ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 SE: Is It The Best Gaming Laptop In 2022? Is It Worth It? (Full Review)

After minor tweaks and optimizations, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE is ready to deliver the best in high-performance gaming laptops. Its hardware configuration is breathtaking with Intel i9-12950HX, Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti, 32GB DDR5, 4TB RAID 0, and liquid metal cooling.

As if that were not enough, it has a 240 Hz 2K screen that will look like no other due to the semi-transparent design of the laptop. It has RGB areas and high-level multimedia and peripheral sections highlighting its keyboard. Will it be the best gaming laptop coming out this year? We will see it next.

Design

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE has gradually evolved its design to converge in some detail with the Zephyrus series. That includes the lower screen frame in two heights or the color tone used case being a matte black to which only the marked traces remain. Obviously, it will be a large laptop due to its 17 inches and 28 mm thickness, giving up lightness and maximizing cooling capacity.

The upper layer may seem completely smooth, but it is not because the reflection of the light will bring out a beautiful screen print with a diagonal division line. For this, a special paint has been used, hiding a serial code only shown with UV light (a flashlight has been included). Conversely, a smooth surface with the Asus logo provides RGB lighting on the edge.

Having all this detail in a cover barely 6 mm thick is quite an achievement, and its aluminum construction also gives us excellent rigidity that allows it to be lifted from the corners without torsion. Its edges are made of aluminum with rounded corners, resulting in an inner plastic frame that generates 5 mm edges on the sides and upper area.

Ports

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE does not include any ports on the right edge, except for the Asus ROG Keystone jack. So the distribution consists of the left and rear areas.

On the left side, we find:

• 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A
• 3.5mm combo jack for audio and microphone

While behind are:

• USB-C Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort and USB4
• USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C with DisplayPort and Power Delivery
• HDMI 2.1
• RJ-45 LAN 2.5Gbps
• DC-In Jack

The laptop presents varied connectivity, but it lacks an extra USB-A port. Those present are 10 Gbps as there is room for CPU and Chipset connections. The Thunderbolt 4 port with 40 Gbps can compensate for this fault and give us many possibilities for video or storage. At the same time, the other USB-C also supports video and implements Power Delivery of up to 100W.

It could be an excellent laptop to have a 5 Gbps LAN and thus surpass all its rivals, although it remains a personal opinion. Yes, it has a Wi-Fi 6E Intel AX211 card, the most current version with triple band capacity at 2.4 Gbps for 5 and 6 GHz and 574 Mbps for 2.4 GHz, supporting 1024QAM and 160 MHz, with Bluetooth 5.2 as extra connectivity.

The most potent QHD display for laptops

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE has an impressive 17.3-inch IPS LCD screen with a QHD resolution of 2560x1440p in 16:9 format. But the important thing will be its gaming features with a 240 Hz refresh rate and 3 ms response time, implemented VRR Adaptive-Sync technology.

To this pure high-end gaming, features are added other quite interesting image features such as its compatibility with Dolby Vision and therefore support for HDR. It has a typical brightness of 300 nits and a typical contrast of 1000:1, which is not surprising. However, it does promise 100% DCI-P3 color coverage. We have not detected tearing or bleeding in the corners of the panel, with excellent viewing angles that meet the 178º reference.

It has some advanced gaming functions, such as the low consumption mode that can be activated with Armory Crate to reduce the refresh rate in battery mode. Or integration with GameVisual, having several predefined image modes and color temperature adjustment, although this is not carried out with the three separate axes as it does on desktop monitors.

Gaming Audio System

So far, what we see in the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE ultimately convinces us that it is the best gaming machine. Let us now focus on a crucial multimedia section such as sound, where we find a configuration of 4 speakers with Smart Amp technology combined in pairs of tweeters and woofers.

We can tell you that the quality is impressive. The system stands out for its absolute clarity of frequencies. However, it maintains a volume that is not as high as we might expect precisely to avoid distortion. This time we have some excellent and enjoyable bass for games, videos, and music, as well as a 5.1.2 virtual surround effect that we will notice while we play.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard of the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE is designed and optimized for gaming, which is not a surprise. The manufacturer has also done it wonderfully by using a membrane with switches that support more than 20 million keystrokes. 

