ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX review: powerful performance with a price tag to match
Table of Contents
When it comes to gaming hardware, there’s a name that everyone will know: ROG. ASUS’ Republic of Gamers is synonymous with some of the industry’s top-of-the-line products, ranging from PC components, fully built PCs, gaming laptops, and all the way to networking and phones.
Today, we’re taking a closer look at the latest ROG Strix Scar 18, ASUS’ flagship entry in its gaming laptop lineup. This year’s model comes equipped with high-end hardware, including an RTX 5090 GPU, Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, a 2TB SSD in RAID configuration, and 64GB of memory. Interestingly, ASUS has opted for a 2.5K high-refresh display rather than the 4K panels seen on competing systems such as the MSI Raider and Acer Helios.
While the chassis still leans into a gaming aesthetic, the vent design is more restrained compared to other machines in this category. However, this toned-down approach appears to come at the expense of cooling efficiency in certain workloads, as observed during testing. Even so, with its combination of premium specifications and distinctive design choices, the Scar 18 makes a compelling case as it moves through our full benchmark suite.
- CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 Processor 275HX
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU
- Memory: 32/64GB DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM
- Storage: 1TB+1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (RAID 0)
- Max Refresh Rate: 240Hz
- Resolution: 2560 x 1600
- Panel Type: Mini LED
The ROG Strix Scar 18 doesn’t shy away from being a gaming laptop inside and out. Having animated pixels on the lid and glowing in RGB, the performance is there to match.
The configuration we received carries a premium price, exceeding $4,700/£4,600, placing it firmly in the high-end segment. In return, it delivers exceptional performance, with high frame rates for gaming and swift responsiveness for productivity tasks. Its color-accurate display, combined with a high refresh rate, makes it a versatile machine capable of handling both creative and competitive workloads with ease.
- Top-level performance with a 275HX and RTX 5090
- Excellent color accuracy with a great mini LED panel
- Great feeling keyboard and general design
- Amazing customization with the back lid and plentiful RGB
- Plenty of fast IO
- Impressive accessibility to the components
- Not a great camera quality
- Very expensive and out of budget for most
- The fingerprint magnet makes it look grimy
- Rather bulky and heavy, it gets rather hot
Pricing and availability
Once again, as a top-end model with the top-of-the-range hardware, the ROG Strix Scar 18 is not a cheap laptop. As an 18-inch laptop, it’s not only a big investment, but it’s a sizeable machine too – particularly the model we received that’s fully specced out.
On Amazon US, the 64GB RAM version is available for $4,849, whereas ASUS’ own Amazon store lists the 32GB version for $4,399. In the UK, it is available for £4,699.99.
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In comparison, the MSI Raider 18 at $5,099 and the Acer Predator Helios at £4,999. Both options are similarly priced and feature high-resolution 4K displays, offering slightly higher visual fidelity. Ultimately, the value may come down to overall performance in real-world scenarios.
In terms of processing power, this model aligns more closely with the Acer Predator, as it uses an Intel Core Ultra CPU, whereas the MSI alternative is equipped with AMD’s X3D processor. This distinction is important to consider when making direct comparisons between the systems.
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX in front of box, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX box contents, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX box, Image by PC Guide
Overall design
Another 18-inch laptop, another behemoth of a device with plenty of great custom designs implemented into it. The ROG Strix Scar 18 is a substantial machine, weighing over 3.2kg without the power adapter and just barely fitting into a large backpack. This heft is expected, given it houses a powerful Core Ultra 9 CPU and RTX 5090 GPU – but should be factored in if you’re looking to use this as a portable laptop.
As a dedicated gaming laptop, the Scar 18 embraces a bold aesthetic. An RGB light bar runs along the base, offering fully customizable colors and effects via Armoury Crate. The lid features the prominent AniMe Matrix display alongside the ROG logo – a versatile pixel panel that can showcase animations, text, or custom designs, creating a striking visual even when the laptop is in sleep mode.
Even when powered down, the laptop’s size and expansive rear vents make its gaming prowess clear. Despite its bulk, the design remains relatively sleek, with a well-thought-out array of ports along the sides, including Ethernet, HDMI, three USB-A, two USB-C, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a proprietary rectangular power connector capable of delivering up to 380W.
