would be able to see.

At the end of the day, if you’ve been looking for an RTX 5080 powerhouse that you can take on the go? The ASUS STRIX SCAR 18 is a big, beautiful, and bold machine. Yes, the STRIX SCAR is expensive, starting at an MSRP of $3,399.99 for this particular variant. But this is the first laptop I’ve tested that I could comfortably trade my desktop off for without any compromises. Even if I couldn’t plug it into my monitors, the massive and beautiful display would be more than enough for me to survive on. The future is here, and it’s amazing.

Verdict: Best In Its Class

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The ASUS STRIX SCAR 18 is available now for $3,399.99. A sample was provided by ASUS for the sake of review.