Nvidia’s first crop of RTX gaming laptops are lastly right here and the primary one to slip throughout my desk is Asus’ ROG Strix Scar II GL504GW. Packed with an Intel Core i7-8750H processor, 16GB of RAM and one in all Nvidia’s new RTX 2070 chips, this 15.6in laptop computer is primed and able to take full benefit of its 1920×1080 decision show and 144Hz refresh price, however is it value spending an enormous two grand on? Let’s have a look.
The timing’s a bit ironic, actually, provided that solely a few hours in the past I used to be expounding the virtues of Shadow’s cloud PC gaming service (which works superbly when streaming at 1080p), however typically you need one thing a bit extra highly effective you could take with you on the transfer and never have to fret about connecting up dozens of various peripherals.
Priced at £1949 / $1930 at time of writing, the Asus ROG Strix Scar II definitely doesn’t come low-cost, however when it’s solely round £200 costlier (and really $100 much less) than the GTX 1070-powered Alienware m15 I checked out a month in the past, it’s truly fairly aggressive in comparison with different high-end gaming laptops.
As chances are you’ll recall, the Alienware m15 additionally had a 15.6in, 1920×1080 show with a 144Hz refresh price (or at the least the mannequin I examined did), however its GTX 1070 wasn’t actually highly effective sufficient to utilize all that further Hz headroom when enjoying games on most settings.
It’s an Asus laptop computer, so OF COURSE there’s an RGB ROG brand on the again…
The RTX 2070-powered Scar II, alternatively, is much extra able to filling these body price boots. Naturally, you’ll need to make do with the followers kicking up a storm any time you play a game (they have been so loud and fixed it appeared like I used to be by the seaside half the time), however so long as you’re nice with plugging in a pair of headphones, the Scar II is a extremely succesful transportable gaming machine certainly – made all of the extra spectacular, I would add, by its comparatively slim 26mm thick chassis and wonderful skinny bezels.
In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, for instance, I noticed body charges between 59-72fps in Cozumel’s busy city sq., reaching as excessive as 85fps within the opening tomb part on Highest, and that was with the game’s powerful SMAA x4 enabled. Whack it down to simply common SMAA and also you’re 100fps+.
Even Monster Hunter: World was pushing 80fps out within the dense Ancient Forest on Highest, and by no means dipped beneath 55fps even once I was combating its big dinos. Similarly, Final Fantasy XV produced a stunning clean vary of 66-76fps on Highest with Nvidia’s fancy results turned off, which rose to 75-92fps once I knocked the standard settings right down to High. I nonetheless noticed a clean 51-60fps with Turf Effects and HairWorks switched on although, which actually isn’t dangerous all issues thought-about.
Most of the Scar II’s ports are positioned on the left hand facet. In complete, you get one HDMI 2.0b output, one miniDisplayPort 1.2, an SD card reader, one USB-C port, two USB3.1 Gen 1 ports, one USB3.1 Gen 2 port, a mixed headphone and microphone jack, and an Gigabit Ethernet port.
The Witcher III additionally made wonderful use of the display’s 144Hz refresh price on Ultra, as I noticed highs of practically 100fps (98fps to be precise) when gazing out on a few of its pretty vistas. That typically fell again right down to nearer 70fps once I was charging by its dense woodland areas, however that’s nonetheless a heck of so much smoother than what I noticed on the Alienware m15.
I’m additionally considerably relieved (if nonetheless mildly upset) to say that the stuttering downside I had with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on the Alienware m15 appears to be endemic to the game reasonably than the laptop computer, because the Scar II was a equally juddery horrorshow once I tried operating its inner benchmark device. Despite producing an apparently respectable common of 59fps on Ultra High high quality, it merely wasn’t playable in follow as a result of yo-yoing body price dropping right down to an adbonimble 12fps each half second. Clearly, this isn’t a game that will get on properly with laptops, as the remainder of my benchmarking suite ran completely nice.
Naturally, there’ll all the time be some games that may battle to hit larger body charges on max graphics high quality, however knocking the standard down a notch will virtually definitely hoist you again up over the 60fps line. Total War: Warhammer II, for instance, peaked at a mean of simply 62fps on Ultra – not that that’s something to be sniffed at, after all – however rose to a mean of 76fps on High.
Metro Exodus wanted a bit extra cajoling, all advised, averaging 51fps in its devoted benchmarking device on Ultra with all further results switched on (besides ray tracing and DLSS, during which case you’re a mean of 49fps) and simply 63fps on High, however whack it right down to Normal and you may anticipate to see a really agreeable common of 84fps.
The half camo design is fairly refined general, nevertheless it’s nonetheless nowhere close to nearly as good trying because the Alienware m15’s shiny crimson chassis.
