Earlier this year, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, ASUS showed a number of new laptops in various series that offer a selection of the latest components shown by brands such as AMD, Intel and NVIDIA.
Recently, we have been given the opportunity to see some of these laptops for ourselves, and one of them is the ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 18, a gaming laptop that comes with the most powerful configuration in the series.
Design
ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 18 comes with an 18-inch IPS screen display with QHD+ 2560×1600 resolution and 240Hz refresh rate and 16:10 display ratio. Despite using an IPS panel, the display used on this laptop is a Nebula display that promises accurate and bright color processing, particularly with Pantone certification and the ability to display 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut.
This beautiful display is also matched with 5.1.2 speakers consisting of four Smart Amp speakers that also incorporate the Two-Way AI Noise Canceling feature that promises the best audio quality and does not disturb the conversation between you and your teammates or colleagues when you using teleconferencing applications such as Discord or Microsoft Teams and so on.
In terms of design, this laptop shows a combination of aluminum and polycarbonate frames. Aluminum for the display and bottom of the laptop, and polycarbonate for the keyboard.
The polycarbonate frame is quite interesting especially because it exposes the internal components of this laptop, especially at the top of the keyboard. For us this is something unique to this ROG STRIX SCAR laptop, and even though the frame is made of polycarbonate material, it does not mean that the build is of low quality.
In terms of plug options, this laptop is equipped with Thunderbolt 4 plugs, USB 3.2 Gen 2 and HDMI 2.1 and miniDisplayPort plugs. Just like what we said before, you will be able to see a little of the internal design of this laptop through the polycarbonate frame on the keyboard side.
As a complement, the ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 18 also comes with a built-in RGB lighting system on the keyboard, front and back of the laptop. As always, Armory Crate software is required to change these lighting settings.
Specifications
ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 18 comes with the most powerful laptop specifications, combining the use of an Intel Core i9-13980HX processing chip, offering DDR5 memory up to 64GB and also PCIe 4.0 SSD storage of up to 1TB.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 for laptops is the most powerful laptop graphics card on the market, and it's used to power the ROG STRIX SCAR 18. It is theoretically capable of running modern AAA games at 4K resolution with high refresh rates at high settings as well.
Unfortunately due to the graphics software not being updated yet, we didn't have a chance to test the full capabilities of the graphics card, but ASUS has promised that the performance for this laptop is unlike any premium gaming laptop they have launched before.
Although this laptop comes with a built-in RJ45 LAN plug, if you want to reduce the tangle of cables in your desk area, this ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 18 also comes with support for WiFi 6E connection that promises a fast internet connection.
In fact, the cooling system of this laptop also features a new design that combines the use of heat pipes, brand new cooling fans and also Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut metal fluid to flow heat from the CPU and GPU components down and back more efficiently.
Turning to the battery, this laptop comes with a 90Wh battery but normally it will need to be connected to a power source so that it can be used for a long time.
Even so, ASUS says that the use of a MUX switch that changes the use of the graphics card will help to some extent in saving the battery of this laptop. In terms of charging, this laptop can be charged using a Power Delivery charger as high as 100W, or using the supplied 330W charger that will charge this laptop from 0-50 percent in just 30 minutes.
Closing
ASUS ROG STRIX SCAR 18 not only comes with powerful components but also the largest screen display ever seen on an ASUS laptop. ASUS Malaysia confirmed that pre-orders for this laptop have already started for the local market.
We are currently waiting for review samples to be sent to us so that we can test for ourselves whether this laptop is really worth the RM18,000 asking price tag.