From its asymmetrical livery to its huge, ominous glowing RGB logo and translucent keyboard deck, the Scar is an unabashed gaming laptop. And so it should: with a retail price of $2500, nowhere near the most expensive version, our review unit sits firmly in the upper tier of gaming laptop hardware.The Scar is not modest in any way, and that includes its dimensions.
It is one of the largest and heaviest 15-inch machines in the gaming category at over an inch thick and weighing more than five pounds. In return, it has an extensive cooling system (with exhaust vents on three sides!) ), seven different RGB lighting zones above the keyboard, bass speakers and access to the best hardware available on the market.
The Scar’s keyboard is neither particularly surprising nor poor. Despite the laptop’s size, it’s a conventional membrane design, and the key-by-key RGB lighting is practical enough, even if you don’t want to dive into the Armoury Crate programme to adjust it. The touchpad is large, wide and perfectly centred, perfect for comfortably operating a high-resolution screen when a mouse is not available.
Despite the lack of 10 keys, there are dedicated media buttons and a few extra buttons for easy laptop management. One-button access to microphone mute, fan speed mode and Armoury Crate is a clever way to utilise space. The translucent visual design of the keyboard deck (very distinctive!) ) is generally liked, but it could have done without the constantly flashing disc-reading light directly below the screen.
Apart from the fact that this panel doesn’t get very bright, we have nothing to complain about. It is excellent for everyday and professional use by those who need wide colour gamut coverage and excellent colour accuracy. It also has a fast refresh rate and response time, making it a solid choice for gaming, but GSync is not implemented, only Adaptive-Sync to prevent tearing.
Spec-wise, the 2022 ASUS ROG Scar 15 is built on the latest Intel and Nvidia hardware at the moment: the Core i9-12900H is an Intel Alder Lake 12th generation processor with 14Core/20Threads. . with a hybrid design of six High-Performance HyperThreaded cores and eight Extra Efficiency cores, which can operate together or separately, depending on demand. The Scar design also allows the CPU to run at sustained power of up to 110 W in the Turbo profile when the CPU is under heavy load.
To access the components, you need to pop up the back panel, which is secured with some Phillips screws. Particular care must be taken when removing the bottom panel, as it is attached to the main board by two ribbons that supply power to the LED strips. Pulling hard may dislodge the two ribbons that power the LED strips.