Simpler, fast-paced games, nevertheless, are excellent companions for a laptop computer such because the Scar II, as each Doom and Forza Horizon four have been method up into triple figures all through the vast majority of my testing. Doom hardly ever dipped beneath 105fps on Ultra high quality, typically hitting 140fps throughout a few of its quieter moments, whereas Forza Horizon four averaged 100fps on the dot (additionally on Ultra) once I ran it by the game’s inner benchmark, hitting highs of 112fps and lows of 87fps.
Regardless of whether or not you’re enjoying the most recent blockbusters or extra informal indie fare, at the least the Scar II’s good display makes every part look correctly prime notch. In reality, I reckon it’s precisely the identical IPS panel because the Alienware m15, as my i1 DisplayProfessional calibrator confirmed it was able to displaying an equivalent 85.2% of the sRGB color gamut. That’s fairly good as laptop computer screens go, and positively one of many higher ones I’ve seen in latest months.
It’s additionally acquired loads of brightness at its disposal – as much as 355cd/m2, if you wish to put a quantity on it – providing you with loads of leeway in case you occur to be utilizing it close to a sun-drenched window, and its black degree of 0.27cd/m2 (the nearer to 0.00cd/m2, the higher) additionally ensured darker components of the display truly seemed like correct black versus a weak kind of gray. Combined with a superb distinction ratio of 1303:1 (by my measurement), the Scar II’s show is will get an enormous thumbs up.
Its Core i7-8750H CPU may also provide you with loads of processing grunt for normal desktop duties, and was truly a smidge quicker than the i7-8750H over within the Alienware m15, scoring 169 in Cinebench’s single core take a look at (vs the m15’s 167) and 1252 within the multicore take a look at (vs 1101).
Asus have additionally chosen a nippier NVMe SSD for the Scar II’s major drive, too, because the 512GB Intel mannequin inside my specific overview pattern managed random learn and write speeds of 48MB/s and 99MB/s in AS SSD’s 1GB random take a look at, beating the m15’s scores of 36MB/s and 93MB/s respectively. The solely draw back is that the Scar II’s secondary storage unit is a 1TB Firecuda SSHD hybrid drive, which is a far cry from having a second 512GB NVMe drive like my Alienware m15 pattern. Still, I’d swap that second SSD for the Scar II’s further graphics oomph any day.
One factor the Scar II does have in widespread with the m15, nevertheless, is its mildly irritating keyboard format. Once once more, the RGB backlit keys themselves have been lovely to sort on, providing buckets of journey and fast, sharp key presses. It’s about as near a mechanical keyboard as you’re most likely going to get on a laptop computer, and as soon as I’d truly acquired my fingers in the precise place, it was simply good.
You see, the Scar II’s format is barely totally different from the Dell XPS 15 I take advantage of for work on a regular basis, largely as a result of it has a quantity pad crammed in on the precise hand facet. This naturally shunts every part over to the left a bit, which whenever you’re previous and decrepit like me requires a major period of time to mentally re-calibrate the place I have to put my fingers. It’s additionally acquired a brief left Shift and single-height Enter key, which meant I spent a good period of time hitting the and # buttons when reaching for his or her stunted neighbours.
Much just like the m15’s keyboard, it’s most likely one thing I may get use to over time. But in case you’re transferring from a laptop computer with no quantity pad to at least one with a quantity pad, chances are you’ll really feel a bit pissed off whenever you first become familiar with it.
Still, I very a lot respect Asus separating out the quantity and microphone mute keys so that you don’t have to see on the lengthy line of Fn buttons simply to try to flip the sound down a bit, and the devoted ROG brand button additionally provides you good and easy accessibility to the Scar II’s customisation choices.
Overall, I’m very a lot a fan of the Asus ROG Strix Scar II GL504. While its half black, half camo inside isn’t practically as attractive because the Alienware m15’s beautiful crimson quantity, I have to admit that Asus’ machine is nearly positively higher worth for cash because of its extra highly effective graphics chip and ever so barely nippier CPU.
I gained’t lie, the problem with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey nonetheless casts a slight cloud over proceedings, as there’s no telling what number of different games this would possibly occur to sooner or later. For now at the least, this stutter challenge appears to be restricted to simply Ubisoft’s Ancient Greek homicide ’em up, although, so I reckon you’ll be able to most likely nonetheless purchase a gaming laptop computer with relative confidence for the time being and never really feel such as you would possibly remorse it the second you get it residence.
As such, supplied you’re not dead-set on enjoying transportable Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, anybody after a high-end gaming laptop computer with a beautiful 144Hz show ought to virtually positively have the Asus ROG Strix Scar II on the prime of their listing.