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX keyboard, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX left side, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX macros, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX rear, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX right side, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX touchpad, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX webcam, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX arrow keys, Image by PC Guide
With all the ports positioned along the sides rather than the rear like the MSI Raider, gaming on the laptop with a mouse is much more comfortable. Heat is vented out the back, so neither my hands nor the keyboard area get uncomfortably warm. Most of the heat accumulates at the top edge under the screen, leaving a large gap for airflow and accommodating the extra macro keys.
The keyboard itself is a full-size layout, made possible by the 18-inch chassis. It feels surprisingly good for a laptop, featuring ROG’s Chiclet-style keys with individual per-key RGB backlighting. Even with the full-size board, the laptop includes an 18cm (7-inch) touchpad that performs decently, though it can’t replace a standalone mouse for serious gaming.
The laptop’s weight gives the screen stability, making it easy to lift with one finger. The hinges are angled to integrate neatly into the chassis, allowing for a wide opening angle – though not a full 180 degrees. At the top of the screen, there’s a webcam and microphone, which is useful for quick Zoom meetings or catch-up, but not much else. That said, support for Windows Hello with dual lenses allows for fast and seamless sign-ins.
The standalone 1080p webcam, however, produces a rather soft and smeary image. That said, it doesn’t affect the IR sign-in, which works reliably. The microphones are effective and deliver clear voice capture, standing out as a strong feature of the system.
Audio playback through the four built-in speakers is clear and loud, maintaining quality even at maximum volume. As is often the case with laptop speakers, bass is limited, which can make music feel somewhat flat and lacking in warmth, but overall the system provides solid sound for gaming and general use.
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX hot water screen, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Indiana Jones Dragon, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Indiana Jones statue, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX back lid, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX berries screen, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX glass bottle screen, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX honey screen, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX side on, Image by PC Guide
All in all, the design of the laptop is very impressive, clean, and eye-catching – a great piece to have. Its finish is a rather big fingerprint magnet through, and after benchmarking it and checking around the chassis for heat, my fingerprints did stick to it rather heavily, requiring a good clean after.
That said, however, ROG impressed me by making access to the components tooless, at least to the first layer that is. With a slide tab and pulling away the plastic cover, you can easily access the two NVMe and two RAM slots if you ever choose to change or upgrade your hardware. For the rest, you then do have screws to take off, but they are Philips heads, so it is fairly easy to do, but there are a lot, so I do recommend keeping track of them in case they are of different lengths and need putting back in the right spots.
It’s a great feature to have, not only for making it easy to repair, but even to maintain, and to clear out the fans, as thermal performance is key in such a small form factor. Plus, increasing the longevity does make stomaching the higher price tag more manageable – albeit still eye-watering.
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Combined weight: | 4.266kg (3.289kg laptop, 0.977kg charger) |
| Dimensions WxDxH: | 399 x 298 x 32mm (15.71″ x 11.73″ x 1.26″) |
| Power Supply Wattage | 380W |
Screen
Even with its top-tier specifications and high-end performance, the Strix Scar 18 G835LX doesn’t push for the maximum available resolution. Instead, it opts for a 16:10 aspect ratio, which is generally better suited for laptops, and a 2560×1600 (2.5K) panel rather than 4K.
This choice likely benefits gaming performance, helping the system maintain higher frame rates while taking full advantage of the 240Hz refresh rate. The display also features a mini-LED backlight, offering improved contrast and localized dimming for deeper blacks and brighter highlights. With ROG’s claim of 100% DCI-P3 coverage, the screen should excel for both gaming and creative work. I tested this claim using a color calibrator to see how it performs in practice.
Using both HDR and standard modes, I deployed our Datacolor SpyderX Elite to measure the accuracy of the screen’s color. It manages to cover the majority of the color gamut, with 100% sRGB and P3 coverage (except for a slight drop to 99% in HDR), while AdobeRGB coverage is at 92%. That said, the Scar 18 is a decent screen for creative work outside of AdobeRGB.
The average deltaE of the screen in standard was 1.3, and 0.84 in HDR, meaning its colors don’t stray too far from ‘true’, even if they do peak at 3.39 and 2.2. It still manages to reach a gamma of 2.2 and 2.1, very close to the ideal level.
