Table of Contents
The 2023 G634 model of the Asus ROG Scar 16 Strix. With a price of £3,400 in the UK and a price of $2,750 in the US for a model that is almost the same, people expect a gaming laptop with the latest mobile offers from both Intel and Nvidia to have no compromises. Not just in terms of how well it plays games, but also in terms of the user experience as a whole.
Even though the RTX 4080 and Core i9 13980HX make a great core configuration for a gaming laptop today, there are a few things keeping this powerful machine back, including the competition at that price point. Before we get into the numbers, the look of the Scar 16 is a good start. The design has a touch of industrial style, but not enough to make it look too “edgy.”
Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 Specifications
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Processor | Intel Core i7 or i9 |
Display | 16.0-inch IPS FHD or QHD |
Refresh Rate | Up to 300Hz |
GPU | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series |
RAM | Up to 64GB DDR4 |
Storage | Up to 1TB SSD + 1TB HDD |
Keyboard | Per-key RGB backlighting |
Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1 |
Design and Build

With a look that’s almost the same as the Strix Scar 18, you’ll see the two sides of our team and the beauty of having different ideas. Because our Editor-in-Chief, Sherri L. Smith, loves how futuristic and flashy everything is, but I’ve always liked something a little more elegant.
Not to say that this doesn’t look and feel like high-quality. A lot of game laptops “cringe” in the past, but this one isn’t one of them. The top aluminum case feels nice and metallic when you run your fingers over it. The smooth, shiny ROG logo is the only thing that breaks up the metallic feel. You can buy this laptop from is official website
Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Display
A pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports are located on one side of the thick edges, while a pair of USB Type-C ports are located on the other side of the thick edges. One of the USB Type-C ports is a Thunderbolt 4 port with DisplayPort, and the other is used for display and/or power delivery to peripherals. There includes a connector for HDMI 2.1 as well as an ethernet port with 2.5G speeds. To put it another way, high-spec connectivity won’t be an issue, although some people could be dissatisfied by the absence of a DisplayPort that isn’t based on USB Type-C.
Keyboard and Trackpad

It has a simple design with a central deck of major keys that are appropriately sized and spaced apart, but it does not include a NumPad area. On the other hand, there is an additional column of media keys located at the extreme right side of the device, and five configurable keys are positioned independently in the top-left section of the device, just like on the majority of other ROG devices.
Instead of being mapped as media keys, we would have appreciated it if the keys in the right column were mapped as page up, page down, home, and end by default. Instead, this capability is supported as secondary functions for the arrow keys, maybe so that it remains consistent with other ROG laptops. In same vein, the arrow keys on this generation have been modernized to the point that they are now full-size keys that are interlaced with the other keys on the lower-right side of the keyboard.
Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Performance
Since this is the same CPU that’s in the Scar 18, the numbers are pretty close, but the Alienware m17 R5 is way down at the bottom. And with that CPU (which beats the average premium gaming laptop score of 8,533) and a fast NVMe SSD, this powerhouse was able to convert a 4K video to 1080p in just 2 minutes and 50 seconds on our benchmark, which is much faster than the category average (6:38), the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX-powered m17 R5 (5:30), and almost as fast as the Scar 18 (2:49).
Asus ROG Strix Scar 16: Battery life
This game laptop is very thirsty, like “getting horny on main” thirsty, but the Strix Scar 16 does have one thing going for it. First, the battery is the same 90 WHr size as the Scar 18, but the screen is smaller, so it should last longer. It could be said that the RTX 4080 uses less power, but it has the same TGP as the RTX 4090, so the changes here aren’t very important.
Price and Availability
This mid-range ROG Strix Scar 16 G634JZ, which we tested here, has an i9-13980HX CPU, an RTX 4080 dGPU, 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB of SSD storage, and a mini LED display. It starts at $3299 in the US ($2899 right now) and €3499 in Europe. In some places, mostly in Europe, there are also configurations with 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage, and an IPS screen that cost a little less than the one above. The top-of-the-line ROG Strix Scar 16 G634JZ costs $3999 in the US and 4499 EUR in Europe. It has the same specs as the JZ, but has an RTX 4090 16GB dGPU instead.
Final Words
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 gives us almost everything we love about the 18-inch model, but in a smaller size. Even though that means it can keep up with the stars of the pack in most ways, it is still at the back of the pack. This Strix performs better than any Intel 12th Gen/Nvidia RTX 30 Series gaming machine we tried, but it can’t quite keep up with the most powerful 2023 gaming laptops on the market.
Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 review: The good and The bad
The Good
- Surprisingly good battery life
- Lovely screen
The Bad
- Runs kinda hot
FAQS
All that power and hunger for it comes at a cost, though, and even though the Strix Scar 16 has a battery life of an hour and twenty minutes, which is about the same as other game laptops in its class, it’s still not what we want from a portable device.
Under normal use settings and at room temperature (25°C), the Li-ion battery should work normally for 300 charges and discharges, or about a year.