Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023) Review – Powerful Performance With Lacklustre Design

Asus first unveiled the 2023 edition of ROG Strix Scar 17 G773 at the CES 2023 back in January 2023. In addition to Strix Scar 17 gaming laptop, the Taiwanese computing giant also showcased other gaming laptops, hardware, and accessories. Other ROG Strix Scar laptops that we got to see at CES 2023 included Strix Scar 16, and 18.

Just a few weeks after the CES reveal, the company launched the Strix Scar 2023 line-up in the Indian market. I have already reviewed the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 a few weeks back, a machine powered by 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13980HX. Now, I got a chance to take Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G773 for a spin.

AMD India sent a ROG Strix Scar 17 gaming laptop with Ryzen 9 7945HX and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU for this review. However, buyers can only get the combination of up to AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU and up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 GPU in the Indian market.

Asus has continued its focus on AMD-powered portable computing devices in 2023. In fact, their lineup is almost evenly split between Intel and AMD offering to offer plenty of options to gamers. How does the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX-powered gaming laptop fare against 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13980HX-powered option out there? Does the Scar 17 offer enough performance to attract gamers to the high-end? Let’s find out answers to all these questions and more in our Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 gaming laptop review here.

Specifications

Before diving into the real-world performance of Asus ROG Strix 17, let us look at its on-paper specifications:

Benchmarks of the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023)

Gaming performance

Let’s get right into the gaming performance of the Strix Scar 17. It is quite clear from the specifications above that on paper, the Scar 17 can run any game that exists on the market. Not only that, but it can also do so with little effort. Regardless, to test out how it practically holds up, we ran gaming performance benchmarks on 9 AAA titles. The list of these titles includes Cyberpunk 2077, Borderlands 3, Control, Forza Horizon 5, Grand Theft Auto V and Total War Saga: Troy. It also included Red Dead Redemption 2, Gears 5, and Hitman 3.

Asus ROG Strix 17 delivered extremely impressive FPS in all the games we tested at 1080p resolution and maximum graphics settings. It is likely that not all gamers want to game at just 1080p resolution, but this gives readers a standardized result for easy comparison from all gaming laptops across different budget segments.

We could guess from the specifications table that it would find little to no difficulty in running games at 1080p resolution. Considering that the Strix 17 offers over 100 FPS on average in each AAA title, we are sure that it can easily run most games at 2K resolution without much challenge.

We also subjected the laptop to various synthetic benchmark tests to see how the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 perform.

While the Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU-powered Strix delivered impressive results in the gaming department, the 13th Gen Intel i9-1390HX-powered laptops were on top. While most of the gaming results depend on the GPU in the laptop, we saw AMD-powered machine offer higher graphics performance with the same GPU. While this conclusion is not based on testing done in the same laptop design, it does offer some calculated estimate.

Battery and Thermals

While the Asus Strix 17 manages to perform significantly well, it does tend to get the fan rolling at top speed soon enough to keep the CPU temperature down. The cooling efficiency of Asus Strix 17 is really good, and it manages to achieve that while keeping the fan noise relatively down.

During the benchmarking process, the AMD Ryzen 9 CPU temperatures rose to a maximum of 95° degrees but mostly stayed in the range of 85°-90° degrees during the review.

Like my experience with Strix 16, the Strix 17 also does not offer great battery life. The laptop did not last more than 3 hours during day-to-day use such as browsing the internet, watching YouTube clips, movies and TV shows.

Asus ROG Strix 17 delivers impeccable performance but like most gaming high-end gaming laptops, which comes at the cost of battery backup. While I don’t expect anyone to game on battery or look at battery backup during gaming, I do expect it to last longer during non-gaming tasks.

Strix 17 does not come with a heavy charger, but our review unit came with Type B power plug socket which is widely used in USA rather than India. The Indian unit ships with Type M power plug socket with 15Amp rating. So, you would need a power plug at your home or office to charge the laptop.

ROG Strix Scar 17 Display and Design

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 offers a 17.3-inch WQHD (2560 x 1440, 16:9) display with 240Hz refresh rate. This panel also supports Dolby Vision, G-Sync with Nvidia Advanced Optimus and comes with a dedicated MUX switch.

This gaming laptop shares the same display specifications as the Strix Scar 16. Apart from gaming, I also watched a couple of 4K videos on the laptop to test out the display and it performed just as well as promised. Overall, the laptop features a good display with great color reproduction, good viewing angles and decent brightness. The high refresh-rate offers an extremely smooth gaming experience powered by capable CPU and GPU combination.