At 100% brightness, HDR offers better visuals as you’d expect, even if it’s not the brightest screen, as it maxes out at 700 candela. It has a contrast of 22,370:1, a black level of 0.03/m², and a white level of 6800K. The ideal levels for these are: infinite:1, 0/m², and 6500K, which means the screen is a surprisingly good screen to use.
Battery life
To test battery life, I enabled all efficiency and longevity settings on the Strix Scar 18 – turning off RGB lighting and animations, switching to power-saving silent mode, and setting the display brightness to around 121 nits without HDR for comfortable viewing.
I then ran a two-hour video followed by some light browsing to see how long the battery would last. Initially, I was concerned that ROG had limited the capacity to 90Wh rather than maximizing it, but the results were impressive: the laptop lasted a total of 5 hours and 10 minutes. After the first half, it was still at 58%, taking over three hours to fully discharge.
The extended battery life is likely aided by the lower 2.5K resolution, compared to the 4K panels on the Acer and MSI models I tested previously, which managed just 2 hours 10 minutes and 3 hours 6 minutes, respectively. Charging is also rapid—the 380W power adapter refilled the battery to 100% within one to two hours.
Software
Setting up Windows on the Strix Scar 18, combined with ASUS’s own setup process, takes a significant amount of time. Beyond just the installation, it comes preloaded with numerous programs that most users won’t need and will likely want to uninstall. Overall, getting everything updated and ready to go took well over an hour.
The preinstalled software includes a mix of Windows apps and ASUS utilities, such as Armoury Crate, Aura Creator, MyASUS, ScreenExpert, Dolby, Intel utilities, and McAfee. Of these, Armoury Crate is the standout, providing full control over system settings, RGB lighting, fan profiles, power modes, and updates.
Other programs, however, can be intrusive. McAfee, for example, repeatedly prompts to upgrade to the full version, while many of the remaining utilities feel largely unnecessary. Armoury Crate effectively consolidates the essential controls, rendering much of the rest as bloatware—a common trend in modern gaming laptops.
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Armoury Crate update center, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Armoury Crate Home, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX AniMe Vision, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Armoury crate profiles, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX MyASUS Home, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX MyASUS device settings, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Armoury Crate system settings, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Armoury Crate Aura Wallpaper, Image by PC Guide
Performance and noise levels
Now that I’ve got the main build quality checks and screen tests out of the way, I put the laptop to the test and checked out what it is capable of. Considering it features the flagship Core Ultra 9 and RTX 5090, it shouldn’t be lacking in power. Here’s how it performed in our testing lab across various benchmarks.
Gaming benchmarks
Below are the results of these tests. Putting the laptop into turbo mode, full power, to put all it has into these benchmarks. With only one Optimus mode for graphics, I also checked the performance in native at 1600p, but also 1080p for comparison cases. Since the other two laptops are natively 2400p, I only included the 1080p results.
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Cyberpunk 2077 1080p, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Blender, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Doom Eternal, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Geekbench AI, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Cyberpunk 2077 1600p, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX CS2, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX 3DMark, Image by PC Guide
ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX Geekbench 6, Image by PC Guide
Starting with Counter-Strike 2, an esports-focused title where high framerates are critical, the Strix Scar delivers impressive results. At 1600p, it averages 237, 422, and 375 fps on very high, medium, and low settings, with 1% lows of 119, 178, and 184 fps. At 1080p, averages increase to 339, 435, and 477 fps, with 1% lows of 157, 177, and 183 fps. Performance here is comparable to the Acer Predator, while the MSI Raider pulls ahead, likely due to its AMD X3D processor compared to the Strix’s Intel CPU.
Doom Eternal, known for running smoothly on most hardware, sees the Strix Scar achieving extremely high frame rates. At 1600p, averages are 316 fps at Ultra Nightmare, 322 fps at high, and 373 fps at low settings. At 1080p, those numbers rise to 402, 406, and 499 fps.
For a more demanding scenario, Cyberpunk 2077 was tested. In native 1600p resolution, the Strix Scar averages 125, 159, and 157 fps on ultra, medium, and low presets, respectively. Enabling ray tracing drops these to 59, 89, and 126 fps. At 1080p without ray tracing, averages are 169, 171, and 175 fps, while enabling ray tracing results in 75, 108, and 135 fps. Across all settings, the laptop remains very playable, though it doesn’t quite hit the maximum refresh rate of the display in the most demanding scenarios.
