Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 (G733P) review: our full review – Laptops

Make way, plebeians: here comes the ROG Strix Scar 17. A computer that is far from trying to please the greatest world, but rather wants to attract to it consumers who do not hesitate to put their hands in their wallets to have the best of the best.

Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 (G733P) Technical sheet

The machine is lent by Asus for this test.

Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 (G733P) Design

We are here in the traditional “portable” gaming PC; of those that it would be more clever to consider as “all-in-one”. The ROG Strix Scar 17 is indeed a handsome 17-inch, 3-kilogram baby, which you’ll feel even when you just pick it up under your arm for a few minutes. He will need a very solid backpack and a back that is just as strong, but he is not here to be in the lace: it is a question of pulverizing noobs around here.

In terms of design, we recover the very industrial lines of the ROG language, whose mirror effect logo is the most striking element of its external metal shell. The rest of the chassis is made of solid plastic, where a few transparent areas on the front allow the numerous customizable LEDs available on the machine to appear.

The ROG Strix Scar 17 is all about performance, but Asus’ solid build is still present here. Still, we are not on the most attractive computer in the world, since that is not its primary philosophy. What matters here is the result, which we will discuss later in these lines.

Keyboard and touchpad

We stay on relatively standard chiclet keys, but well worked. They are very well spaced and offer a fairly large stroke, but the softness of their activation will not necessarily appeal to all types of player. The numeric keypad, integrated on the right, is still in half format and remains convincing in use.

Considering the imposing size of the machine, the touchpad might have benefited from being a little bigger. Certainly, its diagonal is sufficient to never disturb in use, and the sliding of its glass coating is unassailable, but many other manufacturers are choosing a 4:3 format and a wider diagonal. Here, we stay in the traditional.

connectors

On the left of the device, we find two USB A 3.2 Gen 1 ports and a combo jack. And finally, at the back, we have most of the connections: a standard power port, a 2.5G Ethernet port, an HDMI 2.1 port and two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, one of which supports the Power Delivery standard. for charging.

Compared to the size of the beast and its target, it is surprising not to find support for USB 4.0 or even an SD card reader.

Two missed opportunities which are a little disappointing, even if the rest of the connectors will convince the vast majority of users.

webcam and audio

No surprise on the integrated HD webcam: the rendering is noisy and unconvincing. On the other hand, the two speakers integrated under the chassis were able to surprise us with a rather good rendering of the bass for the size of the device. The highs are also precise, which makes the mids the slightly poorer children of the lot. But above all, it’s the maximum volume that surprises with its lack of punch.

Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 (G733P) Screen

The ROG Strix Scar 17 is equipped with a 17.3-inch IPS LCD panel supporting a maximum definition of 2560 x 1440 pixels at 16:9 ratio. The screen is anti-reflective, and supports a maximum refresh rate of 240 Hz with support for G-Sync technology.

Under our probe and with the DisplayCal software, we find a maximum brightness of 366 cd / m². The panel covers 141.9% of the sRGB space for 100.5% of the DCI-P3 space. Only the contrast is a little disappointing at 1060:1, but the measured average delta e00 is excellent at just 1.21. The same goes for the color temperature, measured at 6530K, which is almost the exact NTSC standard.

Considering the support of the refresh rate at 240 Hz as a bonus, we are quite simply in front of an excellent screen that will delight gamers and creatives alike.

Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 (G733P) Software

Unfortunately, Asus still has this annoying tendency to keep installing adware like McAfee, even on its most expensive machines. Despite everything, it must also be recognized that Armory Crate is still today one of the best software for monitoring and personalizing the performance of PC gamers today. The interface is clear to use, offers plenty of options, and handles ROG Strix Scar 17 tracking very well.

Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 (G733P) Performance

In our test configuration, the 2023 ROG Strix Scar 17 is equipped with the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX SoC, a 16-core, 32-thread processor that can turbo up to 5.4 GHz. It is coupled with 32 GB of DDR5-4800 MHz RAM in So-DIMM format (up to 64 GB). And we find to ensure the graphics part the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 at 16 GB of GDDR6 with its maximum TGP of 175W. We also find 1 TB of storage in PCIe 4.0.

Benchmarks

The Ryzen 9 7950HX is a true powerhouse. Its scores on Cinebench R23 are 33715 points in multi-core and 1947 points in single core, scores which are equivalent to the desktop versions of the same chips. We also have a score of 9115 points on PCMark 10 which swims above a large majority of PCs on the market.

The same goes for 3D performance, measured under 3DMark. Speed ​​Way, the greediest of these benchmarks, sends us a rarely achieved score of 5645 points. Port Royal goes up to 13,879 points, and the traditional Time Spy Extreme goes up to 10,476. Above all, the DirectX ray-tracing test promises us 71.80 average FPS, a test that it is rare to see exceed 40 FPS at present.

Stakes

We find this theoretical performance in-game, where Cyberpunk 2077 quietly achieves 87 average FPS without even using DLSS 3 in RT Ultra. The game even holds 89 FPS using the new RT Acceleration mode in path tracing, albeit using DLSS3 this time around. Even Hogwarts Legacy, a title with questionable optimization on PC, achieved an average 88 FPS without DLSS. Everything is said in the table: it’s quite simply a monster that sends more than 60 FPS even on the most demanding titles of our generation.

Cooling and noise

It was necessary that all these performances have a price. And this is done at two levels: heating, and noise. In turbo mode, used during these measurements, the ROG Strix Scar 17 easily reaches 56°C. An impressive temperature that makes the computer a little extra heating. As a bonus, the fans express themselves easily too, with the same tone as a small vacuum cleaner. No pain no gain.

Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 (G733P) Autonomy

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 from 2023 incorporates a 90Wh battery, which is recharged by a very large 330W block. This block will be necessary to get the full performance of the device, but you will still be able to use a USB-C charger to troubleshoot thanks to compatibility with the Power Delivery standard.

This kind of PC never has an impressive autonomy, and this does not change on this ROG Strix Scar 17. For office use, we find between 3 and 4 hours of use, which is not even to last even a full afternoon of work. But at the same time, these devices were never made for that.

Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 (G733P) Price and availability

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 is available from 3999.99 euros. The configuration we tested is the most expensive, sold at the official price of 4999.99 euros.