As for the design, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 carries a similar look to that of the Scar 16 with few notable changes. It has the same body finish to give off that industrial vibe which sits in nicely, thanks to the contrast provided by the RGB lights. Speaking of lights, Scar 17 offers RGB lighting on the front-side of the laptop, just below the keypad. However, there’s no RGB lighting at the back where some of the ports are.

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 has ports at the back and left side of the laptop. At the left, there are two USB-A ports alongside the combo audio jack. At the back, there are two USB-C ports with support for DisplayPort and G-Sync, an HDMI 2.1 port, a 2.5G LAN port and the power port.

I appreciate having the power port at the back as it almost hides the power cord from sight. It also eliminates the need to deal with a weirdly hanging out power cord while use. Besides this, I would have preferred if Asus added USB Type-A ports on both the right and left side of the laptop. Having ports at both sides of the laptop adds flexibility and user choice, especially for those who use a wired mouse with the laptop. The current design is only ideal for right-handed wired-mouse users.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023) features a stylish keyboard with backlit RBG lights. It was a satisfying experience to use the keyboard while using the laptop as my main work machine. The user customizable RGB lighting on the keyboard was the cherry on top to the overall experience. Buyers can make the tweaks to RGB lighting through the Asus Aura Creator and Armoury Crate.

ROG Strix Scar 17 has a trackpad placed in the slightly towards the left side of the laptop, and not at the center. Functionally it does not make much impact, but it does affect the aesthetics of the design.

Softwares on ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023)

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 comes with the Armoury Crate which acts as the main control hub for the gaming laptop. Here you can fine-tune the GPU and CPU of the laptop. There are several performance profiles for easy control such as a Silent mode, a Turbo mode (which is recommended for gaming), a default Windows mode, and more. You can also customize and create your profile that suits your needs.

There is also the Aura Creator which is used to control all the RGB lights including the ones on the sides and the ones on the keyboard. Aura Creator gives a lot of options to customize the look and feel of the laptop to enhance the overall experience. Among the many lighting presets, the adaptive lights option that synchronizes with the music or the laptop display stood apart for me.

I have flagged this before about Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 and it is a similar situation for the Scar 17 as well. Scar 17 has Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision support, but it might require a simple fine-tune to get the best sound of the laptop. Dolby Atmos feature is set at the “Music” preset by default which only works to enhance music quality. The laptop is capable of better audio output if the default is set to “Dynamic” preset.

Among the other pre-installed apps, MyAsus helps users keep the laptop optimised through Asus system updates and more. Users can use this app to monitor the battery health and make tweaks to charging settings. The app also allows you to download and update the laptop BIOS.

Since the ROG Strix Scar 17 comes with the AMD Ryzen 9 CPU that features integrated RDNA 3-powered graphics, Asus has pre-installed AMD Software Adrenalin Edition. It is quite a handy software for greater control over the CPU and internal graphics (Radeon 610M). The software lets you download chipset updates, generate performance reports, and more. It also offers a system performance overlay that users can access from the ALT+R shortcut. It allows users to monitor the system performance and edit graphical settings during gaming. However, as highlighted above, it only controls the graphics settings for the integrated graphics.

Value for Money?

It is quite clear that AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU-powered Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 can provide impressive performance both in gaming as well as productivity tasks. But, as with any other gaming laptop in India, the question about its value for money remains.

The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 RTX 4090 model sells for $3,499.99 in the United States which is roughly INR (₹) 2,88,500 in India. The RTX 4090 model of the ROG Strix Scar 17 is not available in India at the moment. Instead, the RTX 4080 is available for a price of INR (₹) 2,69,990.

It is important to note that both, the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 models feature the same AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU. So, buyers can expect almost similar CPU performance on both the models.

As for value for money, the RTX 4080 model is Rs. 10,000 cheaper than the Scar 16 with same GPU and slightly smaller display. The AMD processor has also shown its efficiency as compared to the 13th Gen Intel i9-1390HX processor, making it a viable choice if you’re looking to buy the latest Asus ROG Strix Scar gaming laptop.

There is not much separating the Scar 17 from the Scar 16 beyond a different CPU. As seen in the benchmarks, the Ryzen 9 7945HX processor brings out exceptional performance from the laptop. Even better than the competition in some cases. However, Team Blue tops the Team Red offering in most CPU-bound synthetic benchmarks.

Personally, I want my gaming laptop to carry that gaming look and feel to it. If you are looking for gaming laptops with better design in similar price range, Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 and Alienware x15 R2 are some good options on the market.