Synthetic benchmarks
Here is the range of synthetic benchmarks, showcasing the rendering and creative performance. Along with comparative scores, see how well they did.
3DMark:
| Benchmark | ROG Strix | Raider (Hybrid) | Raider (Discrete) | Acer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steel Nomad | 6,126 | 6,226 | 6,307 | 6,169 |
| Port Royal | 16,237 | 16,398 | 16,637 | 15,865 |
| Time Spy Extreme | 12,077 | 11,751 | 11,970 | 12,096 |
| Fire Strike Ultra | 13,910 | 16,432 | 16,752 | 15,749 |
Geekbench 6 – CPU:
| Mode | ROG Strix Single | ROG Strix (Multi) | Raider Single | Raider Multi | Acer Single | Acer Multi |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discrete | 2,819 | 17,794 | 3,163 | 20,156 | 2,843 | 17,208 |
| Hybrid | — | — | 3,110 | 18,858 | — | — |
Geekbench 6 – GPU (OpenCL & Vulkan):
| Mode | ROG Strix (OpenCL) | ROG Strix (Vulkan) | Raider (OpenCL) | Raider (Vulkan) | Acer (OpenCL) | Acer (Vulkan) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discrete | 231,167 | 164,203 | 224,900 | 217,018 | 236,274 | 214,376 |
| Hybrid | — | — | 229,946 | 223,059 | — | — |
Geekbench 6 – AI (CPU):
| Mode | Single Precision | Half Precision | Quantized |
|---|---|---|---|
| ROG Strix | 4,422 | 1,878 | 8,035 |
| Raider Discrete | 6,423 | 2,657 | 11,880 |
| Raider Hybrid | 6,648 | 2,607 | 12,138 |
| Acer | 6,527 | 2,273 | 10,572 |
Geekbench 6 – AI (GPU):
| Mode | Single Precision | Half Precision | Quantized |
|---|---|---|---|
| ROG Strix | 30,475 | 51,702 | 23,663 |
| Raider Discrete | 32,730 | 56,745 | 25,117 |
| Raider Hybrid | 33,092 | 57,268 | 25,303 |
| Acer | 30,193 | 50,473 | 23,572 |
Thermals
After all the benchmarks, I also loaded up the laptop with Furmark 2 on both the CPU and GPU to see how well it handles the heat of its top-of-the-line components. Even if they are toned-down versions of their full desktop versions, they can still get to high power levels.
At idle, the system drew around 19W on the CPU and 8W on the GPU, with clock speeds sitting at roughly 260 and 217MHz, respectively. Even at rest, both components ran on the warm side. With the laptop in turbo mode and likely a high ambient temperature, the CPU hovered around 71°C, while the GPU stayed near 48°C.
Once a load was applied, both components had room to ramp up, and the fans kicked in. The GPU peaked just under 180W, while the CPU settled around 50W, averaging clock speeds of 1,860MHz and 2,800MHz. During this period, temperatures stabilized around 82°C thanks to the cooling system, and the fans remained reasonably quiet – far from jet-engine loud that we’ve become accustomed to over the years. With no side vents, using a mouse alongside the laptop stayed comfortable, without any hot spots.
After 20 minutes of load, shutting the system down allowed it to cool rapidly, with temperatures dropping back to idle. Even at rest, though, the idle temps are slightly on the higher side.
- CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 Processor 275HX
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU
- Memory: 32/64GB DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM
- Storage: 1TB+1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (RAID 0)
- Max Refresh Rate: 240Hz
- Resolution: 2560 x 1600
- Panel Type: Mini LED
Conclusion
As expected, the ROG Strix Scar 18 G835LX delivers a desktop-replacement experience in a mobile form factor. Even though the 18-inch size can feel a bit unwieldy, the Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU and RTX 5090 GPU offer excellent performance across the board.
While it drops the resolution from the typical 4K, opting instead for 1600p, the laptop makes up for it with an incredibly fast refresh rate. It also maintains strong color accuracy in both sRGB and DCI-P3, though it falls short of AdobeRGB. Overall, it’s a well-rounded choice for gaming.
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