ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 Review

When it comes to gaming laptops, the ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) is usually brought up on the topic. Arguably responsible for leading the industry in having fancy gaming aesthetics and lots of RBG lighting, the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 (G733PY) is one of the latest and most powerful devices in the market. Unfortunately, it costs RM16,999 in Malaysia. 

In this review, we are mainly checking out the Ryzen 9 7845HX mobile processor by AMD. The company also just recently announced its newest Ryzen 9 7945HX3D mobile processor (click here to read more). But for now, here’s what you should know about the ROG Strix Scar 17 if you plan to get one. 

Before I get to the performance, I will start with the design as usual. This will be a quick one, I promise, as the laptop design is similar to previous models since 2021. To go over it briefly, this laptop features a 17-inch QHD resolution IPS display with up to 240Hz refresh rate, and it’s super heavy at 3kg.

The top cover design, still the same as two years ago from previous models

The ROG Strix Scar 17 is huge and my laptop stand can barely support it

RGB lighting can be configured at the Armour Crate software as usual

Quite prone to get palm smudges

The ports and vents at the back

The left side

Nothing on the right side

Without many changes, ROG fans would be familiar with where all the I/O ports are located. The keyboard is nice to type on. But for some reason, the surface around the trackpad is prone to getting palm smudges, unlike the ones I reviewed before. I must say, it’s quite annoying to constantly wipe them. But if you connect it to another mechanical keyboard, it should solve the problem.

In terms of features, the ROG Strix Scar 17 is one of the first laptops to have an x86 mobile processor leveraging AMD’s Zen 4 chiplet technology. It allowed AMD to stuff 16 cores and 32 threads on a 5nm chipset for the ROG Strix Scar 17. Inside lies the Ryzen 7045HX processor, which has a boost frequency of up to 5.4GHz. There is also a pair of 16GB RAM and plenty of storage space at 1TB (PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD).

Moreover, it’s paired with an NVIDIA Geforce RTX 4090 GPU. On paper, this is a match made in heaven, not only for hardcore gamers but content creators as well. According to AMD, the laptop is capable of handling heavy-duty workloads (particularly video editing). It also has built-in Radeon 610M graphics for non-gaming tasks on battery power. You may refer to our benchmarks, as well as the performance power profile provided by AMD (see screenshot below).

3DMark Time Spy Score in performance mode

3DMark Time Spy Score in turbo mode

CPU Profile scores

PCMark 10 score

Benchmark score from Far Cry 6 in HD Texture and ultra graphics settings

Other games’ FPS results provided by AMD

Suffice it to say, there is no doubt that the ROG Strix Scar 17 is truly a powerful gaming laptop. But while the numbers don’t lie in the graphs above, my experience says otherwise because there’s a bit of mixed feeling. After playing it around for two weeks, I experienced some crashes on the laptop under certain conditions.

While I can play most games seamlessly, it appears to crash when there are too many ‘chaotic movements’. Doom Eternal shuts down the laptop a couple of times whenever there were too many demons chasing me on the map. But when I set the graphics setting to its default (High instead of Ultra), then the game runs better. Also, turning on Turbo mode is a must.

Playing A Plague Tale: Requiem on the ROG Strix Scar 17 was breathtaking

There is also some unnatural light shading issue. A slight movement would show the sunlight shining immediately instead of gradually. It’s unknown if this fault is from the game or the laptop

Nonetheless, most games look gorgeous (the cat from the Stray game)

The depth of field and dynamic effects are almost too photorealistic

Overlaying video clips on top of another video is no problem

On top of that, even non-frantic games such as A Plague Tale: Requiem can cause the laptop to shut down completely. If I play it on Performance mode with its default settings (High) while enabling Ray Tracing DLSS, the game could only run for a few minutes, even if I’m just walking around. To avoid this, Turbo mode must be enabled, with or without Ray Tracing. It’s not all gloom and doom though, as the crashes are quite conditional.

The ROG Strix 17’s sound performance is quite good for a laptop, and its download speed is insane. The battery performance is what I expected, lasting around 2-3 hours when unplugged and charging is quite fast. However, I’m not a fan of the random loud fan noise (#punintended), as it can spontaneously turn on by itself, even while I’m doing my daily work.

The download speed on Steam reached up to 95.8 Mbps

Great laptop, just super expensive

Despite my ‘crashing’ experience, it doesn’t mean that the ROG Strix Scar 17 is faulty. But still, there seem to be some optimisation problems between the CPU and GPU that I can’t quite pinpoint. Because normally, I could just play some AAA game titles on max settings without much trouble in the past from ROG’s predecessors. So hopefully, AMD can send a fix patch or something.

For a high-end gaming laptop at the price of RM16,999, that’s basically the normal price range thanks to inflation and the weak Ringgit currency. Nevertheless, it’s still a powerful device capable of handling gaming and content creation. So if you do have the budget for this, by all means, go for it but perhaps do be careful with the graphics settings. 

ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 (G733PY) tech specs

• AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX Processor with Radeon 610M graphics
• 2x 16GB DDR5-4800Mhz of RAM
• 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD storage
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU
• Measures 39.5 x 28.2 x 2.34 ~ 2.83 cm, weighs 3KG
• 17.3-inch IPS display (2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, 240Hz refresh rate)
• Ports – 2x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1, 2x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm combo audio jack, 1x 2.5G Ethernet LAN port
• Features – WiFi 6E, Dolby Atmos sound system, G-Sync
• Windows 11 Pro 
• Battery – 90Wh

Pros – A certified powerful laptop for hardcore gaming and heavy-duty video editing workloads

Cons – Under certain conditions, some AAA games may shut down the laptop completely

Conclusion – You can consider this if you want the latest hardware to play graphics-demanding games or work