ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 Review: AMD Dragon Range Breathes Fire
ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17: Thermals, Acoustics And The Final Word
The ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 has multiple fans, a large vapor chamber, and heatsinks linked by multiple heat pipes inside its chassis to cool its CPU and GPU. ASUS also uses a liquid metal thermal interface material to optimize heat transfer from the chips into the cooling hardware. There's so much venting all around the system and the internal cooling hardware is so efficient, that the fans inside the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 can spin down completely at idle and the machine is effectively silent. As such, nothing would register on our sound meter in the lab, which has a sound floor in the low 30dBa range. Although it’s one of the more powerful notebooks currently available, during basic tasks, the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 is very quiet.
ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 Thermal And Acoustic Performance
The fans in the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 will spin up considerably when under load, however. So, to get a sense for acoustics and thermals under load, we fired up the F1 2021 and looped its benchmark for 20 iterations after we had previously running multiple in-game benchmarks, to warm up and saturate the system's cooling hardware. The heat and noise generated by the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 with these tests should be indicative of what a typical, prolonged gaming scenario might produce.
When under load, the fans in the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 spin up and get significantly louder. With our sound meter about 12" from the display, we measured approximately 55.6dBA. That's pretty loud, but in-line with some other gaming notebooks we tested, though quieter than the similarly equipped MSI Titan GT77 HX, which notched about 59dBA. The noise output from the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 has a bit of a split personality, though. At full tilt, it's in the same ballpark as many other gaming laptops we've tested, with a low-pitched whoosh. In the mid-range, however, a higher-pitched whine was audible, which was a little grating. Thankfully, the fans didn't remain in that range for very long.
Most of the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17's chassis does not get too hot to the touch. The hottest we could find on the surface was near the back, above the GPU, just to the right of center close to the back edge. At that spot we measured about 110°F. Once we moved down to the keyboard though, the keys typically registered in the upper 80s or lower 90s. And the touchpad was even cooler.
PCMark 10 Hardware Health Data
The hardware health data gathered during a PCMark10 run, which features content creation and gaming workloads, shows frequencies throughout the run and how this system behaves thermally. As you can see, the CPU in the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 will get up into the 90°C range, and can jump up close to the 100°C mark with multi-threaded workloads. Like Intel's latest processors, the Ryzen 9 7945HX in this machine is designed to use as much thermal headroom as it can to maximize performance, and that means temps are going to creep up fairly high under heavy loads. That's not the case with the GeForce RTX 4090, though.
3DMark Time Spy Hardware Health Data
With a gaming / graphics workload, that taxes both the CPU and GPU, CPU temps in the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 are a bit more tame than PCMark, with peaks of 90°C+. The GeForce RTX 4090 always remained under 80°C, however.
ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 (2023): Our Verdict
The latest wave of high-end gaming laptops to come through the lab have been nothing short of impressive. Not only do they offer meaningful and significant performance improvements over the previous-generation, but their feature sets are more in-tune with what gamers actually want. Their performance, displays, connectivity, input devices and overall aesthetics are simply a notch above previous-gen mobile PC gaming offerings, which culminates in improved experiences all around; and the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 powered by AMD’s Ryzen 9 7945HX sits among the elite in this class. In fact, the newest ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17, in the configuration we tested, is arguably the most powerful laptop currently available. Further, AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX that powers the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 is the multi-threaded, mobile performance champion, with highly-competitive single-threaded performance as well. The GeForce RTX 4090 in the machine offered top-notch performance too, though it didn’t take the top spot across the board versus the larger MSI Titan GT77 HX. The ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 also offers somewhat more tame acoustics and thermals than some competing gaming notebooks and pricing is somewhat competitive as well. As configured here, the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 is available for $3,499. That’s not cheap, but for what is arguably one of the fastest gaming notebooks in existence currently, it’s not astronomical either.
Overall, we really like the AMD Ryzen-powered ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17. Its performance, fit and finish are all top-notch. If you’re considering a no compromise, high-end gaming laptop the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17 should absolutely be on your short list.
