Asus Strix SCAR II assessment: Nvidia’s RTX 2070 in a non Max-Q package deal

The Asus Strix SCAR II GL504GW gaming laptop computer is an impressively lithe little beast, sporting the second tier of Nvidia’s newest graphics card vary, however ditching the Max-Q design in favour of full fats frequencies. And as long as you’re sporting an honest gaming headset that alternative will fill your eyes with crisply rendered pixels and your gamer’s coronary heart with pleasure.

Why the headset? Well, gaming at excessive body charges on a non Max-Q RTX 2070 goes to get mighty loud after some time, and also you’re going to need to have some efficient ear-shielding to have the ability to keep it up gaming regardless. Though spare a thought for any family members within the room or co-passengers on the practice, they’ve ear-holes as nicely.

Nvidia launched the newest vary of cellular GeForce graphics playing cards earlier this yr, with each gaming model of be aware releasing new laptops to benefit from the contemporary GPU silicon on supply. If you may then declare your pocket book was a cellular real-time ray tracing monster, you’ll too.

The $1,899 (£1,900) Asus Strix SCAR II is the second Turing-based laptop computer we’ve examined thus far, each utilizing primarily the identical graphics card, the RTX 2070. But there’s one massive distinction between them and that’s as a result of the Gigabyte Aero 15 X9 makes use of the Max-Q design model in an effort to benefit from the slimline aesthetic that has grow to be the Aero’s raison d’etre.

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The Asus pocket book has gone for the complete spec GPU choice, not limiting both the temperature or the noise of the cellular GPU’s cooling array in favour of getting the best body charges potential to your gaming pleasure. And that may simply be seen within the relative efficiency of the 2 Turing chips used within the Gigabyte and Asus notebooks.

As the cheaper alternative of the 2 RTX 2070 laptops the Asus Strix SCAR II has opted for the Core i7 8750H CPU versus the i9 8950HK the Aero 15 X9 used. Both are six-core CPUs, with 12 threads, however the i9 is able to clocking a bit of larger. Which doesn’t actually assist that a lot within the grand scheme of issues provided that the thermal limitation of the Aero’s tighter chassis ranges up the enjoying area for more often than not.

The SCAR II additionally has 16GB of DDR4, mercifully arrayed in twin channel mode in order to not instantly halve the reminiscence bandwidth… as corporations have been wont to do within the final era of gaming notebooks. This model of the 15-inch machine is kitted out with a 512GB PCIe SSD and a 1TB SSHD knowledge drive as backup.

But Asus has famous the Aero 15’s trick and squeezed its vibrant, 15-inch, 144Hz, 1080p panel right into a modest chassis with an impressively minimal bezel. The chassis itself isn’t fairly as slim, nor are the bezels as slender because the Gigabyte machine, however contemplating the dimensions of earlier Asus gaming laptops, it truly is a critically svelte cellular PC. It is round 400g heavier than the newest Aero 15, and a bit thicker too, but it surely’s nonetheless not anyplace close to the unwieldy degree of Asus passim. This is a gaming laptop computer slight sufficient to slip right into a sachel, however highly effective sufficient to ship critical body charges too.

While the Asus Strix SCAR II does get loud when gaming at full chat, the efficiency delta between the more-expensive Aero 15, with its Max-Q model of the identical GPU, is big. At some factors the distinction between the 2 RTX 2070 chips is as broad as 34%… you’re leaving nowhere close to as a lot gaming efficiency within the tank with the Asus machine.

The mixture of RTX 2070 with the 144Hz gaming panel delivers an expertise that’s slick, clean, and wonderful to take a look at. Even in Battlefield V, with the complete RTX ray tracing and DLSS options in play, we’re seeing the SCAR II hitting 75fps on common. Metro Exodus is a bit more demanding, solely giving us 54fps on common with all of the RTX bells and whistles, however that’s nonetheless greater than 25% faster than the Gigabyte machine.

Even although it’s sporting a nominally slower processor, the Asus Strix SCAR II is able to typically outshining the Core i9 used within the Aero 15 as nicely. The truth it’s a bit of broader permits the SCAR II to get extra out of its cellular six-core CPU than the constricted insides of the Gigabyte laptop computer.

Don’t get me improper, I nonetheless love the Aero 15. But if I used to be on the lookout for a critical gaming laptop computer to hold round with me, I’d battle with the far larger price ticket and the data of simply how a lot gaming efficiency I used to be lacking out on. The Aero 15 is a extra svelte machine, however solely by a comparatively small margin; it’s a laptop computer that actually makes you resolve whether or not portability or efficiency is the deal-breaker for you.

The Asus Strix SCAR II, alternatively, is a formidable mixture of each. Sure, it’s nonetheless mighty costly at round $1,900 (£1,900), but it surely’s a trendy pocket book that doesn’t have the ridiculously chunky side of earlier ROG gaming laptops, and but can outperform all of them. Just be sure you have an honest set of headphones to maintain the turbine whine of high-end cellular gaming out of your ears…