In addition, it implements AURA Sync RGB lighting per key. That means that we can customize the color of each key individually to create the look that best suits us for its use, supporting AURA Creator.

The functions are extensive, but the main thing will be quality, where Asus does not fail to give us a high-performance keyboard for gaming and writing. They offer approximately 1.4mm of travel, very smooth rebound, and travel with hardly any noise or sag in the center. Moreover, in gaming, the surface will heat up very little and will not affect your comfort of use.

The touchpad will be an essential element for everyday use, not for gaming. Undoubtedly, it has also met the quality we expected from it. Its panel is wide with 130 mm width and 77 mm in depth, and it could even be larger when there is space left over in the work area. It has a very smooth trackpad, integrated buttons on the bottom edge, minimal travel and no slack, and support for Windows gestures.

Software: Armoury Crate

You should always the software and BIOS to avoid incompatibility and malfunction problems since it is sometimes an essential point for Asus laptops.

The most critical element of the application will be the main dashboard, where we can choose between several performance modes. That includes a manual one where we can increase the CPU boost (170W PL1 and 175W PL2) and GPU boost (200 MHz base clock, 300 MHz VRAM clock, 25W dynamic boost, and maximum temperature). It is a full-fledged overclocking, so we can sometimes find stability bugs or more throttling.

Hardware

The chosen processor will be nothing less than an Intel Core i9-12950HX, the most powerful laptop CPU. It works at a boost frequency of 5.0 GHz, is equipped with 30 MB of L3 cache, and has a TDP of 55W expandable up to 65W from Armory Crate. In addition, it equips 12th generation integrated graphics for use in battery mode via Nvidia Optimus and MUX Switch.

It is accompanied by the most powerful graphics card on the market for laptops, the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti Laptop, configured with a maximum TDP expandable to 175W in PL2, the most aggressive step. 

This allows it to operate in manual boost mode at a maximum frequency of 1740 MHz. In addition, it has a VRAM memory of no less than 16 GB GDDR6 at 2000 MHz or 16 Gbps effective, operating on a 256-bit bus with a manual boost of 300 MHz.

We turn to the RAM memory configuration, which consists of 32 GB DDR5 at 4800 MHz through two modules working in Dual Channel on SO-DIMM slot, so it supports up to 64 GB maximum. Even the two available PCIe Gen4x4 slots will be populated with 2TB each Samsung drives, operating in RAID 0 array for over 12GB/s of reading speeds.

Heatsink design

You can’t ask for more with such specifications, can you? Indeed, this laptop brings the best heatsink that Asus has designed for gaming laptops. It is a beast with a double turbine-type fan, each with 84 blades that evacuate heat through 4 outlets provided with copper blocks. In addition, the 0 dB function allows them to operate at low RPM to be silent as long as possible, giving performance mode less than 40 dB. 

A cold copper plate with a high heat transfer vapor chamber handles the CPU, and GPU with their respective VRAM and the two VRM zones with 8 + 10 for CPU and GPU, possibly the most powerful configuration of a plate laptop stand. In the best effort to cover the 240W maximum TDP, Asus has used Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut Extreme liquid metal thermal compound, the best in its class.

Final thoughts

With this laptop’s design and characteristics, there is no doubt that it is one of the most powerful portable machines on the market. 

Power hasn’t been skimped on with the more powerful Intel Alder Lake CPU and Nvidia GPU and manual overclocking to boot. We can say that, despite the high temperatures, the heatsink has maintained its type without high throttling,

The design has undoubtedly impressed us, not to mention that it is a heavy, large, and bulky device. However, it is precisely the key to obtaining the best possible performance. Details such as transparent areas, RGB on the screen and front, or the serigraphy on the lid will make it quite an exclusive product.

We do not want to forget the high-level peripherals, especially its keyboard and the excellent sound section installed. However, it is not the best as it is below the Zephyrus M16. On the other hand, the 240 Hz, 2K screen shows impressive gaming performance, color, and calibration.